“I’m getting the signal.” Henry gives his mouth a wipe with his napkin and then reaches under the table to lightly squeeze my knee. “You good?”
“Yes. Of course. I’ll just be thinking about how best to collect my winnings.” I smile sweetly at him.
He leans in to whisper against my ear, “Just remember, I have much darker proclivities than you do and many ways to exact revenge.”
A shiver runs through my body.
Smoothly standing from his seat at the dinner table, he heads for the dais at the front of the golf club’s ballroom, where a microphone waits for him to give his thank-you speech. Behind him is a wall of windows with a panoramic view of the rolling green hills and a setting sun.
I watch his even, sleek steps with a smile. He didn’t play nearly as well on the back nine. He still beat George, of course, but George made several comments about how distracted he seemed.
“So, where did you two meet?” Anastasia asks, her elbows on the table, her owlish gray eyes shifting from her overt admiration for Henry’s hard ass to my face. I’d put her in her early thirties—twenty-five years younger than George, I heard him telling someone. She’s his third wife.
Also, I’m pretty sure she’s drunk.
“At work. I was his assistant.”
“Really….” Her perfectly shaped blonde eyebrows rise as she gives me a once-over. “I didn’t take him for the type to date the help.” There’s nothing polite about that look or her words, but Henry already warned me that she can be belligerent once she passes the three-glass mark.
He also warned me that she’d hit on him at some point in the night. Likely right in front of her husband.
I force a wide smile. “We didn’t start dating until after I quit.”
“And what are you doin’ now that you’ve left Wolf, hon?” Shelly asks with her southern croon. She’s Dyson’s age-appropriate wife from Tennessee, and I could kiss her for steering the conversation away. Henry said she was a sweet lady and would help serve as a good buffer.
I tell Shelly—and by default, Anastasia, and Rick’s wife, Tami—about my dad’s injury and the farm. “So I’m going to finish my last year by correspondence and help out where I can there. And I’m starting my own little soaps company. It’s nothing big, but Henry’s helping me with the business side. I have no idea how to do any of that, and he’s so good with it. He really wants me to do it.” I’m babbling, but Shelly only smiles encouragingly.
“Wolf is going into the soap business now?” Anastasia mumbles through another sip of champagne.
“Farm Girl Co. That’s a great name,” Tami says politely, ignoring her. “Tell me more about it.”
I spend the next five minutes explaining how I started, and what Nailed It has done for me so far. I even show her a few professionally staged pictures of the packaging that Zaheera sent over. I let Margo’s name slip, because I figure she wouldn’t mind.
“I take it Henry’s backing you?” Tami asks, her sharp green eyes narrowed as if keenly interested. She’s an attractive woman in her late thirties, by my guess, with shoulder-length brown hair and creamy skin.
“Oh, no. I mean, we haven’t talked about it but I want to do this on my own. Or at least try. He’s already done more than enough.”
“Well, it sounds like you have a great product.” She reaches into her purse and hands me a card. “I own a kickstarter company. We’re always looking for great new ideas to invest in. Give me a call.”
“Oh, wow. Okay… thank you.” I’m not entirely sure what a kickstarter company is, but I’m not about to make myself look stupid by asking.
I tuck the card into my purse as a server comes around to clear our plates. A second swoops in immediately after with a carafe of coffee.
“Here, Anastasia. I’ll bet you could use one of these,” Shelly says, shifting her champagne out of reach.
Anastasia grumbles something but doesn’t argue, her fingers twirling absently in her hair, her big eyes locked on Henry, who’s speaking to a man. He’s moments away from giving his thank-you speech. “Gosh, I never realized how much Henry looks like his father. His brother sure got the short end of that stick.”
That’s because he doesn’t have William Wolf’s DNA.
I wonder how long before people find out.
“Where is his brother, anyway?”
“I guess he couldn’t make it,” I answer politely, occupying myself by pouring cream into my coffee, pretending the topic of Scott isn’t a sore one.
“Hmm….” Her fingers keeping twirling through her hair. “I never did find out what that huge fight was about.”
I frown. “What huge fight?”
“The one Scott and William had right here, in the dining room. Over there.” She says it like it’s so obvious, pointing to an area by the window. “I don’t know what William said to Scott, but whoa, was Scott ever pissed. He must feel the ass, though, if he didn’t apologize.”
Unease begins slipping down my back. “When was this fight?”
“The morning before he died! Are you not listening!”
I ignore her rudeness. “Scott and William were here the morning before William died, and they had a huge fight?”
“Yes!” she exclaims, irritated. She reaches past her coffee for her champagne.
“Good evening, everyone.” Henry’s smooth, deep voice radiates from the speaker system, ending my chance to ask anymore.
I listen to the ten-minute speech that he so eloquently gives, thanking everyone for attending and their generous contributions to the children’s hospital charity fund. He earns shock and applause when he shares the staggering fundraising total. He even slides in several effortless jokes that have everyone laughing and the woman in the room swooning.
While I’m brimming with pride that the man up there is mine, my mind keeps going back to Anastasia’s claims of this huge fight between Scott and William the morning before William died. Scott told Henry that he hadn’t seen or spoken to his father in the week leading up to his death.
Is Henry mistaken? No… Henry’s never mistaken, even when he’s drunk.
So Scott lied to him.
Why? What was this fight about?
Did Scott know about William’s intentions to cut him out of the will after all?
~ ~ ~
“And he said that. You heard him say that?” Henry looms over the pint-sized server.
