“Good riddance. He’s a terrible child anyway.”
Alfie stuck his fingers in his nose and made a face at her. She huffed and stormed out of the chambers with my father trailing behind her, still texting someone.
“That’s it?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yep,” Hunter said as he thumbed through our copies of the paperwork. “I’ve gone through dozens of adoptions with my brothers, and it can be a bit anticlimactic, but it’s totally legal.” He grinned at me. “If you really need a punctuation mark, I can call some of my brothers down here to dump a bucket of champagne all over you.”
“No, thanks. This is a new suit.”
“Can we eat lunch?” Alfie begged. “I’m starving. I’m literally starving! I’ve only had a single baked potato since we ate breakfast yesterday.”
I started to seethe, but Hunter cut in. “You’re in good company, Alfie! All Sebastian’s had to eat is half a sandwich.”
“We should order hamburgers and sushi,” Alfie decided. Then he looked around. “Where’s Amy? I told her she could come to lunch with us.”
What the fuck?
“Alfie.” I took him by the shoulders. “Amy is not our friend. This whole situation is Amy’s fault. We are not having any more contact with her.”
“But the wedding,” he protested.
“She was fired.”
“Why?” he cried.
I was frustrated. “Because she is the reason that Dad took you in the first place,” I snarled.
“But she said she was sorry! People make mistakes,” Alfie protested. “She fixed it. She’s the reason Tatiana decided to let you adopt me.”
“How do you know that?” Hunter asked.
“She said she blackmailed her!” Alfie replied happily.
“What the—”
But Alfie had already gone back to deciding what he wanted for lunch.
“I want a crunchy shrimp roll, and I want the cheeseburger with the cheese stuffed inside, but no pickles on it, okay?”
“Amy did this?” I was still in disbelief.
As we walked out into the summer sun, I tried to call Amy but didn’t get an answer.
“I’ll see you back at Harrogate,” Hunter told me. “I think your car is still in the city, by the way. My useless brothers haven’t driven it back yet. It should be in the garage at Svensson Investment.”
“Food!” Alfie begged, grabbing my hand.
“Don’t take too long,” Hunter added. “Now that Alfie’s back, we’re going to need all hands on deck to finish planning the wedding.”
“Are they still doing the llama parade?” Alfie asked me as we headed a few blocks away to the Svensson Investment tower. It contained several restaurants on the ground floor, including a sushi place and a hamburger place, so Alfie could have both his meals.
“A llama parade?” I asked him as I texted Amy again.
Sebastian:Please call me!
God, she was probably furious with me. In the clarity of hindsight, I thought maybe I had overreacted. Hell, I had moped around while Amy had rolled up her sleeves and solved the problem. I owed her at least a thank you if not an apology.
But she didn’t respond.
