Haven Moreau sat in the waiting room of the Fifth Avenue office of probate attorney Sterling Crittenden and wondered, not for the first time, why she was there. Although she’d certainly had more than her fair share of legal woes over the years—or, at least, her family had—she’d never heard of Sterling Crittenden. And she certainly never had any business on Fifth Avenue. She barely ever made it off Staten Island these days. But here she sat, in the nicest outfit she’d been able to pull from her closet—a black-and-white houndstooth pencil skirt paired with a sapphire turtleneck and black Eton jacket, all from her favorite thrift store—and she’d been doing it for going on... She quickly checked her phone. Twenty-five minutes? A Fifth Avenue attorney named Sterling Crittenden was running that late? Even the most recent personal injury lawyer her uncle Cecil had retained for his most recent insurance scam was more punctual than that. Anyway, here Haven sat, in her nicest outfit, waiting for...something. She had no idea what.
Outside the windows, a bright blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds belied the fact that it was an unseasonably chilly early October morning. New York City was gradually easing its way into autumn. Already, the trees in her neighborhood were kissed with gold and orange and scarlet—well, as much as they could be, gasping for life as most of them were, thanks to the urban environment to which none of them was suited. Mrs. Bandara at the Sri Lankan bakery up the street had already trotted out her pumpkin spice helapa. The return of hockey season was imminent. Let’s go, Rangers. Best of all, though, the alley behind her tiny studio apartment had stopped smelling like Eau de Dumpster de la Ville. All in all, life was—reasonably—good. Except for the waiting here in confusion and missing a half day of work to do it, she meant.
An efficient-looking young man sitting behind the receptionist’s desk, whose nameplate identified him as Mateo Colón, smiled at her reassuringly. “I’m sorry for the delay, Ms. Moreau,” he said. “Mr. Crittenden is waiting, too. There’s another party we’re expecting for your meeting with him who seems to be running a bit late. If that party isn’t here by nine thirty, we’ll reschedule.”
Great. And then she’d have to lose another half day of work. Not that there was a lot of work out there anyway for a Jill-of-all-trades handywoman who was too often dismissed from any home improvement jobs she solicited the minute the potential client saw that she was a “girl”—all twenty-seven years of her—who couldn’t possibly know the difference between a hand plane and a mole grip. This despite her having those tools and dozens more in the collection she’d inherited from her father after his death when she was twelve. And in spite of having used them all for years before that, because she’d started tagging along with him on his handyman jobs on the days when she wasn’t in school as soon as she was old enough to wield a socket wrench.
Even so, she’d managed to eke out a living since graduating from college, doing something she loved and at which she was very good, thanks to her father’s teachings. Maybe the profits for Right at Home, her rehab and renovation business, weren’t massive, but at least there were profits these days. Still, the loss of even a half day of work meant skipping lunch for a week. Losing two half days would mean biking it all over Staten Island instead of even taking the bus.
She was staring at her phone, willing the numbers to not turn over from 9:29 to 9:30, when the door to the law office opened and the presumed third party bustled in. The first thing Haven thought when she saw him was of course he would be late. She should be surprised he showed up at all, since abandoning people was the thing Bennett Hadden did best. The second thing she thought was...
Well, she never had the chance to have a second thought, because he turned so that she could see him almost full face, and whatever thoughts she might have had dried up completely because he was even more handsome now than he was the last time she saw him this close up—during her sophomore year in high school. This would have been right around the time he and his cadre of elitist friends and family had a good laugh at her audacity in thinking that Bennett would give her the time of day.
The last person she ever wanted to see again in her life, up close or at a distance, was Bennett Hadden, even if family history—both hers and his—would make that impossible. The feud between the Haddens and the Moreaus spanned more than a century, with each generation spewing more vitriol about the other family than any that came before. The Haddens were thieves who stole the Moreaus’ fortune. No, the Moreaus were criminals who lost their fortune through a scandal of their own making. The Haddens had no morals. The Moreaus had no souls. The Haddens cheated on their taxes. The Moreaus kited checks. The Haddens kicked puppies. The Moreaus cut in lines. The charges each family had leveled against the other went from the ridiculous to the slanderous, ad nauseum.
