Chapter Thirty-One
I’d like to slink away in silent disgrace, but I don’t have a car. I also don’t have the address to call a cab. I consider using my phone’s location to request an Uber, but I’m pretty sure there’s a fence around the property. I don’t need another confrontation like the one with Justin.
So in a humiliating walk of shame, I head downstairs.
The kitchen is empty, but I find Mrs. Burchett in a room off to the side, reading a book. She stands as soon as she sees me. “Oh, hello, dear. Are you hungry? I can heat up…” Then her shrewd eyes take in my expression. She makes a tsk sound. “What do you need, dear?”
“I think…a cab.” I flush, ashamed because surely my hair and rumpled clothes give away what I’ve just done. I probably even smell like sex. “He said I should go.”
She shakes her head as if admonishing Gabriel. “I’ll call a car around.”
“No, just a cab—”
Her lips purse together. “He’ll want to make sure you’re safe.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” I mutter.
She types something into her phone, clearly as proficient with an iPhone as she is with a rolling pin. “I know he can be a bear, but he does care about you.”
I flinch. He’s just made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t, but I have no desire to spell it out for Mrs. Burchett. That’s a pretty magical cunt you must have. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, but it does,” she insists. “He made sure your father was taken care of. It damn near killed him to wait until that night to send someone to help you.”
“He had to. The auction—”
“Gabriel Miller doesn’t have to do anything. He set the terms because he knew you needed help. That’s why he sent someone to watch over you, once he heard there was someone watching you.” She casts a worried glance into the dark night. “Imagine he’ll do the same now that you’re going back.”
“You’re wrong. That guard was from Damon, protecting his investment.”
She clearly doesn’t believe me. “Well, you be careful regardless. The world is full of dangerous people, Ms. James.”
Headlights flash from the drive.
That’s the story of how I end up in a limo two hours after I lost my virginity.
The driver doesn’t ask any questions, for which I’m grateful. I cross my arms in front of me, holding tight as if I can keep myself from breaking into a thousand different pieces.
I’m not sure what I thought I’d be returning to when I left for the auction. Some chance at a normal life? College? Marriage? It all feels so far removed. Impossible words. I’ve lost the ball of string somewhere along the way. I might be going home, but I’m still in the maze.
All I have with me is my purse. Mrs. Burchett assured me that my clothes and things would be delivered tomorrow. He’ll want to make sure you have everything right away. Or maybe he’d just throw it all into the fire like his father’s moonshine.
I pull out my phone, trying to pretend I’m not looking for his name. I want him to call me, to tell me he’s sorry. But he doesn’t. There are lots of missed calls. None from him.
Almost unthinking I press the last name. Harper.
“Where have you been?” she demands.
“I—” My voice breaks, because I don’t know how to explain. I don’t even understand it myself. Almost every myth references love, betrayal. Heartbreak. Universal truths that I’ve read a thousand times but still can’t comprehend. No story can explain this pain that feels too big for my body.
“Justin is missing.”
Awareness rises like the tide, slow but ineffable. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he never went back to Yale. I know a couple guys over there. One who’s on the sailing team with him. He went AWOL.”
“He came to see me, but…”
Gabriel swore he wouldn’t hurt him. Or did he? I can’t be sure I got the promise from him. Where would Justin have gone if not back to school? He might have stayed at his parents’ house in Tanglewood, but he would have at least texted his teammates. Even with winter creeping up, they continued to sail.
I drop the phone onto the seat. It slides onto the floor as the limo stops.
When the car stops at the gate, I already have the door open.
Lights are on in the house when my father’s evening routine should be finished. No one should be here. A man in a suit emerges from the front door. I run toward the house, my heart pounding with a new fear.
“Ms. James?” he asks.
“That’s me. What’s going on?” I try to push past him, but he’s blocking my path. “Where’s my father?”
“I’m Mr. Stewart. We spoke on the phone.”
That catches my attention. Pushing past the panic, I focus on him—on the solemn expression in his eyes. He looks as kind as he sounded on the phone. And worried.
“Oh God. No.”
“Your father suffered a coronary incident this evening. He’s been taken to Tanglewood Hospital. I don’t have the details yet, but our emergency staff is interfacing with the doctors there to make sure he has the best care.”
He’s been standing in front of the door, and as I turn my head, I see something yellow affixed to the thick wood. It pulls me closer, almost as if I’m hypnotized. Mr. Stewart is still talking, something about complications and interventions, but he’s just background noise.
In bold letters the yellow paper says NOTICE OF CRIMINAL FORFEITURE.
“How is that possible?” I whisper.
The house is owned by my trust, which is owned by me. Uncle Landon said it would be safe. From the very beginning, he told me that. Protected from my father’s crimes. The auction would have covered the real estate taxes, the maintenance—except it’s too late.
Somehow I’m too late.
The expression of sympathy on Mr. Stewart’s face is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Worse than the cruel look on Gabriel’s face when he said the words magic cunt. “We received a call yesterday that Mr. James would be required to vacate the premises.”
“Did Daddy know?” My voice cracks. “Did he know we’d lost the house?”
A grim pause. “He knew.”
There’s only one question. “Who?”
Did Uncle Landon find a way to break through the trust, his revenge for choosing the auction over his proposal? It hurts to think about, but maybe that’s not the answer. Maybe it’s much more obvious—and much more painful. Did Gabriel Miller figure out a way to circumvent the trust and take ownership of the house?
I look down at the yellow sheet of paper, already crushed in my fists. I smooth it open as if it’s an ancient scroll, the secrets of lost treasure written on parchment. There’s legalese about vacating the premises—that’s what my mother’s legacy has been reduced to, premises.
And then I see it, the holding company with a corporate address.
Miller Industries.
That’s Gabriel Miller’s company. Which means he now has possession of this house. Did he engineer this entire thing? A ruthless takeover, except this isn’t business. It’s personal. He must have known what I would find when he sent me away.
And he had hired Mr. Stewart. Gabriel might have known about my father’s coronary, too. Had he sent me home as some twisted kindness, knowing my father would need me now?
But I won the game, didn’t I? You lost.
No, Gabriel doesn’t know how to be kind.
I latch on to the only hope I have. “There has to be something we can do. Fight it. Appeal. This is my house. My mother’s house.”
Mr. Stewart shakes his head. “You’ll have to speak to a lawyer.”
A lawyer, like the kind who couldn’t save my father from disgrace. The kind who made sure he paid every cent he owned in restitution and penalties. They won’t help us. “What happens?” I say, desperate now. “You must have seen this before. What happens to the house?”
“It depends,” he says slowly. “But in these cases, where the house is taken to settle payments owed, it will be put up for sale. It will be put up for auction.”
My heart clenches hard. Put up for auction, like my body. Like everything about my life, for sale to the highest bidder. I already sold my virginity, but it didn’t matter. I still lost the house. And my father might die.
Checkmate.