THIRTEEN
MICK KNEW THAT CARA WAS REELING. He was, too.
This changed everything.
But it also bought them some time.
He wasn't a mind reader, and she didn't react much at all while the lawyer continued to speak to them. She listened, took his card and the letter that explained the executor's formal notice of something or other, nodded a lot, frowned a few times, and watched silently as the limo pulled away.
The whole time, Mick just watched her.
He'd been handed a letter, too, because apparently Will couldn't be found again.
And then they were alone, and she still didn't say anything.
Finally he went for it-in completely the wrong way. "This is good, don't you think?"
"No." She pressed her lips together, and blinked at him. "This is awful."
Damn. "But no decision is better than-"
"Maybe for you!" She burst out, flailing her arms wildly. "You just want to be a beach bum and wait a few months, so this is actually perfect for you. Meanwhile I've sunk thousands of dollars into this project on behalf of the Historical Society and now that's in limbo!"
"Maybe you could recoup some of that from the executors. Move on to another project."
She gasped, then laughed, and neither was a good sound. Fuck. "How many historical sites do you think there are around here?"
He didn't want to point out that the entire island seemed to be covered in three hundred year old buildings, a good number of them empty and in need of her special brand of "get it done" vigour. Surely there were other options for her to focus her attention on. But she didn't seem to think that was the case and he wasn't stupid enough to suggest otherwise. "Okay. Crap. I'm sorry."
"You don't need to be sorry. You didn't do this." She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I have to go call the chairman of the board."
"Do you want-" He cut himself off as she glared at him. No. She didn't want help with something that he knew nothing about. Right. He gave her a helpless I wish I could help look. "Good luck."
She stomped her foot and stared at the ground, then let out a strangled curse. Then she was gone, the front door bouncing in her wake. He watched as her station wagon bumped down the lane and out the gates. Fuck.
BY THE END OF THE AFTERNOON, Cara had talked to three members of the board of directors-two in person at the Society's cramped offices just off Boulevard Honore.
"This is a disaster, Ms. Levasseur," Bill Chouhan, the chairman said as he sank into the chair opposite her desk.
She nodded. She knew it.
"We'll have a board meeting tomorrow. You'll be expected to explain yourself."
Again, she thought more bitterly than she realized at first. She'd already explained herself three times over. What was another round for the entire committee? "Of course. I'll be prepared."
"See that you are."
She worked late into the night, and when she finally folded her tired, aching body into her car, she thought about going back out to the plantation. But she'd need a hot shower and work clothes first thing in the morning, and she didn't know what she'd say to Mick.
One of those things was more serious, bigger and more dangerous than the other.
But she pretended both reasons were equally weighted and climbed into her bed in her small apartment in town.
Sleep took a long time to fall over her, and when she drifted off, her dreams were unsettled. Monsters and shouting mobs. Storms and taking chase.
In the morning, she quietly got herself ready.
Pencil skirt past the knees. A blouse with cap sleeves and buttons nearly to her neck. Sensible yet professional heels.
A folder full of documents that highlighted that she'd acted in good faith, and with the board's full support.
Would they remember that? Did it matter?
At the office, she turned on the overhead fans in the board room. With a quiet whirr, they started moving the stale air around the room. She pushed up the far windows, then sighed.
She'd been planning to put a copy of the report she'd assembled at each seat. The breeze would likely just blow them away.
Instead, she set them in front of her own seat and weighted them down with the digital voice recorder she'd use to type up the minutes after the fact.
Ice water was next. Then another slide around the table, ensuring all the chairs were neatly pushed in.
Tick. Tock. She flicked her eyes to the clock on the wall.
Five minutes to the hour.
She stepped into the foyer of the office just as the door opened and the first board member ambled in. "Good morning, sir," she murmured, taking his umbrella.
One by one, they filed in, none of them talkative.
Even those who hadn't come by or called yesterday had clearly heard the news.
As they were all formal society types, they didn't launch right into grilling her. They waited until the big hand ticked past the top of the hour, then they took attendance and approved the previous minutes, added a few items to the day's agenda.
Niceties. Protocol.
Empty, meaningless shit. Cara's palms were sweating. She pressed them to her skirt, grateful she'd worn a dark colour.
"And now to the unfortunate matter that arose yesterday," Bill said when it was finally her turn. "Cara, you can explain."
She stood and handed around her report, with the letter from the lawyer, Dewiller, on top. After running down the highlighted points, she looked around the table, trying to make as much eye contact as possible with each board member. "This is, as Bill said, unfortunate. We will need to pause our plans for renovation and campaign in a reasonable fashion for our claim against the estate."
"Campaign how?"
"A letter, to start. A formal statement of Gwendolyn Parry's philanthropy on the island and her fondness for the Historical Society." It was a bit of a reach, but in the same territory as the truth, and the woman was dead. It didn't matter.
"We can't afford a lawyer."
She nodded. "Of course not." It was a crapshoot, bringing up Daphne and Arielle's idea, but what did she have to lose? "One option would be to recruit a local attorney to the board of directors. All of you have been so gracious with your time. I'm sure if we had a new director with legal knowledge, they might-"
"That is an incredibly self-serving thought," one of the older committee members, Bettina Hugo, snapped out.
Cara flushed. "I was only thinking of-"
Bill held up his hand, cutting her off. "We'll take that under advisement."
But Bettina's criticism had opened the floodgates, and the meeting slid far and fast from professional politeness.
"We can't afford to wait forever," said one member.
"This might bankrupt us!" said another.
She listened to them imagine horror stories, and finally raised her voice. What if it didn't cost anything? Let's not jump to worst case scenarios. Let's just start with a simple letter."
Bettina stood, her cane shaking against the table. Cara felt awful, but she wasn't in the wrong here. "It costs us every day that you're there and not doing the other, very important work of the Society."
"Like polishing the plaques on board member's homes?"
Stunned silence greeted her inappropriate and unfair outburst.
She wanted to cry.
"That's enough, Ms. Levasseur," Bill said quietly.
"I'm so sorry," she said, staring intently at Bettina. "I didn't meant that."
Bill gestured for them both to sit down. "We appreciate that you are passionate about this project. We'll give you a week to wrap up the work out at Villa Sucre. Itemize the expenses, document everything as much as possible, and have a report back to us next Monday."
She nodded. "Understood."
"But this is probably it. You can write that letter, sure. But you need to wrap it up out there, Cara. That can't be where your head is next week. We need to move forward on the assumption that Villa Sucre is going elsewhere in the Parry family."
She nodded numbly.
"Let's move on to the next agenda item."
She sat woodenly and listened to the rest of the meeting. When it wrapped up, she excused herself, painfully aware that as soon as she headed for the door, everyone else sat down again.
Her days were numbered. She had to make them count.
FOURTEEN
MICK HADN'T REALIZED HE'D BEEN HOLDING HIS BREATH until Cara drove back up the lane the next afternoon.
He stood on the verandah and watched hungrily as she climbed out of her car.
She was dressed up like a librarian or something. A historian, he supposed. Her wild curls had been tamed into a bun, and her long, gorgeous legs were mostly hidden by a demure skirt. The heels made what he could see of her calves go on for endless miles, though, and he wanted to drop to his knees and hike that skirt up, inch by inch, until her thighs fell open and revealed all her secrets for him.
Sex wouldn't change the fact that she ran away the day before. But it sure as fuck would feel good. And maybe what she needed was a reminder of just how intense their connection was.