“Gray set up a bank account for me, and filled it to the brim with money I don’t want.” She looked to the senior partner. “Except to pay your fees, naturally,” she said with a lift of her shoulders.
He didn’t bother to hide his glee. “Of course.”
“Once the matter is settled, and you’ve taken payment, I want the residual amount transferred into my daughter’s trust fund. Ditto the apartment Gray put in my name. I don’t want any of it.”
“As your lawyer, I feel obliged to suggest you sit on that for a while. There’s no downside to holding those assets –,”
“There is, for me.” She tugged on the strap of her handbag. “I mean it, Mr. Clyvesden, I don’t want any of it, and I won’t change my mind.”
“If that’s your wish,” he said with an expression that showed he clearly thought her crazy.
“It is.”
“Consider these things disposed of then.”
“Excellent.”
Gray staredat the neatly typed document with a pounding headache and a dry throat. Everything was sofair.She wasn’t trying to take Charlotte away from him. On the contrary, she was creating opportunities for him to see Charlotte that worked with his schedule. She’d even written Christmas into the custody arrangement, allowing him every second holiday, on the proviso that if he took Charlotte to the UK, Abby would reserve the right to travel there too, and see her some of the time.
So. Bloody. Fair.
So why was his first instinct to tear the document into a thousand little pieces and throw it away? To burn it to hell?
When he got to the final inclusion – just a footnote, really – about the redistribution of assets – he felt a rush of disbelief. This wasn’t what he wanted! None of it was!
He swore into his office and poured another scotch – he’d lost count of how many he’d had that day. He’d really just rolled on from the night before, and the night before that.
He strode to the window and stared out at the streets of Manhattan, a thundering rush of blood pounding his ears.
Fuck this.
“I’m notready to discuss any of this with Max.”
Gray eyed his best friend warily, unable to work out what was going on behind Noah’s eyes.
Noah simply dipped his head once. “That’s fine.”
“I mean, I know I have to tell her at some point, but I don’t know how to explain it yet.”
Noah was contemplative, lifting a mineral water to his lips and sipping from the glass bottle. “That’s probably because Abby is giving you everything you say you want.”
Irritation flared in Gray’s chest. “What I want is for us to be married, so Charlotte can grow up with both of us, together.”
“Sure, but even you must see how unreasonable that is. Abby’s not just some accessory to be folded into your life in whatever way suits you.”
Gray scuffed his toe into the bleached floorboards of Max and Noah’s Hamptons mansion.
“You think that’s what I was doing?”
“Unless I missed some salient detail,” Noah said in an annoying tone of voice that showed he didn’t suspect any such thing.
“We both wanted the same thing.”
“It doesn’t sound like that to me. You basically blackmailed her into agreeing to the marriage…”
“Hey,” Gray interrupted. “I’d just found out I was a father. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Sure. But what’s your excuse now?”