Page 121 of These Summer Storms

She was barely past him when he caught her from behind, one hand sliding over her mouth to muffle her outrage as he dragged her down the hallway, deep into the house.

Chapter

17

When Franklin Storm builthis office off the southeastern corner of Storm Manor, the architectural world lost its collective mind. It was a chrome and glass addition to the gothic Gilded Age home, all windows and modern angles, but with several nods to history, including a rare-book vault built in the style of the one at the Morgan Library, beautifully lit and full of manuscripts and first editions, not because Alice’s father liked books, but because her father liked walking in the footsteps of magnates of yore.

As children, the Storm siblings loved playing inside the vault, risking their father’s wrath—sticky fingers and rough play were poor companions for manuscripts and ancient leather bindings.

But now, Alice had trouble remembering a time when she loved the inside of this little space—as Sam shoved her and closed her in, ignoring her shout and the way she banged on the door.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that her brother’s plan was as well formed as his daughter’s had been. As though he wasn’t eventually going to have to let her out, and she wasn’t going to immediatelyleave this island, without a thought for the inheritance he cared so much about.

Evidently, Sam had also not considered the likelihood that when she got out of there, she was going to murder him, and then there wouldn’t be any more Sam to inherit.

“You are theworst!” she finished, the words punctuated by the low muffled drone of a helicopter above. Her ride.

She spun away from the door to take in the tiny room, shelves full of leather-bound books, a small hexagonal mahogany table, adorned with nothing but a Tiffany reading lamp.

And there, on its side, on the floor of the vault, a painting.

She stilled.

In Progress.

The painting was an enormous watercolor landscape in four panels, fused together, each a work in unfinished progress, intended to be a commentary on the artist, on the viewer, and on the moments and places that made people who they were.

The panels were left in varying states of underpainting and overpainting, each more lush than the one before. Grays and browns gave way to yellows and greens and eventually blues and bright whites, crisp, clear colors, in imperfect lines, as though the artist couldn’t get them right.

As though it was rendered from memory and will, just as humans were.

And it had been rendered from memory; Alice had painted it, cobbling together remnants of the island.

She’d been so incredibly proud of it—her first large-scale work, the centerpiece of her first solo gallery show. She could still feel the sense of wild achievement that coursed through her as she witnessed it there, hanging like something of value, not because she was Alice Storm, of the Storm Inside™ Storms, but because she was Alice, a painter on her own merit.

And then, the intense joy that had come when it had sold for more than she’d ever imagined, to a mysterious buyer.An anonymous patron,her agent had said.Only a checkbook and compliments.

Alice had been so thrilled—knowing that she’d done this alone. Without her father.

It turned out she hadn’t done it alone. Her father had done it for her, another in a long line of controlling events designed to keep her from making her own decisions and keep her under his thumb…or worse, to punish her for going against his wishes.

And it was punishment. How could it be anything but? Franklin had known the sale of that painting would have marked a powerful moment in her life—one that she would have held close. He would have known that she’d wonder where it hung and who admired it, and the idea that he’d bought it with money he might have found in the cushions of the old couch in his office, and left it here on the floor…

The discovery diluted her fury with Sam (though the full force of that emotion wouldn’t be gone for long).

Now, she was pissed at her dad.

Again.

And then there was Jack.

Jack, who had probably bought it in another moment of devotion to her father, just as he’d bought Griffin. Without hesitation, without regret.

She closed her eyes, embarrassment and shame coursing through her. He’d paid Griffin to leave her. He’d borne witness to the utter lack of loyalty she inspired in a man who’d sworn he wanted to spend his life with her.

It was horrifying. But she refused to feel bad about it. Everyone else should feel bad about it. Alice, though, she should be furious.

Which she was, for an hour or so, as helicopters flew overhead, until the vault locks turned with several loud thuds and Alice came to her feet ready to fight. She was expecting the battle to be with Sam, who’d remembered to free her now that everyone had left with their various modes of transportation (as though she wasn’t prepared to swim if she had to).

---