When the wind kicked up and trees cracked outside the window, his dogs started barking their fool heads off. Stella jumped and glanced toward the front door.
“They’re not scared,” he explained. “When it thunders or gets too windy, they think someone is knocking.”
“I can’t imagine you get many visitors out here in the middle of nowhere.”
He didn’t, but his staff would always knock before entering. “Let’s get inside,” he told her. “You can yell at me all you want there, but I need to get in there before my boys tear up my front door.”
“I should leave,” she muttered, barely audible over the wind. “I came here thinking we’d see where things went. Now, I want to be anywhere else.”
“I get that,” he replied. “But it’s nasty out there and it’s a long drive back to Gold Valley. Might as well stay at least a little longer.”
He turned and reached for the door, ready to hold back his dogs so they wouldn’t lick Stella to death.
“I don’t want to stay,” she repeated, but the fight had left her tone and Dane knew she wasn’t going anywhere yet.
She’d never admit her vulnerability, and he admired her for that, but he also knew if he was ever going to get through to her to fully understand his side, then now was the time to explain himself. And Stella deserved an explanation.
Dane stepped over the threshold and gripped his dogs’ collars as he hustled them back from the door. Two overly excited golden retrievers wasn’t something Stella needed to put up with right now.
Once she was inside and had closed the door, Dane let go of the dogs and snapped his fingers. The boys immediately sat at his side.
“You don’t have to stay long, but I need you to hear me out.” He stared back at her, knowing she could bolt out of that door at any time, knowing he deserved exactly that. “It’s not safe to try to drive right now. You know how Montana weather can be.”
Stella’s eyes darted down to the dogs and back up to him. “You’re used to everyone doing exactly what you want, aren’t you?” she sneered. “I’m not going to be that person.”
Yet here she was, standing in his foyer.
“Mirage was always meant to be mine,” he explained, needing to get to the heart of the issue. “My brother and I both have resorts that were stolen from us before we were old enough or had any power to stop it.”
Stella narrowed her eyes
. “Stolen? That doesn’t even make sense.”
Dane ran a hand over his jaw, the stubble raked against his palm. “My mother was Lara Anderson. She built Mirage in Gold Valley and Sunset Cove.”
Stella’s eyes widened. “That’s why you were so determined? Because you think this is owed to you?”
“It is owed to me,” he demanded. “Robert Anderson was a complete bastard who took advantage of my mother by marrying her when she was vulnerable after her father’s death. When she passed, Ethan and I were still in high school and Robert underhandedly gained rights to those properties and left with our money.”
Stella stared at him for a minute before shaking her head and pressing her hand to her eyes. “I can’t grasp all of this,” she muttered. “I can’t figure out how any of this is my fault and why I’m being punished when all I wanted was to have a place of my own, to stand on my own.”
Dane took a step forward. “I can help you. I just can’t give you Mirage.”
Taking a step away from him, Stella leveled his gaze. “I don’t want your help. I don’t want pity and I don’t want...”
Her voice cracked as she trailed off and ultimately turned her back. Dane fisted his hands at his sides, knowing she wanted nothing at all from him at this point. The only thing she’d ever wanted had been ripped from her life...just like it had been ripped from his.
They both wanted Mirage. They both had had the resort pulled away from them when they were so close to obtaining it.
“I know how you feel,” he stated. “I’ve been there. I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted any of this to harm you in any way. I just wanted what belonged to me.”
Stella spun around, her eyes full of fury and unshed tears. “Didn’t want me hurt? What did you think would happen? Did you think I’d be so totally blown away by your seduction skills that I’d overlook you jerking my life from me?”
“I never thought that.” Though the way she worded it made him sound like an even bigger bastard than he already felt. “I just wanted to find a way to get the resort back in my family like my mother always planned.”
“You didn’t have to lie to me,” she threw back.
Dane gritted his teeth as he tried to find words to defend himself. But she was right. Now that he looked back, now that he realized the impact he’d had on her and how much she’d already been through with her father, she was absolutely right.