Page 48 of Rebels and Roses

“Her reaction?”

“She stomped back to my car. I took her to the inn and left her there. What happens now I don’t know. She’s pissed off at me for sure, though. Not that I care.”

Cooper’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Cursing softly, he pulled it out and checked the screen.

“All be damned. This is getting stranger by the second. It looks like my dad and Kimberly have been made aware that Fiona is in town and that Tom is dead. They want to host a dinner tonight with everyone there including Fiona and Erica. This can only be trouble. My dad doesn’t do anything without a motive.”

“Everyone will be there?” Jane echoed. “What does that mean?”

“I would assume everyone that will show up. That would be Tate, Sam, maybe Zack and Lucy. Kim has already invited Fiona apparently, so I guess I have to go.”

“Since when do you give in to your dad and say yes to his dinner invitations?”

Cooper had been giving Joel Winslow the middle finger for a couple of decades. He had nothing but contempt for his father.

“Since I don’t want my ex-wife there without me. If I say no, he’ll go around me and get her there anyway. When he met Fiona, he immediately liked her.”

“And that didn’t give you pause?”

“I thought it was because she was sexy and good-looking. He’s always liked the ladies, and Fiona played up to him. She’d flirt and laugh at his jokes. That sort of thing.”

When Jane was younger, she’d laughed at her father-in-law’s horrible jokes, and eaten her mother-in-law’s terrible casseroles, so she understood wanting to be liked by the spouse’s family.

“If she goes alone, what bad thing could happen?”

“I don’t know, and that’s what bugs me. I want to be there to keep an eye on her. And my dad. I don’t trust either of them, so I have to go. I’ll tell them that there will be two of us coming.”

Now Jane was confused.

“Are you going to try and get Frankie or Piper to go with you?”

“No, I’m talking about you. I was hoping you’d go with me. Don’t make me go to this alone. My dad is up to something, and I need to find out what.”

Me? You want to be seen in public with me? With your family? This is…big. And unexpected. How do I feel about this?

Jane’s immediate reaction was to sayhell no. They needed to have an entire discussion as to what that would mean and the consequences of being seen together. A hell of a lot of thought needed to go into this sort of decision. If she did this, everythingwould be different tomorrow. In a good or a bad way? She didn’t have a clue.

“I can do that.”

The words had tumbled out of her mouth without even a pause at the Yield sign in her brain. So much for holding the line until they could talk about it.

It was official. Jane was going to the Winslow mansion for dinner with Cooper as her escort.

What could possibly go wrong?

12

Joel Winslow was not a happy man. He didn’t care so much about that; his measure of a good day wasn’t predicated on his mood. But today he had work to get done, important work. Bringing his children back into the family was the goal.

Today it was Cooper. His second eldest was probably the most stubborn of all of his children, although Francesca gave him a good run. Piper acted all tough, but she had the softest heart of all of them.

But Joel didn’t get to where he was in life by being a quitter. He wasn’t ever going to give up, and tonight he just may have found a path to Cooper - his ex-wife Fiona.

“You wanted to speak to me in private? I really should be out there with Erica.”

“Kim will keep Erica company. It will be fine. We have some time before the others get here.”

Fiona was sipping a martini, sitting on the leather sofa in his office. She had that haughty look and tone, but he knew better. He’d made sure to know more about Fiona Kemp Winslow than she even knew about herself. She might act like she didn’t care about what he had to say, but she did care. Very much.

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