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“Denise, your second mother, is doing quite well,” he said, like saying their names would interest her in them.
“How’s your mother doing?”
“She’s fine,” she said not willing to share with him that her mother had suffered a stroke and miraculously recovered without any lasting effects. If he was phishing, he’d get nothing from her.
“So when is the wedding?” he asked.
“We haven’t set a date,” she replied. And no, he would never walk her down the aisle.
A sigh escaped him. “I was hoping you could help me out. Putting three girls through college is putting a strain on us and I was hoping you could lend me twenty thousand dollars since you’re marrying a billionaire.”
Curses filled her brain. Her body went cold before fire rushed through her and she gasped unnerved by the gall of the man.
“Excuse me” escaped from her mouth before she had time to recover. “How much did you help me when I was going to college? Who is paying for my student loans? When was the last time you paid child support?”
About three years after the divorce, he just stopped supporting his child. When her mother asked about it, he told her he’d be sending her a check next week. Only next week never came. Every time she asked, it was always the check is in the mail.
“Now, honey,” he said. “You’re marrying a very wealthy man. You could share a little of that wealth with your father.”
Everything she’d learned about controlling her emotions in the courtroom disappeared. Only this man could make her training vanish.
“Like hell! It’s not my money, it’s Adrian’s. You have a lot of nerve to call me after ten years and expect me to send you money. You may be my father by blood, but you’ve never been a father to me since I was a little girl and you decided your second family was more important than Mother and me.”
There were other things she wanted to say to him, but she couldn’t think of them as rage flowed through her brain cells igniting them. It was a wonder her hair wasn’t on fire.
“Madison, I knew you were well taken care of by your mother. My family needed me,” he said. “All I need is twenty thousand.”
Did he not get the message?
“Yes, your other daughters needed you,” she said, her voice trembling. “Tell that to the nine-year-old who stood waiting for you to pick her up after school to spend the weekend with you. You left me at school. Did you ever think that maybe I needed a father as much as they did? And then you have the nerve to call me and want me to give you my fiancé’s money. People in hell will receive ice water faster than you’d get a dime from me or Adrian.”
With that, she hung up the phone.
Laying her head on the desk, the tears flowed. The first time he’d called her in a decade and all he wanted was money. Money that wasn’t hers and she had no right to offer. A sob escaped her as she cried for the little girl who had lost her father. She cried for all the hard work she’d done to put herself through school with only her mother’s help. She cried at the graduations he’d missed. Her high school graduation, college, and even her law school graduation. He never attended one.
And yet when he learned that she was engaged to a billionaire rancher, he wanted twenty thousand dollars.
The front door opened and she quickly swiped the tears from her eyes. Someone had walked into her law office already.
Walking out of her office, she saw Adrian with a huge bouquet of flowers in his arms.
“Congratulations,” he said, his face going from happy to one of concern. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying,” he asked, putting the flowers down and rushing to her.
He took her into his arms and she held on to him.
Did she dare tell him what her father had just done? Wasn’t this exactly like the women who were after him for his money? And now her own family member was doing the same thing.
“Nothing,” she said, the tears filling her eyes again.
Guiding her to a couch she had put in the lobby, he sat her down and took both of her hands in his.
“You’re crying. Something’s wrong. Tell me what upset you,” he said, wiping a tear from her cheek.
With a sigh, she told him about the call with her father. When she finished, she started crying again. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s not your fault,” he said. “This is what happens when someone has a lot of money. Suddenly people come crawling out of the wood shavings looking for a handout. Twenty thousand is actually a pretty low request. Normally, they want a hundred thousand dollars.”
Shaking her head, she sighed. “It’s just I hadn’t heard from him in so long and he calls to ask me for money. He did say congratulations.”
