FOUR
Triss
I COULDN’T STOP SHAKING.
I never dreamed of receiving the contents of the will. Even when my father and I had been close, I hadn’t expected him to leave me practically everything.
Amber hadn’t even gotten to the part about his businesses, which thrived on their own under the watchful eyes of a group of CEOs Robert had put in charge.
While Nancy and Dom continued to argue, my head spun. There were so many good things I could do with that money. I could put the girls in a good school. Lily deserved a good art program. Maybe I could find a teacher who would help her with it. And Daisy could stay home with me rather than go off to daycare all day.
What I was really anxious to do with the money, however, was help my mother. I knew it was too late for miracles, but I could make her more comfortable. My father’s house was huge, and it was mine now. I could turn a room downstairs into a hospital room for Savanna and get a home health nurse to come in to help me take care of her. I could find the best doctors to take on her case. Maybe, just maybe, I could hold on to her for a little longer than the doctors back in Buffalo had suggested. That was all I really could ask for—time.
“Amber …” My voice shook, but I was too lost in my plans to care. “Amber, when can I get the money?”
She turned surprised eyes on me. “Well, it will be in probate for at least a month, but if you need an advance, that can be arranged.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m not sure. My mother …” I was still too emotional after hearing what my father had said in his letter, as well as the will, so tears filled my eyes far too easily when I spoke of my mother. “She is in the end stages of cancer. I would like to use the money to make her more comfortable.”
Amber’s eyes softened. “I’m so sorry, Triss. Get me a number, and I will make it happen, okay?”
I wiped a hand over my cheeks and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Triss …”
I turned my head at my name, my eyes zeroing in on Kim, who was still openly crying at the other end of the table, although she had stopped her sobbing.
Scanning over her face, I took in everything about my stepsister. Once she had been one of my closest friends, but now when I looked at her, all I saw was the spineless girl who had let her mother destroy my life.
Daisy had been concerned for her when Kim had started crying earlier and had even asked me if she could go over to give her a hug.
“I-I’m sorry. I never meant …”
I squared my shoulders, staring her down for a long moment, daring her to finish what she had started to say. “Why are you sorry?” I demanded in a tight but quiet voice so as not to scare the girls. “Why? Because you’re really sorry, or because my dad called you out from the grave?”
“I’m really sorry. If I could change the past, I would.”
Though her eyes looked sincere, I didn’t believe a word out of her mouth.
I turned my eyes away from her, pointedly putting her out of my mind. “Amber, do you need us for anything else? I want to start back to Buffalo. I need to get the ball rolling for my mother. The quicker I can get things moving, the better.”
“I need you to sign a few things. Can you give me twenty more minutes?”
She stood when I nodded and moved around the table, stopping beside the still arguing mother and son. Dom had lowered his voice, and thankfully, so had Nancy; therefore, I could only hear the occasional word. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say, didn’t want to hear their voices period.
Amber put her hand on Dom’s arm, drawing his attention to her. “Dom, if she can’t keep a civil tongue, then I’m going to have to ask her to leave. If she wants to contest the will, she is more than welcome to try, but I drew this one up myself. It’s air tight. There isn’t any lawyer in the country who could find a way around it.” She gave Nancy a cold, satisfied smile, and I almost smiled at how evil she looked right then. Almost. “If I were you, Mrs. Prescott, I wouldn’t try my patience. I’m in charge of how to divide up that two point five million dollars. I can split it up so that you only get a thousand dollars a month if I wanted to. Who knows, you could outlive us all.”
“You can’t do that!” Nancy squeaked in outrage.
Amber’s smile turned even more evil. “I’m the executer of the will, ma’am; I can do whatever I deem is necessary.”
“Do we get to go home now, Triss?” Lily asked, raising her head for the first time from her drawing.
I nodded, giving her a smile that I knew was shaky. “We sure do, baby. As soon as I sign some paperwork, we get to go back and see Momma.”
“I’m glad.” She lifted the drawing, and my chest filled with pride for her. “Do you think she will like this? I made it special for her.”
I ran a hand over her blonde head. “She’s going to love it, Lil. Anything you make for her is special.”
