Page 122 of Possession

With shaking fingers, I made myself read the papers. The contracts, and the legalese blurred as tears coasted down my cheeks.

Hisname.

Blake Carson scribbled at the end of the contract for money.

My grandmother’s money.

One million dollars of my grandmother’s money. Rage spiraled through my bones and shook through my fingers. The clock rattled in my hands as I blindly tore through the house and out the door.

Chapter 29

Blake

“So, you’re not coming for Christmas. Even though this is the first holiday you’ve actually had someone in your life, you won’t spare some time for your mother.”

I tipped back at the desk in my home office and searched for patience. “Mom, I don’t know what our plans are yet. Since this is our first holiday together, I don’t want to put pressure on her.”

“You mean put pressure on you, to actually be part of a family and do regular family things?”

I sat up straight. “Right, that’s me. Incapable of being part of a family. We’ll just forget all those years I wanted nothing but.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry, sweetie. It’s just all the time on the cruise gave me a chance to think, and I want you and Grace to be a bigger part of our lives. I made some mistakes with you, but we can fix them now. Iwantto fix them.”

My gaze sharpened as I stared at the watercolor of the Boston Harbor over my desk. Though it was my office, I rarely used it, especially now that Grace lived with me. I enjoyed sitting on the couch with her so much more than shutting myself away in this austere place.

But after the night we’d spent at the beach house after the gallery party, she was sorting through some of her grandmother’s possessions. Not out of sentimentality. No, as always, she was on the hunt for answers. Meanwhile, I was doing my level best not to study the security app that linked into the Stuart place to make sure she was okay.

The app was a concession, one Grace had allowed me simply because I think she found my over-the-top protectiveness endearing. When she wasn’t finding it stifling or annoying as hell.

I’d take what I could get.

Speaking of taking, taking my mother’s phone call had not been the smartest move. I still had miles of data from the thumb drive to sort through and didn’t have time to waste on the phone.

Except for one salient point.

“You just came back from a cruise? Alone?”

She sighed again. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? No, Brant and I took a week’s cruise to the Mediterranean. We’re barely off the boat, but I wanted to talk to you. We need to heal this rift, sweetie.”

It probably made me a bad son, and I’d be sure to buy her an extra lavish gift to make up for it, but I wasn’t thinking about rifts or healing or anything beyond what it meant that Brant had been on a boat in the middle of the ocean for the past week.

Specifically, he couldn’t have been the one who had broken into our home.

“I have been listening. Mostly,” I admitted. “There’s been a lot going on, and I’m preoccupied.”

“I knew it! You’re going to propose! Does this mean I can finally look forward to grandbabies?”

I nearly upended my chair. “Say what? No. Dear God. No.”

“To which part?”

“Any of it. All of it.” I tried not to sound as aghast as I felt.

We were in the middle of a possible murder investigation. A suspicious death at the very least, if Annabelle had died due to natural causes. I was seriously starting to doubt that. The timing of her passing had been a little too convenient, and conveniences only came at the value price of twice the going rate at corner stores.

Marriage and children were not on the agenda. Sweet Jesus.

“We’ve only been dating for a short time,” I managed once I’d recovered.

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