the cottage and property and arrange to donate—”
“Don’t start anything,” Garrett said. “We need time to think about this.” He paused. “Robin specifically said that she and I are to share the cottage for an entire month? And then each of us will own half of it?”
Marrow nodded.
“May I have a copy?” It wasn’t a request, but a royal command.
“Of course.” The older man rose. “I’ll have one made for each of you right now. Excuse me.” And he left the room.
Ana wished she could leave the room. When she glanced up, Garrett was staring at her with narrowed eyes. She bit her lip, not knowing what to say. She honestly couldn’t blame him for being angry and she felt a surprising spurt of annoyance penetrate the sense of loss she felt for her father. Robin had put them both in an untenable position.
Garrett cleared his throat. “I’m taking this to another legal expert. It can’t be as ironclad as that old fool wants us to think. I’m assuming you don’t want to be saddled with half a cottage in Maine?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. But—”
“Good. I’ll buy you out. Pay you a fair market value for your half.”
“You’re familiar with this place?”
It was amazing. The moment her words registered, his face changed. There wasn’t a great difference but something…softened. His eyes warmed to a glowing blue. She was astonished. The small shift in his expression made him dangerously compelling and even more seductively attractive than he already was—and he hadn’t even smiled. If she were a smart woman, she’d keep him angry, because if he ever directed a look like that at her, she’d probably be his slave for life.
“Robin and I went there together every summer,” he said, his eyes unfocused, his face gentler than she’d have thought a man as hard as he appeared to be could manage. “We’d fish and canoe around the lake looking for loons and eagles’ nests.” Then his gaze cooled as he focused on the present—on her—again. “It means a hell of a lot more to me than it ever will to you.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. Robin had left her half of the cottage; it must have been very special to him. What was there that he’d wanted her to see badly enough to insist that she share it with her stepbrother for a whole month? And then it struck her. The odd phrasing: “…if each person…is unmarried…”
“I think,” she said hesitantly, “I think he might have been trying to set us up.”
“Set us up?” Garrett repeated. “As in romantically? You and me?” There was a wealth of disbelief and disgust in his tone. “That’s an extraordinarily self-serving bit of wishful thinking. Robin never would have done anything so…so…distasteful.”
She flinched, sliced to the bone by his cruelty, not understanding it. “What have I ever done—”
“Or maybe,” he said, “it’s hopefulness. Did you really think you could hook me after Robin died?”
She sucked in a quick gasp of shock, both at the crude question and the hateful tone in which it was delivered. “I didn’t think enough about you to consider the idea.” Her voice was shaking and she hated the tears that sprang to her eyes. “And even if I had, you can rest assured that meeting you would have changed my mind instantly.”
“Good.” He was infuriatingly unfazed by her verbal arrows. “I’ll buy out your half of the cottage and as soon as we sign the papers, neither one of us will ever have to see the other again.”
“Fine.” She stood and marched to the door, not waiting for the lawyer’s return. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more than signing you out of my life.”
It wasn’t until she got home that she calmed down enough to think about the ugly scene again. And when she did, her hand flew to her mouth in stunned shock at the implications of his behavior. He didn’t know who she was. Or, to put it more accurately, he didn’t know what she was.
Did you really think you could hook me after Robin died? Emphasis on the me.
He thought she was Robin’s…his…his lover!
Word by word, expression by expression, she reviewed each moment of the three times they’d met. And as she did, her anger grew. And grew, and grew.
How dare he jump to a conclusion like that? Oh, she could admit that it might not be such an illogical one to make, but she knew he’d known Robin for years, ever since Robin had married his mother. How could he not have trusted Robin’s integrity? How could he even imagine Robin would take up with a girl of her age? She was furious with Garrett for Robin’s sake as much as for her own.
Nasty, bloody-minded pervert. There wasn’t a word bad enough to describe him, with his sewage-for-brains stupid assumptions. If only she had some way to make him sorry. How she wished she were a man. How she wished she could—
She could! She had in her hands a wonderfully wicked way to pay him back for his rude, callous actions.
She actually rubbed her hands together, cackling with glee as she decided how best to flummox Mr. Gutter-mind Garret Holden. Obviously that property meant quite a bit to him. He’d shared special moments there with her father. She suffered a pang of conscience for a moment. Her father had loved Garrett. God knew why, but he had. Still…Garrett apparently hadn’t loved or understood Robin as he should have or he never would have believed for a minute that his stepfather would have an affair with her.
And that reminder solidified her desire to pay him back. She nearly leaped for the phone and called him, but thank the Lord she came to her senses before she did. She could wait. She would wait, until he was forced to come to her.
He called her the next day, full of unctuous courtesy. It was amusing. She wondered what he really wanted to say, but when he asked if he could come by that evening, she merely agreed. “It’ll have to be after ten, though,” she said. “I’m working tonight and I won’t be home until then.”
“I didn’t realize you had a job.” His tone was stiff.
Oh, this was too good a chance to miss. “Of course. My schedule changes from week to week, so I never know whether I’m going to be working days or nights or both.”
There had been an ominous silence on the other end of the line and she’d had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at his expense. Oh, she couldn’t wait to tell him who she was. He was going to feel so foolish and she would make certain she was there to see the moment.
But aloud, all she said was, “So I’ll see you around ten, then?”
“Ten it is.” And he hung up without even a farewell.
That evening, luck was with her and she didn’t have any late tables, so she was home shortly before ten. She took a quick shower to rid herself of the food odors, dried her hair enough to scrunch wild curls around her face, and sprayed herself liberally with her favorite scent, an expensive one she wore rarely but figured was appropriate for this evening. Then she dressed in a white silk blouse cut in a discreet vee, a slim, short black skirt, and a pair of high-heeled pumps that made her legs look a mile long. Battle gear. She supposed she might look like an expensive hooker, if