And there was no end for it in sight, since the most recent generation of both families, some not even teenagers yet, were being brought up the same way Haven and Bennett had—to loathe and despise everything about each other. Never turn your back on a Hadden, her cousin Dexter once told her, because they’ll stick a knife right into it. Never trust a word that comes out of a Hadden’s mouth, her aunt Rose added, because it’s an outright lie. The only good Hadden, her uncle Desmond always said, was a... Well, there were no good Haddens. Period. If Haven couldn’t keep her distance from a Hadden, her cousin Claudia once told her, then she better keep herself armed.
With Haven, though, where the Haddens were concerned—where Bennett Hadden in particular was concerned—it was personal. Because Bennett Hadden, damn him, had broken her heart.
He turned to close the door behind himself, and when he finally glanced up, it was at the receptionist, not at Haven. He ran a hand roughly through his overly long dark hair, then smoothed it over the jacket of his trendy dark blue suit. Then he shifted, from one hand to the other, the kind of messenger bag that was meant to look fashionably battered and casual but probably had cost him more than her monthly rent and grocery budget combined.
How could he be the third party they had been waiting on? What could she and Bennett possibly have to be party to together? Sure, their families had been embroiled in a bitter legal battle for generations, but they’d never used the services of Fifth Avenue attorney Sterling Crittenden. Certainly, the Haddens could afford him, but last Haven had heard, they’d been employing the services of someone her uncle Desmond called a “frump-battle-axe-witch-harridan,” as if it were all one word, so probably not Sterling Crittenden.
“Mr. Hadden, I presume,” Mateo Colón said as he stood. “Mr. Crittenden is expecting you. If you and Ms. Moreau will follow me?”
At the Ms. Moreau, Bennett snapped around to look at Haven, and for a solid nanosecond, he had the decency to look embarrassed and possibly even ashamed. Nah, just kidding. Haddens didn’t know embarrassment or shame. They were the most arrogant, most callous, most heartless people to ever exist. It hadn’t taken Haven’s cousin Nanette to tell her that—even though Nanette had told her that. It was something Haven had witnessed for herself where Bennett was concerned.
As she rose from her seat, she suddenly felt compelled to lift a hand to smooth back her own hair, to ensure it was still neatly tucked into the short, dark blond ponytail she’d bound at her nape that morning. Naturally, it wasn’t, because her hair never behaved itself. Hastily, she did her best to stuff a few strands back into the elastic, though why she would bother was beyond her. She didn’t care what Bennett thought of her appearance. She didn’t. She just wanted to present as professional an image as possible to the first Fifth Avenue attorney she’d ever met, that was all.
Instead of greeting her—why would he?—Bennett just gazed at her in that arrogant, callous, heartless way the Haddens had perfected probably even before Bertie Hadden swindled Winston Moreau out of a fortune in the late nineteenth century. So Haven did her best to gaze back with the grace, dignity and self-respect her mother had always told her was the best revenge where the Haddens were concerned. Then she made sure she cut in front of Bennett to follow Mateo Colón down the hall first, to a big room bisected by a big table and lined with wall-to-wall windows that looked out onto the Flatiron Building across the street.
When Mateo asked them to take a seat, Haven grabbed the one at the head of the table, just to spite Bennett. Not to be outdone, however, he covered the half-dozen strides it took to fold himself into the chair at the other end. When Sterling Crittenden, a kind-looking man with white hair and dark eyes, dressed in a dazzling double-breasted pinstripe suit, entered a few seconds later, he assessed their positions, shook his head almost imperceptibly and took a seat at the table exactly halfway between them. Mateo, ever the attentive associate, moved to stand to his right, looking supremely comfortable in the position. As Mr. Crittenden sat down, he placed a stack of three navy blue folders on the table in front of himself. They were the kind of folders Haven remembered her mother always stocking up on during back-to-school sales, when she could buy packets of ten at the dollar store. Though Haven was pretty sure that wasn’t where Mr. Crittenden had gotten his.
