Page 76 of Fight Or Flight

She turned to get some snacks from her stash in the kitchen when there was a knock on the door.

Maybe Ethan was back? Why would he knock?

She walked to the door and opened it and found Anne on the porch. She was dressed in a short-sleeve cream cashmere sweater, with wide, white, perfectly pressed pants and nudeheels. Gold and sapphire earrings dangled elegantly from her earlobes, just visible through the tendrils of her blond hair.

Natalie’s jaw dropped.

“Natalie, is it?”

Natalie swallowed the lump in her throat and managed a nod.

“I don’t think we have ever formally been introduced. I’m Anne. Robert’s widow.”

Natalie stood frozen in place. Only her eyeballs moved to look out over the grass toward the pond, but Ethan was long out of sight. Chelsea and Ben weren’t there, either. They’d gone out shopping for orange paint that Ben had requested for his new room. She was completely alone.

“May I come in?”

Natalie still couldn’t speak, but she couldn’t very well slam the door in this poor woman’s face. She should have looked before she opened the door. She stepped aside, opening the door wider. Anne walked into the house, taking a few steps into the foyer, and looking into the parlour, then the dining room. When she silently turned back to Natalie, she had a calm smile on her face.

Natalie waited a few moments, hoping she’d say what she came to say, but she calmly stood waiting without a word. Natalie assumed Anne was there to yell at her to leave, or worse, to cry and to beg her to leave, but she did neither. She just stared until Natalie became increasingly and visibly uncomfortable.

Then she smiled.

Natalie couldn’t help but feel there was some play for power happening between them, on Anne’s end at least. Natalie had no power in this situation, and she was growing impatient and desperate for the exchange to end.

She cleared her throat, swallowed. “What brings you here?” she finally squeaked out.

Anne’s smile widened. “I’m here to make you an offer.”

Natalie returned a blank stare. “An offer?”

Anne nodded. “Yes. I’d like to buy this property.”

“But you’re contesting the will. It isn’t mine yet to sell.”

She tipped her delicate square chin up. “I’d prefer to settle this out of court and without Victor Monroe getting involved. Less attention that way.”

Natalie blinked. She wanted to ask why she was bothering to contest the will in the first place, then, but moved on. The fewer words spoken between the two of them, the better. She just wanted to get out of there. “Okay . . .”

“I’ll purchase this property for five million.”

The fog clouding Natalie’s brain cleared when she heard the number. “It’s worth twelve.”

“Yes, but I’m willing to sign an agreement with Ethan Pierce that the land won’t be developed. That’s a very generous offer for him. If the will goes to court, he may get nothing.”

Natalie’s heart squeezed. “I don’t understand why you want this house.”

“I want my daughter to have it.”

Guilt closed up her throat once more. It had never sat right with Natalie that Elizabeth had cut Emily completely out of the will.

“There is, however, one condition I need from you,” Anne continued.

Natalie’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I need you to leave Mapleton. Immediately. Your sister and nephew, too. And I need your assurance that none of you will ever come back again. My daughter and I can’t live in peace when you’re all here. We’d finally started to heal after Robert’s death, and now with you both here, the humiliation is ever present. ”

Natalie stared at her for a long moment. Her mind was spinning. Two weeks ago, she’d have jumped for joy. Promising to never come back would have been a piece of cake for her backthen. But the longer she stayed, the harder it was becoming to leave. And then there was Ethan . . .

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