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  Ella glares at him. “This doesn’t pay for anything. Do you realize that my bank accounts are all overdrawn from trying to keep Redmond Estate afloat these past few months? Surely the trustee can see how none of this is in the estate’s best interests.”

  I know this ordeal took her by complete surprise. To me, however, it’s par for the course. Wolfe is a smarmy bastard who’ll take every opportunity he can get his grubby paws on a deal if it boasts the potential to screw over those who’ve crossed him.

  “Ella, that’s a serious accusation. As an attorney, I have to advise you to be careful when throwing around such loaded language. You never know what someone with legal knowledge might find actionable. Just imagine being hit with a lawsuit or, worse, being removed from your position here at Redmond Estate.”

  And now he sees Ella as the enemy. Or maybe he’s just toying with her for the sadistic thrill he gets out of it.

  Ella has an expression on her face like she’s about to cry or yell or break something. But I know she won’t, which is why I don’t step in. There’s no need to trot out the chivalry when Ella has a handle on things.

  In the time we’ve spent together, it’s been a pleasant surprise to learn just how concerned she is with keeping her composure in check in difficult situations. She might have a larger-than-life personality and a playfulness that borders on inappropriate at times, but she also knows what’s at stake. Despite the way she felt when she first got here—all of what she said about how she couldn’t see herself spending the rest of her life in her family’s ancestral country seat—she recently discovered a new-fangled passion for running the estate.

  Ella rips the check and throws the confetti in Wolfe’s face. “Are you threatening me; you sick son of a bitch? Get out.”

  Scratch that. She used to have self-restraint. Those days are over.

  I can relate. This is Wolfe’s effect on most people. The triumphant grin on his face is nothing short of smug with a hint of gloating. I want to strike, but if I do anything that offends me, he might withhold Ella’s funds indefinitely.

  That’s the sick irony of this situation. He holds all the cards. I wonder if Ella’s grandmother knew just what she was doing when she left Wolfe with the keys to her kingdom. The terms of the inheritance make no sense.

  “If you keep being this rude, I won’t be able to reissue the check you tore up just now. Is that what you want; when your financial situation is as precarious as you’ve described?” he taunts Ella. She doesn’t reply, so he turns to me. “And you. You’re mighty quiet over there, errand boy.”

  Guess it’s time to change my profession from groundskeeper to whipping boy. Let him try. If he puts so much as a hand on me or a finger on Ella, he’ll come to accept that the last time I beat his ass to the ground was nothing compared to the damage I'm capable of inflicting.

  I relax my stance and stretch my hands. “You picked the wrong fucking day.”

  “Is that how you speak to your superiors?”

  I have to remind myself over and over just how disastrous it might be for Ella if I don’t keep my rage in check. He tsks and shakes his head like he’s putting on a performance in front of a captive audience. Which he is. Everyone here is beholden to him whether they want to be or not.

  “Get to the point. You’ve overstayed your welcome.” I say through gritted teeth. Knowing all I do about him, means that having to stand there and do nothing while he shits on Ella and me is torture.

  “The point is that your employment at the Redmond Estate is terminated, effective immediately.”

  He continues talking but I’m not paying attention. It never occurred to me that he might abuse his power like this. Doesn’t he know the only reason I keep my mouth shut about his soiled reputation is that I need the money from my job? If he fires me, what keeps me from…

  Ella’s brusque words cut into my thoughts. “You can’t do that! You can’t do any of this. I know I’m not lawyer, but I refuse to believe my grandmother would grant you so much power while leaving me defenseless in the event you might let it get to your head. I want to talk to your superiors.”

  Wolfe’s unwavering self-satisfied smile stays plastered on his face. “There’s no need. That’s why I brought the papers, in case you wanted to take a peek. I knew you might. And you”—he points at me—“be a good lad and don’t make a fuss. I trust you’ll be wise enough to grab your things and go. We don’t want any trouble here, do we, Ash?”

  He has my attention. The lilt at the end of that sentence all but flashed a neon sign declaring that it was a threat.

  “You can’t tell me how I’ll run the estate. You’re in charge of the financial details. Ash isn’t going anywhere, and that’s final.”

  “You already have access to the reigning document that lists everything I can and can’t do, complete with your grandmother’s signature at the bottom. Feel free to take a look.”

  I know she’ll spend many sleepless nights trying to find a way to get out of it.

  He beckons me with a patronizing hand gesture. “Ash and I will go outside to have a man-to-man talk.”

  Ella lurches forward, about to intercede, but I stop her. “It’s okay. Take a look at those and I’ll be right back.”

  She doesn’t agree to it, but she doesn’t stand in the way, either. Wolfe leads the way down the stairs and I follow him, hating myself every step of the way.

  The problem is, Ella has a vague idea he’s dangerous. I have concrete proof. But there’s a lot he could still do to make matters worse for my sister, so my hands are tied no matter who it is that I want to protect.

  “I’m only going to ask this one more time before I treat you to the same perks you received the last time you were here,” I warn him. “What do you want?”

  Wolfe pulls a cigar from his inside pocket and lights it. It seems to me that this is neither the time nor the place to be doing that, but in the grand scheme of things, it would be petty to point that out.

