Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“Thanks, guys.”
We traded more hugs, then I let them change the subject. We could talk about other, happier things for now because I’d be spending the rest of my day figuring out Adriel’s play. He said he wasn’t expending his energy on the fate of a town he didn’t give a crap about, but I had a feeling a big enough check from Ellis made them care.
Whatever they were up to, I had Mass Media Law, American Legal History I, and Logic and the Law that day to spend thinking about it. Becoming a lawyer wasn’t Rainey’s dream. It was the mission she adopted after we lost the farm and envisioned one day having the power to get it back.
Now that the contract with Steven Ellis was signed, I had the farm. I didn’t need to pretend like this degree was what either of us wanted. At this point, I was going through the motions until I figured out how to tell the world I was Ivy, and switch back to her major.
After breakfast, I walked into Mass Media Law and fell on a tall, handsome figure sipping water in the third row. How like my bespectacled love to not bother telling me we were in the same class. Marching up the steps, I dropped my butt in the seat right next to his. Jacques didn’t look up from his textbook.
“Mass Media Law.” I bumped his shoulder and didn’t pull away. “I wouldn’t have thought you were interested in a class like this. I’m only taking it because it’s as close to marketing as I can get.”
“What about this subject isn’t interesting? Media lawyers mostly deal with copyright infringement, defamation, and privacy. As a child, my name and face were plastered in newspapers and on television as the boy genius who won another academic contest against people twice his age.
“Despite my objections, journalists were allowed to violate my privacy again and again because my parents gave them permission. That’s one of the many issues I would address during my career. Privacy is an individual right. No one else should be able to decide whether or not you have it.”
“Hmm,” I said, thinking deeper as every conversation with Jacques made me do. “You’re right. Having half the world knowing your name should’ve been something you and you alone said yes or no too.” I rested my hand over his. “Especially because I know people treated you like an oddity. Bad enough from classmates, teachers, and neighbors. You didn’t need it from thousands of strangers too.”
Jacques eyed our hands. “Are you attempting to reestablish our relationship through feigning empathy and interest in my field?”
The corner of my mouth curled up. “Did you read a few books on relationships so you could anticipate my next moves and block them? No, baby. I’m not feigning anything. You and I just happen to think alike. It’s what makes us perfect for each other.”
“Hm. I don’t believe in the concept of a soulmate. Neither do you,” he dropped. “Or you wouldn’t have five.”
“I do believe in soulmates, actually. I just don’t believe in the idea that you have to find one single person to be all things for you all the time. The six of us connect in different ways, but just because you’ve broken my soul into five pieces, doesn’t mean I can live without a single one of them.”
His response was another noncommittal noise and pulling his hand free. In Jacques speak, that was far from a rejection. We had an actual conversation about us. This was the first real progress we made since Cairo caught us on the couch.
One after the other, I was getting my guys back.
“You have two hours free after this class,” Jacques said. I didn’t know his schedule, but of course he knew mine. “You’ll help me with something.”
“I will?”
“You will.”
“Can I get a hint?”
Jacques pointedly looked around the filling classroom. “After class.”
I accepted this, leaning back. Eventually a man in dress pants and a blue blazer walked in, introduced himself as Professor Clarence, and the lesson got under way. As promised, I spent it scribbling in my notebook, jotting down every legal and illegal method Steven Ellis and Adriel could bring about the return of Crystal Canyon.
There was still five months before the vote could be called. Five months to undo the damage Jeremy and his boys caused, so what was their plan?
Bedlamites know Ellis is behind Foundry now. They know if they vote to split the town, Foundry will be free and clear to develop all the land they purchased. If only we could tell them why that’d be such a disaster. If only they knew why a snake like Ellis shouldn’t win.
What he was doing was as slimy as an appraiser who tells you the painting Nana left you is only worth five bucks, and turns around and sells that Rembrandt for millions. He’s paying pittances for gold mines—make that diamond mines, and the landowners don’t know they don’t need to fund their retirement with a cheat’s check. Their fortune is right under their shoes.