Chapter Fourteen
After Victoria and her sisters, along with Aunt Lily, Sunshine and even Kelly, welcomed Mari into their sisterhood, she felt she needed to go talk to Miles about the whole situation.
He stood at the desk watching them while obviously pretending he wasn’t watching them. He was straightening the perfectly stacked papers before him that were already aligned expertly.
Leaving Mari in the capable hands of Aunt Lily, Victoria marched to the front of the room to confront Miles. Yes, he’d mouthed that he was sorry and she’d nodded in understanding. But she still wanted to discuss it. She wanted to pin him down and ask the tough question.
“I already know what you’re going to say,” Miles said the minute she marched herself all the way to the desk. His brown eyes were dark, his features stark with tension.
“Do you?” she’d lost some steam on the way over. She had figured out the reason, but she wanted him to say it out loud.
The moment she stepped into his personal space, he started whispering quickly, clearly hoping the others couldn’t hear him. “I’m sorry that I could not tell you about Marigold. Your father did not want anyone to know about her until the reading of the will.”
Victoria deflated as he spoke and tried to keep her cool.
“But why? I need to know why my father wanted her to be a secret. It’s mean and unfair to her.”
“I’m sorry, Victoria. Since you know exactly who your father was and how he operated, I feel like, or at least I hope, that you will understand that I absolutely could not tell you.” His expression stayed beseeching and she was moved.
She knew he would have told her if he could have, yet her anger at this situation could not be contained.
Victoria shoved her understanding side and let her anger speak. “I know you’re going to pull that attorney-client privilege crap on me, but still. It isn’t right. She didn’t deserve to be sent into this situation all alone. Do you know why my father didn’t want any of us to know about her until the end? Was it to shock us? Well, from my perspective, it worked.”
Miles looked uncomfortable once more. “I wasn’t able to say anything per your father’s wishes and while I don’t exactly know why, I have a guess. Perhaps it was because your father never married her mother, Francesca Roselli.”
“So? So what?”
Miles leaned closer, his voice shifting even lower. “Again, I’m only guessing, but it was probably because he didn’t find out about his seventh daughter until a few months after she was born. And once he found out Marigold was a girl, he didn’t see the need to bring her into the family, I guess. I’m honestly not certain of his reasons. Like I said, I’m speculating.”
Victoria let the wind out of her puffed-up, angry sails. It wasn’t Miles’s fault her father was so unbelievably bad at being a parent—heck, at being a decent person. She sucked in a deep breath and silently let it out, feeling much of her outrage go with it. “Right. Yes. I understand, Miles. I know it wasn’t your fault. Sorry to be so grouchy.”
He looked like a hundred-pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “It’s all right. You weren’t grouchy. You are understandably angry. I get it.”
Something occurred to Victoria. “He hadn’t divorced Sunshine yet, had he? Not if they were still married all these years. Right? Another surprise for us all.”
“Yes. He was still married to Sunshine at the time of Marigold’s birth. That may have been another consideration.”
“Well, we know now they were married for decades, but he never shared that, either. I think he wanted us all to be shocked to our cores during this reading of his last will and testament. It probably would have made him happy to see us stunned to our bones.”
She didn’t think he completely agreed with that statement when he tipped his head in a nod and said, “Touché.”
“Let me guess,” Victoria said, in a renewed and heated tone meant to convey her displeasure with her father, but not direct it at Miles. “If Marigold had been a boy, our father would have gotten the fastest divorce in history from Sunshine and promptly dragged Mari’s mother down the aisle for giving him the only thing he ever wanted. A son.”
Miles didn’t even balk. “Yes. I imagine that’s about the size of it.”
Victoria was mad at her father all over again. She’d made an attempt not to be so judgmental about how he’d lived his life. She’d tried to overlook all of his dubious choices, and now this. She’d have to reconsider everything. Again.
While Victoria did know her father as well as anyone could, she supposed, she didn’t understand why he would have orchestrated such a shock factor at his own will reading, since he couldn’t be here to witness it.
As for Miles, she wished she hadn’t been so blindsided by someone she could see herself falling for. And he was definitely someone she was falling for. She couldn’t seem to help it.
“I feel like I should say I’m sorry again,” Miles said as she worked through her anger at her father, reminding herself over and over that none of this was the fault of the man standing here with her.
“You are not the one who needs to apologize, Miles.” She gave him an encouraging smile. He was not the target of her anger. “I will try, but I don’t think I will ever understand my father. And this challenge of his … I don’t even know where to start.”
“Don’t worry. I have all the details ready to hand out to all of you. I have seven envelopes to pass out, so you can read them at your leisure. I thought perhaps we could meet either later today or tomorrow, whatever’s convenient for the seven of you. At that time, I can go over the details of the challenge and the previously selected businesses that your father wants you to manage for a year. And answer any of what I’m certain will be a multitude of questions.”
