Unleashed Page 10
“What do you mean?”
“Whether I’m a Hamilton, or a Smith, or a Jones won’t change anything. My world is still in North Carolina, my life is my own, and that trust fund will stay where it is, because that’s the decision I’d make whether it’s rightfully mine by ancestry or not. I guess I’ve always known that. I just hadn’t come to terms with it.”
“What changed? Not what I said about Lionel hiding something, because—”
“It just put it in a different perspective for me, one I’ve been too narrow-minded and locked into past thinking to consider.”
“So, even if that other surname isn’t attached to you? But, maybe to some other branch of the family?”
He nodded. “It’s immaterial to who I am. It might be important to Lionel, and if that’s the case, I’ll respect that. I know it’s not how I want to define myself, it’s not how I have defined myself.”
“So…what will you do with it? Your Hamilton legacy, I mean.”
“The money?”
“And whatever other responsibilities or inheritances might be in your future, yes.”
“Keep them for our offspring?”
She laughed. “You really are forward-thinking.”
“Okay, let’s just say I’ll make sure it stays somewhere safe, on the off chance my progeny feels differently about his or her legacy than I do.” He tipped her face up to his. “Are you okay with that?”
“It’s not your money or your name I’m after, Mr. Smith.”
“Good.” His grin was quite suggestive. “So…what are you after, then?”
“Starting the new year in Chapel Hill. And the best chicken Marsala a girl can get.”
“Feeling lucky, are you?”
“Oh, there’s no feeling about it. Lottery winners the world over should envy me right now.”
“I rather like that notion.”
“So…upstairs? Or hidden room?”
“You know, whatever secrets Lionel might be protecting will be his cross to bear. That’s been his choice.”
“So, you’re not going to look.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not going to look.”
She glanced over her shoulder, toward the hall leading to the study. “The whole secret room…”
He laughed. “It’s killing you, isn’t it?”
“I can’t believe it isn’t killing you. Just for curiosity’s sake.”
“How about this—come upstairs with me, and we’ll talk about the future.”
“Talk?”
“Amongst other things.”
He really did have the most wicked twinkle in his eyes.
“And then?”
“And then if you want to go treasure hunting, you can go while I cook.”
Her eyes widened. “You’d really let me go find out?”
“Just because I’ve decided not to doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know everything you might need to know about the family you’re entangling yourself with.”
“And if I find something…interesting?”
“Your call.”
“I’m warning you, no way will I be able to not tell you. I’m a terrible secret-keeper.”
“Okay.”
“You really are the most perverse man.”
“I know it seems that way, but honestly, my perspective has shifted into an entirely new orbit.” He tugged her up the stairs. “One that involves you, me, and whatever we might discover as we head down our path. It’s going to come with Hamilton stuff. And I hope it comes with a lot of Lafferty stuff, too. There will be good, and bad, and frustrating, and wonderful. But, at the core, it’s just us. That’s what I want to focus on.”
“Then you’d rather me not look?”
“I’m telling you that what matters is that we both do what we need to do, and the other of us will respect that. Want me to hunt with you?”
“I know it’s presumptuous of me to say this, but yes, I think you should know.”
“Okay.” He tucked her hand in his and they went back down the stairs.
“Right now?”
“Seems like as good a time as any. I don’t want you distracted when I take you back upstairs and have my way with you.”
“But—this could be a very momentous occasion.”
He swung around and brought her flush up against him. “The momentous occasion happened when I met you. And the momentum has been building ever since.”
“You really mean that, don’t you? I mean, you really don’t care what’s in that room.”
“I think what’s in that room is a burden Lionel chose to adopt. And he’s requested it be left that way. And you’re right…as to the rest, I truly, honestly don’t care. It’s so odd, after all this time, but I’ve really come to peace with it. I know my path.” He backed her into the corner between the foyer and the hallway leading to the study. “And I want you on it with me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
She smiled. “Okay. So…who do we get to clean up the mess?”
“You’re okay with me sealing the room back up?”
“I’m okay with you taking me upstairs and talking about our path and having your way with me and clouding my mind with all kinds of wonderful future things. I’m okay with respecting your uncle’s wishes, and I’m thinking he will be more than happy to take care of his study, especially when you tell him you decided to leave the Hamilton skeletons be.”
“You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I actually feel sorry for him,” Trevor said. “And I feel a little bad, pushing him like I have. The whole time I was angry because he wouldn’t put my needs first, because he wouldn’t trust me with the truth. I thought he was being overly conservative, and keeping up appearances above all, like my family has always been. I never thought I was being selfish. Or that I was truly asking him to jeopardize something that might really matter to him.”
“You had a right to know.”
“I think he is protecting something, or someone. And it might not mean anything to anyone but him, but I should have respected that, or even at least considered it.”
“You didn’t know.” She kissed him. “You do now, and you’re respecting his wishes to handle it his own way.”
“If he lets whatever secrets he’s harboring die with him—”
“Then maybe that’s where they should lie.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
She grinned. “I’m always right.”
“I thought you were imperfect.”
“Usually right, then.”
“Well, for me, you’re just right.”
She melted. “The things you say.”
“The way you look at me.”
She smiled. He grinned.
“Come on, Curls. We have a date with destiny.”
“Well, never let it be said I’d keep destiny waiting. Or you.”
He pulled her right down on the center of the grand staircase and, grinning, began unbuttoning her shirt. “The things you say.”
Epilogue
Trevor and Emma did forge their own path. Chapel Hill became home to Emma’s pet-sitting service as well as their new home together, which housed several mutts, two stray cats, and a recalcitrant pygmy goat. With a lot of hard work, Trevor’s business continued to grow, and did even better when Emma lured Chelsea away from Hamilton Industries to come work for her new husband.
Lionel continued to rattle around in his mountaintop retreat, never alone, always a staff around him, but intensely lonely, nonetheless. Thinking about the love he’d lost, as he often did, with the passing of his dear Tru. And the secrets he’d kept, both selfishly and selflessly, realizing now just how great the cost had been to him. And he wondered if he’d made the right decisions…. And yet, what choice did he have? He’d been protecting Trudy’s legacy as well.
And at that very same time, in a neighboring county, another young man was about to make a discovery that would change his life. Sending him on a quest that would
shake the very foundations of everything Lionel, and those who had come before him, had believed to be true. Secrets would finally be exposed, and nothing would be safe and secure again.
Read more of Donna Kauffman’s delightful holiday romance in Lock, Stock & Jingle Bells!
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Originally published in the anthology To All a Good Night.
Copyright © 2017 Kensington Publishing Corp.
“Unleashed” copyright © 2017 Donna Kauffman
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ISBN-10: 1-4201-4889-3
ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4889-3