Page 113 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

We approach the house together, and he stares at the double front doors for a moment. Long enough that I begin to think he’s going to turn around and walk away, but he squares his shoulders, walks up to it, and turns the handle, pushing it open without so much as a knock or ring of the doorbell.

I lean closer to him, keeping my voice low. “Silas, what are you doing? You can’t just walk in!”

He glances over at me. “I own the house, don’t I?”

“Well, yeah, but what if someone sees us walking around in here?”

“Let him call the police and try to kick me out.”

His confident defiance makes me grin through the tension. I follow him into Bolton Manor and shut the door behind me. The click seems to echo loudly through the front foyer, off all the marble and hand-carved wood, and I wince.

But Silas either didn’t notice or doesn’t care, too entranced by the interior of the house. He shakes his head slowly as he examines it. “Nothing’s changed here. They updated the offices because people are constantly coming and going, but here”—he spins, looking at the massive chandelier above us and the twin staircases wrapping up to the second floor—“this all looks exactly the same as it did almost two hundred years ago when they built this house. Eight generations of Boltons have lived here, but I’m going to end that tradition.” His gaze cuts to me. “After today, I’m never coming back. Whatever happens, I won’t set foot in here again.”

His declaration seems to hang in the air around us for a second before he motions for me to follow him.

“Where are we going?”

He heads up the staircase to the left. “My room. It would be the most obvious place for him to leave something for me…”

God willing.

I don’t even want tothinkabout what we’ll do if I’m wrong and Ronald wasn’t able to get a copy of what he had on Marty stashed away somewhere safe for us. We’ll be left hanging with the board, whose members were reluctant to utter a single word in front of his uncle.

Stay positive.

It’s hard to do when we’re wandering around the place where so much damage was done without the benefit of having Whiskey with us assomeform of protection should anything happen. But Silas insisted on leaving him at the hotel, worried the protective dog might alert someone of our presence far more easily than we would on our own.

I follow Silas up the stairs, keeping an eye out for any of the staff who must be roaming around the house. “Did you spend a lot of time in your room as a boy?”

He pauses mid-step, his hand tightening on the railing. “I did—mostly trying to stay away from my uncle and praying he didn’t come looking for me.”

My stomach turns at the thought of the small boy cowering in fear in his own bed. No wonder Silas doesn’t sleep well. I loop my arm through his and squeeze. “Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe I can go in, or—”

He rests his hand on top of mine on his forearm, and I look down at the scars across his knuckles, only partially hidden by the tattoos there.

“I have to, Lyla.”

Ending any further debate, he takes the last few steps up, and we move quickly down the hallway, past several closed doors to the last one at the end on the right. He pulls his arm out of mine and reaches for the knob, his hand shaking as he turns it and pushes the heavy-looking wooden slab open.

Not taking my own advice, I hold my breath and follow him in, unsure what I should do or say as his eyes dart around the room, taking in everything from the ancient-looking fourposter bed to the dresser, still covered in photographs of him as a teenager and various personal knickknacks that he never took with him when he left.

“They haven’t touched anything…”

His voice sounds hollow, somehow devoid of emotion when it should be full of it.

I walk over to the dresser and run my finger across it, lifting it up for him to see. “They’ve been dusting, though. Someone’s been in here keeping it up, maintaining it for fifteen years.”

He bobs his head. “Ursula, our maid. She never would’ve allowed dust to collect in here, even if she knew I wasn’t coming back.”

The affection in the way he talks about her leads me to believe she was one of the only people in this house who was ever kind to him—another piece of the sad reality he lived in for so long.

It makes the solitude he sought on the mountain make so much more sense.

Alone was safe.

This place definitely isn’t.

I scan the room for anything obviously out of place, perhaps a clue left by Ronald to alert Silas where he might have left the evidence. “Where would he hide something?”

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