The Reluctant Heir

“Uh-huh.” Jackson closed the file almost in slow-motion before lounging back in his big leather seat. “I’ve worked for this family for years. I’ve investigated many people and businesses. It’s never nothing and it usually causes trouble that rolls downhill to my desk to fix.”

Carter started to shrug a second time, then stopped because Jackson would notice multiple shrugs and take it as a sign of...something. “I just wondered what happened to them.”

“Right. So, your dad sends you on this errand. You go and while you’re there you just happen to need emergency intel on the daughters of the man who used to be the caretaker of your family’s Virginia property. A man who died on the job, though you know that part.”

Carter dropped the bag filled with food on the edge of the desk and sat down across from Jackson. “See? Perfectly reasonable.”

“That’s not a word I would ever use to describe your family.”

The bag rustled, making a crinkling sound, as Carter unloaded the sandwiches and what looked to him like two child-sized bags of chips. “Do people really only eat seven chips at a meal?”

He threw one of the bags in Jackson’s general direction. Instead of catching it, Jackson stayed still. The chips crunched as they landed on his keyboard. The only reaction he gave was the slight lift of an eyebrow. Carter took that to mean Jackson was not ready for a new topic.

“So, when you asked me about Hanna and Gena—and yes, I remember their names because I remember everything—that was just a coincidence?” Jackson asked.

“I sense you’re not going to let this go.”

“Want me to give you a list of all of the other people who worked at the Virginia property?” Jackson ripped open the bag of chips and shoved two in his mouth.

The room filled with the sounds of munching, shuffling and sandwich unwrapping. But Carter knew it was only a brief reprieve. Jackson had an annoying habit of holding on to a question and unloading it later, just when Carter relaxed his guard. “It’s kind of freaky how much you know about our family.”

“I like to be ready.”

“For?”

Jackson handed over one of the two water bottles sitting by his phone. “Anything. It’s a good trait in an employee, so feel free to give me a raise.”

“If I had that power, I would.” Hell, he’d sign over part of his interest in the company and bolt. The day-to-day monotony of desk work didn’t appeal to him. And being here reminded him that his father thought he wasn’t worthy to even have an office.

If Derrick didn’t need him and if his sister-in-law-to-be Ellie’s pregnancy eased into a safer rhythm, he might. Of course, then he’d miss seeing what would happen as his other brother, Spence, tried to negotiate a new stage of his relationship with his fiancée, Abby. And that was just too funny to miss.

Poor Spence had it bad and Abby was not the type to make it easy for him. Carter loved her for that. Loved both of the women his brothers managed to convince to date them. They were smart, beautiful and strong. Very different from each other, but perfect for Derrick and Spence.

Which for some reason got Carter thinking about Hanna. She had the smart, beautiful and strong combination down. She also looked at him like she wanted to backhand him with a mop handle, so it was good he wasn’t interested. Not in anything permanent anyway. There was no way to have a few private, discreet hookups just for fun with his family nearby. Someone always seemed to be watching. And sometimes it was the guy sitting right in front of him.

Jackson. Friend, invaluable asset to Jameson Industries and all-around smart-ass.

“Stop acting like you’re not management.” Jackson finished unwrapping the sandwich and crumpled the paper underneath it. “You could write me a check tomorrow. In fact, you should. You know, just because.”

Carter knew Jackson was kidding but he’d hit on a sore spot. One Carter couldn’t exactly laugh off since it guided everything he’d done for the last year. “My father ran me out of the family and the business a year ago, remember? No power to do anything here.”

Jackson swallowed the bite he’d been chewing. “When did you get so dramatic?”

“You weren’t here, but he did.” Carter grabbed for his food. He fiddled with the paper, trying to untuck the edge, but finally gave in and ripped it open. The smell of tuna fish salad hit him a second later.

“I missed the actual office fight between you two, but I do remember the fallout. You refused to talk. Derrick was pissed because your dad refused to listen to your ideas about what to do with the Virginia property.” Jackson shook his head as he whistled. “It was a hell of a welcome back from my vacation.”

