And if she never came home?
She shut the thought down before it could take root. She couldn’t walk away from the Sheridan empire, even if she were so inclined—which she wasn’t. She was the heir, which meant she was responsible for ensuring the safety of her people and the ongoing lucrative income of their various businesses. She was the one who would bring them into the legal side of things and remove as much danger as possible from their lives. If she could get all of their front businesses running as well as Moira’s, they wouldn’t need the money generated by the illegal side of things.
If she disappeared, things would fall apart when her father died. The generals would fight among themselves, and the clawing and fighting for power would destroy what was left of their people.
She couldn’t let that happen.
No, her fantasies about holing up with Teague until this nightmare passed were just that—fantasy. She’d already been too lax in letting Papa keep her out of things, no matter if he wanted to protect her or if he had other reasons altogether. Whatever his thinking, it had to stop.
She parked the car in the garage and strode into the house. Her footsteps echoed on the tile, the click of her heels standing out in the silence. At this hour there should be people around. It was Friday, which meant the cleaning ladies, at least, should be here for their weekly tidy up. Callie headed for her father’s office—the one place there was guaranteed to be some sort of activity—and knocked.
“Come in.”
A part of her that she hadn’t even realized was tense relaxed at the sound of Papa’s voice. Nothing was wrong. There hadn’t been an attack of some sort on the house. They were safe. For now.
She slipped into the office and shut the door. She took a deep breath, deciding it’d be best to get straight to the point. “Papa, no more shutting me out. If you expect me to stand as heir, you need to let me be part of making the decisions.” He had to know the time for trying to protect her had passed. It was time for her to step up and deal with the consequences, one way or another, and take an active role in this mess.
It was her fault, after all.
A throat clearing brought her up short. She turned around to find that her father wasn’t the only one in the room. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it were Micah, or even John, but she didn’t immediately recognize the two women standing by the bookshelves that lined the wall on either side of the door. She attempted a smile. “I apologize. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“I don’t. You do.” He motioned at the older of the two, a woman who could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty-five, though the self-assured way she carried herself made Callie think she fell somewhere on the older end of the spectrum. Her long dark hair didn’t have so much as a hint of gray, but there were faint crow’s-feet fanning out from her green eyes when she smiled.
“Callista, it’s wonderful to see you again.”
Again?
Things fell into place, and the reason the woman looked so familiar became clear. “Mrs. O’Malley.” Teague’s mother.
Which made the other woman—a younger version of her mother, right down to the green eyes—one of Teague’s sisters.
“Oh, no, please call me Aileen. We’re about to be family.” She sailed over and enveloped Callie in a cloud of Chanel No. 5. Her warmth would be significantly more convincing if her daughter didn’t look so shocked by it before she wiped the expression off her face.
Good to know.
She pasted a bright smile on her face. “Of course.” But why were they here? It was poor timing, to say the least, especially with Papa looking like he wanting nothing more than to boot the entire lot of them out of his office.
Aileen must have caught her look. “Carrigan and I are here to help with wedding planning.”
She blinked, the words forming and reforming in her mind as she tried to make sense of them. Wedding planning. They were on the brink of war and these women wanted to drag her off for wedding planning? She shot a look in her father’s direction. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Of course. Your wedding is less than four weeks away.” Aileen’s sharp look at Papa was enough to tell everyone in the room what she thought of the accelerated timeline. “I’d be a poor mother if I didn’t ensure that the first of my brood to marry had the wedding of his dreams.”
Considering she knew Teague hadn’t chosen this wedding any more than she had—and they were on the verge of all-out war—the statement bordered on preposterous. “Perhaps we can reschedule? I have a meeting with my father—”