Chapter 22
When Uncle Finn bought Strawberry Farm, he hired a Mom-and-Pop construction company to renovate the dilapidated cottage at the heart of it.
But then the “pop” cheated on the “mom” somewhere between drawing up the blueprints and breaking ground, and now Finn’s house stands as a testament to their bitter divorce.
The welcome mat on the front porch is a battle line.
South of it, the cottage exterior is storybook-cute—whitewashed stone, periwinkle-blue shutters, and a chimney that coughs up smoke on winter evenings.
Cross over into enemy territory, and you’ll find yourself in the lobby of a high-end hotel: loveless, clean lines, cold marble, and sofas you’re not allowed to eat snacks on.
Usually, Finn wouldn’t tolerate such a farce from the construction company, but it turns out, the couple’s inability to communicate worked in his favor. His home is the brick-and-mortar version of him: a big-city hotshot wrapped in a small-town disguise.
His voice shoots down the stairs the moment I click the door shut behind me.
“Wren? Is that you?”
I roll my eyes. “No, it’s a burglar who just happens to have a key.”
“Very funny. Come upstairs, please. I want to show you something.”
Sitting on the bottom step, I tug off my boots, check the soles for dirt, and place them neatly beside the umbrella stand.
Then I climb the stairs on my hands and knees, because I wouldn’t trust a staircase with floating steps and no handrail at the best of times—let alone one built by a man distracted by the prospect of losing half of everything he owns.
I find Finn in his office, sitting rigid in the Herman Miller chair behind his desk. His eyes rise over the rim of his glasses, then fall down the length of me in a measured sweep.
“You were meant to come by last night. Everything okay?”
No, nothing’s okay.
Though I’d ridden out of Gabriel’s garage on my high horse, the darkness had followed me out. And as a sleepless night in Rory’s spare bedroom bled into day, the guilt and disgust wore off like cheap temporary tattoos.
He’d taken up every square inch of my brain, as though he were paying rent to live there. I’d replayed what had happened in the garage over and over, until my version of events distorted. Excitement replaced the fear and the dark had a rose-tinted hue.
By the time I climbed aboard Rafe’s yacht yesterday, I couldn’t remember why he’d ever scared me in the first place.
He hadn’t even touched my skin and yet, he lingered beneath it like a hot fever. I didn’t want it to cool. I guess that’s the only explanation I have for why I forced myself onto his tender boat. Why I probed him with questions, and tried to get under his skin too.
I learned real quick I was in over my head.
I learned how his touch felt, and even worse, I learned I liked it. The weight of his body on mine, the friction burning my wrists. The sharpness of his teeth and the heat of his glare as he stared down at me, like he didn’t know whether to kill me or kiss me.
It was everything I’ve never had nor wanted, and still, his touch chased me home and through the front door, where I barely made it to my bedroom before my hand was between my thighs and my ragged breaths were dampening my pillow.
Finn’s question is a simple one, but it twists my gut into knots. We’re close, sure, but his coldness is a direct result of the only other time I felt like this, so I flash him a weak smile instead.
“I’m a busy bee, honey. What’s up?”
If he notices my tone is tighter than usual, he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he ducks out of view, then reappears holding a stack of books.
He drops them on the desk with a deft thud.
“I’ve dug out some of my old textbooks from my pre-law days at Silvercrest. They’re a little dated, but I’ve spoken to Professor Barton, and he’s confirmed the syllabus hasn’t changed all that much.
I thought it’d be good for you to get a head start on the reading material before the fall.
” He looks up at me, expression hardening. “What do you think?”
The silence crackles between the paper skyscrapers and sagging brown boxes. I see his chest tighten beneath his cable-knit sweater. I know he’s readying himself to jump down my throat the moment my usual excuses start pouring out of it—I can’t say that I blame him.
Despite having deferred my place at Silvercrest for two years in a row, following my uncle’s footsteps into law was actually my idea.
Initially, I just wanted to live out my Elle Woods fantasy, but when the midnight emails started coming in, I realized being a defense lawyer for the voiceless is the ultimate good deed.
It would shatter that one sentence, five words, and thirty-five characters, including spaces, into a million pieces, and finally make the emails stop.
Though my GPA was good and I took part in every extracurricular that didn’t involve sweating, I was far from an Ivy League candidate.
