CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nova barely registered Snow saying something as her attention had locked onto the screen of her phone the second Sophia’s text came through.
Sophia: Call me ASAP
Below the message was a screenshot. The headline read: It’s Official: Governor Hopeful Rick Montgomery to Wed Nova Hart.
For one second, Nova stared at it, her mind refusing to process what she was seeing. Her stomach dropped.
“What the fuck?”
She didn’t realize she had said the words aloud until Snow shifted beside her. “What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t look at him. Her thumb enlarged the screenshot as though she might have read it wrong, but the article beneath the headline only made everything worse.
The announcement had apparently been released jointly by the Hart and Montgomery families earlier that afternoon, confirming the engagement of Richard Montgomery III and Nova Hart, daughter of prominent Salt Lake City attorney Leonard Hart.
There was even a quote attributed to both families about how thrilled they were to celebrate the joining of two respected families with a long history of friendship and shared values.
Nova nearly laughed, but she was too pissed.
There was never an engagement to begin with, and even if there had been, there certainly hadn’t been some miraculous reconciliation from his infidelity that justified announcing to the entire damn world that she had agreed to marry him.
Her father knew that, her mother knew it too, and Merrick and CeCe Montgomery as well, which meant this wasn’t a misunderstanding at all but a deliberate and calculated move designed to trap her.
Nova quickly stood up, ignoring Snow’s question.
“Excuse me. I need to make a call.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She vaguely heard Snow say her name again as she pushed through the door and headed down the corridor, but stopping would have meant explaining, and explaining would have meant acknowledging the humiliation tearing through her chest.
By the time she reached the stairs leading toward the upper deck, anger had overtaken everything else, driving each step harder than the last. The warm offshore air hit her the second she emerged outside, carrying the heavy scent of saltwater.
Her thumb was already pressing Sophia’s number. Her sister answered before the first full ring.
“Oh, thank God.”
“What the hell is this?”
There was a beat of silence. “Nova—”
“No. Don’t Nova me.” She paced toward the railing, gripping the phone so tightly her fingers hurt. “An engagement announcement?”
“I need you to calm down and let me explain.”
“Calm down? Sophia, they announced to the fucking world that I was getting married.”
Sophia’s voice softened. “I know, and I’m so sorry. Rob overheard Mom and Dad talking last night, and we were going to call you today.”
Nova closed her eyes. “What did he hear?”
Sophia sighed and started to explain. Nova’s grip on the railing tightened.
“Rob said Dad kept saying they’d worked too hard building the relationship between the families to let you throw everything away over a mistake.”
A mistake—that was what everyone kept calling it.
Nova stared out across the endless Gulf as the word echoed in her mind, bitter and hollow, because Rick sleeping with another woman had been reduced to a mistake, her father deciding her entire future without consulting her had been labeled strategy, and her humiliation, the thing burning quietly beneath her skin, was treated as nothing more than an inconvenience.
“So they announced an engagement that doesn’t exist.”
“Yes.”
A humorless laugh escaped her. “Unbelievable.”
“Rob and Wallace were going to call you today,” Sophia said. “We all were. We wanted to warn you before Dad tried something. We just didn’t think they’d move this fast.”
Nova rubbed a hand over her forehead. “And Rick?”
Sophia hesitated. “He didn’t know.”
“What?” Nova asked, shocked.
“Rick didn’t know about the announcement.”
Nova turned away from the railing. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it. Rob called him as soon as he saw the article.”
“And?”
“Rick had been in Denver the past two days. The announcement came as a surprise to him.”
Nova’s anger faltered slightly. “He really didn’t know?”
“No. He was pissed, Nova. Like really pissed. Rob said at first he thought Rick was putting on an act, but apparently Merrick called him on his other phone while they were still talking, and Rob heard enough of the conversation to know Rick was blindsided.”
Nova’s thoughts were all over the place. She didn’t know what to do with that. For the past several weeks, anger had been easy.
Rick cheated, he lied, and he had embarrassed her. Everything fit neatly into boxes she understood. Now Sophia was kicking the boxes over.
“Did he say anything else?”
“He told Rob he was sorry for everything. But mainly for hurting you. He knows that doesn’t excuse what happened with Piper. He told Rob he screwed up and that you deserved better than what he did.”
Nova looked down at the steel deck. She didn’t want to hear this.
Or maybe she did.