“Good morning,” he said to them both, nodding first at Haven, then at Bennett. “I think each of you are familiar with who the other is, but have you ever actually met in person before now?”
At this, it was all Haven could do to stifle the wave of indignation that roared up inside her. Oh yes. They’d met many times. Most of which had ended very badly indeed. Bennett, too, was clearly battling some rancor at his own memories, because when his gaze met hers, even with a mile-long table separating them, it was hot and relentless.
“Oh, Moreau and I have met a time or two,” he said crisply.
“Hadden and I went to high school together,” Haven clarified just as coolly. Unable to help herself, she added, “Among other things.”
Whereas that last comment seemed to multiply Bennett’s animosity, the first part clearly surprised Mr. Crittenden. “Indeed?” he asked. “I knew Mr. Hadden and his family were all Barnaby Prep alumni. He graduated with my grandson, in fact. But I didn’t realize you were an alumna, as well, Ms. Moreau. It’s an excellent school.”
Haven bit back another ripple of resentment at the not-quite-hidden astonishment in the attorney’s voice, even though she was sure he meant no ill will toward her. Yeah, nobody realized she was a Barnaby alum, because illiterate blue-collar scum from Staten Island never received full scholarships to tony private academies such as Barnaby. She knew that, because virtually all her classmates had told her so while she was attending, pretty much every day, and all of them had always wondered how she’d really managed to gain admission and stay there, always insinuating it must be because of skills her mother—or even she herself—had used with expert knowledge under the headmaster’s desk. Evidently, a 4.0 grade point average, twenty hours a week of community service, publishing a critical essay about His Dark Materials in a national student publication when she was in sixth grade and captaining her middle-school intramural volleyball team to a state title wasn’t enough to qualify her for something like that.
Before she could reply to the attorney, however, Bennett said, “Moreau here could have been one of Barnaby’s biggest success stories, Mr. Crittenden. They took a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, gave her every opportunity to become a working-class hero, then she ran back to the wrong side of the tracks and became a... What is it you are now, Moreau? A plumber or something?”
Haven bristled, not just at the misguided comment and his condescending tone of voice but because of his conviction that anyone who didn’t live and work the way he did was somehow less than him. Sitting up even straighter in her chair—no small feat, since she’d been as stiff as a board since seeing Bennett—she replied, “And many other things, as well. Thanks for the recommendation, Hadden. Coming from someone like you—a privileged, pampered kid from the Upper East Side who was only able to land a place at Barnaby because his parents paid twice the tuition they normally would have since he only had half the requirements needed for admission—it means a lot.”
The smug grin twisting his features fell. But instead of feeling vindicated, Haven felt sick. There was nothing like reverting to an anxious, out-of-place teenager without warning. But that was exactly how she was suddenly feeling. Sure, she could retort with zingers now when someone dismissed her, instead of slinking off to the girls’ bathroom to cry, but she still hated confrontation.
So what if she hadn’t accepted any of the full-ride scholarship offers she’d received from top-tier colleges after graduation and had attended The City of New York’s College of Staten Island instead? So, sue her. She’d been tired of being bullied for her perfectly acceptable background and had been reasonably certain she would have been just as badly targeted and unhappy at some tony Ivy League school. Maybe the rest of her family still felt like they belonged in the one-percent class, a designation that had been stripped away from their ancestor by the Haddens nearly a century and a half ago. Haven was perfectly content wearing her blue collar, thanks. Or would be, if she could just land enough work to keep a roof over her head and food on her table.
Sterling Crittenden looked first at Haven, then at Bennett, then evidently decided there was no reason to further that particular discussion. Instead, he turned his attention to the trio of folders he’d placed in front of himself on the table. “Well, then” he said. “Let’s just get right to the heart of the matter, shall we?”
He handed two folders to Mateo, who strode over to deliver one to Haven, then traveled to the other end of the table to give the second to Bennett. To his credit, Bennett seemed to be as confused about their purpose as Haven was. Neither opened them up to see what was inside.
So Sterling Crittenden told them. “What you each have is a copy of the last will and testament of Aurelia Hadden. The original is on file.”
