by Heather Long
I loved this man. It was official. I think next to Jeremy, he was my favorite person ever to work for Archie.
“You wouldn’t mind going to see one just for the purposes of the case?” He knew damn good and well I was seeing a psychologist, but I got it.
“Not at all, though I should warn you…” I turned to glance back at him ostensibly as we reached the door, but I met Maddy’s gaze and ignored the well of artful tears. “Curtises don’t do therapy. Though, I’m beginning to think it’s because they’d put us on psych holds.”
With that, I strode through the door, and Wittaker followed me. The guys were just down from the conference room and Archie was on his feet as soon as he caught sight of me, but I shook my head. “I don’t think we’re done yet.”
“No,” Wittaker said as he glanced at them. “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask all of you to move into the other conference room. Beth, please get them drinks and make them comfortable. Frankie…” He motioned to his office, and I blew the guys a quick kiss and what I hoped was a reassuring look before I followed Wittaker.
Once inside his office, he closed the door and blew out a breath.
“Should I apologize to you?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’m impressed by how well you held it together. You showed great poise and maturity. Though you definitely landed some well-placed verbal hits.”
I shrugged as I dropped into a chair. I couldn’t find a scratch of guilt within me. “She deserved it.”
“I don’t disagree.” Instead of sitting, he leaned against the desk. “Real talk. Can you handle going back in there? It’s clear she’s not going to be satisfied with our refusal to let her speak to you. I have no problem with you leaving now and I’ll take care of it from here. I can also take care of the apartments, since young Mr. Standish has paid your rent in full through May, I won’t have to work too hard at it so you’ll still have your house. The car…”
“I don’t care about the car.” Actually… “I mean, I do because I’ve been paying for it.”
“That’s what you told me. You’ve been making payments for almost two years. How close to paying it off are you?”
“I owe another three thousand. I’ve been paying only two hundred a month, and it had a six-thousand-dollar trade-in value, so that was what I agreed to pay her for it in installments.” It would almost serve her right if I let her have the car and then took Mr. Standish up on his offer, but even making a joke of that thought made me a little sick. I really didn’t want anything from him.
Archie wouldn’t let me go without a car, even if I barely drove it except for work. Not that I wanted him taking care of any more than he already had.
“I have more than enough in savings, I could dip into my college fund.”
“I would rather you didn’t,” Wittaker told me, his expression calculating. “I have your receipts for the last several months, including all the times you purchased groceries without her contributing, the payments for the household bills that you’ve had to take care of in her absence, as well as any other expenses. We’ve got the list. That comes to considerably more than three thousand dollars.”
It did?
“You also pay for the pets from your account, correct?”
“Well yeah, but I always did that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Wittaker told me. “As your parent, she is legally obligated to all of those responsibilities until you reach the age of majority. That you’ve had to do so much on your own and you’ve been successful at it, that’s a credit to you, but it will not do her any favors in court. Frankly, I rather hope she has this same type of incident there. It will solve a lot of our problems very quickly.”
“I appreciate your confidence. And truth talk…I have questions for her that I desperately want to ask, but they may not get us anywhere.”
“What do you want to ask her?”
So I told him. I’d mentioned the DNA tests, but I hadn’t gone into detail before. I couldn’t tell him about Coop’s dad, that was Coop’s story. Not mine, but it was out there. “There’s so many things she’s lied about. The affair with Archie’s dad, the tests, and I don’t even know who they were for. Does she actually not know who my biological father is? Is there a reason she’s suddenly trying to figure it out? What is so damn important that she needs me involved now when clearly she’s spent the last two years pulling further and further away? What’s her endgame?”
That was it in a nutshell. What did she gain if she had me back? It was all about Eddie. She wanted to look good in front of him?
“I thought it was Mr. Standish, but…he signed that release and he told me he would testify if there was a hearing.”
Wittaker frowned. “When did he tell you this?”
So then I had to explain that incident to him, and he frowned before he checked his watch.
“If Mr. Standish approaches you again on this subject, call me as soon as you can and direct him to speak to me as well.”
“That I can do,” I said.
“All right, let’s go back in.”
When we reached the conference room this time, Maddy was on her feet with her arms folded and a tissue in her hand.
Oh, kill me.
Her eyes were faintly red-rimmed, and there was the faintest smudge of dark under her eyelashes, like her mascara had run.
Wittaker pulled out a chair for me, and I sat without saying a word. He stood there, one hand on the back of my seat. After the last couple of times at Standish, I was starting to recognize the power plays for what they were.
In this room, Wittaker was in charge. I focused on Maddy’s attorney rather than on Maddy.
“Have we reached an agreement?”
“We have,” Mr. Stevens said as he pulled out a chair, and Maddy took a seat. “We’re ready to begin. Ms. Curtis would like five minutes with her daughter at the conclusion of this conference. It can happen right here and she would prefer it in private, but will not object if you and I stay as long as we agree to keep the information revealed confidential.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Wittaker said before moving back to the seat at my left. “Let’s discuss what if any objections you have to Frankie filing for emancipation…”
The next thirty minutes were alternately dull as fuck and interesting. Interesting because Maddy didn’t seem to pay a lick of attention to anything the attorneys said. Her expression alternated between distant and impatient.
