Derek Makes His Move

Todd from Meredith Development showed up on the old house's doorstep one Wednesday morning, dressed in the same impeccable suit from Derek's Instagram photos, briefcase in one hand and a smile in the other — that particular salesman's smile that manages to radiate friendliness and an absolute readiness to sell you anything, so long as you sign on the dotted line, all at once.

"Claire Hartwell?" he asked, though of course he already knew the answer, given that we'd already spoken on the phone a few weeks earlier, when I'd pretended to be a potential investor. "Sorry for the unannounced visit. I thought an in-person conversation would be more productive than another phone call."

I stood in the doorway, feeling the familiar tension rising inside me, but forced myself to keep a polite, neutral expression — the same one I'd spent years perfecting on the restaurant's most demanding clients, the type who could find fault with a wine's temperature down to half a degree.

"I don't have a lot of time," I said, not inviting him in. "What can I help you with?"

"Actually," he said, pulling a glossy folder with the company logo from his briefcase, "I'm here to discuss the possibility of buying out your share of the estate. We have an extremely favorable offer, significantly above market value, given the development potential of the area. We understand the inheritance circumstances have been… complicated, and wanted to offer you an alternative that would spare you the burden of maintaining an unprofitable agricultural operation."

"The vineyard isn't unprofitable," I snapped. "It's brought in steady income for thirty years."

"Of course," he agreed, with the diplomatic smoothness that instantly betrayed years of experience in exactly this kind of negotiation. "But, between us, Ms. Hartwell — or I suppose now Mrs. Reeves — certain circumstances of your marriage have raised some questions for my clients. The speed of the union, the lack of any prior public history of a relationship. Derek assured us that a union of this kind, with the appropriate legal grounds, could be challenged as fraudulent, which would automatically return the inheritance question to its starting point."

I felt the ground genuinely drop out from under me — not so much from the threat itself, frightening as it was, but from the realization of just how deep Derek was willing to dig to get his way, right down to sending developers with direct hints of legal attack.

"Our marriage is completely legal," I said, trying to keep my voice firm, though inside everything was tightening with panic. "And I'm not interested in selling my grandmother's land to anyone, under any circumstances."

"Understood," Todd said, with that same unwavering smile, leaving the folder on the porch despite my obvious reluctance to take it. "The offer stands for two more weeks. Think it over, Mrs. Reeves. Sometimes it's wiser to accept favorable terms now than to spend months on litigation with a far from guaranteed outcome."

He left, leaving me standing on the porch with the feeling of having been doused in ice water on an otherwise warm September morning. I picked up the folder, flipped through it with shaking hands — the numbers really were impressive, well beyond my most optimistic estimates of the land's value — and felt a complicated knot of emotions rising inside me: anger at Derek, fear of the legal threat I hadn't taken seriously enough until now, and something else, far more unsettling — the need to decide whether to tell Sam about this immediately, or try to handle it myself first.

I chose the latter, and that decision, as it would turn out very soon, would be one of the more serious mistakes of the past few months.

That evening, I called Mr. Pembrooke, trying to sound as calm as possible, though everything inside me was still churning with anxiety.

"How real is the threat of challenging the marriage as fraudulent?" I asked directly, skipping the preamble.

Mr. Pembrooke was quiet for a long, thoughtful moment on the other end of the line.

"Technically possible," he admitted finally. "If sufficient evidence of the absence of genuine marital intent can be found — separate finances, lack of a shared relationship history prior to the marriage, witness testimony about the transactional nature of the union. However," he added, "cases like this are extremely difficult to prove in court without a direct admission from one of the parties. If you're both consistent in your statements and can present reasonable evidence of a shared life, Derek's chances of success remain minimal."

"Separate finances," I repeated, feeling something inside me go cold, thinking of clause three of our contract, the one Sam had insisted on with such conviction.

"That could be a problem," Mr. Pembrooke agreed cautiously. "Though not a critical one, given other supporting evidence."

I hung up, feeling the panic slowly curdle into a cold, calculating anxiety. Clause three of our contract — the very one Sam had spoken about so emotionally, explaining his desire to remain financially independent — had suddenly turned from a noble gesture into a potential legal vulnerability, capable of unraveling everything we'd both worked so hard to build over the past two months.

I should have told Sam right away. I knew that, sitting in Grandma's kitchen with Todd's folder in front of me on the table, like evidence of some crime. But something held me back from that conversation — fear that he'd take Derek's threat as a reason to doubt the reality of what was happening between us, fear that practical, methodical Sam would start proposing legal solutions that would turn our relationship back into the cold business deal it still technically remained, on paper, even though in practice it had long since stopped being one.

I hid the folder deep in the closet in the guest cottage bedroom, deciding to handle the problem myself before troubling Sam with details I thought, at the time, I could manage on my own without his involvement.

I had no idea how badly wrong that decision was, and certainly didn't anticipate that my attempt to protect him from unnecessary worry would end up dealing a far more serious blow to the fragile, still-forming trust between us than Derek's threat could have dealt directly.

That evening, over dinner, Sam noticed my distracted silence, the way my gaze kept drifting past my plate to somewhere unfocused.

"Everything okay?" he asked, covering my hand with his, in that gesture of care that had long since stopped being part of our original contract. "You're unusually quiet tonight."

"I'm fine," I lied, forcing a smile. "Just tired. Long day with suppliers."

He looked at me a beat longer than the simple explanation warranted, as though he sensed something bigger was hiding behind my words, but he didn't push, trusting me exactly as much as, it would turn out very soon, I myself was undeserving of that trust in that particular moment.