“Daisy,” I say sharply. “Wake up.” I nudge her shoulder. “You’re getting drool all over my leather seats.”
A soft sigh escapes her lips as she rolls onto her side facing me, and the hem of her T-shirt rides up, exposing her taut stomach and sun-kissed skin. The T-shirt is a few sizes too small with an illustration of a cat above red and black Kanji symbols. It looks as if she bought it from the kids’ department. Meanwhile, her baggy jeans are three sizes too big and ride low on her hip bones.
She looks young and innocent, almost childlike when she sleeps, with long sooty lashes resting in the purple-tinged hollows beneath her eyes.
She has a decidedly feline look—tousled blonde hair, slanted cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes framed by thick arched brows.
My gaze drops to her mouth. It’s slightly parted, her lips so lush and pouty I want to put my fist through a fucking wall.
This whole thing feels like a sick joke. Even from the grave, my father has found a way to fuck with me.
I wish like hell I could have just walked away from this whole mess, but for several reasons, I refuse to do so.
I can’t allow Daisy to walk away with everything. She doesn’t even deserve to set foot on this land, much less inherit it.
There is no fucking way that my father will be getting a mausoleum and a rose garden to commemorate his pathetic life.
This isn’t chump change. My father’s estate is worth tens of millions, and I plan on using every cent of it to fund my next technology startup.
I get out of the car, slam the door shut with so much force the whole car shakes, and stand in the circular driveway, staring at the house. It looks like a Tuscan villa with ivy climbing up the crumbling stone walls and a terracotta roof with cracked tiles. The green paint on the shutters is faded and peeling, and the weeds have overtaken the lawn.
What was once a beautiful home, now reeks of neglect.
I carry the bags inside and climb the stairs. Hanging a left at the top, I set Daisy’s bag in the smallest bedroom with the most water damage and resist the urge to check her bag for drugs—or lingerie.
My father’s terms were so specific that I can’t even toss her bag on the street and let her find her own damn place to stay. Further proof that he takes joy in fucking with me.
After unpacking my clothes and putting them away in a much larger bedroom at the opposite end of the hall, I set up my office on the oak table in the study.
Books fill the floor-to-ceiling shelves and faded Aubusson rugs skim the oak floorboards, but everything else I remember from my youth is gone.
My father was an avid collector—art, fine wine, thoroughbreds, cigars, watches…and his tragic flaw, beautiful women.
After he died, I spent a few days going through his things and in the end, there was nothing of any real value left in this house.
Whatever Astrid hadn’t taken, he must have sold to cover his debts.
The greatest asset is the land—a two-hundred-acre estate vineyard that consistently produces award-winning wines in the heart of California wine country.
I have three months to get this place ready to sell and to find a way to cut Daisy Larsson out of the inheritance before the deed falls into her greedy little hands.
I’ve just finished a Zoom meeting with the investors when Daisy wanders past the window, gathering her hair into a messy bun and securing it with…a pencil?
She’s still wearing the baggy jeans with the kid-sized T-shirt and without the hoodie covering it, the small of her back is exposed. I have no idea why any of this is sexy—she dresses like a homeless person—but Daisy is the type of girl who could make a burlap sack look provocative.
Barring her fashion sense, she is exactly the kind of woman my father would have gone for in his prime, and the type of woman I avoid like the plague.