Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Sutton

I could feel Mr. Williams’ gaze on my body as I hurriedly went through the closing routine at the bar. Every time my eyes met his penetrating gray ones, I pretended that I didn’t notice him staring. But we both knew better.

I couldn’t help but recall the name he had suggested belonging to my father, Hollingsworth Sutton, III. Had my mother named me after him? It had a certain kind of poetic justice. I had spent my life hating my unusual first name and now I find out that it’s the legacy to a fortune. That is, if Mr. Williams was telling the truth. Which I hadn’t yet decided if I was going to believe him or not.

With another glance in his direction, I noticed the tightening of his lips as I bent down to pick something up off the floor. A part of me felt like giving him the universal salute of displeasure. I didn’t want him sitting there, judging me. I could just imagine the thoughts running through his mind. He was likely thinking about how utterly unsuitable I was for his world.

Well, he wouldn’t be wrong. Mr. Fancy Pants was clearly a Park Avenue player and I was nobody from Nowhere, USA. Shit, in my short cutoffs and worn out sneakers I likely could have passed for a kid in high school. Mr. Williams was all man, from the tips of his Italian leather shoes to his broad chest beneath that expertly tailored suit and his understated diamond cuff links.

As if diamonds were ever understated.

“I’ve got to cut out of here,” Joe called out to me from the kitchen, shaking me from my thoughts. “Maggie just called. The baby has a fever.”

I nodded in sympathy and pretended that Joe’s wife didn’t call every night with some excuse for him to leave early. Far be it from me to call the woman a liar, be she was terrible bender of the truth. It didn’t really matter. I liked Joe, he never flirted with me and tried to keep Gabriel off my back. With a smile, I waved him on like I always did. “Have a great night, Joe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Mr. Williams cleared his throat.

I turned to him. “Did you need something?”

I tried to ignore the way my pulse jumped when our eyes connected. He was just a handsome man, nothing else.

“Are you here by yourself?” he asked in that clipped tone of his that said boarding schools and brunch on Sundays in the Hamptons.

I raised a brow. “No, sadly you have made that quite impossible by not leaving when I asked you to.”

His jaw ticked. “Your boss is gone?”

I nodded, wondering what he was getting at.

“Good,” he said, standing up.

I couldn’t help myself. I took an involuntary step backward.

His face went blank and then paled. “I wouldn’t harm you.”

“Sure, you wouldn’t,” I replied in a hurry. In truth, I didn’t feel threatened by him. However, he was a lot taller than I had anticipated. Call it PTSD if you will, but I had learned the hard way in life about men who were bigger and stronger than I was.

If anything, he looked even more alarmed by my quick reply. “I assure you. I have never harmed a woman in my life.”

I picked up the mop that had begun to slide out of my grasp. “Well, that’s fantastic to hear. Why don’t you head back to…? Where are you staying, anyhow?”

He shrugged. “I will get a room at the motel.”

I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped my lips. “You don’t want to stay there.”

He blinked in confusion. “Why?”

“Because you strike me as the sort of person who doesn’t care for bed bugs.”

“What?” He shook his head and then continued, “No, you can’t be serious.”

I took the mop and bucket and finished up the last section of floor as I spoke. “If it wasn’t so late, I could see if Reena and Alice could put you up. They have a spare room that they sometimes rent out.”

“The elderly women?” he asked.

I smiled. I don’t know why it pleased me that he remembered them from earlier. “Yes. But it’s far too late to be knocking on their door. Maybe Knox is home. I could give him a call.”

Mr. Williams tensed. “Who is Knox?”

“The sheriff,” I replied as I put the cleaning things away and did a double check that the stoves were turned off.

He visibly relaxed. “I don’t need to stay with local enforcement. We can begin the drive now back to the airport. I have the private jet on standby.”

“We?” I said dumbly.

He nodded, “We.”

“Mark,” I said, purposefully calling him by his first name. “We are not going anywhere. If you would like to go back to wherever you came from, please feel free. Nothing is keeping you here.”

“You are keeping me here,” he said purposefully. “I need to speak to you about your inheritance. There are certain requirements that must be met.”

“Listen, it’s late and I am sure we can talk about this in the morning. How about we call it a night?”

I thought he would argue with me, but after a short moment of silence he nodded and motioned for me to walk ahead of him. I had already gathered my bag from under the counter, so I walked toward the door. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt his hand at the small of my back. “What are you doing?”

He yanked his hand away. “Escorting you to the door!”

“I have been going in and out of this door for years and nobody has ever had to touch me to find it.”

Mark’s eyes blazed for a minute. I wouldn’t have believed that those gray depths could appear as heated as they did now. “It’s called being a gentleman.”

“I don’t know much about gentlemen, but I do know about men who need to keep their damn hands to themselves.”

“Damn it, woman. I am not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what the spider says to the fly,” I quipped.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” he expostulated.

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “Just…don’t touch me.”

He nodded jerkily, tucking his hands into his pockets.

I locked the door and started toward the parking lot.

“I’ll just follow you, shall I?” he asked.

I frowned. “Follow me where?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. Then speaking slowly, he said, “To your home. I want to make sure you arrive safely.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “Sugar, I have been walking the streets of Otterville Falls my entire life. I am safe here. You go on to wherever you are going to stay for the night.”

