Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Enid had notified the housekeeping staff that Mr. G was expecting visitors and asked for fresh linens and towels. They’d done their job, for sure. Every corner was dusted and nothing seemed out of place. It was…lovely.
We made turkey sandwiches and a fruit salad and brought our lunch and a bottle of Pinot Grigio outside. The deck was shielded from the wind by a copse of eucalyptus trees on either side. And if you walked to the end of the grassy area beyond a row of lemon trees, you could see the Pacific.
We found a weather-worn wooden bench at the edge of the property, grabbed a throw blanket from the living room, and leaned against each other for warmth as we sipped wine and took in the view.
“Beautiful,” Pierce murmured reverently, his gaze fixed on the ocean.
I breathed in the sea with a contented sigh. “I understand why they loved this place. The air feels…healing.”
“Hmm. Yeah, I guess it does.”
“What are you thinking?”
He sighed. “I’m thinking that a tiny bungalow like this is worth a lot of money.”
I lifted my wineglass to my lips. “How much?”
“Many, many millions.”
I almost spit my wine out. “How? It’s not on the water, and I think most investors would tear the house down.”
Pierce wrapped his arm around me when I shivered. “They’d for sure demolish the house and probably all of the trees, build a designer spec home, and sell it for ten million or more.”
My jaw dropped. “No fucking way.”
“Way. My brother knows it too.”
“Your brother?”
“He wants to meet Jasper.”
I frowned. “What are you gonna do?”
“What can I do? I’m not Jasper’s keeper. Enid can refuse visitors, I suppose, but Phil thinks he’s on to something. He’ll eventually learn that David was Mom’s cousin and…you can probably figure out how that will go.”
“You think he’d sue Mr. Gowan?”
“No. I think he wants to screw with me.” Pierce swiped his hand through his hair and sighed. “Phil wouldn’t have known about Jasper if the studio hadn’t gone for the ‘family values’ angle to shore up my reputation. And he sure as fuck wouldn’t have cared if he hadn’t found out the old man is wealthy. Now he can claim that my mom was close to her deceased cousin and that Jasper is playing favorites or anything, really. Any bullshit story will do. Doesn’t matter what it is. Seb won’t want my name involved.”
“So the studio would pay your brother to keep his mouth shut.”
“Bingo.”
“That’s…despicable,” I glowered. “Don’t let Seb do that. Don’t let your brother have a dime.”
“It would be more like a million or two. And I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s pocket change to Rourke Studios.” He swigged the last of his wine and set it on the other end of the bench. “They’ll want to keep him quiet. Baxter wouldn’t befriend an old guy and cheat his brother out of a small fortune, and if there was even an inkling that Pierce Allen would do such a thing…PR nightmare.”
“Geez.”
“I know.” He was quiet for a minute. “I still wonder why my mom never mentioned her cousin.”
His mother was the one person Pierce never talked about. She was gone, but she was obviously the common denominator here. I hated to pry, but I was too curious now.
“What was she like?”
Pierce narrowed his eyes and stared into the distance. “She was…beautiful, complicated. She was into gardening and embroidering, and she liked cats. She was a secretary at the local junior college. She was smart, but she was kind of…tired, beaten down.”
“Oh.”
“She and my dad were terrible together. They hated each other. She came from one side of the tracks, he came from the other. All the qualities that excited them at one point became their greatest faults. He drank too much and she liked it when he passed out, so she made sure there was always booze around. They were the stereotypical abuser and enabler.
“You can imagine that was a great environment to grow up in. A constant battle raged between them and kids were just…fuel for the fire. Phil was like my dad—and me…fuck, I never wanted to be like either of them.”
“Oh.”
“You asked me once if my mother was my champion. The answer is no, she wasn’t. But we connected sometimes. We were buddies when I was younger. I’d help her pull weeds in the garden or we’d watch movies together. An hour here, an hour there. Throwaway moments you don’t think about until they’re gone.” He shifted to face me and gave a humorless laugh. “My mom helped me pack and held the door open for me when I was a teenager, and that—that fucked with my head. I knew that she was going through her own shit with my dad, but…she let me go so fucking easily, and I hated her for it.”