“Did it have to be a Ferrari?” I sighed.
Blake gave me a cheeky grin. “I had to be able to chase you down in those shoes.”
I rolled my eyes. “I suppose I can humor you just this once. Try not to get pulled over for being too flashy.”
Blake was all solemnity. “Yes, ma’am.”
I got in, looked down at my feet, and smiled.
The box had contained designer sneakers.
* * * * *
We spent the middle of the day in Blake’s lawyer’s office, with me more or less picking a lawyer out of a phone book, him listening to the caveats and warnings from his attorney about how terrible an idea this was, and both of us ordering in Chinese food. After what seemed like forever, we finally found a lawyer willing to meet us, in person, that afternoon. I didn’t ask how much it was going to cost.
“Good.” Blake hung up the phone. “He’ll be here at 4:15. I have somewhere I’d like to take you before then.”
Curious, I didn’t protest, since waiting around in the layer’s conference room until he ran out of polite things to ask that weren’t personal was a terrible idea. Besides, waiting for the other shoe to drop was a bad idea. He had to have some ulterior motive. I just hadn’t figured out what it was yet.
In the midst of trying to glean more information, I could slip and let my guard down, and then he would know I was far from over him.
Being around Blake was making my head hurt. Among other things.
His chauffeur or whoever had pulled the car from parking by the time we made it down the elevator. I could just imagine this man regretted he had ever signed up to be Blake’s driver. “About that job? The pay is the same, but I actually want to to research my itinerary, find nearby parking, drop the car off for me, and then use public transport or carpool or steal a carriage horse from Central Park if you have to to beat me there so you can park my car, then retrieve it and start the process all over again.” The man must have had calluses on his calluses.
Blake fielded calls all during the car ride, so that gave me some time to think, but mostly it was hard not eavesdrop on him in the enclosed space. It sounded like Gabblrr had some sort of important meeting coming up. Like every other major company in the world.
He pulled up on 44th Street in front of an old building with two giant flags. A well-dressed guy with sandy hair and pale skin was waiting for us. I would have guessed crew team in college, he was so well-built like Blake, but it was unclear whether he ever exposed himself to the sun.
“Blake! How are you, man?” The guys gave each other hearty slaps on the back.
“Hey, George. It’s been a while.” Blake grinned. He was definitely more comfortable around this guy than his own family, which probably said more about the Forsythes than about George.
“No kidding!” George moved his eyes to me, smiling, then did a double-take. “Who’s this?”
“This is my… sister, Jenna,” Blake said.
“Jenna! Now it makes sense.” George grinned too and I made to shake his hand, but he kissed it instead. I sneaked a glance at Blake. He looked disturbed but didn’t say anything.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said.
Just then, the valet appeared magically, as if out of nowhere. “There he goes again!” I exclaimed. He already had a set of keys and was starting the Ferrari.
“Who?” George looked confused.
“Blake’s valet,” I said, pointing with my whole arm at the guy pulling Blake’s car away from the curb. “Lots of places have valets, but Blake’s chauffeur doesn’t drive him anywhere. He just picks up and drops off the car and manages to beat us to where we’re going every time. It’s amazing.”
Blake snorted.
George gave him a look. “Sorry dude, but that is kind of weird.”
I liked George already.
“What’s the point in owning nice cars if you don’t get to drive them anywhere?” Blake retorted. “His name is Andy, by the way, and he said he enjoys the exercise.”
He enjoys the paycheck, I thought, but I didn’t say that out loud.
It so happened that George was from Harvard, not MIT, and he did do crew, but only for one year. They had met at some weird movie night where MIT played indie films or classic movies and had been friends ever since. This was the reason Blake and I were touring one of the most gorgeous private libraries I had seen in my life on the second floor of the NYC Harvard Club. So many books, all of them old or rare or both. Bless George. Bless him.
“This astronomy book is from the 1500s,” I said, looking at a hand-bound calfskin tome that was the size of a small coffee table and at least as heavy.
“Pretty cool, huh?” George said. “You can touch it, if you want.”
