Page 153 of Theirs for the Holidays

“Yeah, you know all about family,” Rhett rumbles, staring her down.

I get us back on track by clearing my throat. “The point, Isabelle, is that by trying to sell to a corporate developer, especially one trying to break into the small town market and remove all the charm of this place, you’re in violation of your grandmother’s will.”

Of course, she doesn’t seem bothered by that at all. “That doesn’t matter,” she says. “It’s just a small detail.”

“And you being the one named on the deed when Eleanor wanted this place to go to Violet is a small detail too. You know what she wanted, you’re just being a spoiled brat about it.” Sawyer steps closer to the counter. “So if you want to play that game, we can play it.”

“What are you going to do?” she asks, glancing between the three of us.

“Have our lawyers come after you for violating the terms of the inheritance,” I say simply.

Isabelle narrows her eyes. “You’re bluffing.”

Violet laughs a little, amused. “You think so? Do you not know that these three are multimillionaires who ran their own company? Do you think they don’t have a team of lawyers ready to take on whatever fight they tell them to?”

“I’ll make it simple for you, Isabelle,” I tell her. “Sell the building back to Violet, or get ready for a lengthy legal battle. You might need to put family planning aside for a bit so you can save up for a lawyer of your own if you want to fuck with us.”

Isabelle’s face goes red, but I can tell from the look in her eyes that she knows she’s been backed into a corner. Usually horriblepeople get even more foul when they’re cornered, but Isabelle is running out of tricks now. Andrew won’t stand with her against us, not in any way that matters, so all she has is whatever she can pull out of her ass.

“Fine,” she snaps. “We can negotiate.” She pulls out a piece of paper and writes a number down, pushing it across the counter toward us.

I glance at it and laugh in her face. “I think you’re forgetting you don’t hold the cards here. If you think we’re going to pay that much for a property you stole in the first place, you’re sadly mistaken.”

I write another number down, much, much less than the building is worth, and pass that over. “That’s our final offer. Take it, or we’ll see you in court.”

“That’s robbery!” she insists, glaring. “It’s insulting. You can’t expect—” She meets my eyes, and I let her see how little I care about whatever she has to say.

“Take it, or we’ll see you in court,” I tell her again.

Next to me, Violet holds her breath.

Isabelle wavers, looking between all of us before finally crumbling. “Fine, whatever. But I want the money in my account tomorrow.”

Sawyer snorts. “You’ll get it when you get it. Now sign this.”

“We’d take it on faith,” Rhett adds. “But we have no reason to trust you.”

Isabelle scrawls her signature on the contract we had drawn up and then grabs her stuff. She storms out of the bakery with one final glare at Violet, letting the door slam closed behind her.

“Can you believe she’s our sister in law now?” Sawyer asks, shuddering. “I thought Andrew had more sense than that.”

“She’s going to eat him alive,” Rhett replies. “And he’ll only have himself to blame.”

Violet is standing there, looking shocked at what just happened, and I touch her shoulder lightly. “Are you okay?”

She blinks, shaking herself. “I’m just—trying to wrap my mind around what happened. How… how did you do that?”

Sawyer shrugs. “We’re good at picking through contracts and reading legalese. We knew there was a good chance your grandmother had done something to keep this kind of thing from happening, we just had to figure out what it was.”

“We thought about buying you a different building,” I say. “We could have bought you a hundred buildings, started a franchise. But we knew you wanted this one, so we wanted to make sure you had it.”

“And that Isabelle got a taste of her own medicine,” Rhett adds.

“That too.”

Violet finally smiles, looking around the space. “It’s really mine again.”

“It really is. It should have never stopped being yours, but now you can get back to doing what you do best.”