Brandon tilted his head. “You really think it’s fraud?”
“It has to be.”
I couldn’t ignore the ringing of my intuition that was telling me my father would in no way get his vasectomy reversed, and even if he did, there was no way that after nearly twenty years, he wasn’t fucking dry.
The odds were way too severe.
“How are you going to go about proving it?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, tracking the movement of my fingers along his face.
WhatcouldI do?
Realistically, anything.
I had enough money to do whatever I wanted. I had a trust fund that could buy a small country and that wasn’t even counting my own separate bank account from my day job.
Why not put it to good use?
“Let’s go down to the clinic and see how far a few thousand can get us in obtaining Ana’s records.”
Brandon’s eyes widened briefly and then a determined look settled on his face. “All right. Let’s get going before she tries to steal anything more from you.”
CHAPTER 28
Brandon
The clinic wasyour run-of-the-mill facility that specialized in family planning and women’s care. It had a cheery sign out front with a dancing mother and child, declaring an enthusiastic welcome.
There was barely anyone in the lobby when we stepped inside—an elderly woman who very obviously gave mine and Avery’s linked hands a hard stare as we passed by, and a young couple with a small child playing quietly on the floor—and made our way over to the front counter.
I had no idea what to expect during this so-called mission of ours, though I had hope. The thing about having an obscene amount of money like Avery was that it went far. Especially, with getting people to work with you and do favors under the table that they’d otherwise balk at.
There was a budding belief in me that all of this pregnancy thing was still somehow fake and with us coming here to gather the paperwork (or in our case, the lack thereof), Ana would soonbe revealed to be the scammer Avery’s gut was telling him she was.
As the cynic out of the two of us, it was hard not to give in to the rational side of my brain telling me that we were wasting our time and that even with some amount of proof favoring our side, proving it to a jury or a judge was going to be a hell of a lot harder than either of us knew.
The fact of the matter was that I loathed seeing Avery hurt. If we somehow did manage to get the proof and it only proved Ana’s case more, then what? How crushed would Avery be? His entire world would be split in two once again.
He’d still be forced to work with a woman he didn’t know and a brother he’d probably never have any kind of relationship with. It wasn’t like she was interested in getting to know him while she was married to his father, anyway.
The only logical reason she was rearing her ugly head now was because she knew she had a one-way ticket into the high life. Being married to a billionaireandpregnant with his unborn child? That was the kind of plan bathed in gold.
If she played her cards right, which was looking very likely, she and her future family would be set for the rest of forever. That kind of money seldom ever ran dry.
Avery tightened his fingers around mine as the window at the counter opened and a nurse flashed him a polite smile. “Can I help you?”
I couldn’t help the sharp churn in my stomach now that we were actually doing this. Nor the tickle of butterflies that were kicking up from holding Avery’s hand out in public so blatantly. He’d grabbed it the second he’d come around to my side of the car after parking, lacing our hands together like we’d been doing it for years.
All of this was so damn new that it was throwing me for a loop. But that was Avery for you. Always switching things up when I least expected it.
“Hi, we’re here to obtain some records for a patient,” Avery said.
The woman’s keyboard clacked loudly as she typed on it. “Patient name?”
“Ana McAllister.”
My heart pounded in time with her keyboard. How was any of this going to work? Sure, everyone had a price but that didn’t mean some random person was going to throw their entire career away for a couple of randoms like us and a pocket full of hundreds.
