Own Me (The Wolf Hotel, #5)(21)

I see the familiar name at the top almost immediately. “He knew.”

“He liked to keep tabs on us, make sure we weren’t fucking up our lives.”

“Sounds like he had good reason,” I mutter.

“I don’t know how he found out about Audrey, but he did, and he threatened to disinherit me if I ever went near her again. William Wolf’s favorite pastime—dangling money over his loved ones to control them.” Henry sucks back another gulp of scotch.

“Would he have?” That’s all I’ve heard about since I met Henry: William’s threat to give Wolf Hotels to Scott if Henry got caught up in another inappropriate relationship; his threat to out Henry’s mother as a lying, cheating thief of a children’s charity if she didn’t leave their lives.

“I don’t know anymore. But he made good on his threat to cut Scott out.”

I scan the legal jargon but am quickly overwhelmed. “What does all this mean?”

“It’s an agreement for financial support as long as Audrey makes no contact with me and I never find out about this child’s existence. Ever.”

“So, all these years, he knew he was a grandfather. He knew you were a father, and he never told you.” William Wolf looked his son in the eye and lied by omission.

“I’m sure he thought he was protecting me.”

A dark thought hits me. Henry’s father had cancer and was given only a few years to live. That was cut even shorter by Scott and his accomplice, but had it not been, would William have confessed on his deathbed to hiding this human from Henry, or would he have taken this secret to his grave? The fact that he had a detailed letter included in his will about Scott’s true parentage, and about funneling money out of the company in his search for diamonds—just in case something happened to him—but no mention of Violet, makes me think the latter.

The depth of betrayal in Henry’s family seems bottomless. “And Audrey agreed to this.” Obviously, she did. Her signature is somewhere on these pages.

“My father wouldn’t have given her a choice,” Henry says, suddenly somber. “It was this or the end of her life as she knew it.”

Because Audrey slept with her fifteen-year-old student and William Wolf would ensure she landed in a prison cell. Babies aren’t allowed in there. She’d have lost her child.

If it were me, I would have taken the deal too. “Maybe she thought she was doing you a favor.”

“Maybe she was.” Henry grimaces, as if he realizes how harsh his words sound.

“Why come to you now though?” I answer the question myself a moment later. “Because your father’s gone.” It was all over the news.

“Knowing him, I’m sure there are still provisions here in the event of his death, but it would mean someone acting on them. Who’s going to do that?” Henry collects the contract again and flips through the pages. There are a lot of them.

“Do you think Audrey is after more money?” How much did her silence cost the Wolf family?

“He matched her boarding school salary for eighteen years. The agreed-to payment schedule is right here.”

“That’s a lot better than what she would have made in prison, but it’s nothing compared to what you’re worth.” I don’t even know how much Henry is worth. I’ve never asked, and honestly, I don’t care. When I told him I’d love him if he gave all this up and worked alongside my father on the farm, I meant it.

“That’s what’s in writing.” His lips are pressed in thought. “I can’t see my father not taking good care of them. Violet is a Wolf.”

“So he may have paid her more? Or meant to, but then he died.”

“There’s nothing about either of them in his will. No paper trail anywhere.”

Because he had no intention of Henry ever meeting Violet.

Eerie silence hangs throughout the penthouse. And here I thought planning a wedding around Mama’s demands would be my biggest challenge in the coming months. Now it seems I’m about to become a stepmother, and to a girl who is only six years younger than me, no less. “What are you going to do?”

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t have a daughter.”

And yet you do.

Henry looks at me, and for the first time since I’ve met him, through all the trials he’s faced—Scott trying to sabotage his takeover of Wolf Hotels with a threat of fake rape charges by his ex-assistant, Scott manipulating my insecurities opening weekend to destroy Henry and me, Henry’s father’s death, which turned out to be murder, his near-death experience in the mine—he looks genuinely lost.

Henry wanders over to the window to stare out into the night sky, his back to me, the contract dangling from his fingertips.

This is jarring—the invincible Henry Wolf, who always has a plan, who moves forward at breakneck speed, hurdling over problems to get to his destination, is facing something he doesn’t know how to tackle.

A fifteen-year-old girl.

“Why would Audrey let Violet show up here unannounced like this? And in the middle of the night?” he asks, but I’m not sure he’s looking for an answer.

“Maybe she doesn’t know Violet came.”

“Which would mean Audrey had no plans to break the deal with my father. Maybe she doesn’t want me in Violet’s life.”