“I believe the exact phrase Dad used was that my ideas were beneath the Jameson name.” The dismissive tone echoed in Carter’s brain. No matter how he tried to write off his father and erase the memory, it kicked up every now and then. “He pointed out that I was an embarrassment and should go out and prove myself or not bother to step in his office again.”

“That is some interesting Jameson tough love.” Jackson took another bite, almost devouring half the sandwich in only a few minutes.

Carter glanced at the tuna fish, then to his unopened bag of chips. The idea of food suddenly didn’t appeal to him. He blamed the office and the city. Being this close to what his father viewed as the center of his power made Carter want to be anywhere else. To not be a Jameson or have to deal with the steady stream of disappointing everyone. It was easier to be away and just be Carter, not the rich kid who didn’t live up to the family standard.

He dropped the sandwich and then pushed the paper away from him. “He deactivated my key card to the building and told security to kick me out that afternoon. Derrick undid the orders, or so he said when he called and asked me to come back, but I was done by then.”

“Eldrick couldn’t make a phone call without having three people help him.” Jackson swore under his breath. Not that he was quiet about it or tried to hide his anger at Eldrick. “But yeah, that will teach me to take three days of vacation. By the time I got back you were driving across the country and the office had descended into chaos.”

Jackson’s controlled outburst eased some of the frustration coursing through Carter. There was something comforting about having Jackson on his side that made talking about his father tolerable. “Your timing was terrible. You take three days off a year and you picked those days.”

Jackson did what he often did when talking about family business: he shook his head. “All kidding aside, your father is an ass.”

Among other things. “Very true.”

“You have a second chance, you know.” Jackson made a show of taking a drink and wiping his hands on his napkin. Drew out the suspense but didn’t deliver a punch line.

Carter didn’t shy away from asking. “Meaning?”

“Derrick liked your ideas about converting the Virginia property. He had me look into the legalities of changing the property’s legal use and run some numbers on the financial feasibility of trying your solution.”

For the business retreat and possible private club and party event facility? That was news to Carter. “What?”

“Like you, Derrick doesn’t often agree with your father. He has always been pretty clear that his memories of living at the estate as a kid weren’t great.”

“It was fine, if you liked yelling.” Carter thought about the big redbrick mansion, stately with the columns surrounded by acres of rolling hills. The pool, the pond, the outbuildings. As much as he loved the house and the outdoors and the open space, it was hard to ignore the bad memories that lingered over every inch of the land.

He’d been a teenager when his mother got cancer. Only a few months older than that when she went into the hospital, then to hospice to live out her final days, where Dad served her with divorce papers. Eldrick couldn’t allow her the simple dignity of dying in peace. No, he thought his girlfriend was pregnant and he needed to move on. His girlfriend wasn’t and now he was on wife number four and Carter doubted the man was one ounce more faithful to this one than he had been to Carter’s mother.

Before his mother’s death and the shock and the ripping sensation of having all his safety nets stripped away, life hadn’t been so great either. Dad used his wife and sons as public props while bouncing between ignoring them and screaming at them in private. He was demanding and difficult and manipulative. He liked to pit Derrick and Spence against each other. It was a miracle the brothers managed to maintain any meaningful sibling relationship, let alone establish the strong one they had.

As soon as he graduated, Carter escaped and shuffled off to college, only visiting when ordered home, which amounted to little more than once a year at the holidays. Even when Derrick had moved back home with the thought of taking over the family business, he’d skipped the mansion and moved to D.C. Insisted the commute to the office would be prohibitive, which was true but not really the reason he avoided the place.

As the years rolled by, the brothers rarely used the space for weekend getaways or events. For the most part, the big house and the grounds stood empty. Eldrick lived there on and off, depending on whether his then girlfriend or wife, or whomever he was sleeping with at the time, had any interest in the country.

