“You shouldn’t have.”
The corner of his mouth crooks. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
And now he’s stuck here, nailed in place by my father’s final edict naming Felix as the trustee of Windfall until Ellie was old enough to inherit it. “They’re going to be terrible to you.”
“I don’t do it for them.”
“Thank you.” There’s nothing else I can give him for the sacrifices he has made.
“Let’s get these to your car,” he suggests.
I take one box and Felix takes two. We’re halfway down the main stairs when Malcolm bursts through the front door.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.
“Taking my things.” I force myself to keep going, but as soon as I hit the landing, he steps in front of me.
“You did not ask to enter this house.”
“She doesn’t need to ask,” Felix says, his tone rich with warning. It’s not like him to go toe-to-toe with my brother. But now that he’s been placed in charge of Ellie’s inheritance, Malcolm can’t fire him.
“She doesn’t own this house,” Malcolm says, trying to take the box from my hands. “Or anything in it.”
“Neither do you.” I swing the box to the side and move around him.
“Your problem is with me,” Felix says, attempting to redirect my brother’s fury.
It works. Malcolm turns on him. “I can’t believe you let her in here after I gave you express instructions not to.”
“Wait.” I pause, placing the box on the entry table before I lose it and hurl it his direction. “You ordered him to keep me out?”
“I may not own this house,” Malcolm sneers, “but neither do you. My daughter does.”
“Your daughter?” I repeat, something dangerous taking hold of me. “Maybe I should ask her if I can come in. It’s just like you to drag Ellie into this. Leave her out of our problems. Felix is her trustee. He can decide who’s welcome here.”
“For now,” he says, throwing a caustic look in Felix’s direction.
My heart beats like a war drum, warning me something terrible is coming my way. “What does that mean?”
“I filed a petition with the courts to replace Felix as the trustee of Ellie’s estate. I doubt they’ll take issue with a father protecting his child’s interests.”
I feel his words as acutely as if he’d actually fired the first shot. I point a finger at him, my hand shaking with a rage I’ve never experienced. “You’ve never looked out for her interests. Not since the day she came home. You thought a baby would secure your inheritance, and when she took it from you instead—”
“Don’t make me the villain, Adair,” he stops me. “Don’t pretend you care more about her than I do. You left this house.”
“I will never let you take her birthright from her,” I seethe. “I didn’t give up my inheritance—”
“No, you didn’t,” he cuts me off. “He took it from you—and you deserved it!”
His words bounce off me. I’ve had years to come to grips with that reality. “Why do you even care about the house? Leave it in her name. Live here. Felix isn’t kicking you out.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It isn’t?” I challenge him. “What if I decide it is? What if I decide to contest the inheritance, too?”
“You wouldn’t.” He takes one menacing step in my direction.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” I say.
“Because this morning I leveraged the pittance our father left us to take back a significant control in this company. The only way to see the deal through is to sell Windfall.”
There’s a gasp from behind me, and I whirl around to see Ginny standing at the door, clutching Ellie’s hand. She drags her daughter, still dressed in tights and leotard, toward us. “You didn’t!”
“And lose the chance to take back what my family built?” Malcolm roars.
“But how?” Ginny stammers, shrinking a bit under his ferocious gaze. Ellie clings to her side, but her eyes are on me.
I smile, hoping to reassure her, but she hides her face against her mother’s purse. Malcolm isn’t the only one angry that I left.
“Once we sell the house, we’ll be fine,” Malcolm says, adjusting his tie. I resist the urge to grab it and strangle him with it.
“But where will we live, and how will we even do it? Did you give him permission?” Ginny turns wild eyes on Felix.
“No,” Felix says firmly.
“The lawyers are working to remove Felix as Ellie’s trustee,” Malcolm explains. “It’s better this way. We’ll have control again. We’ll find somewhere smaller and build the family name into what it was once.”
And that’s when I realize why he’s doing this. I was wrong. Malcolm isn’t following the script anymore. He’s writing his own. He wants to make a name for himself, just like I do. That doesn’t make what he’s doing okay. Because even if he’s fighting my father’s crooked legacy, he’s doing it using the MacLaine handbook. He’ll bulldoze through each of us if we stand in his way. In his effort to free himself from our father, he’s become something just as terrible.
“We should talk about this later,” I say gently, still watching Ellie’s frightened eyes half-hidden behind Ginny.
Malcolm turns to me, his face full of pure hatred. “You aren’t part of this family anymore. There is nothing to talk about. Get out of our house.”
“No!” Ellie jumps out from behind her mother and runs to me, wrapping her tiny arms around my leg. “Don’t leave Auntie Dair!”
“See, how you confuse her by coming here?” Ginny accuses, grabbing Ellie’s shoulder to pull her off me.
I push her hand off and curl my arm protectively around the little girl. “Don’t.”
Ellie looks up to Ginny, tears swimming in her eyes. “I’ll be good, remember? Just like you said.” She turns her pleading to me. “I promised. I told her I would behave so you don’t have to leave again.”
“What did you tell her?” I
