Page 7 of Moonlit Thorns

“To answer your question, your father didn’t have a choice. The banks would never lend a cent to your father. So he came to me because he knows I have money and was his last resort.”

The idea of asking this man for information about my dead father, a man I thought I knew so well, stings, but the idea of losing Oak Haven Estate is unfathomable. “Why did he need the money? Why wouldn’t a bank give it to him?”

Asher Voss stares at me for a long moment, but there’s judgment under his silence. His head tilts as if I’m a child. And I suppose to him, I probably am. Twenty-two to his thirty-six, according to Google.

“Did you really not know about your father’s gambling addiction?”

Every muscle in my body tenses and anger fills my veins. “My father did not have a gambling addiction.”

He chuckles low in his throat, the deep timbre reminding me of an animal’s growl. “Apparently you didn’t know your father as well as you thought.”

I shoot out of my seat. “I knew my father! I loved him.”

Asher Voss, slowly, like a predator readying to strike, stands from his chair and sets his palms on his desk, leaning toward me. If there weren’t a desk between us, he would tower over me. “I’d gather there’s a lot you don’t know, Miss Boudreaux.”

My hands fist at my sides at the censure in his eyes and the way he’s talking to me as though I’m beneath him. “If what you say is true, I demand to see the paperwork my father signed. He’d never put Oak Haven Estate at risk. I don’t believe you.”

He pushes off his desk, standing to his full height, smoothing his tie down his chest. Although he’s clothed, the way the suit has clearly been tailored for him shows off his broad shoulders and narrow waist. I assume under the suit is a magnificent body. “I’ll have my assistant at headquarters have it couriered to you as soon as you leave. Which is now.” He gestures toward the door behind me.

“That’s it?” I don’t know why I’m so stunned he’s dismissing me so easily.

“That’s all.” He nods once. When I don’t move, he stalks around his desk toward me, standing tall in front of me. His nostrils flare. “You need to leave. Now.”

Something flashes in the depths of his blue eyes, but I can’t decipher what. For a moment I think it might be panic, but would a man like him ever panic?

“I’m not leaving here until you tell me what I can do to keep the estate.”

“There’s nothing you can do. Now go.” He grips my upper arm.

The feel of his large hand wrapped around the bare skin of my upper arm causes me to gasp. He, however, is unaffected as he drags me toward the door. But as he reaches for the handle of his door, I wrench my arm from his.

“There has to be something I can do.” I look up at him with pleading eyes.

“There’s nothing you can do. Not unless you have the funds to pay off the entire balance of the loan now that it’s in arrears.”

“How much is that?” Maybe I could sell my car… I only rent my place… maybe I could get a loan for the amount myself if I?—

“Three million dollars.”

My stomach bottoms out, and my legs shake, causing me to almost collapse. My father gambled away three million dollars.

As if he can read my mind, Asher says, “A lot of it he gambled. Some of it he had to use for the distillery and the farm because he was also a shit businessman.”

My gaze whips up to meet his in outrage. Who is this man who can so callously speak about a man to his daughter after he was killed only months ago on his property?

I recall all the opulence as I walked through this mansion. The needless displays of generational wealth. Three million dollars is like pennies to a billionaire like Asher Voss, and yet it’s as if he’s taking pleasure in causing this pain. He could work something out with me if he wanted. It would make no difference to his bottom line.

“My father might have been a gambler and a poor businessman, but he was a thousand times the man you are!”

A patronizing chuckle ripples out of him. “Please stop trying to flatter me, Miss Boudreaux. It doesn’t change the fact that in less than two weeks, I’ll be the new owner of Oak Haven Estate.”

Nausea coils in my stomach, but I refuse to throw up on his expensive leather shoes. We can’t lose the only tie we still have to our father and his memory. My mother… I don’t even want to know how she’d react if we were forced off the estate. She’d never recover.

“Tell me what I can do. There has to be something. I’ll do anything, Mr. Voss, please.” I’m a prideful woman, and I hate the desperation in my voice, but I am exactly that—desperate.

He studies me. It’s almost impossible not to shrivel up within myself, but I hold my ground. Then he steps closer to me, and I step closer toward the door.

“Why should I do anything other than what the contract your father signed dictates? I did nothing underhanded. He knew what he was signing, and he didn’t live up to his end of the deal. Therefore, I have every right to make Oak Haven Estate mine. Yet you’re here looking at me like I’m the villain, rather than your precious father who put your family in this position in the first place.”

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