Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
The problem: it was only partly about the money. I had room and board covered, but not much more. I was working for my sister during the day and studying when I could, but that would take time to pay off. I was sure the trust my father had left me was empty. It would be five years before I’d find out, but knowing Prentice Sawyer as I had, I couldn’t believe he’d left me a single penny. I wanted a nest egg. Security. I never wanted to ask anyone for anything ever again.
But more than the money, I wanted to solve the puzzle. I needed to solve it. For months, the Vitellius had been haunting me until I finally understood the secret of the statue and the dancing medallions. I could do this. I wanted to solve what no one else could. I wanted to beat my father and walk away laughing, my bank account stuffed full.
Would it be worth it? To be this close to Forrest, to feel this stabbing agony every time I was stupid enough to look him in the eyes? Definitely not for fifteen percent. But maybe…
I shoved my chair back from the kitchen table and stood. “Twenty-five. I have better things to do with my time than negotiate with you. Twenty-five percent, or I’m walking out the door.”
Chapter Two
FORREST
Iwould have agreed to a hundred percent.
When I opened the door and saw Sterling standing there, I would have agreed to anything. In the year since I’d finally told her the truth about who I was and why I’d come to Sawyers Bend, she hadn’t spoken a word to me. She wouldn’t look at me, wouldn’t acknowledge my existence. And now here she was, on my doorstep.
If she’d asked me straight out, I would have given her everything. But by the time she made it into my kitchen, I remembered this was Sterling Sawyer I was dealing with, and I had to be a lot smarter than just giving her whatever she asked for.
I’d tried throwing my heart at her feet. She’d kicked it back to me with a furious glare.
I got it. I did. I’d lied.
I’d lied a lot. Over and over.
Not about being in love with her. Not about how I felt or what I wanted. But I’d lied about who I was, why I was there, why I’d asked her out the first time. Those kinds of lies hadn’t mattered when I’d first met her. I’d underestimated her, just like everyone else did. And by the time I realized how badly I’d fucked up, how much she meant to me, I was out of time.
I’d planned to tell her the truth. I was going to do it, I just… I was waiting for the right time. And then fucking Elliot Hall and the Learys had shown up, and I couldn’t lie any longer.
I got the statue back, but I lost Sterling.
Now, I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t care about the money.
I mean, yeah, I guess I was a little because it was money, and it really helped to do things like pay the bills and put a roof over my head. After my father died, my mother worked hard, but times were tough. My father’s fortune would have come in handy. But those years were behind us. My mom was good. I was better than good. I’d worked my ass off, and while I wasn’t the genius that my father had been, I’d inherited enough of his brains to land myself some pretty good opportunities.
I wasn’t a billionaire, but I had enough in the bank to honestly say that if it was a contest between my father’s mysterious fortune and Sterling, I’d pick Sterling any day.
The second I’d said I didn’t care about the money, I saw the dismissal on her face. She wouldn’t even look at me. It didn’t matter if it was true—telling her I didn’t care about the money was a waste of time. She didn’t believe me. And why should she, when I’d told her so many lies already?
So, I did what I was born to do. I negotiated. Maybe someday I’d win her trust back, but I couldn’t do that unless I could get her to spend time with me. When she shoved her chair back and stood, I thought for a minute that I’d pushed too far, that I’d lost before we had a chance to start again. But she hadn’t walked out. She’d come at me with a reasonable solution. Twenty-five percent was the perfect compromise. Enough that Sterling felt she’d won something and low enough that she’d believe I cared about the money, which was the only thing she was willing to believe.
I didn’t care about the money, but I was curious to know how Sterling was going to find it. Plenty of people had puzzled over those numbers, and so far, no one had found a damn thing. If Sterling said she knew the answer, I believed her. People had been underestimating Sterling Sawyer for her entire life. At first, I’d been one of them. I knew better now.