Page 118 of His Wild Seduction

The landscaping was immaculate. The structure itself, pristine. But that sense of bigness, of heaviness I used to feel as a kid whenever I came home to this place was replaced by something else.

It wasn’t hatred. It felt more like regret.

My years working with abused women and children had taught me that I was not responsible for the failures of others. My mother’s death was not my fault, and while I tried not to blame her for leaving me alone, I had every right to be angry about it back then.

But I wasn’t so angry anymore. I was more sad.

For both of us. My mother was beautiful and wild, far too fragile for this cruel world and her sadistic husband.

I was just a kid. Not responsible for her transgressions in any way. I could forgive her for that, though. I could forgive a lot.

As for Franklin Gray. He was another story.

I did not want to replay the nightmare of when I left his house on the night of my eighteenth birthday.

I already did that when he’d begged me to see him a few weeks ago. The night he died.

I swallowed, fortifying myself as I walked up the stairs and punched in the key code.

“Hello? Gretchen?” I called out, walking inside the house.

Odd.

I knew Josef had told the staff to pack the common rooms. The parlor, the kitchen, stuff like that, leaving the personal items of my childhood bedroom and my mother’s belongings for me to sort.

But as I walked further inside, it didn’t appear like anything had been boxed.

In fact, there’d been no preparation at all to ready the estate for resale. I’d already planned to donate all the funds to my offsite project for St. Elizabeth’s Shelter for Women and Children, of course.

There was no way I’d keep a red cent from anything that once belonged to my stepfather.

“Gretchen?” I called out again, turning when I heard a noise coming from the office.

I opened the door, steeling myself against any lingering feelings I might have against the place.

I hated Franklin’s office. I always had.

But even readying myself to go inside, I could never have prepared for what I saw.

“It’s Meredith. Are you in here, Gretch—oh my God!”

“Hello Merry, sit down.”

“But you’re dead,” I whispered, shocked.

“That was an excellent trick, wasn’t it? Sit. Down.”

My stepfather had a gun in his hand, and he had it aimed right at Gretchen’s temple.

Horror was replaced by fear, potent and real, as I attempted to back out of the room.

“Not another step or I will shoot her. Now, come inside, Meredith, and close the door,” he commanded, cocking the pistol so I knew his threat was real.

I obeyed. I had no choice.

“I’m sorry, Miss. So sorry,” the older woman blubbered, and Franklin hit her hard with the butt of his gun.

“Stop it!” I screamed.

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