“Yes. I mean, I think so. I mean….” The poor girl trembles as her gaze drifts from an intimidating Henry, to Dyson, to the dining staff manager, then to me who’s loitering in the back of this staff hallway beside the dining hall. “The older man, Mr. Wolf… I mean, your father, told the younger guy that he didn’t deserve to be called a Wolf and that he’d make sure he couldn’t do any more damage.”
I wasn’t planning on mentioning anything to Henry until we got home. But when he finished his speech and came down to the table, he could see the worry etched into my face and demanded to know what had happened, who had upset me, what had been said. So I had to tell him.
I watched his eyes as pieces fell into place, and I knew what he was thinking before he stormed out of the dining hall to find the server who’d been working that day, Dyson in quick pursuit of us.
Henry turns his menacing glare toward Dyson now. “He knew about the audit.” They share a knowing look. “I want that son of a bitch investigated. I want to know where he was the night my father died. And if he had anything to do with—”
“I’m on it,” Dyson cuts him off, pulling his phone out. He points to the frightened server. “You, come with me.” To the dining manager, he demands, “I want the schedule of everyone working that night. I need….” He rattles off a dozen instructions. He may be a lawyer, but I can see why Henry goes to him with messes. “Go home and don’t talk to anyone about this. And stay the hell away from your brother, Henry,” he warns in a stern voice.
“He’s no brother of mine,” Henry growls, pacing like a caged animal. “I’m going to kill that mother—” His words are muffled by the sound of dishes crashing into the wall as he sends a dish trolley flying.
“Take him out through the back door and get his car around,” Dyson tells the manager. “He doesn’t need to be near anyone right now.”
I struggle to keep up as we weave through an enormous kitchen in the midst of cleanup and then down a maze of employee hallways. Henry’s black Porsche sails up as the exterior doors are opening for us. The valet hops out, his curious eyes on us as Henry passes him without a word and climbs into the driver side. If this place is anything like Wolf Cove, rumors of this will be swirling into every nook and cranny by midnight.
I offer the young guy a smile of thanks as he shuts the door behind me. I barely have my seatbelt on before the engine is revving and we’re speeding away from the golf club, the blue skies and talk of deep feelings squashed by the dark night and even darker suspicions.
~ ~ ~
The tires of the Porsche come to a screeching halt in the valet area of an unfamiliar high-rise.
“Where are we?”
“Stay here,” Henry demands, climbing out with purpose.
While I’m relieved to be back in Manhattan and in one piece—Henry tested his car’s capabilities by racing all the way home—my frazzled senses are telling me he shouldn’t be doing whatever he’s about to do. That’s why I follow him out.
“Good evening, Mr. Wolf! I’ll buzz your brother to let him know you’re on your way up. Would you like us to park your car?”
Buzz your brother.
Oh my God, this is Scott’s house.
“Henry, no!” I run to intercept him.
“Abigail,” he warns in a low tone, his jaw hard, looking ready to shove me out of the way.
To the doorman holding open the door, I say, “Do not tell Scott that we’re here. Do not park the car.”
He looks from Henry to me, uncertainty written all over his face.
“Can you please give us a moment?” I ask, overly calm, to counter my rising panic.
“Sure thing, miss.” With a slight frown, he shuffles to the other side of the door.
“Henry, you heard Dyson,” I warn calmly.
“I don’t give a fuck about what Dyson said. Get out of my way.” He reaches for the door handle behind me, intent on pushing me aside to get through.
I step into him, grabbing his forearm, corded with tense muscles. “And what are you going to accomplish by going in there right now?”
“What am I going to accomplish?” He’s crowding me, and I’m forced to take a step back, My back hits the glass. “I’m going to find out if that bastard somehow slipped my father a pill that he knew would kill him!” In his eyes, I see the pain that he didn’t reveal earlier at the golf club.
“And then what? You two can’t be in a room together for more than five minutes under normal circumstances. What’s going to happen this time around?” By the steely look on Henry’s face, by the tension radiating from his body, by the tight fists hanging at his sides, nothing good will come of it. I drop my voice to a whisper. “You just said you were going to kill him in front of four people, plus whoever else heard. You can’t go in there, and you’re smart enough to know you can’t, so stop being stupid and let Dyson and the police do their jobs! Do not throw your entire life away because of what he might have done!”
My words must finally sink in.
“God damn it!” he bursts, marching back to his car. He stalls in front of it to cover his face with his hands. Hands that are shaking.
I give him a gentle push toward the passenger side. “Get in. I’ll drive us home, if you’ll just tell me where to go.”
~ ~ ~
“Go to bed.”
“You first,” I mumble into Henry’s chest, fighting my exhaustion. The nights are much too cool to be lying on this lounge chair on Henry’s rooftop deck at 2:00 a.m., but that’s where he is, so that’s where I’m staying, curled up into his body, my arms wrapped around his torso, welcoming the heat that radiates from his body.
“I’m not going to Scott’s. I’m not going to ruin my life.”
“Good.”
“But I might have, had you not stopped me.”
“It’s a good thing you keep me around then.” I don’t think my words even make much sense anymore.
Gentle fingers stroke my hair back, over and over again, lulling me. My eyelids are too heavy to open. “Thank you for standing up to me. For caring enough.”
In my thoughts, I smile, but answering will take too much effort so I don’t even bother.
Henry shifts, and then I feel myself being lifted and carried into warmth, and settled into Henry’s soft, king-sized bed. My ears catch the sound of a zipper pulling and then Henry’s hands are on my body, sliding my dress off and then removing my bra and the panties I put back on before dinner.
“Abbi,” Henry whispers into the dark, pressing his warm body against mine, pulling the silky white sheets over us.
I drift off to the feel of his soft lips pressed against mine, the sound of his voice murmuring something I don’t quite catch.
