Stay.
Mate.
Ours.
I pushed my bear down. This was time for the human part of us to deal with things. As much as I wanted to side with my beast on this, I couldn’t.
“We do need to figure shit out. How do we tell him we’re leaving without making it worse?”
In the end we decided to leave a note taped inside the front door telling him that we both wanted him to stay and to not leave until we could talk about this. We let him know he could call us and that neither of us were mad at him. It was the best we could think of.Please let it work.
21
CANDRIN
Not again!
The house was empty, except for me.
Huston and Tanner were staying elsewhere for a few days leaving me alone with my festering guilt.
My life was in the toilet and the only thing that’d make it worse was for me to sleep with the third brother.
“Stop it, Candrin,” I yelled at the walls. “You’ll jinx it.”
The phone beeped and I ignored it. I should have turned it off but part of me was curious as to which brother was texting. The device was face down on the bed, and I lifted it a little. Not Huston or Tanner but Saul.
My heart speeded up, not because of lust—gods no, this was Saul, my de facto dad—but both he and Molly avoided talking to me during the day in case you know who overheard the conversation. They couldn’t afford to lose their jobs. But it was evening so they’d be at home
Call me.
Saul answered on the first ring.
“Everything okay?” I asked, not giving him a chance to explain why he needed to talk to me.
“A letter arrived for you today. It was sent to the wrong address which is why it took so long to get here. It’s really thick.”
“And Charles didn’t snatch it up and read it?” I asked, curious to find out if the guy knew more about my life than I did.
“Nah he was out and I hid the damned thing because he’s always sniffing around when the mail arrives.”
“I give you permission to open it.” Whatever it was, it can’t have been that important. And there was no point Saul driving to me for some garbage letter selling property. I refused to go near my old home,and not just because of the memories. I couldn’t risk Charles seeing me and giving Saul and Molly a hard time. They lived on our… no not our… the grounds and they were beholden to my so-called brother.
I waited as the phone amplified the ripping of paper.
“Wow! It’s from your father.”
“What?” Now I needed to see the letter in person, no matter what it said. Was it a newer will than the one that gave everything to Charles? Gods how I’d love returning to my former home and evicting him.
“It’s about your office. And there are official-looking papers in the envelope.”
Shit. The charity was being kicked out of the office space. I’d anticipated that but assumed it would come via Charles and his honchos.
“It’s yours, Candrin.”
“Mmmm. Yeah, my office space is in Father’s building. But no more I’m guessing.”
“No, I mean the office belongs to you. It’s in your name. And there’s a bank account. You need to see it.”
