Chapter 5
After escorting Frankie to the cottage, Marcus returned to the manor and let the door creak shut behind him.
The entryway was cool, dusty, and heavy with the weight of old memories.
Gi Gi’s Manor had potential, but right now, it felt more like a holding space than a home.
He’d bet good money Frankie thought the same about the cottage. Or worse.
When they’d rounded the corner and the cottage came into view, she’d sucked in a sharp breath and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like architectural offense. When he asked her to repeat it, she smiled like butter and said nothing.
Crooked shutters. Chipped siding. Porch sagging like it had given up. The designer called it forgotten charm. Frankie would probably call it grounds for litigation.
And that was fine. Let her hate it. He wanted her uncomfortable. Wanted to see what she did under pressure.
There was just one problem.
Brain whiplash.
The woman he’d dropped, soggy and snarling, into the shower had emerged an hour later wrapped in a towel and flirtation. Smiling. Teasing. Making vibrator jokes like she was auditioning for stand-up night at the town bar. Something about small-town guys and expectations being, well, small.
It was jarring.
Had therapy really transformed her? Or had she just swapped one kind of armor for another?
He didn’t buy the fluttery lashes and flirty smiles. That wasn’t growth. That was theater. If Francesca B was a performance, then what was she hiding?
His money was on illusion. All wigs and misdirection. Leopards didn’t change their spots. They weaponized them.
And if Frankie saw this as a game, there was only one move left for him to play. Be as irritating as possible. Get under her skin. Trigger the real Frankie to claw her way out. It was the only way to know if she’d actually changed.
A voice in his head kept asking, who made you judge and jury? The thought almost made him grin. It was in his damn DNA, passed down with dark hair and sharper edges. Someone had to hold her accountable for what she’d done to Lola. And Marcus was the one with boots on the ground.
He shook the thought away and crossed to the kitchen.
Its scuffed checkered tiles and groaning floorboards greeted him with their usual complaints.
The walnut cabinets hung slightly crooked, the cast-iron stove made threats every time he turned the knob, and the lone modern fridge vibrated just enough to seem uncomfortable in its own skin.
As if to say, this isn’t where you belong. Go home.
Marcus disagreed. He had been sent here.
Not by a boss or a boardroom, but by Georgiana Grace Grant—Gi Gi.
They hadn’t been born her boys, but she’d taken them in and claimed them with heart and soul.
Her final request had been handwritten and hand-delivered.
Every one of her boys had received one. A task. A location. No reason.
For Marcus, it had been the manor. Bring it back to life. Make it shine again.
No one had dared ask the bigger question. Not out loud. Not to each other.
What if this wasn’t just about property? What if the real task was something far less temporary?
Gi Gi had raised them to try anything once.
That was her rule. One summer, it had been woodworking and wiring workshops.
The next, creative writing and robotics.
There’d been a particularly scarring experience with ballroom etiquette taught by retired debutantes in Savannah.
But the standout had been a tech camp, where the brothers had built a scheduling app to settle their ongoing battles over screen time and snack rotation.
With Gi Gi’s help, they’d polished it, launched it, and turned a tidy profit.
Which, of course, meant the following summer, she’d enrolled them in a finance camp so they’d know how to manage it.
By the time they hit adulthood, they could rewire a lamp, fix a leaky pipe, code a program, and balance a portfolio.
It didn’t entirely make sense that Gi Gi had sunk so much into this town, but it did track that she’d thrown herself into it with her usual all-in abandon. That was her way. When she saw potential, in property or people, she polished it until it gleamed.
And not one of them had said it out loud, but they all felt it. The real ask. The one tucked between the lines of her will.
She hadn’t just invested in a town. She’d built a stage. Bought the properties. Renamed the streets. Rebranded Nippleton Falls into Gi Gi’s Crossing and left just enough breadcrumbs to make them wonder.
Smart money said it wasn’t just sentiment.
It was strategy.
Strategy that imagined each of them walking away from their skyscrapers and private penthouses to put down roots in a town that now bore the name of the woman who had saved their lives.
There was just one flaw in her plan.
Her boys couldn’t live in a town with a weekly gossip column.
They couldn’t risk their names showing up in wedding announcements or town council minutes.
