“I think I’ll wait out here. I’m enjoying the sunshine.”

Cricket smiled. “You need some vitamin D. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

I parked myself on a bench, determined to enjoy my cone and the sweet-tart taste of the passion fruit and ignore everything, including my own grief, for a little while.

I’d made it a whole five minutes before someone cast a shadow over me.

“You sit there like you don’t have a care in the world. Disgraceful.”

I jerked my head toward the voice coming from beside me and cringed.

Sylvia Riscoff.

The last time I’d seen her, she was screaming at me in the emergency room, and that wasn’t a moment I wanted to repeat.

I stood and spun around to walk the other way.

“Don’t you turn your back on me, girl. You better listen to what I have to say, because I promise you’re going to want to hear it.”

There was literally nothing I wanted to hear that Sylvia Riscoff could have to say, but that didn’t stop me from looking over my shoulder at her. She glared at me, her mouth pinched and brows drawn together.

“That’s right. Stop and listen. Because you need to realize that if my son tries to choose you over his family, he’s going to regret it for the rest of his life.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I didn’t want to know. I turned and took a step, but she kept talking.

“If he tries to run away with you, his grandfather will cut him off without a dime. He’ll lose everything.”

I stopped again and turned toward her, still saying nothing. But Sylvia Riscoff didn’t need me to speak. She had plenty to say herself.

“You can tell me you don’t care. Pretend that you love him, but we both know the truth. His money is the only thing you care about, and if he turns his back on his family to be with a Gable, it will all be gone. His birthright will be stripped away. Everything he’s been groomed for his entire life. His very identity will be forfeit.”

The vehemence in her tone took me by surprise, and I stumbled back a step.

“Your mother already killed his father. Only a selfish little whore would take everything else away from him too.”

My stomach twisted into a knot as Mrs. Riscoff lifted her chin, stared at me for another moment, and then turned and strode away. She was done with me.

As I watched her disappear around the corner, my mind raced.

Lincoln knows he’ll lose everything if he chooses me, but he still keeps coming.

I blinked twice, and gelato dripped onto my fingers as a shocking thought occurred to me.

He must love me like crazy if he’s willing to give it all up.

Forty-Six

Lincoln

Present day

Whitney won’t answer her door or her phone, and she locked the interior door between our rooms. My next choice is either to break in or have someone stand outside her door so she can’t leave the hotel without me knowing.