Ironically, the money Ty wanted Lacey to claim had been handed down on her mother’s side for generations. Lacey was the sole heir. There might even be stipulations in the event of her death about the money going to her father’s family. She didn’t know. Because her parents had rarely discussed the inheritance. Instead her father always focused on his day job, the auto body shop he owned that specialized in restoring classic cars.
After her parents’ car accident in hurricanelike weather, Uncle Marc had come to live in her family home and he’d taken over her father’s business. And he’d loved the concept of the estate, the grounds, and playing lord of the manor. Lord of Lilly, she remembered bitterly.
From the beginning, he’d tried to make her obligated to him in any way he could. At first he’d been the kindly uncle and she’d fallen for his act. How could she not when at sixteen, she desperately needed someone to count on? But she’d noticed his drinking right away and she’d learned to stay far away the drunker he became. One afternoon she’d come home early from school and heard him on the phone discussing how he needed Lilly to sign her rights to the trust over to him while she was young or else he’d lose his chance to manipulate her in any way. By the time she turned twenty-one, he needed her to trust him enough that she’d sign anything he asked without question. Including the rights to invade the principal on her trust fund.
Even at sixteen, she’d understood the concept of betrayal and this was a big one. Anger and hatred had welled up inside her, and she’d decided then to make his life as difficult as possible.
She’d become a rebellious teen. He’d responded by cracking down and becoming increasingly abusive in the hopes that she’d back down out of fear. When her behavior didn’t change, he’d carried out a threat she never believed he’d implement.
He’d had her placed in foster care—temporarily he’d said—just long enough to scare her. He’d wanted her to be so grateful to come home that she’d not only toe the line, she’d be easy to control, trust fund and all. Thanks to Ty and Hunter, he’d never gotten the chance.
Back then Lilly hadn’t been concerned with the legalities or with the money since she knew it wasn’t hers until she turned twenty-one, as her uncle constantly reminded her. By then she’d had the beginnings of a life and enough inbred fear of her uncle to remain far away. She assumed the money had remained untouched and had been content to let it stay that way.
She swiped at the tears that had begun running down her face. Remembering her parents and all she’d lost was never easy, but recalling the time afterward caused her stomach to churn and the old anger and resentment to flare up. She’d gone from her parents’ princess to her uncle’s piece of property, something he could kick out of her own home on a whim.
That thought cemented her decision. Lacey didn’t need the money her parents had left her. After all, she’d lived without the extras for so long, she rarely thought about them now. But there was no way she wanted her bastard uncle to profit from her parents’ deaths. He’d run her father’s business into the ground shortly after taking over, and he’d claimed ownership of her childhood home. She wasn’t about to let him have anything more.
Lacey wasn’t vindictive by nature. She had a life here that she was proud of, one she’d worked hard to build and maintain, which had prompted her initial reluctance to return home with Ty.
But the thought of her uncle enjoying anything more at her expense churned her stomach nearly as much as thinking about her uncle and her past.
Ty was right. She’d have to go home.
Three
L acey climbed out of bed and slipped on her favorite pair of slippers, a fuzzy pair that were soft enough to feel like an old friend. She headed to the kitchen for a midnight snack, tiptoeing on the way, careful not to wake Ty. Careful not to stop and watch him sleep and risk rousing warm feelings for a man she no longer knew, but one she wanted to know again.
She poured a glass of milk, pulled the Oreos out of the refrigerator and settled into the corner she jokingly called her kitchenette. In reality it was a small table at the end of the entry hall.
“Mind if I join you?” Ty asked, just as she dunked her first cookie into the cold milk.
Without waiting for a reply, he sat in the only other chair that fit around the table, Digger curling at his feet. Ty was shirtless, wearing only his partially zipped jeans, unsnapped at the waist. A low light glowed from the kitchen, casting them in shadows, but even in the darkness surrounding them, she could see enough to admire how broad his chest had become, how drop-dead sexy he was.
She ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither. Obviously.” She gestured to her midnight snack.
“So you resorted to your old standby, cookies and milk?”
She slowly lowered the Oreo onto the table. “You remember that?” He’d often caught her snacking in his mother’s kitchen late at night. That’s how comfortable she’d been in his childhood home, she thought.
“I remember lots of things about you,” he said in a husky voice.
“Such as?” she asked, her curiosity not the only thing that he aroused.
“Such as the fact that Oreo cookies are your comfort food. You like them cold and hard from the fridge even though you’re just going to dip them into milk and make them soggy. And you keep the cookie in the milk for about five seconds so it doesn’t get too soft. Like this.” While speaking, he reached out, snagged a fresh cookie, dipped it into the cold milk, then held it out for her to taste.
She opened her mouth and bit down, the cookie partially crumbling, partially melting in her mouth exactly the way she liked it. Her lips brushed over his fingertip, the accidental touch causing an unexpected rush of physical sensation to sweep over her.
She laughed, keeping things light, and wiped her mouth with a napkin, but what she felt was anything but funny. Her br**sts grew heavy and a pulse-pounding awareness thudded through her veins along with a heaviness between her thighs. She managed to suppress what surely would have been an orgasmic-sounding groan. Because somehow her comfort food had turned erotic and sharing memories with an old friend had become something much more sensual.
From the reciprocal yet clouded look in his eyes, she doubted that had been his intent. He was holding himself back from her now and she missed the closeness they’d shared when they were kids and they didn’t think things through all that much.