Now Bennett looked even more confused. Aurelia Hadden was his great-aunt who had died earlier this month. She’d lived upstate in the Finger Lakes Region, in a massive Gilded Age mansion called Summerlight, which overlooked a small town called Sudbury on one side and Cayuga Lake on the other. The Haddens and Moreaus had been bickering and hurling accusations—and suing each other—over ownership of that house since the 1880s. Because that was when robber baron Winston Moreau was forced to sign its ownership over to notorious con man and swindler Bertie Hadden, who’d cheated Winston out of it during a rigged poker game after slipping him a Mickey.
At least, that was how the Moreaus knew the story actually unfolded. The Haddens would have had others believe some nonsense about how Winston was a notorious profligate who legally deeded the place—and everything inside it—to his chauffeur, Bertie, as a bribe in exchange for Bertie’s silence after witnessing Winston’s contribution to the ruination and ensuing death of an innocent Park Avenue socialite. The Haddens had made up and perpetuated the other story for more than a century, because they just didn’t want to admit that their ancestor was, at best, a villain and, at worst, a criminal.
Anyway, it was weird that Haven and Bennett would be sitting here for the reading of Aurelia’s will. As had always been the case with Summerlight, it was a matter of concern for the older generations of both their families. Bennett’s grandfather was still alive, and he was not only of sound mind and body but also Aurelia’s brother-in-law and a direct descendant of Bertie. And although Haven’s father, a direct descendant of Winston, had died when she was twelve, his younger brothers and sister—her uncles Cecil and Desmond and her aunt Rose—were all still around. And so was her paternal grandfather, for that matter. Even if he was in a memory care facility, it seemed like he would figure into the equation somewhere. Certainly more than Haven would.
Summerlight, everyone in both families knew, had always been passed to the eldest son of the eldest son in each ensuing generation of Haddens, ever since Bertie stole it from the Moreaus. Bennett’s aunt Aurelia and uncle Nathaniel, though, never had children. Everyone in both families had assumed she was only living there after her husband’s death as a courtesy, and that the house would go to Bennett’s grandfather after she died. Then to Bennett’s father, then, someday, to Bennett. Well, unless Haven’s uncles and aunt won their most recent lawsuit against the family to have ownership of Summerlight restored to the Moreaus. But that wasn’t likely, considering how similar lawsuits dating back more than a hundred years hadn’t changed anything. Evidently, hope sprang eternal in a family who kept it watered with bitterness and resentment for generations.
Mr. Crittenden turned to his associate. “Thank you, Mateo. That will be all for now.”
With a nod to his employer and a quick farewell to Haven and Bennett, Mateo dismissed himself, leaving just the three of them in the big meeting room. Haven halfway expected the attorney to say something like “I guess you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here today.”
Instead, he told them, “Although both the Haddens and the Moreaus think the tradition of bequeathing ownership of the Summerlight estate to the eldest son of each Hadden’s eldest son is an ironclad aspect of the original deed transfer, that isn’t the case at all. It is simply a tradition. Each owner of Summerlight has had the freedom and power to will the property to whomever they wished. It was simply an aspect of the times that the eldest son generally inherited. Aurelia’s husband could have left the house to his brother, Bennett’s grandfather, upon his death, but he didn’t. He left it, and all of its furnishings, to his wife instead.”
This clearly surprised Bennett. “My father always said Aunt Aurelia had the right to live out her life at Summerlight, but that after her death, it would go to my grandfather. Then to my father. Then to me.”
“Traditionally, that might have been the case,” Mr. Crittenden said. “But your aunt and uncle were very much in love and not especially traditional. Nathaniel Hadden wanted to make sure his wife was cared for in every way possible. He left his entire estate to her, including Summerlight. Until her death, she was the sole owner. And it was within her rights to bequeath the house and the rest of her estate to whomever she saw fit.”
“But—” Bennett halted after that single word and seemed to not know what to say next.
Haven didn’t blame him. She didn’t have any words, either. She still wasn’t sure why she was here.