A skeleton staff ran the place. The only event Carter could remember attending there in the last few years was Derrick and Ellie’s engagement party. Ellie had insisted the party would replace some of the bad memories of growing up there with good memories. It was a nice thought, but Carter didn’t think it had worked.

“Which is why you should repurpose the house and grounds.” Jackson tipped the small bag and dumped the remaining chips and crumbs on his desk blotter. “Talk to Derrick. Of course, all of this depends on if you intend to stick around.”

The tone. Jackson might not be related to them, but he shared Derrick’s ability to convey a get-your-act-together message with a few words.

“Are you trying to lure me back into the family?” For the first time in a long time, Carter entertained the idea and it was all due to his brothers. The idea of fitting in, of being a part of something that didn’t depend on his father’s whims, appealed to him even though he was not a set-down-roots kind of guy. But maybe he could let something matter to him. Maybe.

Jackson picked up a chip and pointed it at Carter. “Forget your dad. You and your brothers support each other. I understand how that works because it’s how it is with me and Zoe.”

“Ah, yes.” Carter smiled at the thought of Jackson’s fraternal twin. She looked like him with brown hair and blue eyes, only female and much prettier. Petite and fiery. She was one of the most determined people Carter had ever met. “Your baby sister. You are eight minutes older, right?”

Jackson’s mouth flatlined. “Pretend I don’t have a sister.”

“But I love her.” Like the sister he never had, but Carter didn’t say that part out loud. Not when he enjoyed Jackson’s reaction to the joke of potentially tying him even more tightly to the Jamesons through his sister’s dating choices.

“Get over it,” Jackson said in his most grumbly voice.

The fact was, they all viewed Jackson and Zoe as family. And some days, when his resistance was down, Jackson admitted that the feeling was mutual. Well, one time he had. He’d gotten drunk one New Year’s Eve and let that slip. Now he denied it.

Carter decided to take pity on Jackson. “You do know if I made a pass Zoe would kick me in the balls, right?”

Jackson snorted. “Who do you think taught her that move?”

“Figures.”

Jackson grabbed the chip bag in front of Carter and opened it, dipping his fingers inside. “But back to the Virginia house. I’m telling you that when Derrick is in charge—and I’m hoping that happens soon because I dread the idea of Eldrick dropping back into the office again—you should run it by him. You might be surprised by how much support you get.”

“Is there anything you don’t know about this family and the business?”

“Nope.” Jackson popped one of Carter’s chips in his mouth.

“We’re lucky to have you.”

Jackson stopped chewing long enough to smile. “That’s what I keep telling you all.”

* * *

She should run and keep running.

That thought raced through Hanna’s mind as she stepped out of the cab she really couldn’t afford in front of a gate meant to keep her out. She stared up at the high wall that circled and protected the Jamesons’ expansive Virginia property. This was how rich people lived—cut off from others, safe from having to touch or talk with anyone but their own.

For years, on and off, she’d lived behind that wall when she visited her father during those weekends, school holidays and a handful of weeks in the summer when he had visitation. During those times, she’d slip through the gate. Not this one, of course. The one around the side meant for staff. Never really welcome or accepted inside, her presence had been tolerated so long as she stayed quiet and knew her place.

Despite all the rules, her father insisted he enjoyed working here because he was part of something. That living at the estate, having the responsibility of managing the grounds, gave him purpose. He’d felt at home there.

He’d also died there.

That’s why she’d taken Carter’s suggestion and showed up. Before they talked, she’d convinced herself she needed to move on and rebuild. Not look to the past. But now the need for answers gnawed at her. Real ones, not the ones passed through Eldrick’s fancy lawyers years ago. For the first time since she lost Gena, Hanna felt like she might be able to control some part of her life.

Her mother had collected the death benefit check along with Eldrick’s short explanation. After years of fighting over custody schedules with her father, when it came to his death, her mother mourned. She also never believed the Jameson line about Dad falling off a ladder. Neither did Hanna.