Giddy, I gingerly turned the page. The paper was almost like papyrus, thick and strong with slight waves from moisture, the text on it in slanted Italian script, transferred from an early printing machine. “You have no idea how good a braingasm I am having right now,” I said, careful to touch only the edges as I leafed through the book.
“A braingasm! I’ll have to remember that one,” George said, laughing.
“Do you come here all of the time, or just for formal occasions?” Blake asked.
“Well, yes, but I help to manage the collection. Sometimes the place is booked, but I have been known to sneak in here for downtime.” George winked. “This room takes me back to when I was in college. Lots of the Houses there had their own libraries, and that’s what this reminds me of. A quiet place with that old wood and dusty leather smell where I used to doze off during studying.”
“Yes, I’m sure the studying and not the spiked hot chocolate and late-night party planning is why you remember the libraries so vividly.”
“Shut up, Blake, or you’ll ruin the mystique for her.”
I rolled my eyes and giggled.
“So is the collection in here or did you put it somewhere else?” Blake stepped around a leather sofa and made to look for something.
“Oh! Just a sec,” George said, rushing into a side room to fetch something.
“Isn’t this the whole collection?” I said, strolling down one wall past shelf after shelf of priceless books. “I mean, I don’t really see how you could improve on this library unless you added another room. Or maybe a Gutenberg Bible.”
“It’s not for the Harvard Club,” Blake said. “It’s for you.”
Just then, George rolled out a library cart full of thick books with fraying dust jackets and Nouveau designs on the boards underneath.
I knew those books. I had read some of them growing up. They stood out on shelves like a sore thumb due to their shape.
George rolled them up to me. I stared down, speechless. It was a complete set of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, including The Wizard of Oz. I picked that one up. A true first printing. I had never held a first edition, first printing before.
“More specifically, they’re for your store,” George said. “Someone donated them to the library, but it already has a set. I was asking Blake the other day what I should do with them, as I’m really not an eBay type of guy, and he said he’d buy them.”
Now I felt obliged to hug Blake like a sister, even though I wanted to throw him down on the couch and show him how thankful I was. Since he wasn’t about to let me get away with trying to kiss him, I gave him a nice, sisterly hug. “Thanks, Blake.”
“It’s no problem. I remember you talking about lacking rare stuff to put in your display cabinet to your Dad the last trip we took together.”
I beamed. I didn’t care if there were strings attached. I didn’t care if Blake was trying to ply me with gifts or apologize for one of the many times he had been rude and obnoxious. I didn’t care if he was just feeling generous and had no motive at all. That shelf of books would be worth more appraised than an entire genre of books at the shop; I could tell they were in good condition.
Bookstores need window dressing just like any other store would, though we keep ours
out of direct sunlight and behind glass. Even if the store failed, I would still get to keep the set. It was an asset, but it was totally going to be a personal asset. No way was I selling one volume.
“George, I don’t know how to thank you,” I gushed, shaking his hand. “It was awesome just to see this library, and now I own an Oz collection!”
He laughed. “I’m just glad they’re going to go to somebody who appreciates them.”
After George and I had exchange contact information so that he could ship the books to me — Blake paid him for that, too — we left to avoid early rush hour traffic and meet with our attorneys on time. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was having the mental equivalent of a sexual climax while looking at old books. That stupid, full width smile with teeth followed me all the way to the law office.
* * * * *
Blake had the two attorneys draw up a sort of pre-nuptial agreement to make sure we each got what we wanted, although in my private consultation with my new attorney, Mr. Grigson, he cautioned me that despite how ironclad he would try to make the agreement, if the plan didn’t reward Blake with the outcome he wanted from the trust, he could easily take me to court and challenge the validity of the contract.
“Not only is that a real possibility,” said Mr. Grigson, “but what you’ve told me about your financial state leads me to believe you would be unlikely to be able to afford attending court hearings regularly in New York, much less retain me or hire anyone on the same level of experience as Mr. Forsythe’s attorney.”
“Yes, I understand, but doesn’t Blake have a lot to lose if he renders the pre-nup invalid? Like half of his net worth? Why would he risk that?”
