“Would you be here working at the bank if your dad hadn’t forced you into it?”
“He didn’t force me into it,” Trace said. “I agreed mostly to prove a point.”
“What point?”
“That my sister should be the one working there.”
She smiled. “By doing what? Failing miserably?”
“Not miserably,” he said. “Just look at the deal I struck with you. I’d say I proved myself with that.”
“We’re not going to agree on what’s going on here, are we?”
He shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Then let’s have lunch. Gram’s set the dining room table. She seems to think this meeting requires more formality, being strictly business and all.”
Trace chuckled. “Is she as ticked at me as your dad is?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then this should be fun,” Trace said, holding the door, then following her inside.
To Abby’s regret, Gram was nowhere in sight when they reached the dining room, and the table had only been set for two. Trace grinned when he saw it.
“Now, isn’t this an interesting turn of events?” he murmured. “Could it be that your grandmother’s matchmaking?”
“Absolutely not!” Abby said fiercely.
“Because you’re married? At least I assume with kids, there must be a husband in the picture.”
“There was,” she admitted, regretting the divorce for a fleeting moment, if only because she sensed the existence of a husband would get that wicked gleam out of Trace’s eyes.
“Separated? Divorced?” he asked, as he removed containers of chopped salad from the bags he’d brought. Without asking, he went about dishing the salad onto the formal, gold-trimmed china Gram had put on the table.
“Divorced,” she said, gritting her teeth against the personal turn the conversation was taking. “Look, we’re here to discuss the inn, not my life.”
“Just catching up,” he said, as he reached into a second bag and removed a container of what appeared to be the yacht club’s decadent chocolate mousse, one of Abby’s all-time favorite desserts. Sometimes that mousse had been the only way Trace or her family could lure her into that stuffy atmosphere. They’d even ladled an extra dollop of whipped cream onto the top, just the way she liked it.
She frowned as he set it in front of her place. How had he remembered that? And why had he bothered? Was this just another way to get to her, to throw her off-kilter right before he hit her with some other blow she wasn’t expecting?
She waited warily until he sat down, then asked, “What’s going on here, Trace?”
He regarded her innocently. “We were supposed to meet over lunch. I brought lunch. I don’t see anything sinister in that. In fact, I thought I was being downright considerate given that your kids are sick. Twins, right? I think that’s what Liz said.”
“Carrie and Caitlyn,” she said tightly, still not entirely trusting all this thoughtfulness. “They came down with the measles yesterday. In fact, they should be waking up soon from their naps, so we need to get our business out of the way. Did the board meet?”
“They did.”
“Don’t make me drag this out of you. Just tell me what they decided.”
“Everything remains in place, as long as you’re on board.”
Abby wasn’t sure why she’d been hoping for a reprieve. Maybe she’d thought that collectively the board might see through Trace’s scheme and overrule him. Obviously she hadn’t taken into account his persuasiveness or his determination.
Swallowing her desire to start another argument she wouldn’t win, she leveled a look at him. “How do you see this working? I do have a career, Trace, and it’s in New York. I can easily oversee all the expenditures from there, stay on top of payments and so on.”
He shook his head. “Not good enough. Come on, Abby, you know Jess. The second your back is turned, she’ll go right back to her impulsive spending, and you’ll be scrambling to cover for her.”
She regarded him earnestly. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. You have my word on it.”
“Not good enough.”
She bristled at that. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve had some experience with how unreliable your word is, remember?”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s another situation entirely. And besides, I never gave you my word about anything ten years ago.”
“You told me you loved me. I took you seriously.”
“I did love you,” she said, frustrated by his determination to use old news to manipulate the present.
“And yet you vanished without so much as a goodbye, much less an explanation. I’m not taking any chances on that happening again, not until the bank feels comfortable that these loans are protected.”
“You mean until you feel comfortable,” she said. “It has nothing to do with what anyone at the bank needs. There’s plenty of cash in the inn’s account to cover expenses, and you know it. This is payback, pure and simple, Trace, and I resent it. You’re taking out our drama, if you want to call it that, on my sister. You know perfectly well she’ll pay back every penny of those loans. So does the bank. This is about you and me.”
“Is it really?” he said, his expression innocent.
“I had no idea you could be so vindictive and hateful.”
“Which just goes to prove that we never really knew each other at all, because I didn’t have any idea you were capable of being cruel and a coward.”
His words cut right through her. She knew she deserved them, because that was exactly what she had been, cruel and cowardly. That didn’t make it any easier to hear them or to have them coming back to haunt her all these years later.
She regarded him with bewilderment. “If you think so little of me, why on earth do you want me around here now?”
“Because you were always the most intriguing, infuriating person in Chesapeake Shores,” he said. “I figure your presence will keep the next few months from being boring.”
“So, what—I’m the mouse and you’re the big bad cat who gets to toy with me just for entertainment?”
“Something like that.”
She stood up, shaking with indignation. “You’re despicable,” she said, grabbing the crystal pitcher filled with ice water.
His gaze narrowed. “You really don’t want to do that,” he warned.
“Oh, but I do,” she countered, dumping the contents over his head. She gave him a considering look as he sat there drenched, his expression startled. Then she smiled in satisfaction. “Yep, that was exactly what I wanted to do.”
Then she whirled around and went upstairs to check on the girls. Pleased with her little demonstration of temper, she was taken aback when she heard his laughter echoing after her.
She met Gram in the hallway.
“What’s going on?” her grandmother asked.
“I just dumped a pitcher of water over Trace’s head.”
Her grandmother’s eyes twinkled, but she fought to contain a grin. “Was that wise?”
Abby