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Victoria didn't say a word. She glanced once over her shoulder at Emma, her face pale, before turning back to face Harrison on the steps.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Emma

The sound of Harrison’s leather shoes against the porch floorboards carried a heavy and unmistakable finality. Emma stood by the open passenger door of the car, watching the man assess the front exterior of The Amber House. His gaze swept over the climbing ivy, the chipped paint around the window frames, and the uneven stone steps, finding every single flaw within seconds.

He did not look at Emma. He treated her presence with the exact same indifference he afforded the weeds growing through the gravel.

"The humidity in this valley is suffocating," Harrison said, loosening his tie without acknowledging Emma's presence. "Get rid of the staff, Victoria. We have exactly ten minutes."

He walked through the front door without waiting for a response. He assumed ownership of the space the moment his foot crossed the threshold.

Emma looked at Victoria. The tension radiating from Victoria’s posture was absolute. Her jaw was locked tight, her eyes fixed on the empty doorway where Harrison had vanished.

She turned back to Emma, her expression taut with an edge of quiet panic that had nothing to do with the calm authority she usually wore.

"I'm sorry," Victoria murmured, her voice lowered, strained around the edges. "Can you... can you bring in some water? I need to go in there and handle him."

Before Emma could answer, Victoria turned and took the porch steps two at a time, disappearing into the foyer. Emma walked into the house a minute later, the screen door shutting with a muted click behind her. The atmosphere in the foyer had curdled. The scent of Harrison’s expensive cologne overpowered the familiar smell of lavender and floor wax, clinging to the air like smoke.

Emma walked toward the kitchen, her hands trembling slightly as she pulled a glass from the cupboard. She pressed the lever of the ice machine, the clatter of cubes sounding violently loud in the silent house. She filled the glass with water, the condensation blooming immediately against her palms.

She walked back down the hallway, stopping a few feet from the parlor entrance. The heavy oak door rested slightly ajar.

Harrison’s voice drifted through the gap, measured and precise as a scalpel.

"I pulled your mother out of this exact decay," Harrison said. His tone lacked any raised volume, carrying a quiet authority that made the words cut deeper. "I did not spend almost thirty years raising you so you could abandon your responsibilities and play house with a local innkeeper in a shithole."

A small gasp escaped Emma and she immediately brought a hand to cover her mouth, not wanting to be heard. She stood rooted to the hallway runner, the glass of ice water turning her fingers numb.

"I already told you, Harrison. The situation is under control," Victoria replied. Her voice sounded strained, lacking its usual commanding resonance. "I am handling everything from here."

"You are handling nothing," Harrison countered instantly, the sharpness of his tone slicing through the air. "I covered for you last month when you tried to pivot to Surrey. I tolerated your three-week environmental survey excuse. Richard Vance wanted the signed demolition drafts on his desk yesterday afternoon, and instead you let your flight to New York take off without you?"

Emma’s stomach plummeted. Demolition. The word echoed in her skull, drowning out the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.

"Vance is in Asia for business this week, he will be back next Wednesday to sign the deal," Harrison continued, his voice direct, making the threat all the more lethal. "If you stall this deal one more time over this sentimental rot, I will personally ensure the board voids your equity. Twenty years of your life, Victoria, gone before your car reaches Heathrow. I’d think about it before doing something incredibly stupid."

Emma’s fingers went numb against the cold glass in her hand. She pressed her shoulder against the wallpaper, biting the inside of her cheek. She waited for Victoria to push back. She waited for the woman who had kissed her under a willow tree to defend the reality they had built.

Instead, there was silence.

For ten, maybe fifteen seconds, nobody spoke. The silence stretching from inside the parlor felt heavy.

When Victoria finally spoke, the atmosphere in the hallway violently shifted. Her voice turned to ice. She sounded assured—smooth, cold, and utterly detached, like a stranger wearing Victoria’s skin.

"I stayed behind to extract the final land audits, Harrison," Victoria said. "If I tried to force the sale from New York, she would have panicked and hired a local solicitor to stall the appraisals. I had to stay here in person to ensure she wouldn't fight it."

"Then why aren't the papers on Vance's desk?" Harrison demanded. "What does this girl actually have, Victoria? What does she do when we liquidate this place?"

"Because I needed the bank records first," Victoria replied, her tone stripped of warmth. "I was securing the exact figures of the estate's impending balloon payment. And she has nothing. She's got a brochure for a Paris pastry course hidden in a kitchen drawer that she's too scared to book—something I only found out because I spent the last three weeks wearing her down and living under her roof. Write her a cheque for her half of the land, dangle that Paris school in front of her as an inevitability, and she'll call it a gift and leave. Once she's on a train across the Channel, the property is vacated, she won't file a historical injunction, and Vance’s bulldozers can roll in uncontested. She was a means to an end, nothing more."

“Victoria, I swear to you, if you’re bullshitting me…” warned Harrison.

"She does not mean anything," Victoria continued, with terrifying conviction. "You taught me to keep my enemies closer. She is incredibly naive, which made it effortless to locate every financial vulnerability of this estate. I’m keeping her distracted so she doesn’t realize there’s a wrecking ball coming."

Emma squeezed her eyes shut. The glass of water shook violently in her hand.