“I knew it,” Agnes said, clicking her tongue disapprovingly.
“Bloody fecking hell!” I shouted, tossing the letter down on Grandad’s desk. It took everything inside me not to pick it up again and tear it to shreds. “Goddammit, Jasper!”
Agnes crossed her arms, scowling down at the letter. “I knew the moment I saw it that it wouldn’t be good news. Jasper’s been out to make trouble since the funeral. Remember how Callum saw him out there?” she said, pointing to the window toward the coastline where Jasper had been spotted after ducking out of the graveside service early. “That ungrateful rat’s arse couldn’t even let your Grandad rest one moment before starting this pish.”
I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth.
“What’s going on?” Lena asked, poking her head into the room.
“That no-good cousin of his is contesting the will!” Agnes said, throwing her hands up. “That’s what.”
Lena frowned, looking from Agnes to me. “Are you serious?”
I jerked my head in confirmation.
She stepped forward, holding her hand out for the letter. I gave it to her.
Agnes huffed. “I’ll go and put the kettle on,” she said. “I think we’ll all need a cup of tea after this.”
“Maybe something stronger,” I growled.
“Aye,” she agreed, disappearing.
Lena drummed her fingers against her lips as she read, and something about it flamed the irritation inside me. I wanted to burst from the frustration. I wanted to set off and pace the length of the main floor, but she was so goddamn still.
“He’s contesting on the grounds of fraud?” she finally said. She kept reading. “…for intentionally misleading…” Her eyes narrowed. “‘ …via a calculated arrangement to satisfy a conditional inheritance with no intention of fulfilling the true intentions of the requirement.’ What right does he have to assume any of that?”
She glanced up at me, concern and confusion etched into her features. My hands had curled into fists. I pressed them into the desk. “There’s more. The next page is their supposed proof.”
Lena flipped the page. It was a scan of Isla’s social media post. “Narissa’s comments on the festival post,” she said, finally putting all the pieces together. She sighed. “That’s his grounds for contesting the will?”
“He’s taking Narissa’s comment at face value. Her claim that this,” I gestured between us, “is all a sham gives him enough grounds to claim we haven’t truly complied with the conditions of the will. What the hell was he expecting, for us to hang the bloody bedsheets from the flagpole to signal we’d consummated the marriage?”
“What now?”
I waved my hand at her shocked look. “Never mind.”
Lena snapped a picture of the letter. “I’ll get this over to your personal attorney right away.”
I grumbled, rubbing my eyes. Anger burned behind them, making my head ache. Narrissa had blabbed her nonsense to the social media sphere that I was a fraud, and now Jasper was coming for everything he thought he deserved.
He was coming formyinheritance.
For the land Grandad had entrustedto me.
But I hadn’t cheated. Maybe my marriage had an unconventional beginning, but that didn’t stop it from being real. She was safe and happy. She was being cared for. Her needs were being met. It might not be a true-love, fairy-tale marriage, but there was respect here. There was trust.
And that mattered more than some blastedfeelings.
Besides, Grandad never said I couldn’t marry my assistant.
His instructions had just said to get married, plain and simple. And the man had only given me thirty damn days, so what exactly did he expect?
“I don’t…” Lena began. “What do you want to—” She trailed off as her phone buzzed in her hand. She was quiet for a moment as she stared down at it, then her shoulders slumped, and I knew it wasn’t good news. She looked up at me helplessly.
“What now?”
“Legal just let me know that some competitors have opened talks with the local government about a wind farm in the area.”
