Chapter 1 - The Whitaker Legacy
Samuel Greene pushed his glasses up his nose, letting the silence stretch as my eyes scanned the heavy parchment of the will.
Evelyn Whitaker hadn't just been a sweet, lonely widow living in a dusty historic Charleston home. She was the sole owner of the Whitaker Estate—over four hundred acres of pristine, undeveloped waterfront property just outside the city limits. It was the last untouched parcel of its kind.
And she had left it entirely to me.
"Evelyn knew your husband’s firm was trying to acquire her land," Samuel explained quietly, folding his hands on his desk. "Richard Sterling—Miranda's father—has been aggressively petitioning her to sell for three years. He and Ethan built their entire new joint venture, Sterling-Caldwell Developments, around the assumption that Evelyn would pass away and the state would auction the land."
I stared at the paperwork, the blood rushing in my ears.
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"To Grace," Evelyn’s handwritten addendum read at the bottom. "Who gave me her time when she had so little, and her heart when it was breaking. Do not let them build their castles on my memories. Build your own."
"Ethan's lawyer has been calling because the deed transfer was filed into the public record at 8:00 a.m. this morning," Samuel continued, a faint, sharp smile touching his lips. "Mr. Caldwell’s investors were scheduled to finalize the funding for the development today. They can't finalize a multi-million dollar luxury resort on land they don't own, Mrs. Caldwell. And you own it all."
