Ella

When Ash comes back, alone, his fallen expression digs a hole in the pit of my stomach. I know what he’ll say before he even opens his mouth, and when he does start his monologue, it’s a second blow that I’m not ready for.

“Red, I have to go.”

“Are you serious?” I say, incredulity laced in my every word. “Are you seriously going to leave me with him? Weren’t you the first to say he’s a predator and I should watch my back when he’s around?”

“He fired me. There’s nothing we can do.”

I can tell Ash doesn’t buy a word of what he’s saying because he stares at his feet the entire time. It’s such a weak position and I don’t understand what he’s doing. Just a few minutes ago, he was on my side.

He goes outside with Jared for all of twenty minutes and comes back a spineless lackey?

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

Ever since my grandmother died, it feels like the world is collapsing around me. No one left me a master guide to how to hold down the fort when you’re the heiress but someone else has all the power. My family was never close-knit but being abandoned by everyone I knew or had a connection to in the space of three months does a number on a girl.

He works up the courage to meet my gaze. “Actually, I don’t. You think I like being your errand boy?”

“That’s Jared speaking, not me. I never called you any of that.”

“Look, I don’t want to be your little experiment. You’ve always had this fixation with me, ever since you were a teenager, and I know I’m a conquest to you. Nothing but a lowly worker here in your empire. That worked for a time, but with everything else that’s happening, I need to look out for myself.”

I feel like he just slapped me. Tears well in my eyes, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of watching me cry. I’m no fool—I know that if Ash is breaking up with me, it’s because Jared has something to hold over his head.

And Ash is most certainly breaking up with me.

“So, you’re leaving, then? That’s your answer? To flee like a coward just because the big bad Wolfe said a few choice words to you? What did he threaten you with?”

I’m grasping at straws, I know. With each passing moment, I feel the gravity of the situation. Ash isn’t telling me this and leaving me a margin to convince him to change his mind.

He’s informing me, and that’s it.

“He didn’t threaten me. He just made a few good points. No one is forcing this on me. Being fired is never good, but this time it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

A single tear spills over and falls down my face, hot and fast. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“You and I were never going to last. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.” His eyes are blank. It’s like talking to a corpse, one with an impeccable gift for speaking in an emotionless monotone.

“So, what, that’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”

My lip is quivering and I’m sure Ash thinks I look ridiculous. My reaction confirms what he told me all those years ago; that I was a little girl. I had been an easy lay but now it was no longer convenient, he was kicking me to the curb.

Whether Jared has something on Ash or not, it doesn’t matter.

He doesn’t answer me for several minutes. To keep this going any longer would be to subject myself to even more humiliation than I’m already facing.

“Well, if that’s how you feel, you should just fucking go then,” I snap.

He doesn’t even flinch at how acidic I’m being and doesn’t have the balls to look me in the eyes as he conveys—in no uncertain terms—that I was just a fun pastime.

When Ash exits my room, I fall to the floor and cry. Noiselessly, of course. I can fall apart in private, but I’ll be damned if I let him know he’s breaking my heart.

* * *

I ask one of the servants to clear my room of any of the canvases I made when Ash still worked here. They’re painful reminders of how special he was to me. Looking at them day in and day out keeps me bedridden and adrift, and I refuse to succumb to that any more than I already have.

No man is going to hold me back.

Not Ash and not fucking Jared.

There’s a little ritual that I perform every single day, soon as I wake up. I pull out the loose pages of the documents Jared left with me. I crumpled them in the many times I read every word contained in them, scouring them to find hidden loopholes. If my grandmother’s plan left the one about me getting married and no longer needing a trustee, then there has to be another.

But no matter how many times I pore over that godforsaken legal text, nothing jumps out at me. I don’t know any lawyers who I can trust with this information so it’s up to me to get to the bottom of it.

“Ms. Ella,” the butler says softly. I have no idea how long he’s been standing at the door. He used to knock but I get so lost in a vortex of desperation to rid myself of this horrible set of circumstances that I never hear when any of the help is milling about.

“Yes?” I say, not looking up from the pages.