  “Ella needs bigger nudges to make the right decision. You, not so much. I don’t have to sugar coat anything, so I’ll give it to you straight. All that unpleasantness with what happened to Amber?” The urge to punch him for soiling my sister’s name by saying it almost overpowers me. “And your family?”

  It’s time to keep my head down. “I’m listening.”

  “I wouldn’t want to besmirch Ella’s honor, but my reservations won’t stop me. She’s been shacking up with you. That’s misconduct and if I bring evidence to support that fact—and believe me, there is plenty of evidence—Ella stands to lose everything.”

  A ball of fury builds up in my stomach for the stupidity of my actions. Of course, he wouldn’t come and find me in Ella’s room with her bed unmade in the background and then take a beating from me without hitting back.

  I can’t decide who I’m angrier at, him or myself.

  “I see you’re being reasonable. Learning how not to hit people is a crucial step to living in society, you know. Not that you’ll be doing any of that anytime soon. I want you to disappear. You’re not good for Ella and you never will be.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” I say, defiant. “You tried to force yourself on her the last time I saw you. I’d have to be fucking stupid to leave her when there’s a psychotic asshole looking to wolf her down the second everyone’s guard is down.”

  Wolfe chortles, billows of smoke coming out of his mouth. “Oh, you think you can protect her? Let me save you from your fantasy. You’re nothing but a glorified social experiment. She’s slumming it just so she can feel the exhilaration of going against the grain. Then, she’s going to mature and realize you’re far beneath her. Women like Ella stick to their kind.”

  What he says tears into me because, on some level, I know he’s probably right. Not that I believe Ella is that calculating or would throw people away like they’re disposable. She isn’t. But enough time in this world, and her upbringing might rear its ugly head. She would doubtlessly feel ashamed
to have me by her side.

  I had nothing to offer her. Not protection, not clout to keep the bad guys away, and no influence that an heiress of her standing required.

  “I can tell this is a difficult moment for you, so let me sweeten the pot. If you leave and stay away from Ella for good, I’ll gradually increase her allowance. Your sister and her bastard son will also be taken care of.”

  After he finishes giving me his terms, we both fall silent. It’s become a game of chicken. The first one to open his mouth loses. It’s the way of the world, and I know that better than anyone.

  I debate both sides in my head. If I stay, he can arrange for something awful to happen to Amber and my nephew. He can also make life for Ella increasingly difficult.

  But if Ella ever decides to cast me aside of her own volition, I’ll lose everything. If I go, everyone wins.

  The only issue that remains for us to discuss is what assurances he’ll give about Ella’s personal safety. I tell him as much, thereby tacitly admitting my own defeat in our game of chicken.

  “You agree that the only thing that motivates me is my self-interest, right?”

  Truer words have never crossed his lips, and I doubt they ever would again. I nod.

  “Well, then, that’s easy,” he says. “Hurting Ella won’t do me any good. It’s much better for me if she starts responding to honey. Vinegar is too messy.”

  He finishes his cigar—though it’s me who has a bitter taste of burned ashes in my mouth—and holds out his hand. “So, do we have a deal?”

  Satisfied that I only have one real course of action—to leave and stay alert to news of any misdeeds—I shake his outstretched hand. I’ll hear it through the grapevine if anything happens to Ella. Even if he manipulates the situation to make it seem like she brought whatever disgrace on herself, I’ll know the truth.

  I’ll kill him with my bare hands if it comes to that.

  Chapter 7

  Ella

  When Ash comes back, alone, his fallen expression digs a hole in the pit of my stomach. I know what he’ll say before he even opens his mouth, and when he does start his monologue, it’s a second blow that I’m not ready for.

  “Red, I have to go.”

  “Are you serious?” I say, incredulity laced in my every word. “Are you seriously going to leave me with him? Weren’t you the first to say he’s a predator and I should watch my back when he’s around?”

  “He fired me. There’s nothing we can do.”

  I can tell Ash doesn’t buy a word of what he’s saying because he stares at his feet the entire time. It’s such a weak position and I don’t understand what he’s doing. Just a few minutes ago, he was on my side.

  He goes outside with Jared for all of twenty minutes and comes back a spineless lackey?

  “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  Ever since my grandmother died, it feels like the world is collapsing around me. No one left me a master guide to how to hold down the fort when you’re the heiress but someone else has all the power. My family was never close-knit but being abandoned by everyone I knew or had a connection to in the space of three months does a number on a girl.

  He works up the courage to meet my gaze. “Actually, I don’t. You think I like being your errand boy?”

  “That’s Jared speaking, not me. I never called you any of that.”

  “Look, I don’t want to be your little experiment. You’ve always had this fixation with me, ever since you were a teenager, and I know I’m a conquest to you. Nothing but a lowly worker here in your empire. That worked for a time, but with everything else that’s happening, I need to look out for myself.”

  I feel like he just slapped me. Tears well in my eyes, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of watching me cry. I’m no fool—I know that if Ash is breaking up with me, it’s because Jared has something to hold over his head.

  And Ash is most certainly breaking up with me.

