Brazen and Breathless (Untouchable #6) - Heather Long Page 0,101

I’m beginning to think it’s because they’d put us on psych holds.”

With that, I strode through the door, and Wittaker followed me. The guys were just down from the conference room and Archie was on his feet as soon as he caught sight of me, but I shook my head. “I don’t think we’re done yet.”

“No,” Wittaker said as he glanced at them. “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask all of you to move into the other conference room. Beth, please get them drinks and make them comfortable. Frankie…” He motioned to his office, and I blew the guys a quick kiss and what I hoped was a reassuring look before I followed Wittaker.

Once inside his office, he closed the door and blew out a breath.

“Should I apologize to you?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m impressed by how well you held it together. You showed great poise and maturity. Though you definitely landed some well-placed verbal hits.”

I shrugged as I dropped into a chair. I couldn’t find a scratch of guilt within me. “She deserved it.”

“I don’t disagree.” Instead of sitting, he leaned against the desk. “Real talk. Can you handle going back in there? It’s clear she’s not going to be satisfied with our refusal to let her speak to you. I have no problem with you leaving now and I’ll take care of it from here. I can also take care of the apartments, since young Mr. Standish has paid your rent in full through May, I won’t have to work too hard at it so you’ll still have your house. The car…”

“I don’t care about the car.” Actually… “I mean, I do because I’ve been paying for it.”

“That’s what you told me. You’ve been making payments for almost two years. How close to paying it off are you?”

“I owe another three thousand. I’ve been paying only two hundred a month, and it had a six-thousand-dollar trade-in value, so that was what I agreed to pay her for it in installments.” It would almost serve her right if I let her have the car and then took Mr. Standish up on his offer, but even making a joke of that thought made me a little sick. I really didn’t want anything from him.

Archie wouldn’t let me go without a car, even if I barely drove it except for work. Not that I wanted him taking care of any more than he already had.

“I have more than enough in savings, I could dip into my college fund.”

“I would rather you didn’t,” Wittaker told me, his expression calculating. “I have your receipts for the last several months, including all the times you purchased groceries without her contributing, the payments for the household bills that you’ve had to take care of in her absence, as well as any other expenses. We’ve got the list. That comes to considerably more than three thousand dollars.”

It did?

“You also pay for the pets from your account, correct?”

“Well yeah, but I always did that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Wittaker told me. “As your parent, she is legally obligated to all of those responsibilities until you reach the age of majority. That you’ve had to do so much on your own and you’ve been successful at it, that’s a credit to you, but it will not do her any favors in court. Frankly, I rather hope she has this same type of incident there. It will solve a lot of our problems very quickly.”

“I appreciate your confidence. And truth talk…I have questions for her that I desperately want to ask, but they may not get us anywhere.”

“What do you want to ask her?”

So I told him. I’d mentioned the DNA tests, but I hadn’t gone into detail before. I couldn’t tell him about Coop’s dad, that was Coop’s story. Not mine, but it was out there. “There’s so many things she’s lied about. The affair with Archie’s dad, the tests, and I don’t even know who they were for. Does she actually not know who my biological father is? Is there a reason she’s suddenly trying to figure it out? What is so damn important that she needs me involved now when clearly she’s spent the last two years pulling further and further away? What’s her endgame?”

That was it in a nutshell. What did she gain if she had me back? It was all about Eddie. She wanted to look good in front of him?

“I thought it was Mr. Standish, but…he signed that release and he told me he would