Dash smirks at me. I don’t understand how he can find any of this funny. He had the same messed-up childhood I did.
“What?” I snap.
“She hated him just as much as you do.”
I wonder if the lawyer will kick us out if I kidney-punch my brother. “Exactly. Why would she leave him any money?”
“To back you into a corner. Wai Po’s tricky.” Dash uses the title our grandmother insisted we call her. The word forgrandmotherin her native tongue. A gift she gave us once she started to trust us. “She’s tricky, like you.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” The light bulb flicks on in my head. Just took me a moment longer than Dash.
This is how badly Wai Po wanted to see me married. She probably knew my first reaction to the money would be that I didn’t care about it. We had talked about my job and my paycheck. By our second visit, she began pestering me about how my line of work could crap out at any time. How I’d be safer in a relationship. A marriage.
I’d waved her off back then.
But now there’s this money. I know this cash isn’t a bribe to get me to do what she wanted.
It’s a threat.
If I don’t find a spouse, then I’m handing the man I hate a fortune. My grandmother’s money.
“Damn it!” A fancy pen rattles on the wood surface of the table as I pound my fists in one definitivethwap, earning myself a glare from the lawyer.
“Do you need a moment to compose yourself?” The lawyer tilts his chin a fraction so he’s looking down on me.
Who talks like that?Does he want me to take a little lie-down on a fainting couch or something?
“No.” I grind the word through my teeth. “I’m fine. And I’m not getting married.”
Which means the money will never be mine. Hell, I can see the expression on my father’s face, clear as if he were standing next to me.
Shock, then greed, then smugness.
Because the asshole will only need a second to convince himself he deserves every cent.
“There’s no way to divert the inheritance to a charitable organization? Maybe smudge a line or something in the document?”
I lean forward, eager for a way to fix this. The lawyer rears back, drawing the will with him.
“No. These are your grandmother’s final wishes. Even if that means nothing to you, I will not allow alterations to be made to a legal document.”
Means nothing to me?
All the anger drains out of my chest, leaving a gaping hole behind.
“You know, I do need a minute. Tocomposemyself.”
I shove up from the cushy chair in this lawyer’s plush office and storm into the hallway. I head without a direction until I spot an Exit sign over a door indicating stairs.
The stairwell is the opposite of the lawyer’s office. All concrete and practicality instead of leather chairs and brass fixtures that scream,My clients make a lot of money, and so do I.
When I first walked into the place, I thought we’d gotten the address wrong. Then the receptionist greeted us with a wide smile and said Dash and I were expected.
I knew my grandmother had some money. Her house was a decent size, and her designer clothes and pristine manicures spoke of a woman who lived comfortably.
But I didn’t know she was rich.
No wonder Wai Po was distrusting of my brother and me when we first found her. Took some time for her to accept we were who we said we were. Once that happened, she was determined to get to know us.