They had to live off the radar. And Gi Gi had taught them that, too.
Sighing at the conundrum, Marcus opened the fridge and took stock. Eggs. Half a bag of frozen tater tots. A chunk of cheddar that still looked salvageable. He blew out a breath, then got to work.
He wasn’t trying to impress her. That would’ve required a trip to the store, a recipe, maybe even seasoning. But he figured she’d be less of a menace if she wasn’t hungry, and he’d planned on eating anyway. Might as well make enough for two.
He dumped the tots into a skillet, cracked the eggs over top, and grated the cheese straight into the mix. Forty-five minutes later, the result wasn’t pretty, but it smelled decent. Crispy edges. Gooey center. Enough salt to pass as flavor.
Waiting on her arrival, he decided to step onto the back porch and make a quick call. It was the only place the signal didn’t suck. He leaned on the railing, glancing toward the overgrown garden, then toward the winding path that led to the cottage.
A sound caught his attention.
“I am charming. I am delightful. I am not going to commit a felony today.”
He smirked.
Either she was talking to herself or leaving a voicemail for her therapist. He wouldn’t be surprised by either.
Movement flickered in his periphery. He turned toward Harriet’s treehouse and, sure enough, spotted her in the shadows, binoculars up like she was running tactical surveillance.
He gave her a lazy salute.
She waved back and called, “Just watching for the great horned owl!”
Loud enough to wake the actual owl. And maybe three neighbors.
Nothing happened in Gi Gi’s Crossing without Harriet knowing it. And if she didn’t know it, she’d improvise.
From down the path, Frankie’s voice rang out again. “Who’s there? I’ve got stilettos and zero hesitation.”
Marcus blinked, biting back a laugh. He would have figured her for being more original than repeating an old offense.
“You’ve been warned!” she added, clearly not seeing him yet. “I may be from Manhattan, but I know how to hit center mass.”
Don’t I know it.
She emerged from the shadows a moment later, nearly colliding with him.
“Francesca B?” He held the flashlight steady, letting its beam land on her.
She was a mess. Her curls, now red, were slightly askew, and her expression flickered between irritation and frazzled nerves. She’d changed into a form-fitting emerald green dress and black heels, which she held in one hand. On her feet were bunny house slippers.
“Oh, there you are, Marcus D,” she said, sweeping a hand dramatically toward the darkness behind her.
“You won’t believe the fun little surprise I just had.
First, I was nearly kidnapped. Possibly.
Or stalked. It’s hard to say when it’s pitch black, there’s smoke in the air, and you’re running for your life in slippers.
And then she leaned in, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper.
“Someone shouted something about watching the great horned owl.” Her eyes went wide.
“Which I’m assuming is either the code name for their next victim or a serial killer signature.
Either way, I took it as my sign to bolt. ”
Marcus blinked. “Did you say smoke?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to need more context on the smoke.”
“Oh, it was the funniest thing. One moment, there was light, and the next, poof, darkness. And this darling little wisp of smoke tickled my nose. Isn’t that just the strangest?”
His attention sharpened. “Did you see a fire?”
“Oh, I didn’t see a single thing, but that’s not the important part. The important part is that I got this silly feeling someone was looking in the bedroom window, and it gave me the cutest little fright.”
How in the hell had she sensed Harriet up in the tree? “I’m certain it did give you a fright. What happened next?”
“I did what any resourceful heroine would do. I found the closest thing, my shoe, bless its heart, and gave it a good toss. Not the pair I’d laid out for dinner, of course.
I’m not a savage. I grabbed the muddy one from earlier, a Jimmy Choo no less.
Poor thing had already met its untimely end via mud puddle ambush.
It died too soon, but at least it went out with purpose. ”
Marcus rubbed his temple where the scar she’d given him lived. What was it with this woman and her penchant for throwing shoes? “It’s always nice when you can look back and say someone, or something, died with purpose.” A fuzzy image of his mom zipped in and peeled out. Not Gi Gi. His birth mom.
“You are the absolute best for getting it. Now, would you like to know what happened when I sent my shoe on its death journey?”
“It broke the window,” he said, already bracing.
“Exactly! And now there’s this dreadful draft, brr, and I’m afraid I’ve made an absolute mess of things.”