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“It should have been yours.” The words burst out of me. I dropped my hands to my thighs and rubbed the fabric of my pants, unable to rid myself of the itch under my skin. “The Monticello, the house, everything should have been yours. She never should have turned her back on us. She should have helped, Mom. We had nothing, and she wanted you to take all the blame for faulty wiring and a tinderbox of a house. We had nothing, and she refused to help.”
“We had each other.”
I closed my eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You’ll have your rightful inheritance. I’ll have my dream company. Charlie will find somewhere else to live. This is the right thing to do. It’s justice.”
The pause that followed felt heavy. Then my mom turned to me, and in that gentle, gentle voice, she said, “Your Dad and I had good jobs. We already have plenty of money set aside, Sebastian.”
“You deserve more. You deserve to get back what we lost.”
She smiled with a soft gaze. “I love you so much, my boy. So much you can’t even understand it. I love your big heart and your dedication. I love that you planned to do this for us. But I want you to hear me, okay? We don’t need shares in your company. I don’t need shares in your company. I don’t need, nor do I want, the money from your grandmother’s properties. I would have given them to you anyway. What happened between her and me hurt me deeply, but you don’t need to pay for her sins.”
My breath stuttered. I gasped and tore my gaze away from hers. “Mom?—”
“If you want to buy Hamilton Bach’s company and chase your dreams, I’m behind you, Sebastian. But these shadows in your eyes worry me. Please don’t do something for me out of duty or obligation—or bitterness toward your grandmother.” She paused for a moment, then added, voice quiet and low, “Maybe the deal with Charlie is the better one to take.”
Pain lashed at my chest and I shook my head. “It’s too late. She hates me, Mom. I messed it all up, and now there’s no fixing it.”
She patted my leg. “You’ll figure out the right thing to do. Now let’s go see the old girl before that big yellow machine I spotted out back tears her to shreds.”
THIRTY-NINE
CHARLIE
Sunrise painted the sky with red and gold and purple. Fluff from trees floated through the air as I drove Ted down the familiar streets leading to Radcliffe House. I’d rolled down my window so I could drum my fingers on the frame, floral-scented air fluttering in as I wound my way through town toward the only place I’d ever truly called home.
Scaffolding covered the building on the three sides visible from the street. I wouldn’t even get one last look at it without silver bars and green cloth wrapped around it like a cast.
The loss I’d felt about the house became more acute. It was like Iosing a limb of my own, like I needed sutures and intravenous lines just to get through the day. I parked across the street and studied the shadow of the house behind the shade cloth, then looked out over the vineyards crawling their way toward town.
After being cut back to bare branches in winter, the vines were bursting in green, tidy rows. In the distance, Theo Sinclair’s lair hulked like a beast on a low rise. I forced myself to look at the winery, as if I could see the man. As if he could feel my pain and anger from all the way over here.
Then another car drove up with an older woman at the wheel. I watched her park in front of Radcliffe House Apartments and jerked when Sebastian exited the passenger side. His eyes cut straight to mine, green as new leaves under the dark slashes of his brows.
I averted my gaze and moved to the other side of the car, but I’d barely managed to get the door open before he was there, tall and handsome and imposing and awful.
“Charlie.”
“I just wanted one last look,” I told him.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A pleat formed between his brows, and his eyes filled with pain as he watched me. Despite everything he’d done, all the lies he told, that look on his face still made my chest ache. I wanted to step up to him and make it better.
And wasn’t that just pathetic?
“I’ll leave you to it,” I said, and I opened the door wider.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Charlie. I was trying to get this deal over the line so that I could give my family back what they lost in the fire, but I never expected?—”
“Look, I’m sure you had your reasons.” I forced myself to lift my chin, to meet his tortured gaze. “The thing is, I don’t want to hear them.”
A breath gusted out of him. “Charlie?—”
Two more vehicles drove up, pickup trucks with a demolition contractor’s logo on the side.
I sipped in a little breath, the only bit of air my lungs would allow. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not be here when they start demolishing.” I slid behind the wheel and shut the door. When I started the car, Sebastian took two steps back to give me room. I took off, keeping my eyes on the road ahead and leaving him to his business.
It wasn’t until I crossed the wrought iron gates in the cemetery and stopped at my parents’ graves that the enormity of what was happening just a few blocks away really hit me. I knelt in front of their tidy plots and traced their names on the headstones, and then I cried. My tears splashed next to my mother’s name. I wiped at them, smearing wetness into the grooves of the year she died.
“I’m sorry,” I told the cold, dead marble. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save it. I couldn’t save our home.” Then I gave up, let my forehead fall to my knees, and wept.
