"She has forms to fill out too. You'll have to give them to her and then get them back when she's done. The whole point of an annulment is that both parties fully agree to the terms as if the marriage never happened." He narrowed his eyes on me as he sat forward, and it reminded me of my father.
"Christ, can't you do this?" I crammed a hand through my hair when I realized it wouldn't be a one-time thing. I’d have to see her more than once, which meant I'd have to fight back my urges more than once before I'd be able to let this thing go and get her out from under my skin.
"Kade," he chided. "We agreed the personal touch was?—"
"God, fine." Turning, I grabbed the handle to leave and he stopped me again. This time with something that made my entire body flood with anger.
"Kade, you should know your parents are moving to strike you from everything." His words made my blood run cold. I didn’t bother turning back to look him in the eye as I slowly opened the door. "We've been meeting via video conference, and your father wants you removed from business accounts. Your credit cards are frozen, and you have no access to family trusts or finances until the marriage is annulled. Your parents are just trying to protect their assets and?—"
"How could you let them do that to me!" I whipped around and glared at him from the open door. "I have attorney client privilege. If I tell them I'm doing something?—”
"They pay the retainer and the monthly fees. Kade," he said, standing slowly. "I'm not your enemy. I didn’t have to tell you any of this."
My vision blurred as I stared at him and my blood pressure soared. "Kade, think of how your parents feel. It's their life they're protecting. Your future..." He shook his head. "You're doing nothing with your life, son. It was only a matter of time anyway. Consider taking that job your father asked you to work ten years ago?—“
I couldn't take it anymore. I slammed that door so hard on my way out the windows in the building rattled.
My parents, cutting me off? Because they feared Lainey was something I knew she wasn't. And work for them? From the ground up? I didn't need to work. The shares my father couldgive me would last me the rest of my life in profits and I'd never have to work, but he wanted to cut me off now?
It was a good thing my parents were out of the country or I'd have gone straight to their house to tell them off and probably make things worse. As it was, I stormed out to my Lamborghini and peeled out of the parking lot so fast I laid rubber.
Maybe they were right and I was throwing my life away, but they were wrong about Lainey. It was the hill I was ready to die on, if for no other reason than to prove to my parents that I knew how to read people. I wasn't backing down from it either. And next week when I took those papers to her to visit her and talk with her about an annulment, I'd prove it to them once for all.
Lainey was a strong, smart woman who had a bad hand dealt to her, not an enemy.
I just had to tell my dick to stop getting hard every time I thought of her, or the visit to Boulder City would dredge up more complications than it resolved.
10
LAINEY
My throat burned as I downed more water to wash away the acrid taste of bile that lingered in my tonsils after having thrown up for the second time today. But I didn't have time to take a sick day, so I donned a mask and kept things sterilized.
"You really don't look good," Wren said, looking up from her place across the table as she plucked perfectly baked cupcakes from the metal pans and set them aside to cool. With one month left until the fundraiser, we were in full swing of baking. These cupcakes would be sealed in containers to preserve their freshness and frozen in the bakery's large walk-in freezers until thirty-six hours before the event. No way we could bake them all in one weekend with the business running.
"Thanks for that vote of confidence," I mumbled. It came out muffled because of the mask. "It's just the flu or something."
My sister gave me a concerned look, but didn't have a response for me immediately. The high school kid I'd hired to work the front counter kept eavesdropping on our conversation, making it difficult to be very open with her. I had my concerns about themysterious sickness that had no other symptoms, but every time I thought about it I almost broke down crying.
The kid swept in to pick up a tray of brownies ready to be stocked in the case out front, then swept out just as quickly and Wren scowled at me.
"You really think you should be baking all this food if you're sick?" I knew what she was doing, picking at my last nerve until I snapped, which seemed to be closer to the surface lately than normal.
After a month of avoiding anything to do with what happened at the Atlas on my wedding night, I knew the conversation was bound to come up sooner or later. She knew what I'd done, and I hadn't faced it at all. I was shocked someone from the Kingston family hadn't shown up on my doorstep demanding a fix already.
"I'm fine," I snipped, pointing at my face. "I have a mask, see? And I washed my hands well."
"Geesh..." She rolled her eyes as she set the pans into the sink and turned back to the cupcakes, reorganizing them so there was a sliver of space between each row for better cooling, the way I'd shown her how. But the way her eyebrows drew together and dipped in the middle told me she was frustrated with me.
Guilt tangled in my already tight chest, making the irritation I felt even worse. Wren had no clue how hard I had tried to keep my head on straight for the past month. Brandon's incessant messages every day, morning noon and night like clockwork, were grating on my last nerve. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had a house full of dead or dying flowers to deal with because he kept sending apology bouquets when I wouldn't respond to him.
Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt nauseous again, but I choked it back by swallowing a gulp of water and focusing on spooning the fresh batter into cupcake papers.
"You know you can't keep running from what's happening."
My temper flared and I slammed the spoon down into the batter so hard it splattered out of the bowl all over the counter as I glared at my sister. Her eyebrows rose slowly as she picked up a towel from the shelf behind her and wiped her hands. I couldn’t believe how easily frustrated I was with everything lately, and overly emotional. It was getting to me in every way.
I didn't know why either. It just felt like no matter what I did I couldn’t calm down. I was either on the verge of tears or the edge of exploding at all times.
