Ruin (Ruin 1)

“Had to be said.” He sighed and kissed my forehead. “I’ll grab your suitcase.”

Lisa sighed while Gabe smacked her on the arm, just as Wes came into the living room with my giant suitcase.

“You do know I didn’t ask you to move in with me, right?” he joked.

“A girl has to be prepared!” Lisa defended me. “And who knows what the Seattle weather will do!”

Wes held up a hand as if to surrender and then nodded towards the door. “Let’s go. My crazy dad awaits.”

“Onward.” I thrust my fist into the air and said goodbye to Gabe and Lisa. I was going to meet the richest man in the world. Awesome, what could go wrong?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Holy shit. I was taking a girl home. Somebody start a fire in Hell — because it’s officially frozen over.

Weston

“You nervous?” I asked as we pulled onto Fauntleroy Way in downtown Seattle. It boasted of only twelve houses in the little gated community meaning we had mega privacy. I swear my dad had cameras everywhere, even at the end of the street just in case someone sketchy wanted to get a view one of us in the pool. Not that they could, there was enough landscaping to make the house its own private resort, not to mention the fact that we had over a half mile of private beach. You know, if you could call a rocky coast a beach. But every summer we had sand brought in from the tropics. Just to make it look legit.

“A little.” Kiersten sighed and looked out the window. “So which house is yours?”

“Everything you see on this side of the street towards the water? It’s all ours.”

“Huh?”

“A main house, two cottages, a few tennis courts, a man-made pond, and then that house over there…” I pointed to the far end of the property as the gate opened making it easier for her to see. “…is where my Oma stays when she visits.”

“Uh, Oma?”

“Grandma,” I corrected myself. “Sorry, my mom was one hundred percent Dutch, so when I was little, my grandma was Oma.”

Kiersten grinned and then sucked in a sharp breath as the second gate opened to the main house. I drove through and tried to imagine what it would look like through her eyes.

At least six thousand square feet, not the largest mansion in the world, all glass windows with sharp angles, allowing for the sun to shine through. It was white and had been remodeled from its original brick form in 1927 to look like an architect’s paradise. There were exactly seventeen steps leading to the massive fifteen-foot tall oak entry, and just as I pulled the car to a stop, the butler walked out and opened Kiersten’s door.

“Ma’am, we’ve been expecting you.”

“Ronald.” I nodded my head in his direction.

He grinned at me. At eighty-two, he was a force to be reckoned with. He wasn’t really our butler anymore, since technically he’d retired twenty years ago, but my dad hadn’t the heart to let him go, so now he greeted guests, brewed beer in the cottage my dad let him live in rent-free, and basically kept the house running since my mother’s death.

“Mr. Weston.” Ronald clapped his hands on my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. “It’s been too long, how are you?”

He knew I was sick.

But he never treated me any differently. He just refused to discuss it — I understood though — everyone in his life was gone. He and my brother had been very close. He’d taken Tye’s death really hard and I knew mine would be just something else that might cause his heart to finally give out.

“Good, I feel great,” I lied and hugged him back. “Dad home?”

“In the study waiting.” Ronald smiled and clapped twice. Two staff members ran down the stairs to grab our stuff.

I held out my hand to Kiersten. “Ready to meet my dad?”

“Holy crap.” She wiped her hands on her jeans before latching on to me. “I feel like I’m about to meet the president or something.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “Trust me, it’s ‘or something’. He’s not that intimidating. Promise.” I could tell she didn’t believe me. Her eyes kept getting wider and wider as we walked farther into the house. The foyer had a bridge-like walkway that went directly toward the main room. A huge bay window let in tons of light from the front, we took a right and went to the study.

“Dad?” I called.