Chương 5
“You know I’m right.”
“No.”
My answer came slowly.
“But you’re not completely wrong.”
The smile disappeared.
“I have made it too easy for Samantha to avoid consequences.”
He frowned.
“That’s not what I said.”
“I know.”
“And I’m going to stop.”
Greg stepped toward the screen again.
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I’m not playing.”
“You think you can cancel the venue and hold the house over her head until she begs you to come?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
That question stopped me.
What did I want?
An apology would not make the phone call unhappen.
An invitation offered under financial pressure would be worse than none.
I did not want to sit beside Greg’s mother smiling for photographs while everyone quietly understood why I had been restored to the guest list.
“I don’t want an invitation anymore.”
Greg blinked.
For once, he had no immediate response.
“I want the wedding off my property.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“And the house?”
“I’m still discussing that with my attorney.”
His face changed so quickly that I almost missed it.
Not anger.
Fear.
Small, sharp, quickly hidden.
“You gave Samantha that house.”
“I signed documents toward transferring it.”
“You handed us the keys.”
“The keys are not a deed.”
His eyes narrowed.
“How much have you discussed with your attorney?”
Ben looked at me.
I kept my face still.
“Enough.”
Greg stepped back from the door.
“You’re making a very big mistake.”
“Maybe.”
“You have no idea what Samantha is going to think when she learns you’re trying to steal her home.”
“I’m not stealing anything.”
“She’ll never forgive you.”
That one hurt too.
He knew it would.
But pain was becoming less useful to him by the minute.
“I’ll live with that if I have to.”
Greg stared at me through the mesh.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
A lawn mower started somewhere across the property.
The ordinary sound floated over the yard absurdly, almost cheerfully.
Then Greg pulled out his phone.
“You want to do this?”
He held it up.
“Fine.”
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Samantha.”
“Go ahead.”
He tapped the screen.
I expected him to put it to his ear.
Instead, he activated the speaker.
Samantha answered almost immediately.
“Greg?”
“I’m here with your mother.”
Her voice sharpened.
“She let you in?”
“No.”
He looked directly at me.
“She’s locked me out.”
“What?”
“Andrea is threatening to take the house back.”
“I said no such thing.”
Samantha heard me.
“Mom?”
There was panic in her voice now.
Real panic.
For one humiliating second, every maternal instinct in me surged forward at once.
I almost opened the door.
I almost told her nothing would change.
I almost repaired the damage before either of them had to sit inside it.
Then Samantha said, “You can’t do this to us just because Greg doesn’t want you at the ceremony.”
Us.
Not me.
Not Mom.
Us.
I put both hands flat against the kitchen counter behind me.
“I haven’t decided what happens with the house.”
“You gave it to me.”
“The transfer was never completed.”
There was silence on the phone.
Not confusion.
Silence.
I looked at Greg.
He looked away.
Something cold moved through my chest.
“Samantha.”
She still did not answer.
“Did you know that?”
Greg cut in.
“This is pointless.”
“Samantha, did you know the transfer wasn’t completed?”
Her breathing was audible through the speaker.
“Greg said it was basically done.”
“Basically?”
“He said the paperwork was just technical.”
I glanced at him.
He was watching the driveway now.
“Did you know he requested changes to the property boundaries?”
This time her response came immediately.
“What changes?”
Greg swore softly.
I did not take my eyes off him.
“Samantha, I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Greg reached to end the call.
Ben moved between him and the door without touching him.
“Don’t.”
Greg froze.
Ben’s voice remained even.
“You chose speakerphone.”
“Get out of my face.”
“I’m six feet away.”
“Greg,” Samantha said.
He looked at the phone.
“What changes is she talking about?”
His shoulders tightened.
“Nothing that matters.”
I felt something inside me become very still.
“What did you change?”
Samantha asked.
Greg rubbed his forehead.
“It was a planning adjustment.”
“To what?”
“Sam, not now.”
“To what?”
Her voice had changed.
The panic was still there, but something else had entered it.
Fear of him.
Or perhaps fear of what she had agreed to without understanding.
Greg picked up the phone.
“I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t hang up.”
He ended the call.
For a moment, the only sound was the distant mower.
Then he looked at me.
“You should have stayed out of things you don’t understand.”
The sentence was quiet.
Too quiet.
Ben took one step closer to the door.
I did not move.
“My property seems like something I should understand.”
“It was going to benefit Samantha.”
“How?”
“You’re sitting on eighty acres you barely monetize properly.”
I almost smiled.
There was the Greg I had suspected existed underneath the expensive manners.
“Barely?”
“This place could be developed.”
“My vineyard is profitable.”
“It’s inefficient.”
“To you.”
“To anyone who can read a balance sheet.”
Ben muttered, “Jesus.”
Greg ignored him.
“You have land worth more than the business operating on it.”
“And?”
“And Samantha deserves an asset that actually grows.”
There it was.
Not family discomfort.
Not wedding tension.
Not even class embarrassment.
Land.
Access.
Control.
I looked toward the rows Thomas and I had planted one block at a time when we were still young enough to believe sore backs healed overnight.
“What exactly were you planning to do with thirty-six acres?”
Greg’s face went blank.
That was answer enough.
My phone rang on the counter.
Michael.
I picked it up.
“Tell me.”
“I found the source of the revised legal description.”
I watched Greg through the screen.
“Who prepared it?”
May you like
Michael hesitated just long enough to make the next words heavy.
“A development attorney named Charles Beckett.”