“And as to whom Aurelia saw fit to bequeath her house and all of its contents—” Here, Mr. Crittenden opened his folder. “If the two of you will open your dossiers to page three, please.”
Haven and Bennett did as the attorney asked in an almost identical manner. But neither of them looked at the folder in front of them. Instead, for some reason, they looked at each other. And Haven was pretty sure her own expression probably mirrored Bennett’s in its bewilderment, turbulence and...panic? Yeah, panic was a good word for what she was feeling at the moment, even if she had no idea why.
“Aurelia Hadden saw fit to bequeath Summerlight and all of its contents,” Mr. Crittenden continued, “to the youngest member of each family—one on the Hadden side and one on the Moreau side—who has reached the age of majority.” He looked up again at Haven and Bennett. “That would be the two of you. She wished for you each to have equal ownership of Summerlight and all of its furnishings.”
Now Haven and Bennett turned to look at Sterling Crittenden. He offered a reassuring smile to each in turn.
“There are a few conditions, however. Principal among them is that the two of you must live in the house together for one year. Exclusively and continuously, never missing a full night away, effective date...” With that, he dropped an even bigger bombshell. Mr. Crittenden glanced down at the folder in front of him, but Haven was pretty sure he was only doing it for dramatic effect, since he must know Aurelia’s will backward and forward.
“Well, look at that,” he said with feigned astonishment. He returned his attention to Haven and Bennett. “The effective date is upon announcement of Summerlight’s new ownership to its inheritors. That would make the conditions effective beginning today.”
Bennett Hadden looked at Sterling Crittenden sitting halfway down the table and wondered how such an already crappy week could have gotten so much crappier. First, Greenback Directive, the green consulting firm he’d started right after earning his MBA, had lost what could have been a billion-dollar client because said potential client had misunderstood the play on words and thought Greenback referred to, well, greenbacks—as in money—and not backing green solutions that made businesses and corporations more environmentally friendly. Then, a woman he’d been interacting with online—one he’d thought was gradually becoming a romantic interest—had instead asked him if he could house-sit her place in Scarsdale while she and her husband and their girlfriend spent a month overseas.
And as if neither of those had been bad enough, he’d had to suffer through his thirtieth birthday two days ago, complete with the traditional Hadden surprise party—which was never a surprise, because his mother spent the year leading up to each of her three children’s turn-of-the-decade milestones planning a major gala that included everyone who would fit into their Park Avenue brownstone. Though he supposed he should count himself lucky. His two older sisters had had to endure parties even more extravagant than his because his parents always felt like they had to show them favoritism, since their only son would someday inherit the house their daughters would be denied, thanks to something as capricious as gender. Or so they’d all thought. Now it looked as though Bennett would be coming into that bequest a lot sooner than any of them had realized.
And he was going to have to share it with a Moreau.
He looked at Haven again. She’d grown into quite the beauty since high school, he had to admit, so the view at the other end of the table, at least, improved the state of his week a bit. And she’d found her spine since those days, too, considering the way she’d stood up to him a minute ago. The last time he saw her, she was all bony limbs and graceless posture, in an ill-fitting school uniform she’d always accessorized with a billion weird bracelets and ridiculous high-top sneakers. She’d been a working-class dork who literally tripped over her own feet, bobbing frantically in an ocean of rich, cotillion-classed peers. Not that anyone at Barnaby Prep had really been a peer of Haven Moreau’s. Then again, it wasn’t such a bad thing to be an outcast among ingrates.
Even so, as improvements to his week went, the one with Haven becoming such a beauty was pretty pointless. She hated his guts. And he hated hers. Hell, thanks to her grudges and overreactions, his dream of attending the college of his choice in a city he loved had been ripped right out from under him. And only days before he’d planned to leave, too, with his bags already packed and half his belongings already shipped across the country. He’d been forced to start college a semester late because of her, at a school right here in New York that he’d only gained entry to because his mother practically blackmailed someone on the admissions committee. Even if he had ultimately landed on his feet, no way did he have to show Haven Moreau even an ounce of tolerance.
