Page 128 of Theirs for the Holidays

Once she seems over the worst of it, she sits back against the couch, closing her eyes again. This time, I let her.

“How are you feeling?” Rhett asks.

“A little better,” she says, her voice still shaky around the edges.

“I can’t believe that little prick didn’t even try to make sure she was okay,” Sawyer grumbles. “Are we sure he’s not adopted?”

“I’ll have a word with him later,” I say, already imagining what I’m going to say to my youngest brother about his behavior. But right now, I’m more concerned about what happened to make Violet panic so badly. “What happened?” I ask her. “What did your sister say to you?”

Violet bites her lip and takes a shaky breath. “She’s taking my bakery.”

“What?” all three of us ask at the same time.

“How can she do that?” Sawyer wants to know.

“Remember how I said our grandmother was going to give it to her first?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, apparently she never took the building out of Isabelle’s name. Isabelle had—she had documents to prove it’s legally hers. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to fight it.”

“Even if that’s true,” Rhett says. “What would she want with it? And why would she want to take it, knowing you’ve already got a business started there?”

Violet laughs, but there’s no humor in it at all. “This is what she does. I can never have anything without her wanting it. She kept going on about starting her own business there now that she’s getting married.”

“Fuck that,” Sawyer snarls. He’s on his feet a second later. “Fuck that. Who does she think she is?”

A tear rolls down Violet’s cheek, and I reach up to gently brush it away.

“She’s angry, I guess,” Violet says. “That so much attention has been on me lately. This is her way of getting back at me. She can’t stand it when she’s not the center of attention. My mom tried to tell me that I was making her feel overshadowed, but I didn’t think—” she breaks off, putting a hand over her mouth.

“Fuck, I guess I shouldn’t have kicked them out,” Rhett says. “We should have had it out right then and there. Do you think Andrew knows?”

“I can’t imagine he wouldn’t,” I respond. “You know what he’s like.”

We all trade looks.

“He was a spoiled brat,” Sawyer says with a snort. “Always had to have his way, and when he couldn’t get it, he’d cry. Judging from how he treated Violet earlier, I don’t think he’d try to stop his ‘pick me’ bitch wife from doing this. Sorry for calling your sister a bitch, I guess,” he adds, looking at Violet.

She shakes her head. “It’s fine. You won’t hear me standing up for her. Not after this.”

“I could call him,” Rhett says, pulling out his phone with a dark look on his face. “Make him put me on speaker and tell both of them to get their asses back here until we can fix this.”

Violet just shakes her head. The panic is gone, but what’s replaced it isn’t any better. She just looks hopeless now. There’s no light in her eyes, and her voice is flat when she speaks. “It wouldn’t help,” she says. “Isabelle has the legal papers to prove it. I don’t have a leg to stand on since Grandmother isn’t here anymore. She owns the building. It’s hers, and she can do what she wants with it.”

The defeated tone and posture make my chest ache for Violet. Whenever she has a cause to not be the sunny, upbeat person she usually is, it feels wrong. Knowing that this was caused by family—hers and mine—makes it even worse.

That ache grows into a fire, anger spreading through me. Because this is bullshit. No one should treat family like this, and the fact that Violet is so resigned to it because she’s used to it just makes me even more pissed off.

“Fuck that,” I say, making her looking up at me in surprise. “They can’t get away with this. Even if it is legal, that doesn’t make it right. They need to know what they’re doing is wrong.”

“They don’t care that it’s wrong,” Violet insists. “Isabelle doesn’t have a moral compass like that. She doesn’t think ‘oh, Violet has been running her bakery all this time and it makes her happy and lets her pay her bills.’ All she thinks is that she doesn’t have a business and she wants one, so she’s taking the building. All she ever thinks about is herself because she’s never had to confront caring about another person. You can’t reason with someone like that.”

I don’t tell her that I’m not thinking of trying to reason with Isabelle and Andrew. I’m more planning to rain hellfire down on them until they realize they’re selfish, narcissistic assholes.

But that can wait.

Right now, Violet needs comfort and support and not to be alone with her feelings.