He didn’t buy the fluttery lashes and flirty smiles. That wasn’t growth. That was theater. If Francesca B was a performance, then what was she hiding?
His money was on illusion. All wigs and misdirection. Leopards didn’t change their spots. They weaponized them.
And if Frankie saw this as a game, there was only one move left for him to play. Be as irritating as possible. Get under her skin. Trigger the real Frankie to claw her way out. It was the only way to know if she’d actually changed.
A voice in his head kept asking, who made you judge and jury? The thought almost made him grin. It was in his damn DNA, passed down with dark hair and sharper edges. Someone had to hold her accountable for what she’d done to Lola. And Marcus was the one with boots on the ground.
He shook the thought away and crossed to the kitchen. Its scuffed checkered tiles and groaning floorboards greeted him with their usual complaints. Thewalnut cabinets hung slightly crooked, the cast-iron stove made threats every time he turned the knob, and the lone modern fridge vibrated just enough to seem uncomfortable in its own skin. As if to say, this isn’t where you belong. Go home.
Marcus disagreed. He had been sent here. Not by a boss or a boardroom, but by Georgiana Grace Grant—Gi Gi. They hadn’t been born her boys, but she’d taken them in and claimed them with heart and soul. Her final request had been handwritten and hand-delivered. Every one of her boys had received one. A task. A location. No reason.
For Marcus, it had been the manor. Bring it back to life. Make it shine again.
No one had dared ask the bigger question. Not out loud. Not to each other.
What if this wasn’t just about property? What if the real task was something far less temporary?
Gi Gi had raised them to try anything once. That was her rule. One summer, it had been woodworking and wiring workshops. The next, creative writing and robotics. There’d been a particularly scarring experience with ballroom etiquette taught by retired debutantes in Savannah. But the standout had been a tech camp, where the brothers had built a scheduling app to settle their ongoing battles over screen time and snack rotation. With Gi Gi’s help, they’d polished it, launched it, and turned a tidy profit. Which, of course, meantthe following summer, she’d enrolled them in a finance camp so they’d know how to manage it.
By the time they hit adulthood, they could rewire a lamp, fix a leaky pipe, code a program, and balance a portfolio.
It didn’t entirely make sense that Gi Gi had sunk so much into this town, but it did track that she’d thrown herself into it with her usual all-in abandon. That was her way. When she saw potential, in property or people, she polished it until it gleamed.
And not one of them had said it out loud, but they all felt it. The real ask. The one tucked between the lines of her will.
She hadn’t just invested in a town. She’d built a stage. Bought the properties. Renamed the streets. Rebranded Nippleton Falls into Gi Gi’s Crossing and left just enough breadcrumbs to make them wonder.
Smart money said it wasn’t just sentiment.
It was strategy.
Strategy that imagined each of them walking away from their skyscrapers and private penthouses to put down roots in a town that now bore the name of the woman who had saved their lives.
There was just one flaw in her plan.
Her boys couldn’t live in a town with a weekly gossip column.
They couldn’t risk their names showing up in wedding announcements or town council minutes.
They had to live off the radar. And Gi Gi had taught them that, too.
Sighing at the conundrum, Marcus opened the fridge and took stock. Eggs. Half a bag of frozen tater tots. A chunk of cheddar that still looked salvageable. He blew out a breath, then got to work.
He wasn’t trying to impress her. That would’ve required a trip to the store, a recipe, maybe even seasoning. But he figured she’d be less of a menace if she wasn’t hungry, and he’d planned on eating anyway. Might as well make enough for two.
He dumped the tots into a skillet, cracked the eggs over top, and grated the cheese straight into the mix. Forty-five minutes later, the result wasn’t pretty, but it smelled decent. Crispy edges. Gooey center. Enough salt to pass as flavor.
Waiting on her arrival, he decided to step onto the back porch and make a quick call. It was the only place the signal didn’t suck. He leaned on the railing, glancing toward the overgrown garden, then toward the winding path that led to the cottage.
A sound caught his attention.
“I am charming. I am delightful. I am not going to commit a felony today.”
He smirked.
Either she was talking to herself or leaving a voicemail for her therapist. He wouldn’t be surprised by either.
Movement flickered in his periphery. He turned toward Harriet’s treehouse and, sure enough, spotted her in the shadows, binoculars up like she was running tactical surveillance.
