Accidental Tryst (Charleston #1)(12)

"No. But thank you." Is she seriously picking me up after a funeral? Talk about taking advantage of a situation. I'm reluctantly impressed.

She frowns, confused but not offended, then turns around to walk to the desk.

Sighing I pull out the phone again and text Emmy.



* * *



Any chance you can look up Dorothy's number and send it to me?



* * *



Two seconds later, the phone vibrates, and I see a contact come in a text. I dial Dorothy's number and check in on my messages and see about her cancelling the hotel and getting me on a flight out of here tonight. No point sticking around any longer than I have to. Then the door to the office suite opens and a tall, lanky, gray-haired man in a navy pinstriped suit enters.

"Mr. Montgomery, I presume?" He extends a hand, a fascinated look on his face. "We were wondering if you'd show up. Your grandfather always loved to have the last word. I'm sure he thanks you for indulging him."

I stand and accept his firm handshake. "Mr. Ravenel. Let's get this over with."



* * *



Mr. Ravenel stands at the door to his office ushering everyone in and indicating they should join me around the conference room table. I have already picked the prized seat halfway down with my back to the bright window when everyone else arrives.

Isabel Montgomery enters.

I stand, my insides rigid. My mother's years of schooling on manners are ingrained.

My grandmother has removed her hat, her gray hair is twisted against the back of her head, and her mourning attire of a black dress and small fitted jacket screams haut-couture. There was a time I wouldn't have recognized the lines in a well-made piece of clothing, but I do now. I've been relentless in my pursuit of only the best.

Her eyes are small and hard but somehow resigned. "Trystan." She nods.

"Isabel," I return. If she was expecting me to call her grandmother, she doesn't show her surprise. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Beau enters next, nodding at me with a small grin followed by my uncle and a young woman I don't recognize. Wait.

"Suzy?" I ask, struck with a memory of my small toe-headed cousin who followed her older brother, Beau, and me around like a shadow. I'm instantly transported back, and her soft brown eyes light up.

She could always get a smile out of me. Now is no different. I'd purposefully made myself forget Suzy and Beau, but looking at them now together, I can't understand why, for all the warm memories are right there to be picked over. Perhaps because they're interspersed with painful ones. I mentally slam the lid on the box closed.

Suzy smiles and leans over to shake my hand, giving it a squeeze. "Yep."

"Robert." I greet my uncle next, and he shakes my hand. I feel shaken and off base. I know I should have been prepared to be with these people again, but I'm not sure anything could have gotten me ready. My inner coldness toward Isabel Montgomery is only intensified in this situation.

Isabel sits at the head of the table where Mr. Ravenel has laid out a thick folder. The man quickly moves the folder to another place as if that had been his intention all along.

Then an older couple are shown in who look vaguely familiar. They're introduced as Magda and Jeremy, and I seem to remember Magda was the housekeeper and Jeremy took care of the maintenance at the Montgomery homes both in town and their country home out at Awendaw. If I remember rightly, it was a beautiful old plantation house.

"Shall we get this over with," Isabel says.

"Please," I agree. Sitting in this stifling room with people I never thought I'd have to think about ever again, much less see, is making my teeth ache. I work on my granite boardroom face. If I can stare down tight-fisted bankers and greedy venture capitalists, I can handle one old woman.

Mr. Ravenel shifts.

The sooner I can sign whatever needs to be signed, the better. Whatever token of affection my grandfather has left me to show he didn't forget my mother and me after all will be too little too late. I don't plan on leaving these offices with anything other than what I walked in with. I wouldn't even be here in the first place if I hadn't made a promise to my mother several years ago to come if I was called. But now that promise is kept, and this will be the last time I ever interact with them. I drum my fingers on the polished mahogany conference table as everyone is offered water and coffee.

"As you all know, my friend, the late Wilson Robert Beauregard Montgomery, the third, made me executor of his last will and testament. He also asked that it be read in a formal gathering of those named herein. And in two parts. Let's begin," Mr. Ravenel adds finally.





7





Trystan





To the keepers of our home and our family's well-being, Magda and Jeremy, I hereby bequeath ten percent voting ownership of Montgomery Homes & Facilities—"

An audible intake of breath comes from my Uncle Robert, but Mr. Ravenel continues as Magda and Jeremy sit wide-eyed, "to be held by them, or either one of them by survivorship, until their death."

Magda makes the sign of the cross, a gesture of her Catholic upbringing, and squeezes Jeremy's hand.

"At which time the shares are to pass to my grandson, Trystan Montgomery."