Baby Daddies - Tara Brown Page 0,81
I’m not leeching off you.” She storms to the bedroom and now my ass is up too.
“No, you aren’t!” I follow her, shouting back, “You are my family now. You are my teammate. And yes, I fucked up. My brother who has been missing for years was found—”
“I don’t care that you left, Lori!” She spins in the room, red-faced and fiery. “Of course you had to leave. The point isn’t that you went to your brother’s side, it’s that I’m so pathetic I couldn’t function without you there when Grace told me I needed to leave.”
“Grace shouldn’t have done that,” I growl.
“Yes, she should have. I’m not your family. I need to stand on my own two feet.” She stomps to the “her” bathroom and slams the door shut. Simon stares at the door where she is and then me. He walks to her door as if pointing out how wrong I am in this.
“Fuck!” I want to follow and smash the door down and convince her of what I’m trying to say, but she’s a proof girl.
“Not my family, huh?” Grabbing my phone, I march to the office and slam the door. It’s a second or two for me to calm down before I can make the call.
It takes three hours, two lawyers, four bankers, and my grandpa’s friend who I partnered with on a winery years ago to draw up all the paperwork and get everything I want done. I’m not thinking, which both lawyers have pointed out seventeen times in the three hours. But I don’t care. This girl is making me crazy and if money is the problem, it is also the solution.
When I open the door to the office, the smell of pizza wafts across the room, calling to me. I ignore it and march into the bedroom. But she isn’t there.
Scared she left, I hurry across the house to the balcony, but she and Josh aren’t there either. My heart races with worry as I rush through the breakfast room into the kitchen to find the three of them. Simon on the counter with his pâté. Josh and Jenny hovering over pizza. All three of them give me the same guilty look.
“Need me to go?” Josh asks.
“Nope, we need a witness for all the signatures.” I start spreading paperwork across the vast counter. “The house on Martha’s. This penthouse. The apartment in London. The flat in Germany. The winery in Italy. The jet. The yacht. The restaurant in Tribeca. And these are all the vehicles. This is for the new joint bank account. And this final one is for the trust fund we are setting up for the baby.”
Josh starts laughing but Jenny pales. “What is this for?”
“That kid is half mine. That makes us family, partner. But you refuse to be teammates with me because you’re fucking stubborn and poor. Well, now you’re not poor. You own half.”
“I won’t sign!” She is panicking.
“Then don’t but that changes nothing. Every single thing I own, apart from some investments it would be too difficult to add your name to and my trust fund which I never touch, now have you as a fifty-percent partner. If money is problematic, then it’s also the answer. You are now filthy rich. Congratulations! I hope you enjoy it! I hope someone is mean to you because you have money and treats you like you’re evil!” I’m yelling at her, ranting really.
She starts laughing, but it’s not the good laugh. It’s still that bad one. “You’ve lost it. You’ve cracked.”
Josh is dying, he’s laughing so hard he’s falling over.
“Yeah, well I wonder why?” I hold my hands out in frustration. “I give you my love. My compassion. My friendship. Every ounce of who I am. And the money is the only thing you see. You wanna hate the money so much, well now you have half of it. Burn it if that’s what you want. Give it all away. I don’t care! All I want is you.”
“Lori, this isn’t what I want.”
“You don’t know what you want! But I do. I know I want you. And our baby. I want you to be my family.” I slam my hand down on the counter and walk out, shouting back. “Sign that paperwork or I will forge your signature.”
Josh falls off the chair in a loud crash, wheezing loudly.
I walk to the bar and pour four fingers of scotch into a glass and shoot it all. It burns the whole way