“There’s talk of the staff walking out by the end of this week.”

I can’t blame them. After shredding the check Jared gave me, I don’t have the means to pay them. They had been willing to wait for me and give me some leeway for a week or two, but that quickly turned to nearly a month of work without compensation. Everyone has mouths to feed and financial responsibilities to uphold.

Working for the beggar heiress won’t pay the bills.

“Is there anything you can do?” I ask.

In the midst of all the hardship, he emerged as the shining beacon of loyalty I have in this estate. He worked with me to get the staff to agree to a little more time before I could pay them. He never brings up the fact he hasn’t received his paycheck, either.

As soon as I get myself out from under this, I plan on rewarding him for his faithful service.

If I get out from under this that is. A prospect that’s looking more and more unlikely to materialize.

“I’m afraid not, Miss,” he says, his head down. “They don’t hold any ill-will toward you. Everyone is aware that you’re doing the best you can. But this isn’t a safe job anymore and they…”

“They have to move on,” I finish for him. “I understand. I’ll go downstairs and talk with each one of them by this evening. If you could pass on that message so no one leaves before then, I would really appreciate it.”

“Very well, Miss,” he says and excuses himself.

Between my broken heart and my impending empty home, I know I’m a sitting duck. A target. Jared won’t keep his distance for much longer. Destitution might just be a strong enough motivator to make me swallow my pride and my sense of self-preservation and agree to see him.

Suddenly, an idea strikes me. I never went through my grandmother’s personal effects when she passed. I kept meaning to but once I got lost in the adventure that was being with Ash, I just put it off. Then he left, and it completely slipped my mind.

There might be something there. Maybe a little note she wrote to herself. Maybe something else. It was the only lead I had now, and I was willing to do just about anything.

I cross the house fast. I’m on a mission. My relationship with her wasn’t ever stellar, but there was no way she would leave me with no recourse. There has to be some money stashed away. Something.

Anything.

I don’t know if the desperation is clouding my judgment or not, but I’ll cling to any ray of light in this dreary situation.

My grandmother’s room is exactly as she left it. A Rembrandt hangs over the mantel and there’s a Monet over her bed. I immediately discard the possibility that I might be able to fence them to get some relief funds. There’s an itemized inventory with the documents Jared gave me, and those two paintings are on it. I can’t sell them without his express permission, which he won’t grant me.

After all, there’s nothing like financial dependency to keep me under his thumb.

I explore every inch, nook, and cranny in the room and find nothing that looks promising. Damn it. Maybe my grandmother did trust Jared so completely and I was shit out of luck. I have to get used to that possibility because false hope won’t help me and it won’t save Redmond Estate.

In her closet there are piles of boxes lining one of the upper shelves. One of them boasts a label that reads Family Pictures. It bothers me for some reason, but I can’t put my finger on it.

I reach for every box and bring them down to the floor. The first I look through are filled with mementos, napkins with illegible scrawls that my grandmother used to jot down things she needed to remember, and other miscellaneous useless pieces of paper.

Then it hits me. All the family pictures we had are on display in Redmond Estate’s long corridors. My family isn’t the sort that would have personal and casual pictures hidden in the closet.

Hopeful that this might be the answer to all my problems, I remove the lid at once. Inside, I find neatly folded documents. The first page tells me what it is: Last Will and Testament. The date on it is of the week prior to my grandmother’s death.

Jared’s papers are all dated to a month before her death.

I scramble to leaf through all the pages, reading faster than I ever have before. My heart pounds on my chest as I see the carefully detailed plans that specify that upon her death, all of my grandmother’s properties, family holdings, and belongings, are to pass to me.

There is no provision with restrictions. No mention of a fucking trustee.

The sum of my inheritance is well over eight figures. So, not the pittance I thought. And it’s all mine to control as I see fit.

The best part is what I find on the last page. My grandmother’s signature is different from what I saw on Jared’s documents.

It dawns on me that this is it. This is the smoking gun I needed.

I knock a few of the boxes over, spilling their contents across the floor, as I make my quick getaway to go tell the staff what I found.