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I can’t argue with that. She’s an intelligent girl and she knows what she’s doing. Even when sometimes it seems that I don’t. But I’ve actually never seen this in Eliza. There’s a passion inside of her. A determination to see this through. It’s heartening to see it, because I recognize it. It’s the same thing I found in myself to start and manage my own business.
“What is it about this whole situation that’s changed you?” I ask, pulling her naked body close to me. “What about it affects you the most?”
Eliza takes a long moment to think.
I can feel every inch of her body against mine.
“I’m angry about the fact that someone is trying to blackmail the legacy left by my father,” she says at last and I bring my head closer to listen to her words as she’s talking so softly she might as well be whispering.
“My father wanted his fortune to be left intact so that it could allow future generations of his family to give more of their time to help those less fortunate,” Eliza says, barely over a whisper. “I remember everyone saying that was his fondest wish. I remember when I read that in his will as well.”
I’m silent. I never knew Eliza’s father personally. I wish, after the stories that Eliza has told me about him, that I had gotten the chance.
“Wanda doesn’t want any of that,” Eliza confides in me. “She wants the money and if she gets her hands on it, there won‘t be anything stopping her from just using it on herself, not protecting any of it for the future. Nothing will be allocated to charity. Nothing will be saved for future generations. All of my father’s hard work will have been squandered in just a few years.”
It’s a side of Eliza Seymour that the gossip columns and celebrity television shows don’t see. It’s a side of Eliza that the revolving cast of hosts in Good Day USA don’t see. I realize at that point it’s that side of her that first got me to fall in love with her.
Three.
That’s how many million dollars will be left to Eliza if we go along with Wanda’s proposal that arrives two days before the press conference. She’s proposing a settlement to avoid the court date. Give up control of all Seymour family assets and step down as custodian for the family and in return receive a lump sump payout of three million dollars.
“I don’t know if I could live on three million dollars?” Eliza says with a smile. “That’s what they expect me to say, isn’t it? She’s trying to goad me to go out in front of the cameras and say that three million dollars is not enough? Does she think I don’t know that most people live on much much less than this?”
Eliza is a different woman. She’s changed since I first met her when I married her stepmother. She’s grown up and become thoughtful and kind and compassionate. She’s beautiful and she still makes my cock hard, don’t get me wrong. But she’s also demonstrated that she has a wonderful fucking soul.
“We’re going to war in two days, baby girl,” I tell her, putting my arms around her. “This is just to throw you off your game.”
Eliza looks at me. “I could live on nothing as long as I had you,” she says to me. I can see the love in her eyes. I hold her close.
“You will always have me, Eliza Seymour,” I tell her.
She nuzzles her face into my chest and we hold each other.
But in the silence, it’s like we both know the thought hanging over our heads. How we might be happy together. But we’re not truly complete without a third.
Five.
That’s how many times I think that Derek has tried to reach me.
Two calls to my home where I’ve seen his number, but he’s hung up before I’ve picked up. One email that was pulled back. And two times an appointment has been requested to my secretary when someone has hung up when she’s asked for the name.
I know he’s trying to reach out. I know he’s trying to get in touch. But he’s not following through.
Why?
Normally, I would just go and dial Derek’s number, or show up at his office and demand to know what he’s up to.
But something tells me that this time, there’s something else that he’s doing. That he’s asking me to trust him. To let him handle this on his own.
There’s no secret what we’re doing. We’ve announced the press conference. And the entire city knows that Eliza is facing off in court against her wicked stepmother.
That just means that despite the fact that Derek has bitten me in the past, I have to trust him.
No rational person on paper would.