It took a little discretion and a whole lot of nepotism to secure me my place.
Uncle Finn pulled strings like a master puppeteer.
He called in a favor from his golf buddy on the Silvercrest admissions team, and another from a former classmate who works on the American Bar Association’s scholarship committee.
Finn has put everything on the line for me, and more times than I deserve.
I can’t let him down again.
He’s still staring at me across the office, his jaw locked and loaded for a fight. So I swallow the familiar knot in my throat and grind down the rising panic between my back teeth.
“I think that’s a great idea, thank you.”
As his face spreads into a broad grin, emotion prickles at the back of my eyes. I love it when Finn smiles.
After the incident, he didn’t smile at me for months.
“Phew.” He leans back in his chair and puffs out a breath, blowing away all the tension between us. “I’ll drop these off on your porch in the morning, then.”
I nod and move farther into the room, straightening piles of paperwork and picking up empty coffee cups.
The modern, minimalist design throughout the rest of the cottage stops sharply at his office door.
Behind it, it’s forever September. It smells like the first day of school, like sharpened pencils, leather-bound books, and dust.
“Speaking of things showing up on my porch.” I shut a cabinet drawer with the bump of my hip. “Why’d you leave your boots on my porch this morning? I hope you weren’t expecting me to clean them.”
He frowns. “What boots?”
“Those hideous black lace-ups.” I screw up my nose at the memory. “I mean, honestly. Do you really need steel toes to hammer a few shelves together?”
He lets out a dismissive laugh, opens his MacBook, and lazily scrolls through a document on the screen. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Wren.”
I open my mouth to call him a liar, but a sudden realization severs my vocal cords.
The boots waiting on my front porch this morning aren’t Finn’s.
My heart kicks my sternum, and a cheap high rushes through my bloodstream.
Of course they belonged to Gabriel. But why? Was it some sort of threat? Part of another lesson? A cryptic game I didn’t know we were playing?
It doesn’t make sense, but then again, nothing about Gabriel Visconti makes sense.
Gosh. Maybe I was right—this man really does have a crush on me.
I feel like I’m floating, delirious at the mere thought.
Catching my breath, I concentrate on the bookshelf behind Finn’s desk to stop my thoughts from spiraling.
I read the title on every book spine and the looping signatures on every certificate.
I scan from left to right, and when I reach the end of the middle shelf, I freeze.
My mother’s staring back at me.
I set down the coffee cups and reach for the photograph with a trembling hand.
She and Finn are sitting on the front steps of a Georgian house. Her head rests against his and her arm is tightly wrapped around his shoulder, as though she’d yanked him into frame.
It must have been taken in the nineties. A lazy summer memory, shot on film and sealed in glass.
If we were a normal family, I’d have picked it up and smiled.
Poked fun of my mother’s over-plucked eyebrows and Finn’s spiky boy-band hair, before asking a million questions about when it was taken and why.
But I don’t want to peel back the bark on our family tree; I want to chop it down. Cut it into logs and burn it.
Because looking at this photo of my mother hurts.
Finn’s chair groans beneath him, and the heat of his stare brushes up my back.
I turn around. “I thought you got rid of all the photos of her?”
He stares at the frame in my hands, running two fingers across his lips. “I did. Every photo except that one,” he murmurs, a sadness creeping in behind his glasses. “I had to keep that one.”
Emotion clogs my throat. “But why?”
He releases a slow breath and cocks his head, as if thinking of the best way to answer.
“Because,” he eventually says, “she reminds me to be the good in the world.”
My gaze falls back down to my mother. Calypso-blue eyes warm enough to light bonfires, a grin broad enough to bridge two oceans together.
As I put her back on the shelf, my comedown is violent.
Once upon a time, I made a vow to be the good in the world too.
If only it came naturally.
An hour later, I’m in my robe, cocooned in one of Finn’s Hermès blankets, being bad again. Though my morals have never extended to adhering to his strict rule about eating snacks on his cream sofas, anyway.
I shift, and the chip bag crinkles in my pocket.
Finn doesn’t look away from the TV, but his brows draw together, just like they do when he’s reviewing a contract he already suspects is dodgy.
“Do you want to tell me what that noise is,” he asks evenly, “or should I start cataloging evidence?”