“No?” she asks, arching a brow. “Then that means he’s a co-conspirator.”
Anger surges up inside me. “A co-conspirator to what?”
“To defrauding you out of your fortune.”
“I’m not going to marry a Morelli,” I grumble. “According to the will, it’s his if I don’t. That’s not defrauding. That’s just life.”
Caroline shakes her head, pursing her lips together. “Read the extenuating circumstances clause again. Or better yet, let me sum it up for you. That fortune is yours and your father forfeited it to you by marrying Manda.”
“That makes no sense.”
Keaton bursts into the living room holding his phone up. “Ulrich just called. Clay sang like a canary. The person who leaked that you were at the whore apartment to him was Manda Mannford. Your stepmother. That’s how Scout must have found out, too.”
A sick feeling of dread has bile creeping up my throat. “W-what?” It was supposed to be Nate or Deborah. Not Manda. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s trying to do everything in her power to destroy your relationship with my son,” Caroline reveals.
“Why though? If I get married to Win one day, the inheritance goes to her and Dad. She should be happy I’m taking care of it for her.”
“No, sweetheart,” Caroline says in a condescending tone that makes me tense with unease. “Manda nullified the will by marrying Baron. Her children are the sons of a Morelli. You can’t marry someone of relation, by blood or legally binding marriage certificate. It cancels out the intent of the will.”
“What?” Keaton and I both demand at once.
“The triplets are test tube babies,” I murmur, my voice so soft I’m sure she barely hears.
“So naïve,” Caroline says with a frustrated sigh. “You don’t really believe a woman in college studying to become a doctor would willingly get pregnant during that time with triplets?”
Okay, so that doesn’t sound plausible at all.
“It means your inheritance is owed to you. Now.”
“Oh.”
“Why does Manda care, then, if I get with Winston? I would be out of her hair and I’d never have known about the money. She could have let it play out.”
Caroline smiles, almost prettily at me, but then I realize it’s the same smile Win has when they’ve won something hard earned. “Because she knew we’d find out her dirty secrets. When you got involved with Winston, that put my spotlight on you. In my effort to know every little thing about you, I’d uncover her secrets and the will.”
Manda tried to keep me under her thumb. Let Dad drain my college fund so I would be reliant on her for my education. Probably why she had her sons chase off all my friends and Tate in effort to keep me from accidentally getting knocked up or something. And when I started randomly seeing Winston, she pretended, at first, to be thrilled by the idea, but it wasn’t long that she was telling me I wasn’t deserving of it. She’s always hated me and now I know why.
Money.
She’s always wanted money.
“How did Manda even know about the will and my grandmother?” I ask, accepting the fact that Manda really is the evil stepmother I thought her to be and Dad is either compliant or just heavily under her spell.
“We all have secrets,” Caroline says, with a mysterious and slightly sad cast to her tone. It makes me think she has secrets, too. “But actually, Manda knew Maggie. In fact, they went to the same retreat together many years ago.”
“My mom told her about being disinherited?”
“They were at a women’s retreat. Those things bring the ladies close together and they often reveal things to one another that they normally wouldn’t. Manda has been waiting years to swoop in.”
“That’s so…creepy. Why? It’s just an inheritance from one woman.”
Caroline’s smile is wolfish. “An inheritance from one woman that rivals the Constantine fortune, darling. She’s been waiting for this for a very long time.”
“But it’s mine,” I say, finally understanding a little of how Win feels when people are always out to get him because of his money. It’s frustrating and it makes you want to keep it from them on principle.
“Good girl,” Caroline praises. “That’s the spirit.”
Manda, the scheming, lying, cheating bitch won’t get a penny of it. I won’t let that happen and something tells me Caroline Constantine, an unlikely ally, won’t allow that to happen either.
“What do we do now?”
“We?”
“I’m Team Constantine now,” I remind her.
She smirks at me but doesn’t deny my words. “Keaton, get a hold of your brother. There’s much to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Winston
Halcyon bustles with activity all during the week from sunup to sundown. At night, though, once the cleaners have restored the offices back to their pristine glory, it becomes a silent tomb. Often, over the years, I’ve come in late at night to work in silence.
As I walk through the lobby on our floor, I inhale the fresh scent of lavender floor cleaner, turning on lights along the way to my office. My impromptu meeting will begin soon.