Billionaire's Trust (Billionaire Erotic Romance: Never Never Man Series Book 5) (4 page)

“No.”

“I don’t understand,” she said as I began to walk away. “Are you going to talk to her? Straighten this out?”

I paused for a moment and looked down at her.

“Thanks for the chat, Katy, but I’ll deal with Maddie.”

As I began to walk away, Katy continued, “Grey, wait! You never answered my question. Do you love Maddie? Are you going to tell her how you feel?”

I opened the office door and walked out. I had a grandfather— and a hero--to bury.

GREY

It was a helluva thing, saying goodbye to the old man. In a lot of ways, I’d written him off in recent months. It was inevitable, and he wouldn’t have tolerated me getting distracted by it for too long anyway. But, it was the hardest goddamn day of my life so far and frankly, I was glad to have it behind me. Of course, now that he’d passed, I had to deal with the conditions of his estate as the trustee.

And so it was a couple of days after the funeral I found myself in the offices of the estate attorneys. We sat in a large conference room. A half dozen of the immediate family were there, including my mother. None of them had been privy to the details of the will, so I figured I’d get a good laugh out of seeing their reaction. I have to say I enjoyed watching their expressions transform from a smug sense of entitlement, to abject horror as they realized my marital status would determine their economic status.

As it happened, the cousin I despised the most, Albert, was the first to voice his displeasure. A fat, balding hump of a man, Albert looked like he lived — lazy and uninspired.

“This is an outrage!” he grumbled. Redness roiled to the top of his bald head like mercury in an old-fashioned thermometer. Fixing his ire on the attorneys, he continued, “So the fate of my money will be determined by whether or not my playboy cousin gets married? You can’t be serious!”

Over the next few minutes, the attorneys did their best to settle him down. For a moment or two, it looked as if he might have a stroke. Not that I would have minded, of course. Yet, in spite of the attorneys making the terms of the will crystal-goddamned clear, Albert continued to complain about the influence I had over ‘his money’. Drinking a cup of hot, black coffee I glared at him as the taste of the bitter liquid lingered in my mouth. I permitted him to carry on for a few more minutes until at last, I’d heard enough.

“Albert,” I began. “It’s not your goddamn money, you selfish prick. It belonged to our grandfather. And, let me tell you something. If it wasn’t for the love I had for him, I’d see to it that not a single one of you got a dime of it.”

Albert swallowed hard and sunk back into his chair. As he did, the leather covering the back of it groaned. He lingered there for a moment or two, gathering his thoughts. But eventually, like a rabid dog backed into a corner, he barked an insult at me.

“Why don’t you just marry one of your bimbos and be done with it?”

If it wouldn’t have violated the privacy of the conversation I’d had with my grandfather on the subject, that right there would have been the final straw. I wished he could hear the way they talked about his dying wish. Here the old man was genuinely concerned about my well-being, wanting me to be happy, and these vultures couldn’t give two shits. The only thing any of them cared about was not losing their upscale homes and country club memberships.

Sickening.

Even so, I was still no closer to having anyone on my short list of marriage material. I’m sure they’d all get a great fucking laugh out of hearing Maddie rejected me. At the rate things were going with her, I might not be married inside of a year, even if I wanted to be.

Pretty goddamn ironic.

Here they all think I’m the obstacle to them getting what they want, when the truth is the obstacle is a blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty living thousands of miles away.  Still, given the way things stood with Maddie and the disrespect I was getting here, I was beginning to reconsider.

I still couldn’t believe she’d turned me down.

What was with all of this nonsense about ‘love’ anyway? Maddie had Katy primed to feed me that shit when I showed up to talk to her. I should have seen that coming. Everything Maddie and I had at stake with the kid, and
that
was her goddamn deal breaker?

Mystifying as fuck is what it was.

“Well?” Albert hissed as he broke my concentration. “We’re waiting, Grey. Let’s just go out in the street in front of the building here. I’m sure a suitable candidate will cross your path in five minutes or so.”

I placed the coffee cup down on the table. Leaning forward, I drew my hands together and tapped my index fingers against one another as I replied.

“The spirit of his request was not that I marry a bimbo, Albert. He wanted me to be happy.”

“Please!” Albert scoffed as I finished speaking. “Since when have you ever been happy with anyone but yourself, Grey?”

He leaned forward and folded his hands together on the table in front of him. A veneer of sweat reflected on top of his bald head.

“Come on, Grey,” he sneered. “Everyone here knows you’re not capable of such a thing. Happiness? With one woman?”

I glared at Albert and thinned my lips. It took every bit of restraint I had not to lay into him.

“Albert, out of respect for him, I’m not going to discuss this with you or anyone else here. I’ve said I’ll fulfill my commitment to him.”

My answer provided him no satisfaction. Instead, he turned his attention towards the attorneys and began to argue against the terms of the will again. Soon, the others joined in and a chorus of complaints filled the conference room. But rather than engage with them, I stared past them through the large windows of the conference room into the lobby of the law office.

