 by Dani Wyatt.jpg)
Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 53605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Nancy
Corn mazes are the worst, aren’t they?
The. Worst.
Who takes a kid to a corn maze and leaves them because it’s a learning experience? My dad, that’s who. He’s a retired Marine, so there’s that. He always said it teaches you how to figure your way out of impossible situations but it doesn’t. Because if it did, I wouldn’t be sitting here six and a half months pregnant without a father in sight.
Still, I’d take being lost in a four-acre corn maze right now over this. A thousand acres.
I’m pretty sure my yearly October corn maze lessons are not what I should be thinking about right now, but it is October and the entry to Killberry, Ruterman and Roth, Attorneys at Law, was decorated with pumpkins and cornstalks—as if anyone walking into a legal office needs to be reminded of the warmth of harvest season.
Taylor meows as tears swell in my best friend Mason’s eyes as he glances at the cat carrier on the floor between us. Mr. Ruterman puts little effort into hiding his eye roll when Mason swipes away a tear.
This will be the last time Mason and Taylor will be together for a long while. Let them have this.
I force indifference onto my face because any other emotion right now feels dangerous.
Ruterman huffs, tapping his pen on the table from his place across from me. The room is roasting and the black hoodie I’m wearing is getting damp with sweat as the attorney starts to talk. “In exchange for Mr. Reid’s full confession and guilty plea in the criminal proceedings, and all assets being split among the plaintiffs in the civil case, no charges will be brought against you, Ms. Rochet. I suggest you sign the deal before the DA changes her mind.”
The pruned-up attorney shoves a stack of papers over the gleaming mahogany conference table while Mason looks at me with eyes so filled with apology, it takes all my will to barricade the sob that threatens to retch from my chest.
“But I didn’t do anything,” I mutter, worrying my hands in my lap below my growing belly bump as the white-haired head of Mason’s defense team smacks his lips, wiggling his index finger in his ear. “I was his personal assistant. I ran errands and took care of his cat. I know nothing about his business. I’d never heard of a Ponzi scheme before all this. I didn’t know anything about…anything.”
I swing my hand over the papers in front of me as Mason sniffs and coughs,
“She’s telling the truth.” Mason starts his voice cracking, “But, don’t change anything.” He lifts his head to look my way. “This is what I want. Give me this, it’s all I have left. You, Taylor and the baby are all I have left.”
Baby.
Not his. Not really. But sort of.
In the span of twenty minutes, I’ve signed the deal and now I have nowhere to go with a baby in my belly and a cat my friend may never see again. My friend will go to jail and he will no longer be a father to the baby he so desperately wanted.
God, how did I end up here?
Through a corn maze, probably.
Mason and I hug and cry like babies. There is nothing left to say. When the meeting ends and it’s time for us to go to different paths, we hug once more.
“Remember me when you’re famous,” he says, laughing through the tears. He’s a monster of a man, but a complete Teddy Bear and I worry about how he will fare in prison.
“I can’t do this,” I tell him, clinging to his arm. He’s my best friend, and he’s making jokes about my silly dreams of being the next darling of Nashville when he’s about to be carted off to the federal pen?
“When I get out, I expect you to be singing to sellout crowds. Big ones.”
I press my knuckles to my temples. “Might be difficult since I don’t like to sing in front of anyone let alone a crowd.”
“Maybe you could turn your back like you do in your videos? Might be the next big thing.”
“Oh yeah, I could be the female Orville Peck.” I try to give it back with a little sass, but this doesn’t feel like the time. “Please tell me this is all some big joke and we can go home and eat pizza?”
“I have to go, Nancy. Promise you’ll take care of yourself and he baby and you’ll come visit me and tell me everything?”
I nod. “Of course. Try to keep me away.”
As his attorney leads him through the frosted glass doors and down the hall to the waiting car that will deliver him to a ten-year sentence in a federal prison, I run to the closest garbage can and throw up.
Vomiting has become a close friend, although it’s lessened in the second trimester which was an epic relief. I stuff the stack of paperwork into my backpack as Leslie, the prune’s secretary—excuse me, administrative assistant—comes through the door looking sympathetic and yet bored. She’s got the world’s best smile-frown I’ve ever seen.