ASHER
I could tellby the look Cole had shot me in the courtroom that I’d made a mistake.
Then there’d been the stern, no-nonsense, “My office. Now,” that really drove home the point.
Which, true, I probably hadn’t thought things through nearly enough before blurting out something that could potentially change the course of my whole life. But I’d been facing the barrel of a gun, the very real possibility of June and Owen being taken away from Havenbrook weighing on me as heavily as if a herd of rhinos had taken up residence directly on my chest. They were the only family I had left, and I’d be damned if I was going to let that slip through my fingers without doing everything in my power to stop it.
It hadn’t helped that the judge overseeing the case didn’t exactly look favorably upon me. In fact, Judge Seville had been the one to sentence me and Nash to two hundred hours of community service instead of letting us off with a warning like he had Nat. And the judge most certainly hadn’t ever forgiven me for the…transgression.
But, shit, at the time, I’d been an idiot seventeen-year-old who lived for trouble. I’d changed a lot in the years I’d beengone. Had grown up…matured. There was no way I’d be caught running naked through the man’s backyard again. Probably.
And then there’d been the Haywards… They’d shown up with the most expensive lawyer money could buy, but that hadn’t surprised me. Whathadsurprised me was how hard they were fighting for custody.
Cole hadn’t prepared me enough for that battle—not for facing off against two people as well-off as them, not to mention their attorney, who acted like he ate less affluent people like me for breakfast.
“You didn’t think you should mention to me that you’re engaged?” Cole said as soon as we were behind the closed doors of his office.
Well, to be fair, I…wasn’t.
I blew out a breath and ran a hand through my hair. “And you didn’t think to mention to me that I had to compete with some ten-point something or other?”
Cole tossed his keys on his desk and expelled a sigh before settling in his chair. “Ten-point analysis.”
“Doesn’t matter what it’s called. Only thing that matters is I’ve got, like, one point, Cole. That leaves nine up for grabs.”
Even with Aubrey’s and Nathan’s wills, plus the video of her asking me to take custody of June, the odds were stacked against me. I was a single man without a steady paycheck. I couldn’t provide private schools and nannies and personal chefs for June and Owen.
But I could keep them in the only home they’d known and not uproot them any more than they needed to be right now. And truthfully, neither Aubrey nor Nathan had wanted the life for their kids that the Haywards presented. If they had, they would have been living in Connecticut instead of back in Havenbrook, two blocks from our childhood home.
So, when Judge Seville had asked how I could possibly compete with everything the Haywards offered, I’d blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Never mind that I wasn’t seriously—or even not so seriously—dating anyone. And never mind that someone could probably get away with doing something like that in Nashville.
But here, in a town the size of a peanut—not to mention everybody in everybody else’s business—I didn’t have a hope of fooling anyone, let alone the judge tasked with awarding final custody.
I’d completely and utterly fucked up.
But even knowing that, I couldn’t say I regretted it. Not when the judge had agreed to award temporary custody to me for the interim until a final decision could be made. It’d been the best mistake I could’ve made.
“So, you thought you’d even the field a bit by sayin’ you’re engaged?” Cole asked.
I cringed internally, knowing that was on me. “Yeah, about that?—”
Cole held up a hand. “In my line of work, I know everything that goes on in Havenbrook. I make it my business to.”
I nodded. “I imagine you do.”
“As such, my clients tend not to keep things from me. That, and it’s in their best interests not to do so.”
“I can see that, too.”
Cole sat forward and folded his hands on top of his desk. “Look, Asher, I want to help you. I liked your sister, and I’m going to do everything in my power to see that her wishes are upheld and those kids stay with you.”
I was getting dizzy from how my emotions kept flip-flopping. Relief that they were staying with me…then worry over what that meant for my future. “I appreciate that.”
“That’s my job. But in order to perform it to the best of my abilities, I need to be aware of absolutely everything. That includes someone, say, fakin’ an engagement. Hypothetically speakin’, of course.”
Fantastic. I hadn’t even managed to fool this man for thirty minutes, and I needed to put up a charade for a hell of a lot longer than that.
I cleared my throat. “Well—hypothetically speakin’, of course—it may not be fake so much as those someones just aren’t exactly engaged. Yet.”
