CHAPTER 3

          Regina listened to the men spar with one another as if from a distance. Shock cocooned her inside her own bubble of fear. As he spoke, Damien’s gaze tracked the lawyer’s movements, but Regina remained focused on Damien.

          The impenetrable mask of rebellion and pride that shielded any softer emotions. The breadth of his shoulders. The ripple of muscles in his chest and forearms, reminding her of his strength, his dominance. Could a man that strong prevail over someone with Theodore’s history of cunning maneuvers, both business and personal?

“Well, old man… Why don’t you just lay it out for me,” Damien said, his voice curt, commanding the immense space of the master suite.

          A shiver worked its way down Regina’s spine.

“The condensed version, please.”

          This time, Stanton didn’t look to Theodore Kennedy for permission. Proving he learned quickly, he cleared his throat and continued.

“Your grandfather set up legal documents covering all the angles,” Stanton said, pulling a fat pack of papers from his briefcase. “It essentially hands you the rights to the mill and Kennedy Mansion.”

“Again with this nonsense! I just told you,” Damien exclaimed. “I don’t want it! Burn it! Sell it! Tear it right down to the grounds!”

          Regina’s throat closed in sympathy and fear.

“We can,” Stanton said. “The interested buyer is a major competitor, who will shut it down and sell it piece by piece. Including the land Mill Row is built on. And every last one of the people living in those fifty houses will be turned out so their homes can be torn down.”

          Theodore joined in with relish.

“The money from the sale will make a splendid law library at the university. Not the legacy I’d planned,” he said with a shrug. “But it’ll do.”

          Stanton paused, but Theodore wasn’t one for niceties.

“Go on,” he insisted.

          The lawyer hesitated a moment more, which surprised Regina. She hadn’t cared for the weaselly man from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, and his buttering up Theodore Kennedy had only reinforced her first impressions.

          For him to resist the old man, even in a small way, was new. Maybe having to face the person whose life he was ruining awakened a small bit of conscience.

“If you choose not to take over, Mr. Kennedy will exercise his power of attorney over his daughter to place her in the county care facility. Immediately.”

          A cry lodged in Regina’s throat before it escaped as she envisioned the chaos this would unleash, the disruption and danger to Iris Kennedy, Damien’s mother. She’d cared for Iris for five years, from the moment Regina had received her nursing degree. It was the least she could do for that sweet woman.

          But Iris had been a second mother to her long before that, the type of mother she’d never had. The last thing she’d allow to happen would be handing Iris over for substandard care.

          Damien’s intense gaze swiveled to search the dark recess where she stood. The shadows comforted her, helped her separate from the confrontation playing out before her. But that intense gaze pulled her forcibly into the present.

          His eyebrows drew together in concern, the only emotion to soften him so far. Regina could literally feel every time his gaze focused on her… a mixture of nerves and a physical reaction she’d never experienced before today. But then his eyes narrowed on his grandfather, his face hardening once more.

“What would happen to Mother there?”

          Theodore smiled, as his hateful words emerged from taunting lips.

“Regina, I believe you’ve been to the county care facility, haven’t you? During your schooling, wasn’t it? Tell Damien about it.”

          Regina winced as she imagined what Damien must be thinking. Only someone as manipulative and egocentric as Theodore Kennedy could determine that this scenario, disowning his own invalid daughter, was the best way to preserve his little kingdom. Her voice emerged rusty and strained.

“It’s gotten an inferior rating for as many years as I’ve been a nurse, and it’s had regular complaints brought against it for neglect... but very little has been done because it’s the only place here that will take in… charity cases for the elderly or disabled.”

“How do you know I don’t have enough money to take away that option?” Damien asked, a touch of his grandfather’s arrogance bleeding onto that handsome face.

          It was Stanton’s turn to reply.

“You can try, but with power of attorney, your grandfather has the final say.”

“We’ll just go to court and get it transferred to one of my brothers.”

          But not himself, Regina noted.

“You can, and I sure as hell can’t stop you, boy,” Theodore said. “But how long do you think that case will take? Months? A year? Will your mother have that long... in that environment?”

“You, despicable old man… You’d do that to her… your own flesh and blood?” Damien asked Theodore.

          Having watched him since she was a kid, instinctively knowing he was even more dangerous than her own family but drawn inexplicably by Iris’s love and concern, Regina fully acknowledged what Theodore Kennedy was capable of, the lack of compassion he felt for others.

