Sweet Heart (The Hearts of Sawyers Bend #2) - Ivy Layne Page 0,62

a closet turned out to be a rough bathroom with a composting toilet, a few jugs of water, and some towels. Good to know we had a bathroom since we were locked in here, but I would rather have had a way out.

Royal unearthed several bottles of wine and a few blankets from one of the trunks against the wall. In another, he found three of the oil lamps he'd mentioned, neatly stowed beside a box of matches and a can of oil.

There wasn't a single tool, radio, phone, walkie-talkie, or carrier pigeon. No way to break through the trapdoor and no way to let anyone know we were stuck. It didn't make sense.

“Why would Bryce lock us in the tower? Just to be a jerk?” From everything I'd heard, being a jerk seem to be Bryce's raison d'être, but trapping us in the abandoned watchtower seemed a little extreme.

Royal took a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling and thinking furiously, his hands wrapped behind his head. He exhaled slowly, dropping his hands to his sides.

“Daisy, I'm so sorry this happened. If I'd had any idea he was following us, I never would have brought you here.”

“It's not your fault, Royal. I just don't get why he'd do it. Is he that much of an ass?”

“He is, but that's not why he did it.” Royal started to pace the room again, checking out the windows.

“What are you looking for? Do you think he'll come back?” Royal stopped and met my eyes, shifting uncomfortably. “What? What's going on that you don't want to tell me?”

“It's not that I don't want to tell you,” Royal admitted, “it's that I'm not sure if I'm right, and if I am no one is supposed to know, including me.”

“Can we get out of here? On our own, I mean.”

Royal leveled a heavy glare on the closed trapdoor. “Unlikely.”

“Then you might as well tell me why we're here. I can keep my mouth shut.”

“Fair enough. I'll tell you over wine and cake.” He glanced up at the beamed ceiling a good ten feet above our heads, then to the increasing rain outside. “At least the roof doesn't leak.” Royal cracked one of the smaller windows and a gust of damp, clean air swirled through the watchtower.

I cleared the small table, wiping off the thin layer of dust covering it. Royal set out a plastic container holding two generous slices of cake along with a corked bottle of white wine, two plastic, stemless wine glasses, two forks, and two linen napkins. Before he sat, he lit the oil lamps, and a golden glow spread through the watchtower.

“I like a man who comes prepared.” I sat, taking a sip of the crisp, sweet wine.

Royal winked. “Oh, I'm prepared for all sorts of things.” I liked the sound of that. He glanced at the trap door again. “Except for that.”

“About that…” I prompted.

“Yeah, about that. You've heard about my father's will, right?”

“Hope told me a little. That he put all of your inheritances in trusts with Griffen as trustee, and you have to live at Heartstone for five years before you can get the money.”

“That's part of it. We can't sleep away from the house more than a few nights a year. Prentice created a separate trust for the house. That's where the bulk of his assets went. Houses like Heartstone are a bitch to keep running. Impossible without a truckload of cash. If we don't follow his rules, the balance of our trusts is put into the trust for Heartstone, and we're barred from all family property, including our places of employment if we work for the company. Which all of us do.”

“That's…” I tried to think of a word for it. On one hand, forcing his children to live in the family mansion wasn't the cruelest thing Prentice could have done, especially if the reward was a big chunk of cash. On the other, threatening to take both their home and their livelihoods for not doing as they were told… “That's weird. Could you contest it?”

Royal let out a laugh tinged with bitterness. “That was the 'stinger', as Prentice called it. If we contest the will, everything goes to Bryce.”

I stared back at him in shock. “Everything? Did your father like Bryce?”

Another laugh, this one more than tinged with bitterness. “Hell, no. He thought Bryce was as much of an asshole as the rest of us. Prentice knew we wouldn't follow his bullshit rules for his