Holly leaned closer and peered at the engraving. “Oh, that’s lovely. Such a wonderful sentiment. That’s funny. He doesn’t strike me as an expressive sort of man.”
Callie smiled. “Oh? What does he strike you as?”
Holly frowned for a moment, her lips pursed in thought. “He seems…hard. Unyielding. Like someone used to getting his way, which of course would never work with you so clearly I’m wrong. You’re such a hardhead. Always have gone your own way, much to your fathers’ and my despair.”
Laughter bubbled out, nearly choking Callie. If her mother only knew.
“You’re pretty dead-on,” Callie said. “Max is very used to getting his own way.”
“Until he met you, anyway,” Holly said cheekily.
She wouldn’t blush. She would not give herself away. She bit her cheek and remained silent, content to let her mom make of her relationship what she wanted. What was between her and Max was private. She wasn’t comfortable with her family knowing the dynamics of their relationship. It would only cause them concern, because they’d never imagine her happy in a situation where she gave up so much control.
“Oh look, the guys are here with Lily,” Holly said as she craned her neck to look out the kitchen window.
Eager to see her sister-in-law, Callie hurried from the kitchen. She cast a quick glance to see her fathers deep in conversation with Max. No one looked like they were ready to kill anyone else, so she took that as a good sign.
Dillon was first inside. He hugged Callie fiercely and cast a dark look in Max’s direction. He moved to the side to hug his mom but made no effort to walk over to Max.
Lily was next inside and Callie pounced on her immediately. Lily hugged her and then whispered urgently in Callie’s ear. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Callie pulled away in puzzlement. “What’s wrong?”
Lily’s mouth turned down into an unhappy frown. “It’s Seth. He’s been doing some checking.”
Lily was cut off when Seth barreled through the door, his face grimmer than Callie had ever seen it. It went beyond his sheriff look when he tried to be all intimidating. He looked…pissed.
“Seth, what on earth is going on?” Callie asked.
Seth paused, his gaze softening. He pulled Callie into his arms. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to tell you, baby girl.”
“Seth Colter, what’s the meaning of this?” Holly demanded, hands on h*ps in true don’t-mess-with-mama mode.
Callie’s fathers rose from their seats, answering frowns on their faces as Michael trailed in behind Seth not looking any happier than his two brothers.
Panic scuttled around Callie’s belly until she felt near to puking. What was going on? Why were they so angry? Why were they all looking at Max like they wanted to murder him?
She instinctively moved away from her brothers and to Max. He was there, putting his arm around her and pulling her into his side. Seth’s nostrils flared as he stared angrily at Max.
“I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done, you son of a bitch.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Seth!” Callie gasped.Seth ignored Callie and advanced on Max. Max pushed Callie toward her father as he faced Seth down. He made no effort to defend himself or even to question what the hell Seth was talking about.
“Whatever you have to say to me can be said outside,” Max said. “I don’t want Callie involved or hurt.”
Seth’s lip curled. “She needs to hear what I have to say. You may not want her to hear it, but she needs to know what a bastard you are.”
Callie turned toward Max. “Max?”
Max put his hand up. “Let me handle this, dolcezza.”
“You used her,” Seth spit out.
Adam stepped forward, his face drawn into a storm cloud. “Seth, what the hell are you insinuating here? This isn’t the time or the place. Not in front of your mother, your sister and your wife.”
Callie looked around in bewilderment. Everyone was either angry or confused. Her fathers circled her and Max while her brothers stood in front of them, boring holes in Max.
Michael stepped forward. “Let him talk, Dad. This is important, and Callie needs to hear it, however painful it might be.”
Lily stepped up beside Callie and pulled her away from Max before wrapping a supportive arm around her.
“Lily, what’s going on?” Callie whispered as her heart squeezed painfully in her chest.
Suddenly her mother was on her other side as if she knew that Callie would need her support more now than at any other time. Callie hated the sympathy that shone in Dillon’s and Michael’s eyes. Hated the anger that bristled from Seth in black waves.
But most of all she hated the fatalistic look of inevitability in Max’s eyes, as if he’d expected this and was resigned to the outcome.
“What is going on?” Callie demanded. “This is ridiculous!”
Dillon and Michael flanked Lily and their mom who hugged Callie tight against them. Callie swallowed as she waited. Waited in agony, not knowing what to do, who to listen to. She wanted to go to Max. She wanted to scream at Seth to stop. But the look on Max’s face stopped her. There was something terrible in his eyes. The knowledge of his fate. And hers.
Never taking his gaze off Max, Seth began in a terse, clipped voice. “I did some checking on Wilder here. Turns out he has some very interesting connections. He owns Capitol Investment Properties.”
Adam sucked in his breath. “I know the name. They’ve approached me numerous times about selling Callie’s Meadow.”
Callie looked at her dad and then at Seth in confusion. “So?”
“There’s more, Callie,” Dillon said in a low voice. “Listen to him.”
“Max’s mother is the one who sold Callie’s Meadow to the dads,” Seth continued.
“Don’t you mean she was coerced to sell,” Max bit out.
Ryan’s head whipped around in surprise. “Coerced? There was no coercion. We’d tried to buy the land many times and the owner always refused.”
“My stepfather,” Max said. “And no, he wouldn’t sell. The property had been in our family for a century. It was a legacy passed down for generation after generation. A legacy that should have been mine and my sister’s.”
Callie went numb. Her blood turned to ice and she simply stared at Max, too baffled to comprehend what was happening. But the anger and bitterness in Max’s voice came through loud and clear. It was unmistakable.