Watching her from the corner of my eye took some effort, so did trying to keep my face blank. I had no idea how people did this in books. They always made it sound easy. Maddy might be good at keeping her secrets, but she didn’t have a blank face either. She kept shooting me these little looks I didn’t want to try and interpret.
But I got it.
She wanted me to pay attention to her. The more I seemed to ignore her, the more it pissed her off. Or maybe it made her sad.
Ugh.
Whatever.
“To clarify, your client’s only objections to the emancipation is that she is not eighteen yet?” Wittaker said as though summarizing, but there was a distinct note of disbelief in his voice.
“It’s a consideration of maturity and on focusing on her schoolwork rather than trying to meet the parameters set forth in an emancipation claim. After all, it was Frankie’s wish to attend college, or at least that is the impression Ms. Curtis has. If that plan has changed, she has not informed Ms. Curtis of any changes.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you think will change significantly between now and April,” Wittaker stated. “In a little over nine weeks, she will be eighteen and an adult. In the grand scheme of things, she will have her independence at that point, regardless of your client’s manufactured concerns.”
Maddy’s lips thinned. Oh, she didn’t like that.
Mr. Stevens seemed unperturbed. “I could in turn, ask you the same question. What is the sudden hurry? If she turns eighteen in nine weeks, this
whole situation resolves itself.”
“Except her age didn’t factor into the choices Ms. Curtis made when she abandoned Frankie, nor did they factor into her decisions to move out and leave a minor to fend for herself.”
“I’m afraid I don’t—”
“Yes, I know,” Wittaker cut him off smoothly. “You don’t agree with the characterization, but shall we examine some key incidents of the last year? Or if those aren’t enough, perhaps we could call Mr. Standish in. I understand Ms. Curtis’ fiancé has offered to testify on Frankie’s behalf at any hearing to grant her emancipation.”
Wittaker shot and Wittaker scored.
Maddy gave a jerk, and she leaned forward abruptly. “Excuse me? When did Eddie get brought into this?”
“Why don’t we invite him to join us to find out?” Wittaker didn’t blink. “I’m sure you can speak to him privately elsewhere, but he’s been very cooperative to our efforts.”
Some of the color drained from her expression, and I couldn’t help it, I faced her now. She actually looked ill. Maybe there really was trouble in purgatory, or whatever it was they were doing was called.
“We don’t need to do that,” she mused and then focused on me. “I want five minutes with you, and then I’ll withdraw my objections. Well, we haven’t actually filed it yet, but I’ll withdraw it.”
No, I did not trust that offer.
I cut a look at Wittaker, and he gave me the barest of nods. If I wanted to speak, then he was all right with it. “Why?” I asked her.
Maddy frowned. “Because I want to talk to you…”
“Why is five minutes worth not fighting the emancipation?”
Did I want her to fight it? No.
Would it have been nice if she wanted to fight it because she actually cared about me? Yes.
I wasn’t fooling myself though.
Not anymore.
“You want it, don’t you?” she asked. “Does it really matter why?”
“You’d be surprised. Kind of like those DNA tests. Why did you have to try and track down my sperm donor? Did you lose track?”
Neither attorney moved, but Maddy straightened in her chair. “Opening my mail, Francesca?”
“Checking for bills, Madeleine. After all, you left them behind, so apparently, they didn’t matter to you anymore than I did.” Sitting forward, I stared at her. “Four tests. Four potential matches. Only one actual match. Were you planning on sharing this information, or was there some other purpose you’ve failed to mention? Apparently, you have a thing for married men…”
“Would you gentlemen excuse us?” Maddy glanced at her attorney then mine.
“I’m fine if they listen,” I told her, threading my hands together on the table. “Let’s be clear, Maddy. The only thing you gain by them leaving the room is no witnesses to you verbally or emotionally assaulting me. You won’t be hitting me again, because I will return the favor. I’m done being your punching bag. You’ve told me plenty of times you could have gotten rid of me or given me up for adoption, so let’s not pretend, you and I, that I was ever anything more than a means to an end.”
“Those words were said in anger…”
“Sure they were. That might even be true the first time you said it. I mean, the first time I recall it, I was seven. So maybe you were pissed. Maybe even the second time. But that’s just an excuse to try and pass off your shoddy fourth-hand parenting skills. I suppose if I were a married man myself, I might have gotten your attention.”
She glared at me. “That’s uncalled for.”
“But is it?” I tilted my head. “I don’t think so.”
“You always do this. You start twisting everything,” she snarled. “I think you’re a spoiled child.”
“And I think you’re a manipulative bitch.” I spread my hands. “Are we done here then?” This really was a pointless exercise. “You know what? Actually, I do have one question. My original one. Why?”
“Why what?” She almost sounded tired.
