Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 517(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Hello?”
“Hey, Evie. It’s Barnett Lyman.”
“Hi, Barnett. How’s it going?”
“Good. Listen, I just wanted to check in to see if you’ve given any more thought to Christian’s offer.”
“You mean his ridiculous bribery attempt? That if I have dinner with him, he’ll drop the lawsuit?”
“I know it’s ridiculous. And I’d never advise a client to meet with someone who is actively suing them. But his lawyer says they’ll put it in writing so he can’t back out.”
I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “Can’t we just tell the judge what he’s trying to pull to prove Christian’s acting in bad faith?”
“We can. But we’d have to file motions and take more time in court, and there’s a good chance the judge won’t kick the case even if he doesn’t like it. But the bottom line is, I’m five-fifty an hour, and I don’t like to waste a client’s money. Filing a motion is an hour prep, then going to court… That easily racks up to a few thousand dollars. I’ll do whatever you want, but if you can save all that and get rid of it, why not try? Let me ask you, are you afraid to meet with him?”
“You mean like in a physical sense?”
“Whatever.”
Christian was the world’s biggest jerk, but I wasn’t afraid of him physically, and he couldn’t hurt me emotionally anymore. I shook my head. “No, I’m not afraid of him at all.”
“I could try to negotiate it from dinner to a lunch, if that would help.”
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but Barnett was right. I didn’t have thousands of dollars to waste, and all I really wanted was to put the last of it behind me. I hated it—but it was the right move. I sighed. “Okay. If you can get him to agree to a lunch, that would be great.”
“I’ll get back to you soon.”
After I hung up, I sat at my desk for a while, staring out the window. A knock on my office door interrupted my thoughts. Merrick stood in the doorway.
“My assistant said you came by and asked if I was in?”
He looked only minimally better than he had the day he dumped me. His naturally tanned skin was still sallow, and dark circles remained below his green eyes. But I couldn’t let that affect me. Especially not after the call I’d just finished. So I took a deep breath and exhaled. Just as I was about to speak, a trader walked down the hall behind Merrick, so I motioned to the door. “Could you come in and close that? I’d prefer we discuss this in private.”
“Of course.”
He shut the door, but stayed on the other side of the room. Which was just fine with me.
“An alarm company showed up at my house the other day. They said you pre-paid for service and the installation.”
“I did.”
“But you did that after you dumped me. Why?”
Merrick’s face fell. “I told you I would, and I didn’t think you would do it on your own.”
I stood and put my hands on my desk, leaning forward. “You told me you would? Well, why keep that commitment when you didn’t keep the one that convinced me to trust you? You know, the one where you promised you’d never hurt me?”
He had the audacity to look like my comment upset him. Merrick rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, you’re sorry?” I nodded and rolled my eyes before sitting back down. “Thanks for that. It helps a lot.”
Merrick took a step toward my desk, but I put my hand up, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t,” I said. “I don’t need another apology, and I certainly don’t need you to pay for an alarm system out of some sense of pity or whatever it is. So unless you have something else to say, like maybe explaining the truth of what happened between us, there’s nothing more we need to discuss.”
Merrick finally looked in my eyes. He looked sad, but I didn’t care.
“You know what?” I said. “You once told me my ex was a coward. And you were right, he is. But so are you.” I shook my head. “Just please go before I get upset.”
CHAPTER 30
Merrick
“I am a fucking coward,” I grumbled, staring down into the bottom of my empty glass. Well, not empty, considering the ice I’d tossed in when I’d filled it three quarters of the way up with whiskey fifteen minutes ago hadn’t had a chance to melt yet. Now the bottle—that shit was almost empty.
I stared over at the coffee table, at the upside-down box and its contents that I’d spilled all over the place two nights ago, after Evie had asked me to leave her office. Leaning forward, I swiped a picture from the pile, one I’d stared at for hours on end over the last two days, trying to find my nose and my chin—the ones I’d so clearly known were mine the day my little girl was born. Yet now all I saw was Amelia’s face—her nose, her chin, her dark blue, distant eyes. I wanted to rip up the damn photo and never see it again. But I’d cherished the day it was taken even more than I hated the ones that came after.