“After your…stepfather…passed away, your mother came to me,” Adam said tersely. “I’d already given up trying to get your stepfather to sell. She said she needed the money, and believe me, I paid more than the land was worth because we wanted it that much. She said she had two children to raise and that her husband had left her in poor circumstances.”
“Bullshit,” Max swore.
“The fact is, he came after you, Callie,” Seth interjected. “He tracked you, he seduced you for a reason. He wanted your land. The coincidence of the two of you meeting in Europe and falling into a relationship is staggering. After the dads turned his company down the last time, suddenly he shows up in Europe and meets you?”
Something inside Callie crumbled. She looked at Max, begging him to deny the charge. What she saw stunned her. She saw guilt. Regret. Worry. And anger.
She stepped forward. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you didn’t do what he said you did.”
Max looked at her with death in his eyes. “It was true then. It’s not true now.”
Her stomach revolted. Pain crashed through her chest until she could barely breathe. How stupid was she? Once hadn’t been enough. She’d been gullible a second time. She’d made it so easy for Max. He’d torn her apart once already. And she’d let him back in with a whispered apology and words of love. Now her entire family was gathered to witness her shame. Her utter humiliation.
She took another step forward, her legs shaking so badly that it was a miracle she remained standing.
“You lied to me. You manipulated me. You abused your control over me. What were you going to do, Max, use my submission to get your way? Would you have commanded me to sign over my land? Or maybe when we got married you were going to take over everything. Little submissive Callie would never tell you no, right?”
“That’s a rotten thing to say,” Max snarled. “What we have is real, Callie. I’d never use my dominance to manipulate you.”
Behind her, the dads cursed. Her brothers stepped forward, but she held up her hand. There was nothing left for her to lose at this point. No secret left covered. Every little dirty detail of her life had been exposed. She’d never felt more betrayed in her life.
“Tell me you didn’t do this,” she said tearfully. “Tell me you didn’t set up our meeting in Europe. Tell me it was all one huge coincidence.”
“I can’t tell you that, dolcezza. I won’t lie to you. I did engineer the meeting. What I didn’t engineer was what happened afterward. The way I fell for you.”
“Oh God, stop. Just stop it.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks as her entire world shattered into tiny pieces and lay on the floor like jagged shards of glass.
Max moved swiftly to her and grasped her shoulders as he stared intently into her eyes. “Don’t do this, Callie. Listen to me. I love you.”
“Can you look me in the eye and tell me you never hoped to coerce me into giving you Callie’s Meadow? Can you do that?”
He was silent for a moment and in his eyes she saw the terrible truth. A sob welled in her throat and swelled outward until she physically couldn’t take a breath. The room blurred in front of her.
Around her, her family erupted into chaos. Her brothers were shouting. Her fathers pressed forward, angry accusations flying as they pushed in between her and Max.
She fell to her knees, her face in her hands as horrible, terrible sounds tore from her throat. Her mother knelt beside her and pulled her into her arms as she rocked back and forth.
But it was too much. Too painful. She couldn’t bear for her family to see her so utterly devastated.
She bolted to her feet and flew toward the door. Max’s anguished cry followed her.
“Callie!”
Covering her ears, she ran for her fathers’ Land Rover, praying the keys were in the ignition as they often were.
Ryan called after her. But she ignored her father and threw herself into the driver’s seat. She had to get away. Away from the pain. Away from Max and his betrayal. Away from the sympathy simmering in her family’s eyes.
She drove recklessly down the drive but when she reached the end, she slowed, determined not to add more stupidity to her list of crimes. She took in steadying breaths and then set off again down the winding switchbacks, no clear direction in mind.
Away. All she knew was that she had to be away.
Tears streamed silently down her cheeks, and then the glint of silver caught her eye and she stared numbly at the cuffs on her wrists.
She braked sharply and then buried her face against the steering wheel as she broke down and allowed the sobs to tear painfully from her chest.
“You were a bastard to do this to her,” Max snarled at her brother. “How could you have humiliated her like this? How could you have upset her so badly?”
Seth’s mouth gaped open and fury glinted in his eyes. “You’re the son of a bitch who used her, Wilder. And don’t give me that crap about how it started out that way but changed. You broke her heart once. You dumped her in Europe and then waited months before you came crawling back like a f**king cockroach.”
“You should have come to me!” Max roared as he jabbed a finger into his own chest. “You should have never hurt her by airing this in front of the people she loves the most. Do you have any idea how lucky you all are? All she ever talks about is how much she adores her family, how important you all are to her, how her dream is to build a home in her meadow so she can be close to you all. And yet you shit on her by dumping this on her without warning. This could have been handled so differently. You could have been man enough to approach me away from her. You could have talked to her privately if you felt you absolutely had to tell her yourself. I could have saved you a hell of a lot of trouble if you’d just come to me. I love that girl. I love her more than my promise to my family. I love her more than the legacy passed on to me by the man who raised me as his son. I love her enough that I was willing to move to this godforsaken town so she’d be happy. I would have done anything for her. Anything in the world but hurt her the way you’ve hurt her.”
Max felt like someone had knifed him right in the gut. He broke off from his impassioned speech just as Seth got into his face, his eyes shooting fire.
“The way I’ve hurt her? I didn’t lie to her, you son of a bitch. I’ve never lied to my sister. I didn’t use her. I didn’t manipulate her. I want to know what the f**k she’s talking about when she talks about your dominance and your control. Just what kind of hold do you have over her?”