THREE
Dom
IF I COULD HAVE HELPED it, I wouldn’t have been there. However, my mother had begged me to attend the reading of her late husband’s will. Plus, Amber had told me I had to be there before she could read it since Robert had insisted, and I had a bequest from him.
I didn’t want whatever he had thought to leave me. The man had become a kind of mentor to me over the years, and all I really wanted was to have him back. He had been taken far too soon, and deep down, I felt responsible for his death. I was a doctor, for God’s sake. I should have recognized the warning signs, should have acted sooner. Maybe then my stepfather would still be with us.
But, as a doctor, I knew that death was a tricky motherfucker.
So, I had come, not so much for my mother, but for Robert.
And Triss.
I didn’t want to admit it, but it was the truth. I hadn’t seen her in seven years. I wanted to see for myself if she had changed. Wanted to see with my own eyes if she was the same girl who had nearly killed my sister.
As soon as she had walked into the room, I had known she was still the same. Even without having spoken to her, I could tell. The pink she had once had in her long, blonde hair was gone now, and her face had lost what little baby fat she had once carried in her cheeks.
Was she still doing drugs?
Anger burned through my chest, even as I worried about her. She looked exhausted, rundown, and practically malnourished. Still, even as I noticed how unhealthy she appeared, my heart raced as if I had been running all morning. Lower, my body was responding to just being in the same room with her. I was still unable to control my reaction to her, obviously.
I hated that she could still affect me so effortlessly. I should have been too disgusted with her after everything she had done. Hell, she hadn’t even had enough respect for her father to attend his funeral.
Amber unfolded the letter Robert had left for us, and I forcefully pulled my gaze from Triss to my friend. She scanned over the contents, and then snapped her head around, her gaze going straight to Kim. I followed her eyes and saw the way my sister flinched and shrank back at whatever look she saw on Amber’s face. I knew the two hadn’t ever really gotten along, but that look was full of anger and maybe a little disgust.
Clenching her jaw, the older woman turned back to the letter in her hands and began reading. “My dearest Triss, if you are reading this, it’s because I have passed on to the next world. My doctor recently told me that my heart is not as strong as it once was. I blame myself for that. It stopped working properly the day I allowed Nancy to force you out of my life.”
A small sound came from Triss, and I was helpless not to look at her. She had turned her face away, but I could still see that her chin trembled.
“I thought you said it was addressed to all of us,” my mother snapped.
Amber lifted her eyes from the letter. “Mr. Prescott said that it was. He also made it a point to ensure you were all here for this. If you won’t sit through it, you will automatically forfeit the contents of the will bequeathed to you, Mrs. Prescott.”
“For heaven’s sakes,” my mother grumbled. “Continue if you must. Let’s just get this over and done with already.”
Amber began reading again. “With each passing day, I can feel that my time on earth is limited, and the countdown is rushing up on me too quickly for me to set things right with you, my dear daughter. For the longest time, I let myself believe the lies, the deceit that was so blaringly untrue I am ashamed of myself for being led to believe them in the first place.”
“What does that mean?” my mother muttered as she fidgeted with her handkerchief, twisting it in a way that told me she was nervous.
My eyes narrowed on her, trying to read the woman who had given birth to me. What was she so agitated over? I knew she didn’t like Triss, but the way she was acting was too uncharacteristic for her to simply be because her stepdaughter was now in the same room with her.
Amber didn’t acknowledge my mother’s interruption. “I didn’t even give you a chance to defend yourself before I threw you out of the house that day, Triss. I have regretted that every day since. If I had only listened to you, then none of the pain I have caused you and myself would have had to happen.”
“Stop,” Kim whispered.
Amber was deaf to her. “An odd suspicion has been eating at me for some time now, and a year ago, I hired a private detective to help me find the answers I was too afraid to ask you. What he uncovered showed me that I should have trusted you all along.”
“Please.” Kim was crying now. “Amber, stop.”
“I now know that it wasn’t you who gave Kimberly those vile drugs that nearly ended her life. She had gotten in with the wrong people at college—is still involved with them from what I can tell—and had brought them home with her. You were innocent of everything. My investigator has informed me that nothing he has uncovered even suggests that you have ever done drugs. Nancy, my pathetically greedy wife—”
“That is enough!” Nancy stood so quickly her chair tipped back. I reached out, stopping it from crashing to the floor. “I will not sit here while you read such nasty lies to us about my daughter.”
Amber blinked up at her, not in the least unnerved by my mother’s cold temper. “Oh, but it gets so much better from here on, Mrs. Prescott.”
My mind was racing with what Amber had read so far. Kim had overdosed on a mixture of drugs seven years ago. She had nearly died, probably would have if I hadn’t been home that day and heard her. Triss had been with me, and we had gotten my sister to the hospital together. It had been one of the scariest days of my life.
It was later, after my mother and stepfather had returned from their weekend away, that the same drugs had been found in Triss’s room. Whatever I had been feeling for Triss had withered and turned to dust then and there. How could I possibly love someone who was responsible for my sister’s close encounter with death?