“Apparently your relationship wasn’t exactly his choice either.”
“What do you mean?”
Sophia sighed. “Rick’s parents were pushing the two of you together just as much as Mom and Dad were.”
“Rick never said anything.”
“Neither did you.”
That made her stop and think. Sophia was right. She never said anything to Rick.
“There’s actually more.”
“More? Jesus, Soph. What more could there be?”
“Dad owes Merrick money.
Sophia hesitated long enough that Nova’s irritation sharpened. “Soph.”
“Dad owes Merrick money.”
Nova went completely still. For several seconds, the only thing she could hear was the wind whipping across the deck and the distant mechanical hum of the platform beneath her feet.
“What?”
“From what Rob could gather, Merrick helped Dad out financially a few years ago. I don’t know if it was a personal loan, money for the firm, or something else, but Dad hasn’t paid all of it back.”
Nova stared out across the water, trying to process what her sister was telling her. “And our marriage was part of the repayment?”
“I don’t know if it was that black-and-white,” Sophia said quickly.
“But from what Rob overheard, Merrick definitely considers your marriage to Rick part of whatever arrangement they made. Dad kept saying that once you and Rick were married, none of it would matter anymore and everything would stay within the families.”
A cold sensation slid through Nova that had nothing to do with the evening breeze. Nova felt as if she were another asset listed on some balance sheet between two powerful men deciding how best to protect their interests.
“Unbelievable,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Nova pushed away from the railing and began pacing again, fury making it impossible to stand still.
“He owes Merrick money, so somewhere along the way they apparently decided marrying me to Rick would make everything nice and tidy? What was Dad planning to do, hand me over with a fucking bow and call the debt settled?”
“Nova—”
“I’m serious, Sophia.” Nova dragged a hand through her hair and forced herself to breathe before she said something she would regret. “Is there anything else?”
Sophia went quiet again, and Nova stopped pacing.
“Oh, for God’s sake. What else?”
“We weren’t sure if you knew about this or not.”
Nova closed her eyes. “At this point, assume I know absolutely nothing about my own life.”
“Dad already transferred the ownership of the firm into your name.”
Nova’s eyes snapped open. “What did you just say?”
“The firm. Legally, it’s yours.”
For the first time since answering Sophia’s call, Nova’s brain just stopped working.
“That’s impossible. The firm is Dad’s pride and joy.”
“Not anymore.”
“When? And why would he do that?”
“Last week. Once you marry Rick, fifty percent of the ownership will go to Rick, covering the debt that Dad owes Merrick.”
Nova’s legal mind immediately began dissecting the information despite the anger still coursing through her. But beneath the anger came something else.
If the controlling ownership of Hart & Associates was actually in her name, then her father had made one hell of a miscalculation.
Nova’s gaze slowly shifted toward the horizon as an idea came to mind.
Her father had spent years arranging her life like pieces on a chessboard, confident that no matter what move she made, he would remain the one controlling the game. Except he might have handed her his queen without realizing she had finally learned she didn’t have to play by his rules.
“Nova?”
“I’m here.”
“You got really quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That sounded ominous.
Despite everything, the faintest smile tugged at Nova’s mouth.
For the first time since seeing that headline, the anger inside her no longer felt wild or helpless. It was beginning to sharpen, settling into something colder and far more useful as possibilities started lining themselves up in her mind. She wasn’t ready to share any of them yet.
“Don’t say anything about the ownership to Mom or Dad.”
Sophia paused. “Why?”
“Just don’t.”
“Nova.”
“I mean it. And tell Rob and Wallace the same thing. I don’t want Dad knowing that I know.”
There was a second of silence before Sophia said slowly, “You’re planning something.”
“Not yet.”
That wasn’t entirely a lie because a plan required details. What Nova had right now was nothing more than the beginning of an idea, but after years of feeling as though everyone else had been determining what happened to her, even that felt damn good.
“I’ll talk to Rob and Wallace. But I’m telling you, they are furious.”
“So am I. Dad thinks this announcement boxed me in. He thinks if enough people believe Rick and I are getting married, I’ll eventually fall in line because correcting it would embarrass the family.”
“That sounds exactly like Dad.”
“If Rob and Wallace storm over there tonight, Dad will know we’ve figured something out, and I don’t want him scrambling to protect himself before I understand exactly what he’s done.”
Sophia gave a quiet laugh. “That tone makes me nervous.”
“It should.”