“It was no loss.”

“Just like your scruples, right?”

“Be careful, Samuel T. Your bitchiness suggests a hidden weakness. Are you sure you’re not jealous of a man you consider beneath you?”

“No, I feel sorry for him. It’s the biggest curse in a man’s life that he loves a woman like you. That sad sack has no idea what he’s in for.”

As he turned away, a rush of emotion hit her. “Samuel.”

He pivoted back around slowly. “Yes.”

If only you hadn’t said no, she thought. If only you were the one I could turn to.

“Don’t go back through the house with that cigar. My mother’s downstairs, and she doesn’t abide them indoors.”

Samuel T. glanced at the smoldering length. “Right. Of course.”

And then … he was gone.

For some reason, Gin’s legs started to shake and she barely made it to one of the Brown Jordan recliners that were lined up down the long sides of the pool. As she all but fell into the chair, she had to peel off her jacket again.

When she couldn’t breathe, she took off the goddamn scarf. Underneath, her neck was sore, particularly on the right side where the worst of the bruising was.

Yoga breaths … three part … just … she needed to take a deep breath …

“Gin?”

She looked up at Lane’s girlfriend—fiancée … whatever. “Yes,” she said roughly.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” she snapped. But then she couldn’t keep up the anger. “I am … just fine.”

“All right. But listen, bad weather’s coming.”

“Is it?” God, she felt as though she had fallen into the pool and was drowning. “I thought it was sunny … or something.”

“I’m going to go get you some water. Stay right there.”

Gin was of half a mind to argue, but her tongue felt like it had swollen in her mouth and then her head started to spin in earnest.

When Lizzie came back, it was with a long/tall of lemonade. “Drink this.”

Gin put her hand out, but it was shaking so badly, there was no hope of holding anything.

“Here … let me.”

Lizzie brought the glass to Gin’s lip, and Gin took a sip. And then another. And then a third.

“Don’t worry,” Lane’s fiancée said. “I’m not going to ask.”

“Thank you,” Gin mumbled. “I greatly appreciate that.”

THIRTY-TWO

Edward could have spent the rest of the visitation just watching Sutton and his mother sit together on that silk sofa. Contrary to Lane’s chilly relationship with the woman who had birthed them, Edward entertained little bitterness to their dam—mostly because, having worked so closely with their father, he had a healthy respect for all Little V. E. had been forced to endure.

Why wouldn’t one find relief at the bottom of a pill bottle?

Especially if you’d been cheated on, ridiculed, and relegated to all but a Tiffany vase in your own home.

And now it appeared as though his sister, Gin, was falling into the same trap with Pford.

Sutton, on the other hand … Sutton would never do something like that, never conscribe herself to a marriage of convenience just so she could live a given lifestyle. In fact, she didn’t need a man to define her at all. No, her life plan? She was going to run a multi-national corporation like a boss—

As if she knew he was thinking something about her, her eyes flicked over in his direction, and then refocused on his mother.

His own stare stayed put on Sutton, lingering on her hair and the way it had been swept up off her neck and away from her face. Her earrings were fat pearls anchored by brilliant diamonds, and in a truly uncharitable moment, he wondered if the Shit Dagney had bought those for her. They did compliment the pale blue of her suit, but such placid gems didn’t do her justice.

She was better in rubies.

His rubies.

But whether treasures from the Orient or from Burma, from a good suitor or a bad footnote in her love life, she was still arrestingly beautiful: Behold, the new CEO of the Sutton Distillery Corporation. And yet she still had the grace and class to take time to speak gently to an addled lost soul like his mother. When she was done here, however? She would get back in her limo in her moonlight-on-a-snowfield blue suit and her hopefully-not-the-governor’s pearls, and promptly reconnect with her senior executives, her sales force leaders, maybe a Japanese investor whose kind offer to buy out the company would be rejected with a charming, but totally unequivocal, no.

Yes, he had heard on the radio on the way in that she was taking over her family’s business. And it couldn’t be in better hands—

A man entered the parlor, took one look at Edward and came on over—and in spite of the scruffy beard and battered clothes, Edward would have recognized his brother Maxwell anywhere. Then again, he had reason to.

“Edward,” the guy said remotely.

“Max, you’re looking well, as usual,” Edward replied dryly. “But you must forgive me, I must be going.”

“Tell Moe I said hello.”

“Of course.”

Moving around his brother, he limped forward into the parlor proper. It seemed unbearably rude, even for an asshole such as himself, to not at least greet his mother as he left.

He had no idea what to say, however.

Approaching the sofa, Sutton looked up at him first. And then his mother did the same.

As he searched for proper words, Little V.E. smiled at him as beautifully as a Thomas Sully portrait. “How lovely that the grounds staff have come to pay their respects. What is your name, son?”

As Sutton blanched, Edward bowed his head. “Ed, ma’am. That’s my name.”

“Ed? Oh, I have a son named Edward.” Her hand swung toward Lane in indication, and God, the poor bastard looked like he’d rather have been swallowed by a hellhole. “And where do you work on the estate?”

“The stables, ma’am.”

Her eyes were the exact blue of his, and as beautiful as a morning glory in the July sunshine. They were also as clouded as window glass on a frosted morning. “My father loved his horses. When he goes to heaven, there will be thoroughbreds a’plenty for him to race.”