“It does seem unlikely,” Grigson continued. “He stands to lose a lot more than you do. Unfortunately, whether a judge finds the agreement to be lopsided and tosses it, either of you fails to disclose any assets, or Mr. Forsythe sabotages it himself, the next step will be the same. The divorce proceedings and the discovery phase, meaning the part where you hire attorneys you can’t afford who then hire private investigators to go look for his stash of hypothetical cash in the Caymans, can take years. You won’t be able to afford it.”
He sighed. “As your legal counsel, I advise you not to do this, and I am fairly uncomfortable with your share of the deal.”
Was he going to refuse to do it?
Fear flooded my body. I had already made the choice to do this. I didn’t want to go to Helen and Robert for money. “Mr. Grigson, I know it seems like a stupid risk, but I’m asking you to trust me when I say I’ve run out of options. It’s either the threat of possible financial ruin or the certainty of it, and given those choices, I don’t see any other choice.”
Mr.Grigson considered what I said, then nodded. He wrote a series of notes on a legal pad.
“Besides,” I added, “I don’t have any valuable assets. Why would he fight me in court when he knows I have no intention of fighting him? I don’t have anything that he wants!”
Grigson gave me a level-headed stare. “Miss Hill, you don’t really know what anyone wants until they have to let it go.”
* * * * *
Contracts. Who knew that one word struck out here and another phrase added there could change the entire course of someone’s financial future? Lawyers, that’s who. Good ones seemed to take about twice the time I’d expect bad ones to take, so that meant revisions in what Blake’s attorney had written up that lasted well beyond when I began to nod off.
Somehow, in some way, Blake found a notary public that worked past six. We took a limo, since the lawyers weren’t very well going to fit in the trunk of the Ferrari, and the four of us crowded into a small conference room at the back of the notary’s multi-service copy store. That is where I signed my first pre-nuptial agreement.
By the time we were back at the law office and climbing into Blake’s car, I was in serious need of food and sleep, or failing the latter, booze.
“You buckled in?”
I looked down. “Oh.” I clicked the seatbelt in place, then remembered something. “Blake, why did you break into my room and pack up some of my stuff without bringing any of my other clothes along? Did you think we were going to pull an all-nighter with the contract?”
He had the decency to look contrite. “Sorry. It had crossed my mind that the negotiations might last longer, but that’s not why I brought you a travel bag.” He cleared his throat. “We’re actually going on a trip for a few days.”
“Oh?” This was news to me!
“We’re taking time away from the others to create the illusion of an illicit affair,” Blake explained as he pulled out and into traffic. “We can’t simply spend a few days in the constant company of our parents and then suddenly marry. They’ll know it’s fake.”
“But I thought that was the whole point.” This was going to be a difficult conversation if he started applying Blake logic to everything.
“No. They’ll know I’m marrying you to shove it in their faces and to secure part of the trust. They’ll think we’re sleeping together because we want to.” He kept his eyes glued to the road.
“You want them to think it’s for real? I mean, the sex part?” My voice came out in a higher pitch than intended.
“Jenna, I don’t want to give Helen and Robert any more reasons to challenge my right to access to the trust than I have to.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m naive enough to actually believe that’s what this is about,” I replied. “They’re going to take you to court anyway.”
“Possibly.” He sped the car onto an access ramp to a highway running along the western edge of the island.
“But you want to shock them regardless, just for good measure,” I said.
“And if I did?” When he looked at me, I could tell that was exactly what it was.
He didn’t just want to offend his grandparents. He wanted to publicly humiliate them within their social circles, to humiliate them. To shame them.
Blake wanted to teach them a lesson, and he was willing to use me to do it.
“That’s pretty fucking messed up,” I said.
“Yeah, well, it goes with the territory,” he said dryly.
We were already on the freeway out of town, and while I did briefly consider ending the whole enterprise for a split second, jumping out of a moving car in the middle of high-speed rush hour traffic wasn’t that much better than the alternative. I stayed put and settled for glaring at Blake’s profile instead. His brooding, drool-worthy profile.
Damn it.
I didn’t even want to think about what my Dad or Mom were going to say…
To Be Continued in Part 2: My Stepbrother, the Billionaire, & the Ball, coming very soon.
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My Stepbrother, the Billionaire, & the Bargain: Forbidden Romance (The Step Contract, Book 1) Page 6