Chapter 3 - The Broken Pedigree
Colton slammed the door of his BMW, storming up the gravel driveway with his hair flying wildly in the morning breeze.
His eyes were bloodshot, his collar open, and dark purple circles shadowed his handsome, polished face.
"Mara!" Colton yelled, completely ignoring my grandmother standing by the hydrangeas.
"Did you talk to him?! Did you go crying to Nicholas Valenti about our breakup?!"
Marco, Valenti’s driver, stepped smoothly from the shadow of the pecan tree, placing himself between Colton and the porch.
Marco didn't draw a weapon; he simply crossed his massive arms, his suit jacket straining against his broad chest.
"Step back from the residence, Mr. Avery," Marco commanded in a flat, gravelly baritone.
Colton halted, his hands trembling as he pointed a shaking finger at the black Escalade.
"Get out of my way! This is between me and my ex-fiancée!" Colton shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria.
"Mara, listen to me! Valenti’s commercial board canceled my construction permits this morning!"
"They bought the secondary lien on the boutique hotel property at sunrise and called the note due by five o'clock!"
"If I don't produce two million dollars in liquid collateral by Friday, the Sterling family is pulling out of the partnership!"
I stepped down the wooden porch steps, untying my canvas apron and looking at the man I had loved for four years.
I didn't feel the crushing heartache that had kept me sobbing on my kitchen floor three weeks ago.
I looked at him and saw only a desperate, shallow opportunist who had gambled his soul on borrowed money.
"You canceled our wedding via text message, Colton," I said, my voice cutting through his panic like a razor.
"At four-o-seven on a Tuesday while I was working on an upright piano."
"You told me I didn't fit the life you were building."
Colton stepped forward, his eyes wild with desperate pleading, trying to reach past Marco's wide shoulder.
"I made a mistake, Mara! You know how much pressure Vanessa's father was putting on me!"
"He demanded a united front! He said the city council wouldn't approve our hotel variance without the Sterling name!"
"I did it for our future! I was going to come back for you once the property broke ground!"
Grandma Clara stepped onto the porch rail, holding her metal trowel like a cavalry saber.
"You yellow-bellied little toad," Grandma Clara barked, her voice booming across the lawn.
"You traded my granddaughter away like a scratched pickup truck, and now you crawl back here because the bank locked your toys?"
"Get off my property before I turn the irrigation sprinklers on your Italian leather shoes."
Colton ignored her, his eyes locked onto mine with manic desperation.
"Mara, please! Valenti is an underworld criminal! He's using you to punish me because I tried to broker around his unions!"
"Call him! Tell him you forgive me! Tell him we're working things out!"
A sleek, dark-gray Porsche Taycan purred up the gravel lane, stopping silently behind Colton’s BMW.
The driver’s door opened, and Nicholas Valenti stepped out into the Texas sun.
He wore a dark navy polo shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, displaying the strong, corded muscle and a faint silver scar across his wrist.
He held a white bakery box from the French patisserie downtown in one hand.
He didn't rush.
He walked across the limestone gravel with that slow, untouchable authority that made Colton freeze in absolute terror.
"Good morning, Mrs. Redford," Nicholas said politely, nodding to my grandmother on the porch.
"I brought peach brioche from St. Cecilia's."
May you like
Grandma Clara’s stern face melted into a delighted, approving beam.
"Well, now," Grandma Clara said, setting her trowel down. "That is an exceptionally well-mannered young man."