  “So, you’re leaving, then? That’s your answer? To flee like a coward just because the big bad Wolfe said a few choice words to you? What did he threaten you with?”

  I’m grasping at straws, I know. With each passing moment, I feel the gravity of the situation. Ash isn’t telling me this and leaving me a margin to convince him to change his mind.

  He’s informing me, and that’s it.

  “He didn’t threaten me. He just made a few good points. No one is forcing this on me. Being fired is never good, but this time it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

  A single tear spills over and falls down my face, hot and fast. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “You and I were never going to last. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.” His eyes are blank. It’s like talking to a corpse, one with an impeccable gift for speaking in an emotionless monotone.

  “So, what, that’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?”

  My lip is quivering and I’m sure Ash thinks I look ridiculous. My reaction confirms what he told me all those years ago; that I was a little girl. I had been an easy lay but now it was no longer convenient, he was kicking me to the curb.

  Whether Jared has something on Ash or not, it doesn’t matter.

  He doesn’t answer me for several minutes. To keep this going any longer would be to subject myself to even more humiliation than I’m already facing.

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, you should just fucking go then,” I snap.

  He doesn’t even flinch at how acidic I’m being and doesn’t have the balls to look me in the eyes as he conveys—in no uncertain terms—that I was just a fun pastime.

  When Ash exits my room, I fall to the floor and cry. Noiselessly, of course. I can fall apart in private, but I’ll be damned if I let him know he’s breaking my heart.

  I ask one of the servants to clear my room of any of the canvases I made when Ash still worked here. They’re painful reminders of how special he was to me. Looking at them day in and day out keeps me bedridden and adrift, and I refuse to succumb to that any more than I already have.

  No man is going to hold me back.

  Not Ash and not fucking Jared.

  There’s a little ritual that I perform every single day, soon as I wake up. I pull out the loose pages of the documents Jared left with me. I crumpled them in the many times I read every word contained in them, scouring them to find hidden loopholes. If my grandmother’s plan left the one about me getting married and no longer needing a trustee, then there has to be another.

  But no matter how many times I pore over that godforsaken legal text, nothing jumps out at me. I don’t know any lawyers who I can trust with this information so it’s up to me to get to the bottom of it.

  “Ms. Ella,” the butler says softly. I have no idea how long he’s been standing at the door. He used to knock but I get so lost in a vortex of desperation to rid myself of this horrible set of circumstances that I never hear when any of the help is milling about.

  “Yes?” I say, not looking up from the pages.

  “There’s talk of the staff walking out by the end of this week.”

  I can’t blame them. After shredding the check Jared gave me, I don’t have the means to pay them. They had been willing to wait for me and give me some leeway for a week or two, but that quickly turned to nearly a month of work without compensation. Everyone has mouths to feed and financial responsibilities to uphold.

  Working for the beggar heiress won’t pay the bills.

  “Is there anything you can do?” I ask.

  In the midst of all the hardship, he emerged as the shining beacon of loyalty I have in this estate. He worked with me to get the staff to agree to a little more time before I could pay them. He never brings up the fact he hasn’t received his paycheck, either.

  As soon as I get myself out from under this, I plan on rewarding him for his faithful service.

  If I get out from under this that is. A prospect that’s looking more and more unlikely to materia
lize.

  “I’m afraid not, Miss,” he says, his head down. “They don’t hold any ill-will toward you. Everyone is aware that you’re doing the best you can. But this isn’t a safe job anymore and they…”

  “They have to move on,” I finish for him. “I understand. I’ll go downstairs and talk with each one of them by this evening. If you could pass on that message so no one leaves before then, I would really appreciate it.”

  “Very well, Miss,” he says and excuses himself.

  Between my broken heart and my impending empty home, I know I’m a sitting duck. A target. Jared won’t keep his distance for much longer. Destitution might just be a strong enough motivator to make me swallow my pride and my sense of self-preservation and agree to see him.

  Suddenly, an idea strikes me. I never went through my grandmother’s personal effects when she passed. I kept meaning to but once I got lost in the adventure that was being with Ash, I just put it off. Then he left, and it completely slipped my mind.

  There might be something there. Maybe a little note she wrote to herself. Maybe something else. It was the only lead I had now, and I was willing to do just about anything.

  I cross the house fast. I’m on a mission. My relationship with her wasn’t ever stellar, but there was no way she would leave me with no recourse. There has to be some money stashed away. Something.

  Anything.

  I don’t know if the desperation is clouding my judgment or not, but I’ll cling to any ray of light in this dreary situation.

  My grandmother’s room is exactly as she left it. A Rembrandt hangs over the mantel and there’s a Monet over her bed. I immediately discard the possibility that I might be able to fence them to get some relief funds. There’s an itemized inventory with the documents Jared gave me, and those two paintings are on it. I can’t sell them without his express permission, which he won’t grant me.

  After all, there’s nothing like financial dependency to keep me under his thumb.

  I explore every inch, nook, and cranny in the room and find nothing that looks promising. Damn it. Maybe my grandmother did trust Jared so completely and I was shit out of luck. I have to get used to that possibility because false hope won’t help me and it won’t save Redmond Estate.