Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
My father shook his head, looking me straight in the eye. The anger from earlier had turned into disbelief, but I wasn’t done.
“They won’t go after my mother since she has diminished capacity. Instead, it will land on you, possibly me too for not standing up to you. But I was only seventeen.”
“Mr. Shaw,” one of the attorneys spoke up, “I would advise we work out something agreeable to both parties to avoid your exposure.”
“Any more scandals will lower the interest in a buy-out. Your best bet is to agree to my terms.” I added one more twist of the knife. He wanted the merger money more than his wife. He’d made that clear by his lack of visits to see her. “Give me your answer by Friday.”
I made two phone calls after I left my father’s office. One was to my personal attorney, Sloan, to let him know how the meeting went. He and I had worked all morning on my presentation to my father and the legalities behind it.
The other one was to J.J. Funny thing, Maggie’s nickname was stuck in my head for him too. In the crazy of the last couple days, I’d forgotten to get her phone number. I wanted her to know I was leaving the office and on my way back to the apartment. It felt good to have someone at home who was connected to me. I hated being alone.
And of course, I was talking about the baby.
26
Maggie
I learned something about walking into stores with billionaire levels of wealth. It didn’t just talk. It screamed like a wild banshee, making almost anything I desired possible. J.J. and I spent an obscene amount of Lucas’s money, hovering somewhere in the upper five-digit range. It was hard to comprehend, since I had a five-hundred-dollar credit limit on my charge card and it was currently maxed out. The many joys of being an underemployed college graduate.
Who knew an adorable three-month-old baby could put a dent in a billionaire’s bank account? Okay, it was a scratch inside his gold-lined vault. Still, I tried to pick price-friendly items, even though, according to J.J., I could’ve shopped like a Kardashian. I preferred the simple brands to the designer ones. They were less pretentious and looked easier to operate. Besides, what baby needed gilded furniture? Please, and no!
When J.J. and I were in a spending frenzy at Baby Depot, Mrs. Wilson called wondering why I was late for taking care of Justice. Yesterday, I left her voicemails and text messages about not working for her this week. If Lucas needed me, I would probably be helping him longer, but I wanted to break the news to her gently.
Problem was, she hadn’t listened to or read any of my messages. When I told her about helping out a friend who had emergency childcare issues, she sounded like she might have actually cried. I felt bad for canceling so last minute, but she was missing a pedicure today, Esmé was missing a mother—big difference.
J.J. arranged delivery service for everything we bought, from a crib to a changing table, including a twin bed for me that Esmé could use in a few years. Lucas couldn’t sleep outside on the terrace another night and sharing his gigantic bed would be too tempting—for me, anyway. He seemed resolved to us being only friends.
Boxes and plastic wrap littered the apartment floor. If I’d thought Sunday’s gear had been baby overload, today’s was babies gone wild. The two men J.J. hired assembled all the furniture in a spare room mostly used for storage that would be the nursery. It was small, and since there wasn’t a closet, it didn’t qualify as an official bedroom. J.J. said Lucas would have to expand it and give up some of the space in his spa-like gym, or perhaps find another apartment on Billionaire’s Row. I was along for the ride and open to whatever worked best. But the nursery was cramped with everything in it.
In the afternoon, the men finished putting together the big pieces in the nursery. They removed all the packaging scattered about, and J.J. gave them a thick stack of green bills.
I washed the bedding and made the beds with the new linens. There was so much more left to tackle, but Esmé had a place of her own in this modern bachelor pad.
After I fed Esmé a bottle, I rocked her in my arms. She quickly nodded off to sleep, so I laid her down for the first time in her new bed and covered her with a soft fluffy blanket. She sucked her thumb as she settled into her nap, looking so peaceful in her new home. I was so happy to have her sleeping in something besides that crazy alien baby pod.
I turned on the newly purchased baby monitor and left the room, closing the door quietly. I didn’t want to wake her up. I was exhausted and needed a break.