Page 10 of My Three Rivals

“You don’t have to tell me, Mav. His cousins couldn’t wait to get rid of their shares of the property,” Atticus reminded me.

“My point is, Tegan doesn’t strike me as stupid,” I pressed. “If we can show her numbers—”

“If she’s so smart, then she would already know the numbers. No, she’s clinging to it because it’s hers, and the little spitfire doesn’t want to give up her toys. Wyatt is right on this one.”

I pressed my lips together, the urge to argue with him choking me, but I’d known him for almost fifteen years. This would get me nowhere.

He didn’t even know the girl. Why was he so insistent that she couldn’t be reasoned with?

“So what’s the plan, then?” I said instead, also sitting back to cross my ankles over each other, my black leather shoes swaying lazily.

“I just told you,” Atticus growled. “Are you purposely playing dumb? It’s not a good look on you.”

“I just don’t understand what you hope to achieve. Walk me through it. We go there and…?”

I cocked my head back against the chaise lounger.

Atticus grimaced at me. “You always do this,” he muttered in annoyance.

“Do what?”

“You always shoot down perfectly viable ideas.”

“No,” I corrected him. “I make you consider other options.”

The zoom of a car’s engine ended our conversation for the moment, Wyatt arriving in his luxury SUV.

Jumping out of his vehicle, he strode toward us and scowled. “You’re sunbathing?”

“It’s a beautiful afternoon, Wyatt,” Atticus replied lightly. “Sit down, take a load off.”

“I didn’t run home and pack to sit around here all afternoon!” Wyatt grumbled. “Let’s do this. We have money wasting.”

I raised an eyebrow at Atticus. Wyatt was still so riled up. This was a terrible idea.

“We’ll go in a bit,” Atticus said calmly, not budging from his place in the sun. “I’m in no rush to get into it with that spitfire again.”

That was the second time he’d called her a spitfire. I likened her more to a princess. A warrior princess.

I hid my smirk.

“And there’s no pool at the vineyard,” I reminded Wyatt teasingly, gesturing at the kidney-shaped pool in front of us. “You may as well get your laps in.”

“If I want to go swimming, I’ll go to the gym,” Wyatt muttered, but he did what Atticus asked and flopped onto the lounge chair on his left, albeit sullenly.

“No,” Atticus said quietly.

“No, what?” I asked in confusion, but I realized he was talking to Wyatt.

“No, what?” Wyatt echoed, equally perplexed by his single-word response to a question he hadn’t asked.

“Once we get there, we’re staying there. No coming and going,” Atticus explained.

Wyatt scoffed. “Why the hell not?”

“Because we need to keep the pressure on her. If she thinks that we’re still tied to our residences, she’ll know we’re in a rush to get back to our lives.”

“I already want to get home!” Wyatt moaned.

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