His jaw tightened and I could tell he wanted to argue with me. But instead of waiting to hear what he wanted to say, I turned and began to head for the road.

I heard the crunching of his shoes on the pavement. “Where is your car?” he called out to me.

“Don’t have one,” I called back over my shoulder.

“You don’t have a car?” he repeated.

“I don’t have a lot of things, Mr. Williams.” I continued to walk and sure enough he followed along behind me.

“What is the relationship between you and that boss of yours?”

The question surprised me. I stopped and turned to look at him. Mark’s hands were still in his pockets. He should have looked ridiculous in his expensive suit walking along Highway 60 behind me in the middle of the night. But instead he looked devastatingly handsome.

I wasn’t under any illusions about what I looked like after a long day’s work at Abberly’s. My shirt was stained with grease, my hair was hanging limp around my face. In defense, I wrapped my arms around my waist and glared at him.

“What does it matter?”

He stepped closer until there was a frisson of awareness that sparked between us. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

I could feel my brow crinkle in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Real men don’t talk to the women they care about with such disrespect. He undresses you with his eyes, and yet he treats you like something under his shoe.”

I grunted in surprise. The man had just summed up the relationship I had with Gabriel in two sentences. How had he gleaned all of that from one shift at the bar?

“We aren’t dating,” I found myself telling him the truth. “We aren’t even friends. His mama was kind to me when mine couldn’t be.”

I didn’t want to go into the reasons why Mama had been absent—not physically, emotionally.

To my surprise, Mark said something under his breath that sounded remarkably like, ‘Stupid fucker.’

I was used to obscenities, so that didn’t shock me, it was just that it seemed so out of place with his perfectly polished demeanor. It made me like him just a little.

“You are tired,” he said softly, those gray eyes not missing anything.

I let out a loud and rather unladylike yawn and replied, “It’s nearly two in the morning, and there is a stranger following me home.”

I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to poke the bear. But when his jaw ticked, I couldn’t help the broad smile that broke across my face.

“I just want to be sure you are safe,” he said gruffly.

It was oddly endearing. I was either far more tired than I had anticipated, or he was wearing on me. Because the next thing I knew I was offering him a place to sleep for the night.

“Listen, I have a spare bedroom. It’s nothing much, but the sheets are clean and there aren’t any bugs. If you are going to follow me home anyway, you might as well get some rest.”

I could tell I had surprised him. He opened and closed his mouth twice before nodding and adding curtly, “Thank you.”

I turned to start walking again, but his hand reached out and grabbed my arm.

“Wait. Let’s take my car.”

I couldn’t help the laugh. “Says the mass murderer to the innocent girl not noticing the rope and duct tape in the back seat.”

He blanched. “I do not have rope and duct tape in my back seat!”

It was fun teasing him. I had already decided that he was harmless, but there wasn’t any harm in ribbing him a little. “You should pick some up for your next abduction. I hear they come in handy.”

He shook his head. “You really are impossible.”

I grinned. “So I have been told. Let’s see this car of yours.”

He led me back to the parking lot of Abberly’s where a nice BMW was parked on the street.

“Nice car,” I murmured.

Distractedly, Mark answered, “It’s a rental.”

Like the true gentleman he was, Mark opened my door and made sure I was safely inside before rounding the car and getting in the other side. As he started the engine, I asked him, “What is this inheritance all about?”

He looked over at me in surprise. “We can go over all of the details in the morning. But the basics are that you now have enough money to buy and sell this town if you wanted to. Your father has left you a significant portion of the company. But you have to come to New York to claim your inheritance. I have all the necessary documents for your lawyer to go over with you.”

I frowned at him. “I don’t have a lawyer.”

“Well, you can hire one, or use one of the company lawyers.”

As he pulled out onto the highway my mind continued to process what he had said to me. “Why do I have to come to New York?”

“The will has some stipulations. Part of that is that you have thirty days to decide if you want to accept your inheritance. That would entail coming to New York and learning about the company. After that point, you have six months to prove yourself a viable asset. If at any time you wish to take a lump sum instead of shares in the company, your father arranged for five million dollars to be settled upon you.”

“Five million dollars?” I could hardly believe it. How could this even be possible?

“You are worth billions,” he said shortly. “Only a fool would take the lump sum.”

I felt faint. Billions. “What do I have to do?”

He turned onto the gravel driveway that led to my lone, single wide trailer. “We will leave for New York immediately. Once there you will be pampered, plucked, and waxed at the spa, as well as given an entire new wardrobe.”

“What is wrong with my clothes?” I said defensively.

He wasn’t cruel or derisive when he answered honestly. “The employees at Sutton Enterprises won’t take you seriously in cutoffs. You will have to look the part, then you will have to learn about the business.”

I didn’t have a college education. Hell, I had barely graduated from high school. A lot of that had to do with Mama’s drug issues. But I wasn’t about to go into that. “Looks like we are home.”

He looked up in surprise even though he had driven us to the trailer. I didn’t ask how he knew the address, and he didn’t offer.

I opened my door before he could make it around the car and shut it behind me. My mind was reeling with the information he had given me. Could I really go with him to New York?

“What would happen if I took the five million dollars?” I asked.

He frowned. “I can’t in good conscience tell you to take the five million. It’s far better for you to come to New York and give it a try.”

I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat and nodded. “Okay, we can talk about it in the morning.”