As I watched people milling about, my mind wandered. Somehow, I had to convince Maddie she was wrong for rejecting me. She was young and emotional at times, yes, but she wasn’t foolish. Maybe it was possible I’d done a shit job of getting my point across. Hell, I’d never asked anyone to marry me before. It’s not unreasonable to suppose it would come off with a goddamn bump or two along the way.

After all, we had a child to consider.

I drew my focus back to chaos of the voices around the table. What a sorry excuse for a family I had. The only one worth a shit to me was gone. There was nothing for me here.

Maybe my grandfather was right.

Exhaling, I stood from the table and snapped my jacket at the elbows after straightening my tie. The room fell silent.

“Albert,” I said, as looked down at him. “Go to hell.”

With that, I turned and began to walk away. As I did, the uproar started all over again. Profanity-laced tirades from every freeloader in attendance echoed off the walls of the conference room as I exited. Fuck it. All of this shit would get worked out as soon as I could talk to Maddie once again.

And that’s exactly what I intended to do. This time tomorrow night I’d be back in Los Angeles. I wasn’t taking ‘‘no’ for an answer from her anymore.

GREY

Two thirty-three in the morning.

That was the time staring back at me on my alarm clock as I reached for my phone. Through half-open eyelids I squinted at the number on the caller ID.

Katy.

“Shit…” I grumbled. “Now what the fuck.”

Six hours later, I once again arrived at the hospital in Los Angeles. And although she’d called to get me there, Katy refused to speak to me when I saw her, blaming me for what happened. The doctor wouldn’t tell me anything other than the obvious. He offered up a handful of condolences and encouragements to ‘keep trying’.

Maddie survived, but wasn’t conscious.

Katy took me to Maddie’s room. Scowling at me before she turned to walk away she said, “No one’s allowed in to visit right now. This might be a good time for you to think about what you’re going to say to her when she wakes up.”

I frowned at her as she scolded me. Shaking my head, I turned my attention away from Katy and peered inside a small window on the door to Maddie’s room. As I did, I heard Katy walk off without so much as a word. It was just as well. I didn’t feel like getting into some goddamn thing with her right now.

Hell, maybe that’s the reason she left. Maybe she didn’t want that either. She was being emotional and ridiculous about this but there was right around zero chance I’d convince her to see things from my point of view. I suppose when your best friend has something like this happen, it’s normal to lash out and want to lay blame.

And, as it seemed so often these days, I was the obvious target. Never mind the fact this sort of thing happens all the time all over the world. Leave out the notion of what I might think about it. I’d just buried my grandfather and now
this
? I resented the fact Katy showed me so little courtesy or sympathy. She wasn’t the only one concerned about Maddie. And for her to flat out accuse me of causing Maddie to lose the…

Fuck it.

In any case, nothing mattered to me right now except Maddie’s well-being. The good news was, aside from the obvious trauma which brought her here in the first place, she was going to be okay with time. Soon enough, she would wake up and we’d have to talk about what happened and what it meant going forward.

It made me sick to think she’d gone through this without me. She pissed me off so goddamn much by rejecting my proposal, I hadn’t bothered checking up on her for a few days. And wouldn’t you know, that’s when all of this went down.

As I looked in through the window at her, I felt a lump gather in my throat. I had no clue what to say to her. What was left between us any longer? I had no obligation to her now. And frankly, I had no idea what this would do to her and how it would change her. Sometimes people just aren’t right after tragedies. Scars them for good, you know?

The lump forced its way down my gullet.

An emergency call over the intercom system broke my concentration for an instant. As it did, I turned my gaze away from Maddie and caught a handful of nurses staring at me from behind a nearby station. Almost immediately, they all looked away. I thinned my lips and shook my head. Yeah, yeah, I’m the bad guy here. I get it. Disgusted, I turned the other direction and headed for the elevator.

A few minutes later I arrived at the flower shop in the lobby of the hospital. As I walked inside, the sweet scent of rose petals and jasmine wafted into my nose. The aroma reminded me of the perfume Maddie wore when I first met her. That fragrance was tattooed on my fucking brain, forever connecting it to her in my mind. I craned my neck around the shop, glancing through arrangement after arrangement, in search of someone to help me.

“Hello?” I called out.

Just then, a short old lady peeked out from a room behind the cash register.

“I’ll be right with you, dear!” she answered back.

I nodded and slid my hands in the pockets of my pants. About a minute later, she waddled in my direction. Her hair wasn’t exactly gray, it had a distinctive color to it, almost a shade of purple. A pair of bifocals rested at the tip of her nose and hung from a pearl-beaded chain.

“How can I help you, sweetie?”

“I need to get some flowers for a patient here in the hospital.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place then, haven’t you? What is the reason for the flowers?” she asked with an expectant look in her eyes. “Do you have a loved one recovering from surgery? Did someone have a baby?”