The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

about.
    And yesterday was too empty to remember.
    “Charlotte, I think I’m going nuts.”
    Megan stalked across the living room of the small guest cottage where her cousin Charlotte lived. The rooms were tiny, but beautifully kept with warm, polished wood floors and beamed ceilings. A tiny one-story structure, it was built of stone and wood, and when she was a girl, Megan had believed it to be a storybook cottage, complete with fairies and pixies and everything else a little girl dreamed of.
    Now, it was simply her cousin’s home. Charlotte Ashton had never cared for living at the main house, preferring her own company in this cozy place. Besides, the greenhouses were just behind the cottage, keeping things easy for the woman who created beautiful floral arrangements for the events held on the estate.
    “You’re wearing a hole in the floor,” Charlotte said quietly.
    “Sorry, it’s just—” Megan stopped and threw her hands wide.
    “You have to pace when you’re anxious. I know.”Charlotte sat curled up on a dark-rose sofa, a velvet throw pillow clutched to her chest. Her long, straight black hair hung down well past her shoulders and looked like a silk cape she’d tossed on for effect. She was tiny and patient and soft-spoken—all the things Megan wasn’t.
    Perhaps that’s why they got along so well.
    Megan took a deep breath, blew it out, then dropped onto a dark green side chair. The overstuffed cushion rose up around her like a comforting hug. “The newspapers are full of Father and his latest—I don’t even know what to call it.”
    “Episode?” Charlotte offered.
    “As good a word as any.” Megan shook her head, then reached up and pushed one stray lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Reporters are hovering outside the gates, attacking every car that leaves, phoning the estate, pestering customers who are just here for a wine tasting.” She paused for breath. “And yesterday, one of the TV crews actually made a sixteen-year-old cry at her own birthday party.” She cringed, remembering how the young girl and her friends were chased down the drive by an overeager reporter and his cameraman. “Mother won’t talk about it, Trace keeps his head buried in work, Paige pretends everything is normal, Father refuses to say anything—even told me himself this morning that since I had chosen to turn on him, taking my husband’s side over his, that he owed me nothing. No explanations, nothing.”
    She cringed inwardly, remembering that scene in her father’s estate office only that morning and wondered how she could ever have imagined that Spencer might want her opinion. Then she shook it all off and said, “And Simon…”
    “What about Simon?”
    “I don’t know,” Megan admitted and added silently that that was what she was most worried about. Simon hadn’t said anything about this latest disaster of her father’s. Not since that first night when she’d broken it to him and then they’d…Her body went hot for one gloriously amazing moment, and then that feeling drained away completely. “God, Charlotte, I don’t know what to do. What can I do? This is all just a mess.”
    Charlotte’s features hardened. “You know I’m no fan of your father’s, Megan.”
    “I know and maybe that’s why I came to see you. Everyone at the main house is walking on tiptoe around the place as if leery of stepping out of line. But how can we?” she demanded of no one. “When Father’s the one who keeps moving that line?”
    “You act as though you’re surprised by all of this,” Charlotte said and leaned forward to pick up her cup of tea off the small round coffee table.
    “And I shouldn’t be, you mean.”
    Charlotte shrugged and took a sip of her tea. “I can’t blame you for not wanting to see the truth about your own father. But Megan, I’ve known the truth for years. The man cannot be trusted. At all.”
    Megan told herself she should be insulted. She should feel the urge to leap up and defend her father. She always had before. She’d spent so many years trying to explain away Spencer’s behavior, his attitude, his treatment of others, that it was almost second nature to her now.
    But the sad fact was, she couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t even manage to convince herself that Spencer was the kind of father she’d always wished him to be. In the last two weeks, it was as if blinders had suddenly been ripped off her eyes and she saw him not as she’d wanted him to be,