Aiden clamped his jaw tight. He didn’t want to get involved, but as the lawyer spoke, faces flashed through his mind’s eye. The mill had stood for centuries, starting out as a simple cotton gin. Last Aiden had heard, it was a leading manufacturer in cotton products, specializing in high-end linens. James might be a bastard, but his insistence on quality had kept the company viable in a shaky economy. Aiden jammed a rough hand through his damp hair, probably making the spiky top stand on end.
Without warning, he felt a familiar surge of rebellion. “I don’t want to take over. I’ve never wanted to.” He strode across the plush carpet to stare out the window into the storm-shadowed distance. Tension tightened the muscles along the back of his neck and skull. Familial responsibility wasn’t his thing—anymore. He’d handed that job over to his brothers a long time ago.
Aiden realized he was shifting minutely from one foot to the other. Creeping in underneath the turbulence was a constant awareness of Christina’s presence, like a sizzle under his skin, loosening his control over his other emotions inch by inch. She drew him, kept part of his attention even when he was talking to the others. How had she come to be here? How long had she been here? Had she ever found a place to belong? The heightened emotion increased the tension in his neck. A dull headache started to form.
“You knew something like this was coming, considering your age—” Aiden gestured back toward the bed “—you should have sold. Or turned the business over to someone else. One of my brothers.”
“It isn’t their duty,” James insisted. “As firstborn, it’s yours—and way past time you learned your place.”
As if he could sense the rage starting to boil deep inside Aiden, Canton stepped in. “Mr. Blackstone wants the mill to remain a family institution that will continue to provide jobs and a center for the town. The only potential buyers we have want to tear it down and sell off the land.”
Aiden latched on to the family institution part. “Ah, the lasting name of Blackstone. Planned a monument yet?”
A weary yet insistent voice drifted from the bed. “I will do what needs to be done. And so will you.”
“How will you manage that? I walked out that door once. I’m more than happy to do it again.”
“Really? Do you think that’s the best thing for your mother?” James went on as if Aiden hadn’t spoken. “I’ve worked my entire life to build on the hard work of my own father. I will not let my life’s work disappear because you won’t do your duty. You will return where you belong. I’ll see to that.”
Aiden used his hand to squeeze away the tightness in his neck. “Oh, no. I’m not buying into that song and dance. As far as I’m concerned, this family line should die out. If the Blackstone name disappears, all the better.”
“I knew you’d feel that way,” his grandfather said with a long-suffering sigh. “That’s why I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”
* * *
Christina listened to the men spar with one another as if from a distance. Shock cocooned her inside her own bubble of fear.
Aiden’s gaze tracked the lawyer’s movements as he spoke, but Christina’s remained focused on Aiden. The impenetrable mask of rebellion and pride that shielded any softer emotions. The breadth of his shoulders. The ripple of muscles in his chest and forearms, reminding her of his strength, his dominance.
Could a man that strong prevail over someone with James’s history of cunning maneuvers, both business and personal?
“Why don’t you just lay it out for me,” Aiden said, his voice curt, commanding the immense space of the master suite. A shiver worked its way down Christina’s spine. “The condensed version.”
This time, Canton didn’t look to James for permission. Proving he learned quickly, he cleared his throat and continued.
“Your grandfather set up legal documents covering all the angles,” he said, pulling a fat pack of papers from his briefcase. “It essentially hands you the rights to the mill and Blackstone Manor.”
“I told you,” Aiden said. “I don’t want it. Sell it.”
Christina’s throat closed in sympathy and fear.
“We can,” Canton said. “The interested buyer is a major competitor, who will shut it down and sell it piece by piece. Including the land Mill Row is built on. And every last one of the people living in those fifty houses will be turned out so their homes can be torn down.”
James joined in with relish. “The money from the sale will make a splendid law library at the university. Not the legacy I’d planned,” he said with a shrug. “But it’ll do.”
Canton paused, but James wasn’t one for niceties. “Go on,” he insisted.
Canton hesitated a moment more, which surprised Christina. She hadn’t cared for the weaselly man from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, and his kowtowing to James had only reinforced her first impressions. For him to resist the old man—even in a small way—was new. Maybe having to face the person whose life he was ruining awakened a small bit of conscience.
“If you choose not to take over, Mr. Blackstone will exercise his power of attorney over his daughter to place her in the county care facility. Immediately.”
A cry lodged in Christina’s throat before it escaped as she envisioned the chaos this would unleash, the disruption and danger to Lily, Aiden’s mother. She’d cared for Lily for five years, from the moment Christina had received her nursing degree. But Lily had been a second mother to her long before that, the type of mother she’d never had. The last thing she’d allow to happen would be handing Lily over for substandard care.
Aiden’s intense gaze swiveled to search the dark recess where she stood. The shadows comforted her, helped her separate from the confrontation playing out before her. But that intense gaze pulled her forcibly into the present. His brows drew together in concern, the only emotion to soften him so far. She could literally feel every time his gaze zeroed in on her—a mixture of nerves and a physical reaction she’d never experienced before today.
But then his eyes narrowed on his grandfather, his face hardening once more. “What would happen to Mother there?”
James smiled, as his hateful words emerged from taunting lips. “Christina, I believe you’ve been to the county care facility, haven’t you? During your schooling, wasn’t it? Tell Aiden about it.”
Christina winced as she imagined what Aiden must be thinking. Only someone as manipulative and egocentric as James could determine that this scenario—disowning his own invalid daughter—was the best way to preserve his little kingdom. Her voice emerged rusty and strained. “It’s gotten an inferior rating for as many years as I’ve been a nurse, and it’s had regular complaints brought against it for neglect...but very little has been done because it’s the only place here that will take in charity cases for the elderly or disabled.”
“How do you know I don’t have enough money to take away that option?” Aiden asked, a touch of his grandfather’s arrogance bleeding onto that handsome face.
Canton replied. “You can try, but with power of attorney, your grandfather has the final say.”
“We’ll
