Devil's Bargain

The older man hasn’t taken his eyes off Hawk once. When he finally turns to me, when he steps toward me with a warm smile, I see a slight resemblance. It’s not as strong as it is between the brothers.

“Miss,” he says, coming close enough to shake my hand. “I’m Benjamin. Hawk’s grandfather.”

“Grandfather?”

I meet Hawk’s gaze for one moment before returning my eyes to Benjamin.

“I’m Melissa. Melissa Doe.” I wonder if it sounds strange when I say that. The Doe. It sounds strange to me. But maybe that’s because I’ve been using Chase for such a long time and I’m not exactly sure why I tell him my real name now.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he says.

Declan snorts and when I look at him, I find him watching me, his dark eyes unreadable.

But then he shakes his head and turns on his heel to disappear into the house. The tension physically lifts from the room once he’s gone.

“A bedroom’s been prepared—” Benjamin starts, but Hawk cuts him off.

“I’ll be taking the master.”

24

Hawk

Melissa is taking in every aspect of the house as I lead her through it. Her mouth is practically hanging open, but she doesn’t realize she’s seeing it at its worst.

It’s strange to come back to the house in this state. I knew what I was doing over the last several years, but to see it in person is more difficult than I realized it would be. It’s run-down and old. Something that was once grand, reduced. Humbled.

I guess that’s what I was trying to do to them. To my father. My step-mother. Declan.

I shove that pang of remorse down deep and lead Melissa up the stone steps to the second floor and to my father’s rooms.

Two maids are rushing in and out, carrying his things out.

I push the heavy wooden door wide and gesture for Melissa to enter. She does, quickly scooting to the side to let another of the maids with an armful of clothing out.

I don’t recognize the things she’s carrying but know they’re my fathers from the colors alone. Our colors. Strange the things you never forget.

He was a proud man. I remember that about him. Proud of his heritage. Of this house. Of what our family name stood for.

I was proud too. Proud to be the first-born son of Hawk MacLeod. Proud to carry the traditional name granted only to the first-born of the first-born.

It meant something to me. Hell. It had meant everything to me.

But that was before my mother died. Before my father married his mistress and made her lady of our house. Before he acknowledged Declan as his—my half-brother—born to him and his mistress just one year after my own birth while he was still married to my mother.

I never learned if my mother knew. I hope she didn’t.

Ann, his mistress, had such influence over my father, much more than my mother ever had. She was young and beautiful, and, pathetically, these things seemed to be all she needed to wrap my father around her little finger.

For years, I didn’t know Declan was my half-brother. When my father married Ann, I was seven years old. Declan was six. It took him five more years to acknowledge that Declan was his by blood. I guess he was trying to give the impression of being respectful of his dead wife.

By then, I’d come to dislike Ann. Even at twelve years old, I’d started to see through the façade and know the kind of woman she was. Everyone did. Everyone but my father.

Greedy. Superficial. Spiteful. She loved money more than she loved my father or me or even her own son. Loved money more than she did this house. More than she ever understood what this family stood for.

She succeeded in cutting me out of the will altogether. Succeeded in aiding her son to steal my inheritance out from under me.

And my life’s mission since then has been vengeance and all around me is the stain of my success.

I should be happy.

I should be fucking jumping up and down with joy.

“Just make the bed and get the hell out,” I snap at one of the maids, annoyed at all the movement, all the people.

I have a headache. I’m fucking dead tired and I have to deal with Declan. I was hoping Benjamin would have gotten him out of the house before my return.

“It’s made, sir. I had fresh sheets put on just yesterday,” one of them tells me.

The Scottish accent has me enthralled for a moment. I haven’t heard it in so long. Haven’t spoken like this in so long.

“Thank you,” I say more calmly.

She nods and closes the door when she leaves.

I turn to Melissa who appears awestruck in the large room with its thick stone walls and windows in deep alcoves, the glass encased in iron seeming from another time. She goes to the one on the farther end of the room, passing the large four-poster hand-carved bed, fingers trailing over the wood.