He pushed thoughts of the past away to focus on Mr. Crittenden’s announcement that he had just inherited his aunt Aurelia’s house—something that could ensure once and for all that it would remain in Hadden hands for good. Why the gargantuan French Renaissance Revival mansion was so important to his family, though, he had no idea. It was just a pile of brick and wood and mortar—and, okay, twenty thousand square feet filled with antiques, jewelry and art, not to mention that it sat on sixty-four acres of exquisite lakefront land, two of which were gardens, along with riding stables, a carriage house, and not one, but two turrets. Though now that his family would have to share all that with one of their most hated enemies...
“There are a few other stipulations to Aurelia’s bequest, as well,” Mr. Crittenden said, bringing Bennett’s thoughts back to the present.
Of course there were stipulations. Why leave the place to both him and Haven—neither of whom deserved or had earned it—unless there were lots of conditions? His great aunt probably expected them to battle to the death to see which family would win the place once and for all, like some kind of upper-class Thunderdome.
The attorney continued, “Should one of you decline to live in the house, exclusively and continuously for one year, then Aurelia’s estate will revert in its entirety to the other. If both of you decline to live in the house, exclusively and continuously for one year—”
Why did he keep reiterating that part? Jeez, they got it. They had to live together in a gigantic house for a year. Not a great development, but not impossible. He could work remotely as well as at the office and just fly into Manhattan for a day every now and then to stay abreast of things. He had good people working for him. Half of them could probably run the business as well as he did. And Summerlight was so big, he and Haven would barely have to see each other.
“—then Aurelia’s entire estate,” Mr. Crittenden continued, “will go to the community of Sudbury, to be used as its town council sees fit.”
Yeah, that isn’t going to happen, Bennett thought. If he let Summerlight get away from the Hadden family that easily, they’d excommunicate him. Not that there hadn’t been times in his life, even today, when he’d wished they would do that anyway. He was still going to do whatever he had to to keep the place in the Hadden hold.
“Excuse me, Mr. Crittenden?” Haven asked.
“Yes, Ms. Moreau?”
She hesitated, as if trying to frame her words carefully. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, but why would Aurelia Hadden want me to own half of Summerlight?” She looked down the table at Bennett as she continued, “I mean, I know my family are the true rightful owners—”
Ha. That’s a good one.
“—but it’s been, like, five generations since Bertie Hadden swindled us out of it, and dozens of court petitions have upheld that swindling.”
“Oh, please, Moreau,” Bennett interjected. “Your family aren’t the true owners of anything, let alone Summerlight. Talk about swindlers. Just how many times has your uncle Cecil tried to throw himself under a bus to bilk the city out of millions? How many emails has your aunt Rose sent out claiming to be a displaced Eastern European royal who needs our help? How many credit cards has your cousin Nanette opened in other people’s names?”
Haven ignored him. Probably because she knew he was telling the truth. Sure, there may have been a time when the Moreaus were the cream of New York society. But, starting with Winston Moreau, the family had begun a slow downward spiral into scandal, chicanery and lawlessness. At this point, they were virtually all some kind of petty criminal. Haven was supposed to have been the one to lift them all out of that, after winning a place at Barnaby Prep. Instead, she’d run right back home to join them the minute she could. Maybe she wasn’t a petty criminal, but she certainly hadn’t risen to the levels she might have had she done something halfway decent with her life.
“Anyway,” she continued, “like I said, not to sound ungrateful, but...why me? Why a Moreau at all?”
Mr. Crittenden gave her a reassuring smile. “Aurelia experienced quite a lot of disappointment and loss in her life. She was orphaned as a child and raised by family members who were none too pleased to have her join them. She and her husband had hoped to have children of their own, but that never happened. She then lost him far too young after nursing him through a terrible disease. She knew a lot of heartbreak in her life. A lot of wrongs she wasn’t able to put to rights. I think, Ms. Moreau, she thought that bequeathing Summerlight to you and Mr. Hadden together would be a wrong that she could right. Because she felt that, in a sense, the house does belong to both families. By throwing you together this way, she thought it would force a resolution that would put your families on better footing.”
Haven thought about that for a moment, then said, “Mr. Crittenden? I have another question.”