“Do you like mine?” Daisy asked, lifting her own picture that was full of stick figure portraits.
I kissed her temple without giving it a good scan. “I love it.”
Then I really looked at the picture and almost groaned. It was a picture of everyone in the room, with a big square in the middle for the table we were still sitting at. Nancy was wearing a grumpy cat looking face that looked remarkably like her in an amusing sort of way. Dom had a straight mouth, looking reserved and distant. Kim had tears running down her face. Yeah, it looked a lot like the roomful of people. Our mother was going to laugh at this picture. She needed a good giggle.
“Triss.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Dom’s voice so close to me. I had done a decent job of tuning out what was going on across the room, so I was surprised to find him standing right beside my chair now.
Looking up at him, I found it hard to breathe for a moment. He looked better than ever. His mahogany hair was on the shaggy side, but I had always liked it that way. It had been that shaggy seven years ago when I had loved running my fingers through it. His suit fit him perfectly, and I could see he had filled out even more with muscles.
My mouth went dry, and I had to lick my lips before I could speak. “Dom.”
“Amber said you’re leaving soon.” He thrust his hands into his suit pants pockets, making his jacket tighten over his shoulders and arms.
“We’re going home,” Daisy told him. “Momma needs us.”
He gave her a warm smile, but his eyes were full of questions. “So, you’re Triss’s sister?”
She nodded her dark head. “Me and Lily. She takes care of us real good. Momma’s in the hospital.”
That had his eyes darkening and snapping back to me. “Savanna’s sick?”
“She’s losing the battle against cancer,” I murmured so the rest of the room didn’t hear. I didn’t need Nancy making snide comments about my dying mother. If she did that, I really didn’t think I could hold myself back, even for the girls’ sake.
“Baby, I’m so sorry.” He crouched down beside my chair and reached for my hand.
I pulled it back before he could grasp it, and he grimaced as if in pain. Once, I would have welcomed his touch, would have begged for it. Now, I wasn’t sure how I would react to having him touch me. I didn’t trust myself enough to find out.
“I wasn’t expecting Dad to leave me so much,” I told him honestly, breaking the strained silence he had fallen into. “Actually, everything from today has been a total shock.”
“He was asking for you at the end,” he told me, his tone going hard, his eyes accusing. “Why didn’t you come? Or at least to the funeral.”
A hundred sharp daggers pierced my heart. My daddy had been asking for me when he was dying? That hurt. That hurt badly. But his words, his unspoken condemnation, made my blood boil.
“I would have been here in a flash if I had known. No one bothered to call me.”
His dark, mahogany brows furrowed. “My mother said she called you. She told me that you told her to go to hell.”
“And of course you believed her. How nice.” I rolled my eyes and scooted my chair back. Putting Daisy on her feet, I stood. “Because we all know what a great relationship she has with the truth and me.”
He straightened, his jaw clenched so hard I wondered if he would need to see a dentist later. “You’re saying she didn’t call you? Either time?”
I shrugged. “You didn’t see me there, did you?”
“That doesn’t answer my question. I thought you didn’t come out of spite.”
“And once again, you thought wrong.” I gave him a cold smile, proud of myself for not turning into a wimp where he was concerned and clamming up. “No, Dom, she didn’t call me. I didn’t even know your mother had my number. My cell phone is one of those straight talk things you get at Walmart.”
“What the hell do you mean? Like, a burner phone?” His face was pale now. “What happened to the phone Robert gave you?”
“The one he turned off when he kicked me out?” I shrugged. “I sold it for the cash. I think I used the money to buy groceries that week.”
“For cash?” he parroted. “You needed money? So, you burned through the allowance he gave you?”
I had to laugh at that. Was he completely clueless?
“What allowance? Everything stopped when he kicked me out, Dom. Everything. The allowance, the phone, the college tuition—he stopped it all. He wouldn’t even take my calls when I tried to tell him happy birthday one year.”
