His eyes flicked to me and I held his gaze, feeding off the increasing apprehension coming off him in waves, a dizzying sense of power befalling me.
“You see she has recently learned that her late mother left her quite a significant inheritance” — his eyes darted back to Emma, his permanent tan blanching with her words — “and thatit should have been passed to her last year, when she turned twenty-one.”
His eyes flitted between us, his finger working at his collar. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come now James, you know all there is to know regarding anything remotely legal involving Edward and the affairs of his family.”
Emma looked to me briefly and I gave her a smile, showing her I was more than ready to see this through.
“Look here, Emma ... Abigail ... I don’t know what you think you’ve dis—”
“I am no fool, James, so I’d appreciate you not treating me like one.” Wow! That was me! I’d said that, my voice perfect and even. “I have seen the papers with my own eyes, it’s as clear as the guilt written on your face, there is an inheritance that I am entitled to and I want it.”
“Guilt?” He gave an uneasy chuckle. “The only thing I feel guilty for is giving into my base instincts where you ladies are concerned. As far as the inheritance goes, I don’t like what you are both insinuating.”
“We’re not insinuating anything, James, just telling you the facts,” Emma said calmly. “Abi is entitled to that inheritance and until now it has been kept from her by—”
“By the sanctity of the law,” James finished for her, relaxing into his chair, an unnerving sense of calm now befalling him as he studied us both.
I hadn’t known what to expect from him when he learned the purpose of our visit, but this really wasn’t it.
“The sanctity of the law?” Emma repeated back at him incredulously.
“That’s right, Edward has kept control of that trust for a very good reason.”
Now it was Emma’s turn to laugh, her composure still remarkably intact. “There’s no honest reason that can justify keeping it from her and you know it.”
I waited with bated breath for his objection, my confidence depleting with every exchange. Could there be a genuine, law-abiding reason for it to have been kept from me? I felt sick.
“Even if that were the case,” he said after what felt like an eternity, his voice calm and controlled now as he faced us head on, “what exactly do you hope to achieve by coming here?”
“We want you to give us a copy of all the necessary documentation so that Abigail can stake her claim.”
He laughed good and properly at that. “Are you crazy?”
He looked from Emma to me, waiting for one of us to say something, anything...
“Seriously, I’m not going to do that,” he said shaking his head. “What do you take me for?”
“I take you for a man who corrupted his best friend’s stepdaughter,” Emma said abruptly, her cool and business-like demeanor cracking ever so slightly. “And it’s one thing for him to pimp me out as and when he feels like it, but from what you know of our dear Edward, do you think he will be so happy where Abigail is concerned?”
She looked at him, her eyes positively ablaze with the suggestion.
“You have no proof,” he said trying to sound calm, but the telltale tension in his body told us he was far from it. I told myself to feed on that as I rummaged through my bag for the one thing that was going to get us everything we needed.
“But that’s just it,” Emma said, reaching a hand out to me. “We’ve made a copy especially for you...”
With hands that shook, I extracted the disk and passed it to her. She took it, her face one of smiling encouragement and then tossed it onto the desk before him
James stared at it as if someone had just pushed it out of their ass. “I’m far too important to Edward to have such a pitiful thing come between us ... I mean,Christ!He caught the pair of you up to no good and you’re still under his roof, Emma.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Dad had told him about us, but I was, and I didn’t like it. Had Dad also told him of how he’d punished us both?
“And what the hell do you think he will do when he learns of your involvement in this?” Edward continued, his anger fueling him now as he tried to crack Emma.
She shrugged. “My relationship with Edward is over anyway, but I won’t lose out for long, I’ll meet someone else, but you, on the other hand, will lose everything: your best friend, your lucrative business relationship...”
“I don’t need Edward to keep me afloat!”
