chest. I knew he loved his wife, but it was about fucking time he stood up to her.
“I’ll… I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you, Talia.” He sounded pleased, as if even that was a victory.
“Thank you, grandpa,” I said softly, picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion.
“For what?”
“For sending Erin. For bringing me back here.”
There was a momentary pause, and then he asked, “Who is Erin?”
I sat up straighter, abandoning the thread. “Erin Bennett. The lawyer.”
His voice was halting when he spoke again, as if he wasn’t sure if he was the crazy one or I was. “I… don’t know any lawyer named Erin Bennett, Talia. What is this about?”
My brows drew together so tightly the muscles of my forehead ached. Had it not been Philip? I’d been positive he was the one who had sent Erin. It had made so much sense—sneaking around behind my grandmother’s back, trying to help me without being obvious about it. But his voice held genuine confusion, and now that he was putting his foot down with Jacqueline, I didn’t think he’d lie about it, especially if I’d already guessed the truth myself.
But I obviously hadn’t.
I’d been wrong.
“Um… nothing, grandpa. I’ll tell you about it at Christmas.”
“So you’ll come?” Hope bloomed in his voice.
“Yeah.” I smiled slightly at his excitement, but I was still shaking my head, lost in thought.
“That’s wonderful. Maybe come on the twenty-fourth? We can spend Christmas Eve together, and you can be here Christmas morning.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
We chatted for a few more minutes about how he was feeling and how much he hated the new diet he was on, then hung up.
I tossed the phone down on the couch beside me, staring out the window but not really seeing anything.
What the fuck?
I’d been so sure it was Philip, and now that I knew it wasn’t him, I couldn’t think of a single other person it might be.
But someone had done it. Someone had paid a solid chunk of money to retain Erin’s services—the lawyer hadn’t just woken up one morning and decided to fly to Sand Valley, Idaho, on a whim.
When the phone rang again, it startled me out of my thoughts. This time I did check the caller ID, and my heart jumped when I saw it was Finn.
I swiped the screen quickly and put the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hey, Legs.”
His voice sounded strange, oddly pinched and strained. He was usually the most fun-loving and laidback of the Princes, the first to find the humor in a situation. But he sounded like he hadn’t so much as smiled in days.
“What’s up? Are you okay? What’s going on? What’s been happening?”
He let out a soft chuckle at my barrage of questions, and the sound was like a balm. Finn was meant to be happy. Seeing him sad made it feel like there was something wrong with the whole world.
“That’s a lot to answer, Legs. And none of the answers are short. What are you doing right now? Can you come over?”
“What—to your house?”
“Yeah. The other guys are here too. We need to figure out what to do about Adena.” Before I could say anything, he added quickly, “This isn’t just us hatching another revenge scheme, Tal. This is about defense. I don’t think Adena’s done trying to fuck with us, and we’re just trying to keep ourselves—and you—safe. Will you come?”
At the moment, getting revenge on Adena didn’t sound at all like a bad thing. But the constant drive for revenge was what’d gotten us into this fucked up situation in the first place, and I appreciate that, even now, Finn was trying to prove to me that he’d changed. That things were different.
“Yeah. I’ll come. Where do you live?”
He rattled off the address of his parents’ house, and I darted into the kitchen to grab a pen before writing it down on the back of my hand. I didn’t know the area well enough to know where it was, but the GPS in my phone would guide me there.
“Okay. I’ll head out right now.”
“Good. We miss you, Legs.”
A hint of the old, teasing Finn returned as he spoke, and I gripped the phone tighter, a rush of emotions and words I couldn’t quite say filling my chest.
“See you soon.”
I hung up the phone and shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans, then threw on a jacket and headed out the door. I hadn’t gotten many chances to drive my car since I’d bought it, but