Of course not.
But the unfortunate truth was that my father’s habit in picking out the worst kind of people to entertain himself extended to this circumstance, too.
Why else would this woman being coming out of the woodwork?
Heading inside, I slipped my sunglasses off of my face and tucked them into the inside pocket of my suit jacket.
Ivy, Ted’s secretary, lifted herself from her chair, greeting me with a wide smile. “Good afternoon, Mr. McAllister. I can take you back. They’re all waiting for you.”
While she scooted around the desk, I lifted my arm to check my watch. There were still over ten minutes before our meeting was supposed to start. How interesting that this woman and herlawyer were already trying to establish dominance by beating me here.
Ivy’s clipped footsteps against the tiled floor led me down the hall to one of the larger conference rooms at the back of the building. The blinds were drawn over the glass wall, giving the room a nice amount of privacy that we’d absolutely need.
After knocking twice, Ivy swung the door open and stuck her head in. “Mr. Evans? Avery McAllister is here for you.”
She stepped to the side and swept her hand into the conference room, flashing me a brief smile.
“Ah! Mr. McAllister. Good afternoon,” Ted greeted, waving me over to a seat next to him.
The top of his head was shiny and bald with dark curly hair wrapping around the rest of his head. He wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with the center nosepiece a black plastic compared to the steel of the rest of the frame. He was on the thinner side but had long limbs that gave him his height.
Across from him was another man with sliver hair that was coiffed back from his face and deep wrinkles that were etched into his skin. He was a little on the heavier side but carried it well, making him appear more muscular than overweight.
Alexander Steele, no doubt.
As I grabbed my seat, my gaze pinned right onto the woman sitting next to Steele.
She was around my age and had that kind of beauty that was classic. No overly done lip filler or face injections, no over the top makeup or lash extensions. Just a sweetheart shaped face, high cheekbones that were dusted with a faint sheen of blush, full, pouty lips, and platinum blonde hair that looked well taken care of despite it definitely not being her natural color.
Honestly, she was exactly my type.
Which was a disturbing thought considering she’d been entangled with my father.
I didn’t want to think about what the two of us shared in common when it came to our taste in women. As the say went, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but in all respects, I really fucking wished it did.
“Thank you for joining us.” Ted fanned out the files in front of him, sliding them across the way for both Ana and her lawyer to look through. “As you know, we’re coming to the table with an offer already set. Whatever else you’re interested in will need to be negotiated.”
Alexander Steele flipped his folder open, flipping through the top few pages with a quick flick of his wrist. “I take it that the expert you contacted to look at the marriage license came back?”
Ted nodded, slipping something my way as he continued to speak. “Yes. Thank you for sending that over. Since the license was determined to be authentic, we’re going to go ahead and put that offer I was talking about on the table.”
Glancing down at the paper in front of me, I realized it was a copy of the marriage license in question with annotations on it stating that it was verified to be legitimate. For some reason, out of any of this, that fact bothered me the most.
While my father was never afaithfulman, I’d romanticized the idea that his marriage to my mother was the only one he’d ever have. Not for any particular reason outside of some strange sense of pride thatwewere the only things in his past he couldn’t exactly erase, no matter how hard he’d tried to do so.
His life would always intrinsically be tied to my mother in some capacity, and obviously, mine by bloodline.
But with this, that idea began to sour. Somehow tainted by this woman my age who had apparently been successful in convincing the man that after twenty-six years of running around as a single man it was time to tie the knot once again.
Leaning back into my chair, I folded my arms across my chest while both our lawyers spoke.
She was already watching me, a carefully neutral expression on her face. There was something about her that was setting me off outside of this being the kind of encounter I never wanted to have. Meeting my father’s flavor-of-the-weeks had stopped quite a long time ago, only rearing its ugly head once at my wedding and I subsequently banned it from ever happening again right then and there.
My father’s messes never truly ended. No matter how much time and energy had been put into trying to avoid this very scenario before all of this.
Now that we were here, though, I hoped she was smart and just took the money and never looked back on whatever shit my father and her got up to while they were together. It would be easier on all of us that way.
“So, Mrs. McAllister, formally Ms. Liapovich, is requesting an additional few things on top of the money that’s been offered.” Steele slid two packets across the table at us. “One, she’d like access to the estate.”