“Yes. There are certainly going to be a lot of questions. Just so I’m on the same page here, we’re expected to uproot our lives, move to Valentine Key, and start up new businesses our father hand-picked for us? So that at the end of a year, one of us can have a non-voting position on the board of directors to a family business that only requires a man named Lovelock to run it. Never a woman? I’m not certain I know how I feel about this just yet. I may need a bit of time to chew over this surprise bequest. I was honestly expecting nothing from Horatio. I doubt any of the others were, either.”
Miles nodded. When he bent his head, that stray lock of salt-and-pepper hair tumbled appealingly over his forehead and she resisted the urge to fix it for him. How did he have the power to turn her from the mature, independent woman she knew herself to be into a girl with crush? Something to think over later.
She focused on his understanding tone when he said, “I know it’s a lot. I know it doesn’t make much sense in this day and age. I did question his thinking about this addendum to his will instead of just dividing all of his assets by seven and turning those funds over to you all. However, I was his lawyer. I worked for him, not the other way around. He decided what he wanted to do and often ignored my suggestions and my questions. Whatever his reasons were, he kept them mostly to himself. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not surprising. I understand, Miles. I really do. But I wish that we had some sort of secret code between us so that you could’ve pulled on your ear or touched your chin and then I would’ve known that there was something life-changing coming and, dare I say, more than one shocking thing about to be revealed.”
Miles straightened, his expression one of surprise. “Actually, I also wish we had a secret code between the two of us for any number of reasons. I like you, Victoria. I always have. I hope that being the executor of your father’s will and all that entails has not changed anything between the two of us.”
Victoria suddenly realized what she’d said and felt her cheeks heat with a blush. She’d basically implied that the two of them were more intimate than they were. It wasn’t like that very scenario hadn’t been on her mind since she got Aunt Lily’s letter. It definitely had and seeing Miles was one of the main reasons she was even here at her father’s will reading. That and seeing Aunt Lily, of course.
She had known from the start that if she came to Valentine Key for the reading of the will, Miles would be here, as well. The warmth in her chest that information had generated when she’d read his letter back in her New York apartment happened right now. Could he tell how embarrassed she was? She hoped not.
It was her turn to lower her voice so none of her sisters would hear when she said, “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think anything has changed between the two of us. But I must ask—what is going on between the two of us?”
That was when she became aware that as they spoke quietly away from the group of Victoria’s sisters, aunt and stepmothers, it became clear that the women had stopped talking. Were they all hoping they could listen in on what Miles and Victoria were talking about? Had they heard anything?
Miles started to speak as Victoria glanced over her shoulder and realized that, yes, everyone in the room were staring at them. That was exactly when Miles said, “As I said, I like you, Victoria. I hope you like me. That is what I hope is going on between the two of us.” Though he’d spoken at a normal volume, his assertion sounded like a shout in the abruptly quiet room.
He looked up and, like Victoria had seconds before, noticed everyone was listening to every syllable he said. His mouth dropped open in surprise and the tips of his ears turned red.
He shot Victoria a regretful gaze, shaking his head as if apologizing for dumping another big surprise on her and her family.
Victoria had just discovered his heartfelt feelings for her for the first time ever and her whole extended family was listening in. Now they all knew it. Victoria was stunned into silence as her eyes dropped to the desk. She didn’t look at Miles or anyone in the room. She just stood there wondering what to do next. Miles didn’t say anything, either.
Aunt Lily saved them both.
In an over-loud voice, she said, “I prepared some refreshments for us for after the reading of Horatio’s will. Why don’t we all adjourn to the dining room and have something to eat and drink? I think that will make all of us feel better, don’t you, Victoria?”
Victoria smiled at her aunt, grateful for her intervention. Refreshments to the rescue. “Thank you, Aunt Lily, refreshments would be lovely. Miles and I will join you all in just a moment.”
The women who exited the room were suddenly smiling and winking and leaning heads close together, likely gossiping about whatever the relationship between the Victoria and Miles might be, she had no doubt at all.
It was very difficult to be angry about it.
“I’m so sorry they heard me say that,” Miles said as soon as the women had exited and the doors to the parlor were closed again. At long last, they were finally alone.
“That’s okay. Two people—and by that, I mean my sister Darby and Aunt Lily—already asked me about the two of us walking on the beach together. This is new to me. By new, I mean having to explain myself to interested relatives. I’ve had sisters for the whole of my life but we’ve never communicated. Ever. And although I wish it could have been more, I really only spent a few weeks a year with Aunt Lily. This is kind of a new phase in my life. I’m going to have to just move forward, get through it and get used to all of it.”
Miles took a step closer, right into her personal space. “I don’t really care what they think about the two of us. I only care what you think about the two of us.” He grazed a finger down her cheek in the softest of caresses.
The warmth in her chest swelled to encompass her whole body.
She was extremely grateful that no one had hung around to witness this possible secret code for their future.