“You’re lying. I asked Robert if he was still giving you those things because I was worried about you. He told me he was.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Let’s say I’m lying. That would explain why I have a rundown, old car that only starts when I offer up my soul to the devil, and live in an apartment in a building that has some very interesting tenants at times. It’s why my clothes are at least five years old. It’s why I struggle every week to buy food for me and the girls, and still pay for my mother’s hospital bills that I thought I was going to be paying off until I die.”
With each word out of my mouth, his face became more tense, paler.
“Are you on drugs, Triss?”
I took a step closer to him and looked up at him with pure hate in my eyes. “I have never touched drugs. Never. I like my brain just the way it is, thank you very much. I would never do anything to impair it or my judgement. Although, I must tell you, my judgement of you was way off. I thought I knew you. I thought you were everything. But when I needed you the most, you couldn’t pull your head out of your ass to see the truth.”
He caught my wrists when I would have stepped back, holding them prisoner against his chest. “I thought I knew you, too. That was why everything hit me in the raw. Kim nearly died, Triss. My kid sister nearly died. Because of you.”
“No, not me!” I snarled, hating and loving him at the same time. “I wouldn’t have ever done something that stupid. I respect myself too much.”
“I know that now.”
“Only because my father told you in that letter.” I jerked away from him, rubbing at my wrists. Not because they hurt, but because my skin felt scalded from his touch. “You never would have believed me if I had been the one to tell you. You sure as hell didn’t believe me seven years ago.”
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he whispered, stepping closer. “All the evidence pointed at you, Triss. My head was all over the place that weekend, and almost losing Kim nearly destroyed me.”
“You think it didn’t hit me hard, too? She was my friend. If she had died, it would have killed me.” I turned away from him, unable to do this with him right now. Not with my little sisters in the same room.
I noticed Amber had left, hopefully to get whatever I needed to sign so we could go.
“How about some lunch before we hit the road, babies? I could really go for a Happy Meal.”
“Yes, please.” Lily laughed. “We haven’t had a Happy Meal in forever.”
“Can I have nuggets?” Daisy asked, concerned that I would say no. “And a juice box?”
“I want extra fries, Triss. Please?”
I stroked a finger down each of their cheeks. “Whatever you want, my little loves.” I held out my hands for them, and they readily took them.
“Triss, don’t go.” His voice was imploring, but I didn’t dare turn around. If I did, I was sure I was going to slap his too handsome face. “Triss … please.”
Despite his plea, he didn’t follow me as I left the conference room. Did he expect me to just jump at his every command? Maybe once upon a time I would have. Maybe I had. Now I knew exactly what he thought of me, and I was never going down that road with him again.
The door had barely closed behind me when it opened again. I stiffened, but part of me held out hope that Dom had followed. It would have been a first.
It wasn’t him. The girls had looked back and stiffened, so I knew who it was before I even turned around.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” she spoke to my back. “I can make your life even more miserable than I ever have before.”
I squared my shoulders and slowly turned to face her, pushing the girls behind me as I did so. “Trust me when I say, there is nothing you could possibly do to make my life any more miserable than you already have.”
“I know you cashed that check yesterday. How do you think Dom is going to react when I tell him you finally used that money?” There was pure malice in her gray eyes, but the smile I had been expecting, the glee at knowing she had finally won that battle, was absent.
“Seeing as that was blood money to begin with, I really don’t care how he reacts. Quite honestly, Nancy dear, I don’t give a damn about any of you. You and your children mean nothing to me now, just as I never meant anything to you.”
I felt little hands touch my back, then saw a blonde head peek out from around me. “Who is she, Triss?” Lily whispered worriedly.
Nancy slowly dropped her eyes, and as she looked at Lily, something flashed in their depths. I was pretty sure the fact that my sister looked so much like me and my mother was killing her. My father had loved my mother dearly, though they had never meshed well as a couple. They had stayed friends up until he had kicked me out. After that, she had hated him for allowing his wife to pull us apart.
“Hello, Lily.”
“H-hi,” she whispered and waved shyly.
I stiffened at Nancy speaking her name and quickly reached behind me, pushing her out of the old hag’s sight. “Do not ever speak to my sisters.”
She laughed at that, but didn’t speak. Turning back for the door, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll be seeing you around, Triss.”