Page 4 of Tempt Me

“Hey Finn,” I say.

He extends a hand.

Alistair rolls his eyes. “For god’s sake, Finn, he’s your brother, not some fellow city council member you’re trying to impress.”

“You’re on the city council now?” I ask. Finn always had an eye on going into politics.

“I’m Vice President,” Finn says proudly.

“That’s great,” I say.

Finn doesn’t seem to need any further encouragement before he launches into a diatribe about what a headache the permits for this year’s Magnolia Day festival have been, but my attention is drawn to something else.

The entire back wall of the sunroom is nothing but windows and for a moment, my vision blurs and there’s a faint ringing in my ears as my gaze falls on my mother’s pottery shed. Her favorite spot, full of clutter, the place I used to think of as a mad inventor’s home in Wonderland.

It’s the place where she was murdered.

Last time I saw it, it was surrounded by crime scene tape and there were cops putting things in evidence bags. Now it looks the same as it used to—teal door, red roof, gray shingles. I’m half surprised it’s still here. I would have thought Dad would’ve had it torn down. My father is not a man who handles deep emotions well.

“We’ve made sure to keep everything the same,” Daisy says quietly. “No one has been inside Mom’s shed since that day. Well, except Fred Norman, the investigator. Dad let him look at it. He didn’t find anything more than the police did. And Dad hired a company to replace the window where the, um, bullet went through and clean the…” Her face goes pale. “Clean the blood off the floor.”

A heavy silence cloaks the room.

“But he wouldn’t let them touch anything else,” Daisy says, plowing ahead bravely. “Her kiln and her potter’s wheel and all those little trinkets…it’s all exactly the same. And we’ve kept her garden the same too. Dad insisted on it.”

I jerk my head to the right, to the sprawling hedges and massive rhododendrons that lead to Mom’s very own secret garden—the one Dad had built for her after they got married. As far as I’m aware, Dad never even set foot in there. He may own wineries from the North Fork to Napa to Barossa Valley, but my father is not an outdoorsy man. Mom was the one who taught me all about ecosystems, about the balance of nature. She was the one who inspired my dreams to make Everton the leader of the sustainable wine movement. A dream my father never wanted to hear about.

A dream that doesn’t matter anymore because I’ll never run this estate.

Being back is already hard enough as it is. Seeing my family.

I can’t let Magnolia Bay sink its hooks into me. I can’t let Everton Estate pull me in. I left for a reason. I have to hold onto that.

Daisy touches my arm gently. “He’s missed you, Cade.”

I snort. “Sure.”

She purses her lips. “Haven’t you missed us? At all?”

I look into my little sister’s sky-blue eyes and feel like I’m falling backwards in time.

“Yes,” I say quietly.

I turn away and stride over to the wall of windows. The garden does look well cared for. The rhododendrons are bursting with color, magenta and baby pink. I wonder how Mom’s tomato plants are doing. I squeeze my eyes shut and a memory of the party overtakes me. Showing Isla the garden, after we kissed for the first time. We had been friends forever—I’ve known Isla since elementary school. It had taken six months of Noah psyching me up before I finally got the nerve to ask her out. And it happened so naturally.

We just fit. Like we were meant to be together.

And then it all crumbled to ashes.

The front door opens then slams shut, and I jump as Von’s voice echoes down the hall.

“Where is he?”

“Down here Von!” Daisy calls.

Von strides into the sunroom and glares up at me. She’s immaculately dressed—black pencil skirt, tailored white button down, a pair of fierce Jimmy Choos. Her auburn hair is swept into a sleek bun at the base of her neck and her cinnamon-brown eyes glow with venom.

She’s exactly as I remember her, except now it seems she dresses to kill. I bet Dad approves of that. She crosses her arms over her chest.

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