expression she wore whenever she was scheming. Working. Whatever. With Tess, those two were one and the same.
I knew that now—after Pinedale. All this time, I’d thought she was just another one of Daddy’s number-crunching lackeys, but it was clear to me now that with Tess, there was more going on. For Daddy and, I suspected, for herself as well.
I drew closer, trying to catch any of what they were saying, but they caught sight of me when I was a few feet away and Vivien bolted. “Goodnight,” she said in that weird voice of hers, and then she was inside, hurrying through the doors like I was going to come chasing after her.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Tess looked away. “What?”
I leaned over. “Tess, come on. Don’t play games with me.”
Her gaze was wary when she turned back to face me, but when she pursed her lips, I knew she was considering. Strategizing.
My sister, the evil genius.
Half-sister. Whatever.
“So?” I asked.
She gave her head a little shake. “Not here.”
Her glance moved toward the house meaningfully. Daddy. Whatever she was up to with Vivien, she didn’t want Daddy to hear. “Just…” She sighed, glancing from the house and back to me again. “Just hang in there, okay?”
My brows came down. We may have been on the same side a little more lately, but pep talks were still well outside our sisterly wheelhouse.
“Hang in there? What is that supposed to mean?”
“With Daddy. With Brandon and Amber and all that’s going on, just… hang in there. I’m working on something. But I need you to trust me, okay?”
A chill swept through me and made me shiver, but this time it wasn’t out of fear. It was excitement. Anticipation. And I had no idea why. But I nodded anyway. Did I trust Tess? I wasn’t totally sure. But after Pinedale and since we’d been home, I was starting to think maybe she wasn’t as under Daddy’s thumb as I’d once thought.
For years now, he’d pitted us against each other. She and I had always been trying to earn his approval, to gain some power of our own, to free ourselves from his controlling grasp, and now…
Now I was starting to think Tess was actually going to do it. Or at least, she was going to try.
Holding her gaze, I nodded. “I’ll trust you. For now. But at some point…” I glanced toward the door. Later. When we were anywhere else. “I need to know what’s going on.”
She gave a short nod.
We both stood, clearing the plates as servants who’d been watching from inside the house came out to help us. Just before they reached us, she mumbled, “It wasn’t me.”
I turned to look at her as I reached for an empty glass. “What?”
“I didn’t tell him about Jack.”
I eyed her for a long moment, and she met my gaze evenly. I sighed. “Okay.”
She nodded, turning back to her task, but I could have sworn her shoulders sank with relief that I believed her.
But I did. Not just because she’d said so but because now that I wasn’t in the middle of being yelled at, I could think clearly, and I didn’t think she would do that to me. For all her faults—for all my faults—we had forged some sort of bond in Pinedale.
Maybe we’d even learned to trust each other. And I didn’t want to see all that ruined now that we were back. I glanced toward the house where Daddy was no doubt working.
I didn’t want him to pit us against each other. Not again.
“Tess?” I paused just outside the door to the house as Maria took some dishes from my hands.
Tess arched her brows, and we both waited until the servants went in before I finished. “Whatever you’re up to. Whatever this is…” I nodded toward the table where she’d been whispering with Vivien. “I want in.”
Four
Jack
I was in hell. It was official. The sun was so bright it burned my eyes, and the air was hotter than Hades even though it was November.
I brought up a hand and squinted as I got out of the cab at the address Amber had sent me when I’d finally gotten her to respond. She’d been a long time coming with the information and hadn’t offered up anything about herself or where she’d run off to. But at least she’d answered my SOS about how to track down my best friend.
Heaven forbid Brandon quit his silent treatment long enough to text me back when I