Page 4 of Bitter Rival

He makes it sound as if he’s doing me a favor. “If you find me so objectionable, why did you agree to do this?” I challenge.

He glances over, and in the sunlight, his eyes are the same shade of blue as an alpine lake frozen over. Such a shame to waste those pretty eyes on someone like him.

But if I look closely, I can practically see the shards of ice floating in his irises.

He’s so cold.

“Why do you think I agreed to it? If I could have cut you out completely, trust me, you wouldn’t even be taking up space in my car.”

I guess I already knew that so I’m not sure why I asked. He’d dragged this out for months, trying but failing to get me cut out of the will.

If Beckett hadn’t agreed to meet the conditions, everything would have gone to me.

If I hadn’t agreed, everything would have been sold, and the money would have gone to…wait for it… a mausoleum and a rose garden for Robert Heyward. The least he could have done was choose a worthy charity but no, he had to be a bastard right up until the end.

What a cruel trick for a father to play.

But why did he have to involve me in any of this?

I can’t even blame Beckett for resenting me. He was his father’s only son. I would resent me too. But I’m not my mother and I’m not the one who seduced his father. I’m just the girl trying to make things right. And so far, I’m failing miserably.

“Are you in on this with your mother?” he demands. “Is she behind this?”

I laugh but not because I find it funny. I haven’t seen my mother in years. “You think I conned your dad into giving me half of the vineyard?”

He shrugs. “Like mother, like daughter.”

“If we’re going with that theory then I can only assume you’re exactly like your father.” Say what you will about my mother, but Robert Heyward was no saint either.

His jaw clenches and I can tell I hit a nerve. Beckett doesn’t want to be anything like his father whose favorite hobby was seducing women half his age.

He was even hitting on the waitress while we had lunch together. He was seventy-two at the time, and she couldn’t have been much older than me, which had prompted me to ask, “Who do you think you are? Mick Jagger?”

He’d leaned back in his chair with a smile and said, “Smart, funny, and beautiful. That’s a lethal combination.”

I guess he thought I was joking.

He told me that he was trying to make things right with his son, but judging by Beckett’s reaction, I don’t think he succeeded. Maybe, if he’d had more time, he would have. Or maybe Beckett isn’t the type to forgive so easily.

Either way, it was a huge error in judgment to throw me into the equation. All it achieved was to make a bad situation a thousand times worse.

“Just stay out of my way,” Beckett says. “And Daisy.” I raise my brows. “Whatever game you’re playing, I can guarantee that I’ll get to the bottom of it. When this is over, you won’t walk away with a dime.”

I flash him a bright smile that we both know is fake. “When this is over, you’ll probably be begging me to not walk away.”

He gives me a contemptuous look. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

Trust me, I’m not.

CHAPTER TWO

Beckett

Daisy Larsson sleeps like the dead.

At some point during our ninety-minute drive, she reclined the seat back as far as it would go and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

She was probably up all night partying.

---