          He’d turn every one of them out without one iota of guilt, might even enjoy it if he was alive to see it happen. Regina rubbed trembling, sweaty palms against her thighs. Would Iris survive the impersonal, substandard care at that facility? For how long?

          Although Iris was in a coma, Regina firmly believed she was at times aware of her surroundings. The last time they’d moved Iris to the private hospital for some necessary tests, she’d gotten agitated, heartbeat racing, then ended up catching a virus from hospital germs.

          How long could she be exposed to the lower standards at the county facility without being infected with something deadly? As numbness gave way to fiery pain, Regina stumbled forward.

“Of course, he would. Just look him in his eyes…”

          She didn’t mean for the bitterness or desperation to bleed into her voice. The fire that started to smolder in Damien’s almost-black eyes sent a shiver over her, though he never looked her way.

“You, merciless son of a bitch,” Damien said, spearing Theodore with a glare. “Your own daughter… your child… You always did this… She always was no more than a pawn in your little games. A nauseating game like this one.”

          Regina’s heart pounded as fear battled awareness in her blood. This man, and the fierceness of his anger, mesmerized her. She instinctively knew he could introduce a whole new element of danger to this volatile situation. Theodore punched the bed with a weak fist.

“This isn’t a game, stupid boy! My legacy, the mill, this town, must continue or all will be for nothing. Better two people pay the price than the whole town.”

          Damien frowned, his body going still.

“Two of us? What the hell is this supposed to mean?”

          Stanton raised his hand, drawing attention his way.

“There’s an additional condition to this deal. You can accept all or nothing.”

          Dragging a hand through his hair once more, Damien moved away, stopping by the window to stare out at the heavy rain. Lightning flashed, outlining his strong shoulders and stiff posture. Stanton cleared his throat.

“You must get married and reside at the Kennedy Mansion for an entire year. Only then will your grandfather release you from the bargain, or release your inheritance to you, if he has passed on.”

          Damien drew a deep, careful breath into his lungs, but one look at his grandfather seemed to crack his control. Words burst from between those tightened lips.

“No! Absolutely not! You can’t do that.”

          Theodore’s body jerked, his labored breathing rasping his voice.

“You still don’t get it… And you call yourself smart… I can do whatever I want, you stupid boy. The fact that you haven’t visited your own mother in ten years means no judge will have sympathy for you if you try to get custody.”

          His labored breathing grew louder.

“You’d do well to keep your temper under control. Remember the consequences the last time you crossed me.”

          Regina winced. She’d seen more than one instance of Theodore’s consequences… It hadn’t been a pretty show. Iris had told her Damien’s continued rebellion had cost him access to his mother and eventually cost Iris her health.

“Why me, old man?” Damien asked. “Why not one of the twins?”

          Theodore met the question with a cruel twist of his lips.

“Because it’s YOU I want. A chip off the old block should be just stubborn enough to lead a whole new generation where I want it to go.”

          The cold shock was wearing off now, penetrated by sharp streaks of fear. Briar, June, and Iris, the other residents of the Kennedy Mansion, weren’t technically Regina’s relatives. Not blood-related, at least.

          But they were the closest she’d come in her lifetime to being surrounded by people who cared about her. She wasn’t about to see them scattered to the winds, destroyed by Theodore’s sick game of king of the world.

          Besides, she owed this family and the intense, dark-eyed man before her. Most of all, she owed Iris. Her debt was bigger than Iris had ever acknowledged or accepted Regina’s apologies for.

          If being used as a pawn would both settle her debt and protect those she’d come to love, then she’d do it. Without even blinking. Regina’s family had taught her one lesson in her twenty-six years: how to make herself useful.

          The lawyer stepped up to the plate.

“Everything is set up in the paperwork. You either get married and keep the mill viable, or Iris Kennedy will be moved immediately to… another location.”

          A strained cackle had Damien glancing at his grandfather.

“Take it or leave it, boy,” Theodore rasped.

          Regina barely detected the subtle slump of defeat in Damien’s shoulders.

“And just where am I supposed to find a woman willing to sacrifice herself for this… noble cause?” he asked sarcastically.

“I’d think you’d be pretty good at hunting treasure by now,” Theodore replied, referring to Damien’s career as an art dealer, already reveling in the victory they could all see coming.

“I’ve never been interested in a wife. And I doubt anyone would be willing to play your games, old man.”

          Taking a deep breath, Regina willed away the nausea crawling up the back of her throat. She pushed away from the wall.

“I will, Damien,” she said. “I’ll marry you.”