Standing there, lost in a haze of memories, she heard the rumble and crunch of tires. She watched a dark sedan slow down as it drove by. The driver stared at her, and at the scuffed duffel bag with the broken strap sitting at her feet. She stared right back, watching until the car turned a corner and headed for one of the other estates that dotted the hillside.

“I hate being here.” She mumbled the truth to herself as she slipped her cell out of her front jeans pocket. Her finger hesitated over Carter’s number just as it had every time she started to call over the last few days.

She’d shown up unannounced, but she first called the Jameson office in D.C. pretending to be a business contact looking for him. The person who answered said he wasn’t there, so she took a shot that he’d been telling the truth when he said he lived and worked at the estate now.

It was just one of many chances she was taking. Carter didn’t refer to his dad in glowing terms. They seemed to share a distrust of the older man, but family was family and she still had a tangled past with Carter that made her wonder how far he’d come from the entitled boy who once caught her watching him work out in the gym at the estate and laughed at her interest.

Being near him now was such a risk. She’d tried to move on, not think of herself as the second-best Wilde sister, but memories of Carter and the attraction that still seemed to beat inside her had the power to flip her back to that insecure mental place.

She stared at the screen until the numbers blurred. Shifting and typing again, she started texting.

I agree to the terms we discussed. I stay in the cottage and you leave me alone.

She winced at the tense tone but hit Send anyway.

Carter shot back a text response almost immediately.

How could I say no to that charming agreement?

“They were your terms, but fine,” she grumbled as she thought about what to write next. She couldn’t exactly admit she thought his family had something to do with her dad’s death. That would shut down all access, and this access onto the property only just opened for her thanks to Carter’s offhand suggestion.

Before she could come up with the right response, another text popped up from Carter.

When are you coming so I can be ready?

She wished she could be ready.

Why, are you going to change the sheets for me?

She bit her lip as the Sent notification appeared on her screen. Then a wave of panic hit her. She didn’t mean to sound flirty or interested or even happy about any of this...even though she kind of was. The whole trip over she thought about Carter and that sexy smile when she should have been thinking about her dad and Gena and how good it would feel to finally beat the Jamesons at their own game.

And bed? Why did she mention a bed?

I thought we established that I know how to clean. I actually have many skills.

She absolutely did not remember conceding that point. And the skills comment could not be flirting. If they started a game of mutual flirting her control would fizzle. But he had looked cute with that mop in his hands...

You used a mop without hurting yourself.

Congratulations.

I’m sighing at you right now.

She could almost hear him and the idea made her laugh. She smothered the sound as soon as it escaped her. But she didn’t type fast enough. Another text flashed across her screen.

Trying again...when are you coming?

This time she switched to calling because, really, she wanted to hear his voice for this one. The element of surprise was on her side. She intended to enjoy that.

He picked up on the first ring. His deep, rich voice filled the line. “Hello, there.”

The whole shivering in her stomach thing hit her again. It was unnecessary. She needed her reaction to Carter to stay...flat because she needed to keep her defenses strong against him and remember what happened to Gena when she didn’t. She struggled to find that tone when she responded.

“I’m here now. Unlock the gate.” When he gasped, she hung up.

This round to her.

Four

Carter refused to admit he jogged to the gate. It was a quick walk and he only picked up the speed to avoid being rude. He couldn’t just leave Hanna hanging out front. He wasn’t a complete jerk, after all.

As he walked down the long drive, he spotted her peeking between the bars of the electric front gate. She wore jeans and a purple Henley, both formfitting to the point where his brain power kept blinking out.

The temperature was cool but not cold like it had been at their last meeting in New York. A bag and what looked like a rolled-up jacket sat at her feet. That’s all she had. A few things in an oversize duffel. Carter had no idea if that was a statement on how little she owned or on how short of a time she planned to stay. Either way, his brain had turned traitor on him because he was stupidly excited to see her. He could feel his mouth curl into a smile as his gaze wandered over her hair and that ponytail. The second he recognized the unwanted excitement racing through him, he tried to tamp it down.

