AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She didn’t know what he’d done for her and her precious fucking company. No idea what he’d ignored in order to helpherwithherproblems.
He typed and deleted several such statements, while the nagging voice in the back of his brain nattered at him.And why did you do that? Why are you still here?
Do you understand what I mean by get the fuck off?came her next text, like a fireball down a pipe.
Just like that, as if the snap of her manicured, texting fingers had triggered it, he was back to the hulking, panting, chained beast she always turned him into. A mindless animal under her witchy spell.
He held his breath, feeling the cold wood of the floorboards under his feet, fighting to get back to the Montgomery whose only concern was his company. Now he could only see the sophisticated desk under that dull, oppressive December light.
“Shiße!” he roared and threw his phone toward the desk. It hit one of those elegant, cabriole legs and shattered into several pieces.
CHAPTER4
Hartley gripped the steering wheel of the rental car as she drove through the iron gate, the paved road winding its way through the expansive property.
The drizzly rain fell relentlessly from a gray sky, casting a somber mood over everything, especially her thoughts.
Everything sucked.
Leaving the sunny Caymans sucked. Getting berated like a child by Yuki sucked. Getting sick on the flight had totally sucked. Even coming back to Cavendish, which she had grown to love, sucked.
Driving past the properties was like a bullet list of her failures.
First bullet was the charred, partially restored Treehouse. She wouldn’t have quite noticed it except for the bright orange dumpster someone had moved between the hedge and the road. Perfect.
Past the Hirojuki Temple to the Sun House that Lawrence, a previous employee, had trashed. If she went all the way around and behind the castle, she’d get to the compound. Somewhere back there was where Lawrence’s body had been found last week, not to mention all the fence breaches where—obviously—someone kept getting in to sabotage the company.
“Fucking hell,” she muttered, slowing the sad-ass rental to ten miles an hour.
Yuki had sold her a thriving business and an incredible parcel of real estate. There were nine opulent properties, a testing facility, a security headquarters, and the means to use the facilities to make them all rich.
Driving by property after property, her confidence faded even more. Should she have handed it all back to Yuki? It would have settled her debt with Davos, but then she’d have nothing to give her sorority sisters. They’d walked away from jobs, careers, and safer lives to join her, all on the strength of their sisterhood. And she’d given them ashes.
In a few minutes she’d be pulling up to the English Manor, where she’d have to face Monty. She couldn’t imagine her text telling him to get off the property had had any impact. He was more stubborn than she was when someone tried to tell him what to do.
Thinking his name sent her mind buzzing. She toyed with the idea of getting a restraining order against him, but then remembered she hadn’t even filed for divorce.
He’d been interfering in her business affairs almost from the day she signed the purchase agreement for Cavendish. And now, with the discovery of a body on the property, she imagined he’d want to insert himself even more.
It wasn’t fair. She’d had one rule in their marriage, andhe’dbroken it. Sure, she’d threatened to cripple him in the divorce, but did that give him any right to interfere in her business?
She blew out a long breath, focusing on the real problem.
Ten days. That was all she had to finish up whatever police investigation Montgomery had kick-started and attract more customers to the club. They needed revenue, and she refused to think she might have squandered all her contacts.
The pressure weighed heavily on her. She shouldn’t be thinking about this sober. She had her best ideas when she had a buzz, and if she could get to the Manor’s liquor cabinet in the library, she’d be reinforced when she had to deal with Monty.
She sped up as she passed the Roman Temple, then heard a buzzing from her purse. She fished it out, and surprised by the name on the screen, she answered the call. “Claire?” She pulled the rental to the side of the road.
Despite her bravado of just a few seconds ago, the hand holding the phone trembled. Claire was the first Sigma sister she’d approached about partnering in Cavendish. If Claire had said no, she would have backed off.
She hadn’t been closest to Claire in college. They were opposites in every way. But the girl knew her shit—about people, about the law, and about risk—and Hartley respected that. Claire was also a steadying influence on Hartley’s stubborn anger, which could be an epic, scorched-earth kind of rage.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Claire replied, her voice hesitant.
“If you’re telling me you and Eli are still in South America, I won’t be too upset. Things have really gone to shit here, so—”
“No, Eli and I are back,” she interrupted.
