Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
He gave up and hit the button on his phone, asking his secretary to get him a new shirt. The snotty bitch asked if he would also like her to get security.
“Do it, and I’ll bring my complaints to your boss’s boss, and then I will take out an ad in the Washington Post about this firm intentionally tanking cases. I will ruin this firm and your career. My father may be gone, but my name still carries weight.”
“No, security will not be needed,” he said before sitting back in his chair. “What are you expecting me to do here?”
“Your job?” I sounded bitchy, but it needed to be said. “You sat there and watched. You said nothing as they stole my money and treated me like a child.”
“What would you have me do?” he asked, standing. “No, really, what would you have me do? Manwarring owns half the judges in the city. His son married the DA’s sister. There is nothing this man can’t touch. If we drag it in front of another judge, the same thing is going to happen, but maybe this time, he will call you incompetent. Maybe this time, he says you need round-the-clock inpatient psychiatric help because you are unstable. He can have the court claim you are a risk to yourself. Do you really think he can’t buy a doctor as easily as he bought the judge? He will lock you up and throw away the key.”
“That isn’t fair.”
He scoffed. “Fair? Jesus, you are a child. Life isn’t fair. Boo-hoo, you have someone holding on to your assets for a few years. He can’t really do much with them. They are still yours. He just manages them for the next three years. So you have a trustee, so what?”
“So what?” I practically screeched. “So he had me kicked out of my hotel. He had my cards canceled, and he made me move into his home.”
“When you say he canceled your cards, do you mean he has taken all funds from you?” the lawyer asked, his eyebrow raised as if I had piqued his interest.
“Yes, well, kind of.”
“What do you mean, kind of?”
“He gave me a new card, but it has a limit. That is unacceptable.”
“The room he has you staying in? Does it have a solid roof?”
“Yes, but what does—”
The lawyer raised his hand, cutting me off. “Does it have heat and a bed? Do you have access to running water?”
“Yes, of course, but that doesn’t mean—”
“It means you have it better than most people in this city. No judge is going to take you out of Manwarring’s care because you have an allowance.” The way he rolled his eyes as he said ‘allowance’ made me grind my teeth.
“I understand that I am still very fortunate, but—”
“But nothing. There is nothing I, or any other lawyer, can do for you.”
“There has to be a way out of this.”
The lawyer stared at his now empty coffee cup longingly for a moment, then focused on me. “Your best option is to just wait. You have only three years, or until you get married.”
Three years was too long. Lucian Manwarring was going to force me to marry him in less than one.
“I understand you believe that is my best option. I am asking what my other options are.”
“You have none unless Manwarring is somehow unfit—”
“How do I prove he is unfit?”
The lawyer didn’t even bother hiding his disrespectful eye roll. He wouldn’t have done that to my father, and I was getting really tired of men not taking me seriously.
The lawyer held up his hand, spread his fingers, and counted off the ways.
“Mismanagement of funds, which, even if he did that, you don’t have the ability to prove. Failure to file the required tax documents, which, let’s be honest, is never going to happen, and even if it did, he could explain it away as an accounting error. No judge would fault him for that. The man doesn’t file his own taxes.”
“What else?” I demanded, ignoring the way the walls were slowly creeping across the floor, closing in on me and making it harder to breathe.
I focused on controlling my breath as subtly as possible while staring the lousy lawyer down. The last thing I needed to do was have a panic attack in this office. He would absolutely call 911 and have me rushed to the hospital just to get me out of his office.
“Or breach of fiduciary duty or conflict of interest. None of which would apply here.”
“What else?” I asked again, knowing there had to be something. The system was not set up to protect women, but there was always some loophole, some grey area, some loose string. I just had to be clever enough to find it, and brave enough to pull it off.