At his worst in those days after his father kicked him out, he’d run into Gena and they spent a weekend together. It had been fun but meaningless for both of them. Flirty but nothing more.

He hadn’t felt a shot to the gut when he saw Gena like he did when he saw Hanna again, which had a weird vibe both because they were sisters and because Gena was dead.

He smiled, trying to forget the twisted road that brought them to this place. “You’re here.”

She watched his hands as he punched in the code and the electric gate rumbled open. “You don’t sound surprised.”

“You have to admit I offered you a pretty good deal.” He let the gate roll past him, then gestured for her to step inside. “Free housing and food with no expectations in return.”

He felt the need to say that. To be clear he wasn’t his father. He’d been trying to make that distinction with people his whole life.

“You’re a prince.”

“I’ll take that as a thank-you.” Because he was pretty sure that was as close as he’d ever get to gratitude.

“Should I be coming in this way?”

It had taken her less than ten minutes to lose him in conversation. “Huh?”

“I’ve always used the door on the side gate.”

“The...” Right, the service entrance thing. His father had always been very clear on separating the help—his words—from those the family invited for a visit. “You can use whatever entrance you want.”

“That’s an interesting change.”

“Is it?”

She shook her head as she reached down and grabbed her bag and jacket. “Never mind.”

Without saying a word, he took the bag out of her hand and balanced the strap on his shoulder. It didn’t weigh much, which renewed his curiosity about what she’d packed. “I know it’s strange to come back to a place you used to think of as home. It took my sister-in-law-to-be’s high-risk pregnancy to lure me back to the area. Little else would have worked.”

For a second Hanna didn’t say anything. She gnawed on her bottom lip as she eyed her bag, but then she seemed to snap out of the haze surrounding her. “I read about that. Derrick’s fiancée, right?”

Finally, a topic Carter could handle without trouble. He stepped back, closer to the house, and Hanna followed. He waited until she was out of striking range, then hit the button to close the gate behind her.

It rattled to a close as he guided them toward the main house. “Things have evened out a bit with her health but the pregnancy is still risky. Derrick is an embarrassing wreck. He’s driving Ellie, that’s his fiancée, and us, right to the edge. It’s taking all I have not to order him to stay home from work, but Ellie would kill me because then she’d be stuck with him.”

“I don’t remember that much about Derrick. He seemed pretty disconnected from the house by the time I started visiting.”

“He was mostly away at college by that point. He’s five years older than me.” Carter was thirty and Hanna a year younger. Carter knew most of the basics about her because Jackson had included those in the file, including the truth about Gena’s car accident. The police and medical examiner had termed it a suicide. Hanna never contested the finding, which made Carter think it must have been right. A finding that had crashed through him on a rush of guilt and sadness when he’d read it.

Carter needed to talk with Hanna about all of it, but he didn’t want to scare her off. There were so many secrets hovering between them and as much as Carter pretended not to care about what his father did or said these days, that unopened envelope sat on his dresser, taunting him. While it was true he’d offered her the chance to come and fight whatever demons she had, he’d also wanted her to come for him. Bigger than that, he wanted her to confide in him. He wasn’t sure why that suddenly mattered, but it did.

Something in her called out to him. She seemed lost and a bit broken. He understood exactly how that felt and wanted to help.

The curiosity about whatever secret bound her to his father also drove him. The need to know the answer grew each day. Nothing in the background search on her provided a hint, and Carter would never ask his father. Doing so might bring him back to Virginia, and he didn’t want to deal with his father at all.

Gravel crunched under their feet as they walked. Without any warning, she stopped and stared at him. “I’m not staying in the main house.”

He balanced his foot on the bottom step leading up to the front porch that spanned the front of the house. “I remember, but—”

“No.”

He blew out a long breath, trying not to let frustration overwhelm him. “Maybe you could let me finish a sentence.”

She nodded. Almost looked like she smiled, too, but if she did it flashed then was gone just as quickly. “Fair enough.”