“Your idea is almost as bad as Abby’s. She thinks I should seduce him.” Ellie pressed a hand to her stomach. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
At the thought of her seducing anyone but him, Nate didn’t feel so hot either.
Chapter Sixteen
Ellie texted her sister. Where are you? You promised you’d be here. You’re the reason I invited Mom in the first place! And it was going as badly as she had expected it would.
“Mom, keep your voice down! Everyone will hear you,” Ellie whisper-shouted as she pocketed her phone.
Sadie, Abby, and Mallory had arrived with their families at noon to help Ellie finish the Bridgerton room. The men and the kids were outside playing tag football. Thankfully, they were louder than her mother. They were also outside, while Ellie was stuck in the newly renovated entertainment room with her mother and grandfather.
“If your grandfather would take off his headphones for five minutes, I wouldn’t have to yell!”
Ellie glanced at Joe, who was sitting on the recently arrived leather sectional playing video games with said headphones on. His lips curved in a smirk as he worked the controller with an expertise that surprised her and cheered. Ellie was positive he was picturing her mother in place of the zombie he’d just blown up.
“Maybe if you hadn’t criticized every change we’ve made from the moment you arrived, he’d be willing to listen to you.”
Ellie would have thought she’d be immune to Miranda’s criticism by now. But her mother belittling the guest rooms had hurt. Ellie had been proud of what they’d accomplished, especially proud of how the doors had turned out. Praise from Nate, Ryder, the judge, and her grandfather had made her think she might have a modicum of talent after all. Now she wondered if they’d just been humoring her all along.
Her mother threw up her arms. “What do you expect? You promised you’d talk him into selling the inn. Instead, you’ve spent money you don’t have on these ridiculous renovations.”
Joe cast Ellie a betrayed glance. Obviously, he could hear more than he was letting on. “I didn’t promise I’d talk Grandpa into selling,” she said, as much for her grandfather’s benefit as for her mother’s. “I said I’d talk to him about it.” And the only reason she had was that her mother had brought Ellie’s father and sister into it. “But I also told you how much the inn means to Grandpa.”
“Don’t waste your breath, Ellie my love,” Joe said, removing the headphones. “She won’t listen to you. It’s always been her way or the highway.” He tossed the controller and headphones onto the sectional. Then he looked at his daughter. “But you’ll not get your way in this, Miranda. Listen to me, and listen to me good, for this is the last time I’ll say it. The inn is not for sale. Not now, not ever. I’ll draw my last breath here, and when I do, everything goes to Ellie.”
A look of shock came over her mother’s face. “What have you done? What have you said to your grandfather to turn him against your sister and brother? Against me, his own daughter. His only child!”
As they tended to do when strong emotions were involved, Ellie’s barriers slipped, and so did her mother’s. Miranda was afraid she’d shared her secret. But she was even more afraid that she’d misjudged her father and there was nothing she could do to convince him to sell. Her fear had turned to anger that she directed entirely at Ellie.
The bitter emotions coming from her mother were so strong that they choked off Ellie’s defense of herself before she got the words out of her mouth.
“Ellie hasn’t said a word against Jace and Brianna. Nor you for that matter. And there’s plenty she could have said given how you treat her. But I changed my will for one reason and one reason only. Ellie loves the inn as much as me. Her connection to this place runs almost as deep as mine. Not a surprise, I suppose, since you shipped her off to spend her holidays and summers here with me and your mother.”
Ellie flinched. She knew her grandfather loved her, but for just a second, she wondered if she’d been a burden on them.
Joe must have noticed her reaction because he reached for her hand, took it in his, and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Some of my best memories are of those times, Ellie my love. You were a blessing to me and your grandmother. Just as you’ve been one to me all these months.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to be here with you like Elliana. I actually have a job.” Her mother left I have a life unsaid, but Ellie heard it as clearly as if she’d said the words out loud.
“And what would be your excuse for trying to sell the inn out from under me, then?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Her mother turned away to look out the window.
“Probably not,” her grandfather agreed. “But be that as it may, you’ll tear up that agreement with the developer today.”
Her mother whirled around. “I can’t. I can’t do that.”
Ellie tried to read her mother’s panicked thoughts, but they were so tangled up with her fear that her secret would be revealed that Ellie had a hard time seeing the answer she needed. It was like trying to find a clear image beneath a screen of static.
Anger, Ellie thought, her mother’s thoughts were easier to read when she was angry rather than scared. “You don’t have a choice, Mom. Grandpa has made his decision. You have to abide by it.”
“And if I don’t…what are you going to do about it, Elliana?”
Ellie pushed past her mother’s anger and silent threats to an image that was still coated with Miranda’s fear. Two men stood over a map of Mirror Lake. One of the men was Richard, and the other man, she assumed from her mother’s reaction, was the developer. Ellie frowned. If Richard was blackmailing her mother, why wasn’t her fear directed at him?
“You’re asking the wrong person, Miranda. And I’ve told you exactly what I’ll do if you continue with this. I’ll bring charges against you for parental abuse.”
“That’s a lie! I have never abused you in any shape or form,” her mother cried.
“Maybe not physically. But what would you call it when a daughter sneaks behind her father’s back and signs a paper that she has no legal authority to sign, in an effort to deprive him of his home and his livelihood? I have it on good authority a judge would agree with me.”
“I had legal authority until Elliana coerced you into signing power of attorney over to her! If anyone will be charged with elder abuse, it will be her. And don’t think I’d hesitate to bring charges against her.”
She wouldn’t, not if it meant saving her marriage and Brianna.
“So you may want to think twice before you threaten me, Daddy.”
Joe slumped on the couch, and Elliana’s throat clogged with emotion. He wouldn’t press charges against her mother, not if it meant Miranda would go after her. But it was more than just the thought of her mother leveling charges of elder abuse against Ellie that worried him, she realized. He was worried his daughter would do to Ellie what she’d done to Agnes. Her grandfather had known all along that Ellie was psychic. He was afraid of the censure and ridicule she’d face if her secret came out.