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I shake my head. “But I just want to sell it. I don’t want to stay in town, Aurie. Please. I can’t stay here.”
Her brows lower, her gaze going a little soft. “It’ll just be for a week, tops. Long enough to get everything in order.” She reaches over and pats my hand. “Everything will be fine, Vee. I promise.”
Leaning back, I swallow thickly. “I don’t have a place to stay. I can’t sleep in that house.” As evidenced by my sleeping outside on a lounge chair last night.
Aurie straightens. “Oh, I can help with that. There’s a house over in Muncie. A sweet little bungalow that a client of mine is going to put on Airbnb. I know it’s fully furnished. I’m sure they would let you rent it for a song for as long as you need.”
I’m immediately suspicious. “If it’s fully furnished, why isn’t it listed yet?”
She waves a hand before typing something on her computer. “I have no clue. I just know it’s sitting there empty.”
I hum, considering. My options are to either stay in my grandmother’s house during construction, or paying out the nose for a hotel and eating out all the time. This is definitely better than that, having a full house with a kitchen where I can cook meals. “Fine.”
Aurie nods. “Good, because it is a condition of your grandmother’s will that you stay in the city until you sell the house. If you don’t, then any profits from the sale will go to a local charity.”
I almost snort at the idea of my grandmother donating anything to a charity. But then, this isn’t really about that. It’s just one more ‘fuck you’ to me from her. Forcing me to live through the trauma of having my pack reject me again. “Awesome.”
Aurie’s brows wrinkle as she pulls up something else on the computer. “The good news is you have access to her bank account to help with the repairs.”
At that I do laugh, a humorless sound. “Oh goody, that will definitely help restore a freaking mansion.” Sarcasm drips from the words.
Aurie pins me with a look. “It should be enough to get it in pretty good shape. She has almost a half million dollars.”
I blink. There’s no way I heard that right. None whatsoever. When I lived with her, we weren’t destitute. We had money from my grandfather’s pension and her retirement. But I know for a fact it wasn’t anywhere near a half million dollars. That was part of the reason she pushed me so hard to become a part of the Werth pack. They have so much money it’s obscene.
She was sure they would take care of her right along with me.
She had no idea they hated her as much as I did, maybe even more. She wouldn’t have seen a cent from them. Not a single penny.
I swallow thickly, force my mouth to move. “Can you… do you have records of deposits made? Of when she amassed that amount?”
Aurie slowly shakes her head. “I don’t have the records here, but take this.” She slides a piece of paper over the desk to me. “To the bank, and they should be able to transfer the account to your name. Once that’s done, you’ll have access to all withdrawals and deposits in the account.”
I leave the paper where it is, and lace my fingers together. “Thank you.”
She smiles at me. “No problem.” Her phone dings and she looks at it. “Oh, good! That’s my client. They say they would be happy to let you stay at their house. The lock is a keypad. I’ll shoot you the address and the code to get in. As well as the code to the alarm system.” She looks up at me. “They say you can move in tomorrow.”
I take a deep breath, trying to push back the overwhelmed feeling battering me. I thought this was going to be a fast trip. In and out. One day tops. Now it’s turning into so much more. I’ve run into Jackson and Davis Werth, two men who broke my heart. I have the feeling if I stay in town any longer, I’ll run into all of them eventually. They aren’t buying the whole ‘I don’t know you shtick’ I’ve been pulling, and I can’t blame them. It was idiotic and childish to start it. But it was my honest knee jerk reaction.
If I stay, I’ll have to talk with them. Hash out old wounds and broken hearts, and I’m not sure I can stand to do that. Especially if they try to talk to me about Yasmin, their perfect omega.
I’m pretty sure that will kill me.
I don’t need the money from the sale of the house. I make enough between my two businesses to live a comfortable life. Even if I didn’t, the Kinsella pack would give me anything I need. But they’ve already done so much for me, I don’t want to take anything more from them. Selling the house means financial freedom to some extent. I could do less accounting and more book binding. I could travel, see the world on my time, and not with a pack of alphas and one anxious omega hovering around me. Like when the Kinsellas took me on a trip to Europe. It was fun, but their love can be stifling.
All I have to do is stay in town long enough to fix up a house and sell it.
I can do that.
Right?
After giving Aurora the go ahead on the little bungalow, I told her I’d need to run home to grab enough stuff for an extended stay. I’m hoping like hell it’ll be a month, but I know home renovations take a lot longer than that.
Months.
That’s what I’m looking at. Months of being here, in this city that I’ve avoided like the plague for seven years.
Aurie agrees that if I return to Lake Kilrose for the night and come back tomorrow, it shouldn’t affect my ability to inherit the house and the surprisingly large bank account, since the paperwork hasn’t been submitted.