“Why keep me? You never wanted me. I was always a burden. One you were all too swift to abandon at every opportunity and to blame when things didn’t go your way. So why keep me?”
“Because you’re mine,” she said without an ounce of emotion. “You’ll always be my daughter. My blood. My legacy.”
I might vomit.
“Well, good to know that those things don’t mean much to you.”
“For fuck’s sake, Frankie. What do you want from me? Your father left me for another woman. I did the absolute best I could. Am I a perfect mother? No. Are you the perfect child? Of course not. No one is. But you’ve been angry with me for the last year. Angry that I’m trying to move on with my life and—”
“Don’t,” I said holding up a hand. “Don’t even start that shit. You started your affair with Eddie out of sight and out of mind of me. You didn’t want me to know. You slunk around the shadows with your dirty little secret and disappeared on so-called business trips, all the while you were trying to sabotage another woman’s marriage. You know what, maybe my sperm donor did leave you, but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to go after other men who are already taken. I know it takes two to tango, but it takes a special kind of greedy bitch to repeat that pattern.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” She almost looked upset. Almost.
“Well, I suppose you already forgot about Coop’s dad. Out of sight. Out of mind.”
She flinched.
There it was.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Look,” I said, standing. My stomach hurt. My eyes burned. I was alternating between hot and cold. I wasn’t sure if it was a panic attack, fury, or disgust. Maybe all of the above. “The only thing I want from you is for you to go away. I know you can forget about me. You’re very good at it. I’d ask for the guy’s name—the sperm donor—but I don’t think I could believe you, and I don’t honestly care. He’s only been slightly less involved in my existence than you have.”
The silence stretched in the room, and I nodded. Maddy actually looked a little lost.
No worries, she’d rally. Then get mad at me.
It was a cycle.
One I was getting off of.
“Thanks, Mr. Wittaker,” I told him. “I’ll see myself out. I can call you…”
“I’ll call you,” he said, rising smoothly and walking me to the door.
“Frankie…”
I paused, but I didn’t turn around.
“You will receive a tidy sum on your eighteenth birthday. It’s a trust from my parents. I’ll leave the details with Mr. Wittaker.”
I pivoted. “Excuse me?”
She gave me a tight smile. “You have trust. I’ve never mentioned it because I didn’t want you counting on something that could be taken away, but you’re well on your way to meeting the conditions of it. So I’ll leave the details with Mr. Wittaker.”
“Great. Bye.”
I had a trust?
At the door, Wittaker stepped out with me and pulled the door mostly closed. “Are you all right?”
“I have no idea,” I told him. “I still think she’s lying about something, maybe a lot of things.”
“Possibly, and she never got to whatever point she wanted to make with you.”
No, she hadn’t. And I really didn’t care.
I couldn’t.
“Let me know about that trust thing?”
“Of course, leave it in my hands. Go on and have Beth take you all to the executive elevator to go down. I’ll keep them busy for a few minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Another small smile and he returned to the conference room, and I just stood there.
That was that.
No more Maddy.
Right?
Chapter Twenty
Everything I Do
Archie
As tempted as I was to stay and have words with Maddy Curtis, I couldn’t do that. Not when Frankie walked into th
e conference room where Jake paced, Bubba strummed his fingers against the table like he played some imaginary piano, and Coop stared off into space. The latter worried me more than the first two.
He was taking the news of his father’s betrayal hard. I felt for the guy. I felt for him because I’d had a front row seat to Edward’s multiple betrayals over the years. Honestly, I’d always wondered why Muriel and Edward married. The fact that I arrived six months to the day after their wedding pretty much secured the answer.
Coop wasn’t me, which meant I had to dig deep and find that empathy for his situation. Even if I couldn’t quite experience it the same. He was right about one thing—both of our fathers had fucked our girlfriend’s bitch of a mother.
That was not the kind of bonding we needed.
“Baby Girl,” Jake said a second after she slipped into the room. The secretary—Beth—was with her. Frankie had her arms folded around herself. Defensive posture. Her eyes, so lit with fire earlier, were tired and more than a little shadowed.
I hated that cunt so fucking much.
“We, um…we need to go,” she said. “Wittaker is going to keep Maddy and her attorney in the conference room so we don’t have to deal with them on the way out.”
Her voice came out a lot stronger than she appeared. All of us were up, and Ian got to her even before Jake did. I hadn’t even seen him moving. Wrapping an arm around her, he tucked her to his side, and we followed.
On the way to the private elevator, I glanced toward the conference room where Maddy Curtis waited.
Jake’s hand landed on my shoulder. The force in his grip kept me firmly locked into place. “Trust me,” he said, “I’d be right behind you, but this isn’t the time.”
“Reason from you, Benton?” I cut him a look.
“Sometimes, Standish, even I know when to wait to throw the punch. You want to do the most damage, right?”
Damn right I did.
Nodding once, I turned and followed him into the elevator. Frankie gave me a pained little smile, and I just added the discomfort in her expression, posture, and eyes to the list of payback I planned to extract from the bitch who gave birth to her.