I stared into my glass, seeing my distorted reflection in the amber liquid. “What if making it right means losing everything I have?”
“Then you’ll find out what you’re really made of, won’t you?”
The old man had a way of cutting straight to the heart of things that was both infuriating and clarifying. I’d spent my whole life having everything handed to me, never having to make a choice that actually cost me something. The biggest risk I’d ever taken was showing up late to a board meeting.
“My father will cut me off,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“So?”
“So I’ll have nothing.”
Phineas snorted. “Except your integrity.”
CHAPTER 43
SYLVIE
After pulling myself together enough to function, I made my way to my parents’ house. Dad was sitting at the dining room table, likely waiting for me. I could hear Mom in the kitchen. The familiar sounds of her baking—the clatter of cookie sheets, the opening and closing of the oven—providing a comforting backdrop to what I knew was going to be a devastating conversation.
I could only imagine how pissed my dad was going to be at me. I was the one that brought the idea to them. I thought I was delivering good news. He would be disappointed in my naivete. I couldn’t blame him. But the offer was going to come whether I slept with the enemy or not. That much I knew.
Dad looked at me. And yep, there was disappointment in his eyes.
“Did you read this?” he asked quietly.
“Apparently not as well as I should have,” I muttered.
“Do you understand what this is?” His calmness was far more disturbing than the anger I knew was bubbling beneath the surface like a volcano getting ready to blow.
The Bancroft paperwork was spread across the table.
“I do now,” I answered.
His demeanor changed into a storm of anger and betrayal. I’d never seen him look quite like this. His jaw was clenched so tight I worried about his teeth. I said nothing and chose to brace myself for the coming explosion.
“This is insulting,” he said. “The sheer audacity of the Bancrofts thinking this washelpingus. This doesn’t help us, Sylvie. This destroys us. With one fatal blow.”
I nodded. My own anger and hurt were temporarily overshadowed by Dad’s rage.
“They want to buy the land outright,” he continued, his voice rising. “Displace our entire family, flatten everything we’ve built over generations, and drill for oil. Oil! And they have the gall to present it as if they’re doing us a favor, as if two hundred million dollars makes up for erasing our family’s legacy!”
“Harold, keep your voice down,” Mom said. “The guests at the lodge will hear you.”
That was doubtful but she was trying to make a point.
I sat in the chair across from him, feeling like a child who’d brought home a failing report card. There was nothing I could say that would make this better. No explanation that would undo the damage I’d caused by trusting Kent Bancroft.
“Do you have any idea what this means for everyone who works for us?” Dad continued, his voice shaking with fury. “Bill Anderson with his horses? The seasonal workers who depend on Christmas tree sales? The housekeeping staff at the lodge? They’ll all lose their jobs. And for what? So some oil company can tear up the land that’s been in our family for over three centuries?”
I watched him pace behind the table, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. In all my twenty-seven years, I’d never seen my father this angry. Even when Brom had crashed the family truck into the barn when he was sixteen, Dad hadn’t looked this devastated.
“The whole town will have to move,” he went on. “Do you understand that? This isn’t just about us losing the lodge and the tree farm. The drilling operation will make this area uninhabitable. The noise, the pollution, the constant truck traffic hauling equipment in and oil out. Everyone who stays will have to deal with that, and most people won’t. They’ll pack up and leave, just like we’ll have to.”
My throat felt tight. I hadn’t thought about the ripple effects. I barely had time to get my head around us being forced to move. I didn’t think about how the oil operation would affect our neighbors and friends. I’d been so focused on our own family crisis that I hadn’t considered how this would destroy the entire community.
“Dad, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I thought?—”
“You thought what?” He whirled to face me. “That the Bancrofts were philanthropists? That they wanted to throw money at a failing business out of the goodness of their hearts? Sylvie, you’re smarter than that. Or at least I thought you were.”
