Chapter Five. Rowan
FIVE
Rowan
“I know you want to go home to our place,” I murmur to Winnie and reach a hand down to pet her head.
It’s been a week that I’ve been staying at Gran’s house, but there’s something about this room, about sitting behind the mammoth desk in her study, that demands one sit back and take in all its eccentricities.
The pictures lining the far wall are filled with faces of people she never knew.
She never removed the packaging—usually a family or a lone individual model—inserted behind the glass of the frame.
She got a kick out of everyone assuming she was senile because of it, saying, When people think you’re losing your mind, they are much freer with what they say.
And so she’d jokingly refer to her friends on the wall whenever she wanted people to steer clear of her.
The hutch behind me is lined with decorative jars, one after another, each holding a collection of different items she had amassed over her lifetime. The items range from normal to odd: sea glass, dice, hotel room keys, marbles, and more.
And then there is the desk and every other possible surface excluding the Oriental rug my great-grandfather brought back from his treks across Europe and Asia in the early 1900s.
They are all covered with stacks upon stacks of folders and papers and receipts.
Gran was not a hoarder by any means, but hell, it appears she didn’t get rid of a single thing in here over the past few decades.
She lived a life that was full and rich in character and experiences. Is that what she wanted for me with the ridiculous parameters of my inheritance?
A proxy vote on the board through her private LLC was a definite bonus, but it was the other parameters that were classic Eleanor Rothschild.
Marry sooner rather than later and receive a bulk inheritance of $30 million after two years of marriage.
Or don’t marry and receive $1 million each year for thirty years.
It’s almost like she set up these constraints knowing what was going to happen when there was no way she could have.
She wanted me to marry and get the $30 million. She wanted me to use that bulk sum to coerce and influence, or, some may say blackmail, other board members to gain power that could rival Rhett’s.
And more than anything, she made me promise that I’d do anything and everything in my power to keep TinSpirits in Rothschild hands. To wrestle it away from my brother by any means possible because she trusted me to run it. Not him.
“You went and died, Gran, and it all went to shit,” I murmur.
But isn’t that why I agreed to Chad’s ridiculous proposal? To use it to my advantage to honor that promise to Gran?
“But I know you’re looking down. I know you’ll help me if you can.”
I push my fingertips to my eyes and try to hear the sound of her laughter and remember the feel of her cold hand clasped in mine.
It helps that her study smells of her perfume still. Maybe that’s why I’ve sat in here so much during the week I’ve been staying here as a means to avoid my real life.
While the clutter here makes the type A in me roll my shoulders, I find an odd comfort in it. To be among her things and our memories rather than back at my house, with pieces of Holden that I can’t escape and easy access to the people I’m trying to avoid.
Holden.
The confusion on his face earlier after the photo shoot owns my mind. If I thought I did a great job acting—keeping my shit together and emotions under control—he sure as shit did too. But then again, he’s the king of acting with how he acted on our trip to Manhattan.
Was it too much for me to want him to put up a fight?
For the man who arranged to have Clayton Seaburn do a private concert for me to show up in Georgia and fight for me?
To text and call me to death until I had no choice but to answer so we could talk?
To have him explain the contract and then fucking grovel after I told him I could never trust him again?
The ache in my chest has been a constant since finding the contract.
Winnie whines again, but before I can speak, the doorbell rings, followed by insistent knocking.
Shit. I’ve been found.