“When my mom died, it was me and Grandma left. She wasn’t in any shape to raise a ten-year-old, so she contacted the state to get me into foster care. They contacted my father, who hadn’t wanted anything to do with me up until that point, but didn’t want me going through the system telling everyone I was his kid. Bad for optics. So he accepted custody.
“There were stipulations in my mom’s will. The main thing being if I ended up with the prick, he had to see that I was taken care of until I was out of college, and I should have a place in his will of at least seventy-five percent equality to his other sons, of which I am second in line.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
He laughed, eyes shining with pride. “You can’t, but wills are public record, so again, optics. If I contested something down the line and it got out to, say, the press that this asshole with billions put me on the street without a dime to my name for no reason other than I was an oops baby, it would look bad. My father cares only about his name and what it gets him. No smudges allowed. She knew that.”
“I like your mother very much.”
His smile grew soft and wistful, and the shine reflected not just pride, but also love. Heath knew what it was to miss aparent who’d left the world too soon. Evan’s mother had been his for a decade, then everything had changed, and clearly not for the better.
“She was a smart cookie and spent enough time in his company to learn the basics of the game. She knew to hit him where it hurt.”
“But there’s more to the story, obviously.”
His mouth hardened. “Oh yeah. He had his lawyers offer counter-suggestions, which I’m sure included sayingfuck itand booting me anyway, but he decided this was a golden opportunity to get back at her through me.”
“But she wasn’t…”
“You telling me you’ve never held a grudge?”
That earned a snort, because of course he had.
“My friend Andres once took my favorite sweater without asking, because he liked the way it made his eyes pop. Someone spilled cranberry, tomato sauce, whatever on it and the stain never came out. I’m still plotting my revenge, but I won’t be taking it out on his ancestors after he dies. That’s monstrous.”
“And now you understand my relationship with my father.”
He certainly understood why there wasn’t one.
“Do I want to know which of the options he decided on?”
“Short story? Making my life fucking miserable and unnecessarily difficult. I decided the day he cut me off I was going to win this little battle of wills, and I’m so damn close.”
“He cut you off? I thought he wasn’t allowed to.”
“Loopholes,” he said bitterly. “He kept me fed through undergrad, but denied any assistance for law school. Ironically, it was Lucy who helped me figure out scholarships and all that shit.”
No matter what else Evan thought about his ex-fiancée, she’d obviously earned his admiration by taking no bullshit. Much like his mother and grandmother.
Evan liked them bossy, and dammit, that made him smile. “I’m having mixed feelings about your Lucy.”
Evan snorted. “She isn’t my anything. Never really was, honestly. We had a love-hate thing going through school, then went our separate ways until we started working together. We agreed it would be mutually beneficial to team up.”
“No wonder you see marriage as business.”
Evan rubbed his eyes. They were red-rimmed and glassy, and Heath suspected the saltwater and sun weren’t the reason.
“That’s part of it, yeah. Not like we’d have been the first people to use marriage as a means to an end that didn’t involve a white picket fence.”
Heath sniffed. “Well, of course not. Traditionally, it’s been used more for power grabs than anything else.”
“Ah, so you do agree with me.”
“Don’t be putting words in my mouth, mister.”
“Anything I can interest you in as an alternative?”
Evan was excellent at changing the subject, and he was going to miss the audacity.