At least, I had told myself that my feelings had died. As soon as she had walked into the conference room, my heart and body had made a liar of me.
Now …
Now Robert was telling me—from the goddamn grave, no less—that it hadn’t been true? That Triss wasn’t the one responsible?
My heart stopped beating in my chest as the realization of what I had done—what I had fucking lost—hit me between the eyes like a wrecking ball.
I looked across the long table that separated me from Triss, silently begging her to look at me.
“Triss,” I breathed her name and saw her chin tremble again. “Triss, look at me.”
“I can’t,” she whispered before clearing her throat. “Amber … must you really finish this letter? It’s addressed to me, and I would like my father’s last words to me to be just that—to me. I … I don’t want to share this with them.”
“But your father wanted—”
“He’s dead, Amber,” she cried, then quickly lowered her tone when the little girl to her left flinched. “Please. Those are my words, and I don’t—I can’t—share them with anyone else. Don’t make me have to give them that, too.”
The two shared a long look before Amber finally folded the letter and replaced it back in its envelope. She slid it across the table to Triss before picking up the actual will.
“Sit down, Mrs. Prescott. I would like to tell you what your darling husband bequeathed to you.”
My eyes were trained on Triss, so I didn’t see the look on my mother’s face as she finally took her seat once again. Kim was quietly crying. The noise reached me, but I was too stunned by what had just happened to bother looking at her.
Triss picked up the envelope and held it close to her heart for a long moment before slipping it into her coat pocket.
My eyes finally registered the state of her coat and the rest of her clothes. It, along with the rest of her outfit, looked threadbare and old. The last time I had seen her, she had been wearing Prada sunglasses, designer heels, and a dress that she had begged me to strip off her.
What the hell had happened to her in the years since I had last seen her? If she wasn’t doing drugs like Robert’s letter had suggested, then why did she look like she hadn’t eaten in days?
“This is the last will and testament of Robert Daniel Prescott. I name Amber Allister as my executor, to carry out all provisions of this will.
“To my stepson, Dr. Dominic Balor, I leave one car of his choosing from my collection and the sum of one million dollars.”
My mother’s huff was in outrage, but she kept her mouth shut. I didn’t know why she was so upset about what Robert would leave me. I didn’t want the money, or the pick of his car collection. I didn’t need either. But he had left it to me, and I wouldn’t disrespect the man by turning them down, especially one of his custom restored muscle cars that we had picked out together at auctions almost every summer when I was younger. He had been my first real father figure, had loved me like I was his own.
Fuck, I missed him so damn much.
“To my stepdaughter, Kimberly Balor, I leave the sum of one-hundred thousand dollars. I leave this amount to her in hopes that she will learn to respect the value of a hard-earned dollar. It is my wish that she also seeks continued help for her addiction.”
Another huff from Nancy set my teeth on edge. Had she expected the man to leave us his entire fortune? It wasn’t ours to take.
Kim was crying harder now, catching the attention from the little dark-haired girl sitting on Triss’s lap. She whispered something in Triss’s ear, and Triss quickly shook her head.
“To my wife, Nancy Balor Prescott, I leave my apartment in Manhattan and the sum of two million, five hundred thousand dollars to be distributed to her in equal amounts over the course of her lifetime.”
“What?” Nancy squeaked when she realized what her husband had left her. “What about the house? What about all that money?”
Amber continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted—again. “To my daughter, Trissta Danielle Prescott, I leave the sum of two hundred fifty-seven million dollars.” I was pretty sure my mother was going to choke on her own tongue at this point. “As well as my collection of cars, with the exception of the one bequeathed to my stepson, Dominic. To her, I also leave my properties, including my house in Larchmont, NY, where we had many happy memories together when she was a child.”
“I don’t believe this.” Nancy was on her feet again.
I caught her wrist when she started to pass me. I could only imagine what would happen if my mother got in Amber’s face. Amber was normally calm and professional, but I could see that my friend was at the end of her tether right then. Honestly, so was I.
“Sit down, Mother,” I commanded in a quiet tone.
“I will not.” She tried to tug her wrist free, but I kept my grip on it, not so hard that it would hurt her, but enough that she wasn’t comfortable. “This is outrageous. How dare this imbecile girl walk back into our lives and take everything I have worked so hard for away from us again.”
“She’s Robert’s daughter, Mother. She deserves what is his.” I tugged her back a step and got to my feet. “And from what his letter suggested, you have been left far more than you possibly deserve.” I bent my head until my face was close to hers. Whatever she saw on my face, maybe it was the rage or even the heartbreak that she had caused, had her shrinking back.
“I’m contesting the will,” she said stubbornly. “I will not sit idly by while that little bitch gets everything that should be mine.”
“You will do nothing!” I roared, no longer able to control my emotions. Hearing a whimper from the little girls behind me, I forced myself to lower my voice. “You will accept what was left to you, and you will leave Triss alone. Do you hear me, Mother?”
“Dominic—”
“Do you hear me?” I gritted out between clenched teeth.
A mutinous look filled her eyes, and I knew she wasn’t going to let Triss live in peace.