“Yes, Ms. Moreau?”
“If the conditions of Mrs. Hadden’s will are effective today, does that mean Hadden and I have to be moved into the house by tonight?”
“I’m afraid it does, yes.”
“But that doesn’t give us much time.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I mean...we’ll need to pack our stuff and make arrangements for travel. That could take a while.”
Bennett didn’t see the problem. “The Finger Lakes are only a five-or-six-hour drive, even with Sudbury being halfway toward the north end of Cayuga Lake. How long does it take you to throw a few things into a bag, Moreau? You can buy whatever else you need in Ithaca, on the way.”
“Speak for yourself, Hadden,” she countered. “I don’t have a car. I don’t even know if there are any buses that run to Sudbury from New York.”
“There aren’t,” Mr. Crittenden told her. “But there are several that run from here to Ithaca, and from Ithaca, you should be able to arrange for a cab or rideshare to the house. It’s only about thirty miles. Less than an hour’s drive on the local road.”
“Oh sure, and how much is all that going to cost me?” she asked. “Provided I can even get a bus at the last minute? Not to mention I have to go all the way back to Staten Island to pack and then come back here to the city to catch said bus. Provided they haven’t all left by then and there’s still a seat left on any that might run later. Hadden here will be unpacked and enjoying a cocktail on the front porch before I even get my toiletries zipped into a baggie.”
“Summerlight doesn’t really have a front porch,” Bennett told her. “It’s more like a veranda that wraps all the way around, and—”
He stopped talking when he realized Haven wasn’t listening. She’d whipped out her phone midway through her rant and was typing frantically, presumably to address all her concerns, many of which she was still voicing. Bennett supposed he could have helped her out by offering her a lift, but he stopped himself. For one thing, they hated each other’s guts. For another, he was reasonably sure she wouldn’t accept anyway, since that would mean being beholden to her sworn enemy. There was also the small chance that helping her out that way could hold them both up enough that neither of them would make it on time, and then the town of Sudbury would end up with the house. But mostly he didn’t offer because of their mutually hated guts.
Sure, it was petty to hold a grudge from high school. But holding grudges was practically engraved on both families’ coats of arms. Whatever the Latin words were for Enmity over Honor, that should have been both their mottos.
“I mean, especially if the reading of the will is going to take a lot of time today,” Haven continued, still scrolling on her phone, “God knows when I’ll even be able to make it back to Staten Island in the first place, and then I have to—” She snapped to attention in her chair. “There’s a bus to Ithaca that leaves at four thirty this afternoon that still has a couple of available seats. It’ll take five and a half hours to get there. That’ll put arrival time at around ten. There shouldn’t be much traffic between there and Sudbury that time of night, right? That should work.” Then her eyes went wide. “Are you kidding me? Two hundred dollars? That’s robbery!”
Even so, Bennett could tell she was booking the ticket as she spoke. Seriously, she couldn’t even afford a two-hundred-dollar bus ticket? He thought plumbers made good money. So much for Barnaby Prep’s claim that 100 percent of its alumni were placed in lucrative positions within two years of college graduation.
“If it will help, Ms. Moreau,” Mr. Crittenden said, “we can dispense with the reading of Aurelia’s will today, since that part is simply a formality and not legally binding. You and Mr. Hadden can read it at your leisure and contact me with any questions.”
“That would help enormously,” she told him, already standing and gathering her things. “Is the address for Summerlight in the folder?”
“It is,” the attorney told her. “As are keys for the front and back doors, as well as a floor plan and a map of the grounds.”
“Great,” she replied as she began to make her way to the door of the meeting room. “Then, I should be good to go.”
And she was. Gone, Bennett meant. She didn’t even shut the door behind herself. Bennett looked at Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Crittenden looked at Bennett.
“Was there anything else?” the attorney asked.
“No,” Bennett told him. “Guess I should be going, too.”
Not that he was worried about making it to Summerlight before the end of the day. He totally would. He just hoped like hell—though God knew why, since sworn enemies and guts-hating and all that—that Haven made it by then, too.
Copyright © 2023 by Elizabeth Bevarly