Page 3

"Oh, no, they were lovely. Thank you," Finch stammered, adjusting his glasses. He looked around the café nervously, then lowered his voice. "I hate to bring this up today. Truly. But the paperwork won't wait forever. The investigators in London finally managed to bypass the corporate security. They found her."

The words hung in the air, almost suffocating.

Victoria Sterling.

Emma’s fingers curled around the counter. She thought of Emily Anderson, the daughter who died in a car crash twenty-eight years ago. She remembered the day Joe told her how he received the news. Months after the accident, he had received a formal letter from Harrison Sterling informing him that his daughter was already buried. Joe was robbed of the chance to attend his own child's funeral.

And then there was Victoria. The wealthy executive who had systematically rejected an old man's love for decades, returning his letters and hand-carved toys without ever opening them.

The anger Emma had suppressed for three days flared up, absolute and toxic.

"So you found her," Emma said, her voice dropping an octave. "And what does she want? To send another package back marked Return to Sender?"

Finch recoiled slightly. "I understand your feelings, Emma. We all know how much Joe suffered over that side of the family. But Joe left strict legal instructions. I cannot unseal the will without his granddaughter present. And she’ll be here for it."

Emma forgot everything for a second. "What do you mean she’ll be here?"

“She’ll be flying over this weekend,” Finch admitted, wringing his hands. “I have arranged a formal meeting at the B&B for Monday morning at eleven to discuss the reading of the will, the transfer of the deed, and her immediate plans for the estate."

Her immediate plans for the estate.

It was a sanitized way of saying liquidation. A corporate executive didn't fly across the Atlantic to run a countryside inn. She was coming to sell it to developers who would gut the kitchen and pave over the garden.

"Given the situation," Finch pushed on, totally oblivious to the murderous glare Nate was giving him, "I would be immensely grateful if you could provide a pot of tea and perhaps a few biscuits for the meeting. Just to keep things civil."

The café noise completely vanished from Emma’s ears.

A pot of tea. A few biscuits.

This woman had ignored Joe for three decades. She had let a generous man sit by a fire carving toys for a ghost. She had broken his heart from her ivory tower in New York. And now, Arthur wanted Emma to act like the hired help. He wanted her to bake biscuits and serve tea to the woman about to steal her home.

"Absolutely not," Emma whispered, the words shaking with venom.

"Emma, please, it's just a courtesy—"

"I am running the B&B," Emma snapped, a jolt of icy adrenaline shooting down her spine. "Just like I have been for fifteen years. You can meet her on Monday, Arthur. You can hand her the keys to the kingdom. But do not ask me to serve tea to a woman who broke his heart every single month of his life. I won't do it."

She didn't wait for a reply. She spun on her heel, untying her apron with frantic movements, and threw it onto the espresso machine.

"Em, wait," Lucy called out.

"I need air," Emma said blindly. "I need to get out of here."

She pushed through the swinging door, the bell chiming wildly as she hit the street. She didn't look back. She just walked until the cold April air burned her lungs, desperate to escape the wake, the casseroles, and the suffocating pity in the villagers' eyes.

Chapter Two

Victoria

The panoramic windows of the forty-second floor offered an unobstructed view of the Manhattan skyline. The sprawling grid of diamonds scattered across the blackness cost millions of dollars, meticulously engineered to make the person standing in front of it feel untouchable. It was a glass cage designed to look like a throne.

Victoria Sterling stood perfectly still. Her silhouette reflected in the reinforced glass, a ghost hovering over the city. Her manicured fingers wrapped around a heavy crystal tumbler. It was a twenty-year-old single malt Scotch. She took a slow breath, letting the scent of peat fill her lungs before taking a sip. The smoky burn of the alcohol coated her throat, a grounding sensation she relied on to force her nervous system to power down after a ninety-hour work week.

At forty-two, her life was an exercise in absolute efficiency. Her charcoal suit hugged the angles of her shoulders flawlessly. Her hair was pulled back into a severe twist at the nape of her neck. She possessed her mother's piercing eyes, but the unforgiving line of her mouth was an invention entirely her own. It was forged over decades of survival in an industry designed to chew up weakness.

Her cell phone buzzed against the mahogany desk, the vibration rattling against the wood.

She set the glass down on the marble windowsill and walked over to the desk. The screen displayed a single name: Harrison.