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She stood there, her hands shaking.
“Where do you keep the broom and dustpan?”
Savannah shook her head, as if she were coming out of a daze. She stooped to clean up the mess. “I’ve got it.”
“You’re in your bare feet.” He gestured toward her. “You’re going to—”
“Ouch.” She lifted her bleeding foot; a shard of glass was embedded in it.
“Sit down,” he instructed, glad she complied without further argument. “There must be a first-aid kit around here. Where is it?”
“In the linen closet in the hall.” She drew her foot onto her lap and examined it.
Blake went to the hallway and opened the closet. He spotted the white metal box with red lettering on the top shelf. He pulled it down and looked inside. There were bandages, gauze, alcohol wipes and a few other items. He grabbed a clean washcloth and went to the bathroom to wet it. When he wrung it out, he knocked something to the floor.
Blake froze, his eyes focused on the white-and-blue stick.
A pregnancy test.
His heart thudded against his rib cage. He retrieved it from the floor and read the word on the screen over and over. As if it would change if he read it one more time.
Savannah is pregnant.
Blake swallowed hard, his mouth dry. Was that the whole point of this game? For Savannah to bear an Abbott heir?
His head was in a dense fog and the room was spinning. He returned to the living room, his steps leaden.
He handed her the first-aid kit and washcloth. “You still haven’t told me. What was your objective in coming here?”
Savannah seemed to sense the anger vibrating off him. She pulled a set of tweezers from the first-aid kit and tugged the piece of glass from her foot.
“To restore my grandfather’s legacy and get what’s owed to him.”
“Money. That’s what this is all about.” He’d encountered lots of women whose only interest in him had been his family’s fortune and name. Until now, he’d never imagined Savannah Carlisle was one of them. “That’s all it’s ever been about for you.”
Her chin dropped to her chest and her eyes—already red and puffy—looked wet.
“Don’t look at me as if I’m some moneygrubbing gold digger. I’m not here for a handout. I only want what’s owed to my grandfather.”
“You want King’s Finest.” His gut churned as the realization dawned on him. “That’s why you’ve worked so hard to grow the company’s sales. You hope to acquire it.”
“Only the half that belongs to my grandfather.” She sat taller, meeting his gaze. “We don’t want anything we didn’t earn.”
“And how exactly is it that you earned half of King’s Finest?”
“By providing your grandfather with the recipe he’s used to build his fortune.” She narrowed her gaze at him. “And I think I’m being generous in saying we’re only entitled to half the company. A jury might make the argument that all of the profits should go to our family.”
“Bullshit.” Blake’s face was hot and his heart beat like a war drum. “If you thought you had a legitimate claim, why not take it to court? Why all of the cloak-and-dagger corporate espionage?”
“My grandfather doesn’t have any proof.”
“If the recipe is his, it should be easy enough to prove.” He gestured angrily. “Take a bottle of King’s Finest to a chemist to see if his recipe and ours are the same.”
“It isn’t that simple.” Savannah lowered her gaze, focusing on cleaning her wound and opening a bandage. “He no longer has the recipe. It got lost in the fire at our apartment.”
“Why would your grandfather have entrusted something so important to someone else?”
Her cheeks reddened. “I…I don’t know.”
“Then how did you intend to prove that our bourbon recipe is his?” He stepped closer.
She bit her lower lip and avoided his gaze.
“Remember our deal? Tell me the truth, in its entirety. Or we’ll go after your grandfather and sister, too.”
Savannah repositioned herself on the sofa. “I hoped to find evidence that would corroborate Granddad’s story.”
“That’s why you were in the archives that night. Looking for proof of your grandfather’s involvement in creating the original recipe.” Her expression confirmed his theory. “And did you find anything besides the photo and notepad?”
“No, but maybe if I’d had more time to search the files or to talk to more people—”
“Like my grandfather.” Blake swallowed hard, remembering that his grandfather had looked perturbed and had gone home soon after his conversation with Savannah.
