Dave’s head jerked back before he ever realized Stephen’s fist was coming.
He stumbled, raised his hand to strike back. With two more blows to his face, he went down in a heap and lay there, breathing hard, glaring up at Stephen with pure hatred. “I needed that land! I needed that money!”
“I don’t give a shit what you need.”
Lying on the ground at his feet, Dave’s face morphed and hardened. His eyes narrowed to slits and his bloody lips curved. “I can bury you just as easily from a jail cell as I can from the office down the hall.”
“Try it. But first get your ass out of my building.”
Stephen followed him out just to be sure, then left a message for Sinclair as he drove. He’d reconsider the St. Kitts project. And if it came to it, he’d grovel. He’d buy Hannah’s land for way more than it was worth. Whatever it took.
Ah, to hell with it. If he was going in, he’d go all in. He dialed another number.
Blair answered, listened. “Of course. I’d be more than happy to make a deal with you, seeing as how we have a history and all. Eighty million should do it. Don’t you think?” She actually sounded amused.
“You’re crazy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s worth a fraction of that.”
“What? You don’t like my offer?” Her voice purred through the phone line. “Maybe you should think about it.”
“How much, Blair? And be reasonable.”
“Since you asked me twice, the price just went up. Isn’t that the way you like to do business?”
She named another price, this one crazier than the first.
“That’s not going to happen. I don’t even have that.”
“Hmm. What’s Trace Development worth these days?”
His eyelid twitched and his fingers clenched around the steering wheel. Sinclair didn’t want the land, but they did want to see him squirm. Payback for the loss he’d caused them. And, he imagined, payment on a personal level for pricking Blair’s pride.
“You don’t have to answer that, of course. I already know. And I’m willing to let a couple million slide. For old times’ sake.”
She was still laughing when he ended the call.
Chapter 47
Hannah carefully wrapped a photograph of herself and her parents taken on her first birthday. She smiled back at the happy, secure baby in the picture. Her mother holding her, her father kissing her icing-covered cheek. She wished she’d had more time with them, wished she had even one real memory. Sighing, she laid that little bit of her past on top of the others. She closed the box and reeled off packing tape across the top, the ripping sound harsh in the silence.
Staying so many nights at Nick’s house over the past week since the trial ended had rubbed off on her. She checked her doors and windows again before going to her bedroom to start a new box. Slightly creepy, knowing some stranger had been out here the night of the fire. Her gaze jerked to the window. Just a heavy wind bringing down deadwood left over from winter, but a shiver ran through her just the same.
It hadn’t taken long for the judge’s decision to come back. After further implicating the dirty city officials, new evidence had surfaced proving Dave had paid someone to set the fire as a way to drive her out. No farm, no public sympathy. And worse, his plan to pin it on Stephen. She thought of the pain and disillusionment Stephen must have felt, being betrayed by someone he thought he knew so well.
Goodwin had worked the front end, making sure no one but Trace had a chance to buy the property, Dave specifically. And Dave was to take over the other end, building a private airstrip he would control to traffic illegals. Embarrassed, the city was eager to have another name on the deed, ending all association and washing their hands of it entirely.
Dave faced multiple charges. Stephen was cleared. And she’d still lost.
Her job. Her home. Her purpose. Funny how just a few months ago that had seemed like everything. Then Stephen had come along and…Now she felt like she’d lost even more.
The one man she thought could love her. Could it have all been an act? Could he have looked at her scars inside and out the way he had if he didn’t care about her at all?
She didn’t know. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since that day outside the courthouse. It hurt. Being wrong about him, and worse, missing him. She had to fight not to break down and cry in front of her brothers, who’d upped their hovering a hundred notches.
She’d taken a chance. Stephen had been her try. Maybe her first and last because she didn’t know if she’d ever try again. If she’d ever trust someone enough or if she even wanted to.