I sat in the chair in front of Kevin's big snobnoxious desk and waited, patiently, for him to arrive home. Thanks to Lucinda and a bit of back and forth communication, I found out when he'd be in and when he'd be leaving again. Not that I'd asked about when he'd be leaving again, but Lucinda felt the need to fill me in once she got going.

"I think I should just stand here," Brecken said, standing beside the chair with his hands clasped like he was a personal body guard. I'd think that he'd dressed for the part in a leather jacket and black jeans, but that was just his usual attire. "Should I have holstered a gun or something. Glasses? You didn't tell me we were meant to dress up."

"Yeah it's a no on the gun, Breck," I said, clutching the folder of documents  Truth be told, I might be tempted to use it on Kevin if there was one present. "And you're not standing there while this happens. I told you that you'll hide in my old bedroom across the hall and come out if something goes wrong."

"Your costume is hot," he ignored me and I peered up to find him watching me with a devious grin. "You're like a sexy secretary. Or a teacher. We could have a bit of fun on daddy's desk."

"You're not well."

"Don't pretend you wouldn't be into that. You dress up all the time. You're a role play girl for sure."

"You need to quit. I almost kissed you at Christmas time and your loyalty peeped through. You'd never bend me over this desk and I'd die before it came close to that. So shut up for once, child."

He started laughing, hard. "True. Whe—"

I raised a hand to cut off his sentence when I heard the front door opening and closing. It was faint but it was enough to know that we weren't alone.

"Go!" I whispered with urgency. "Hide."

Brecken disappeared but I knew he was close and that did offer a sense of comfort. Especially when my father walked into the room in a three thousand dollar suit and a strong case of arrogance cradling his footsteps. He paused for a moment when he saw me and then his disinterest snapped into place.

"What are you doing here?" He scowled and walked further in, taking a seat at his chair, his gaze falling to the folder in my grasp for a brief moment. "You have three seconds to explain and then I'm ringing the police and having you arrested for theft and violation of a court ordered permit. Unless you brought the urn back."

"I didn't. I let mom rest on the beach in California. Like she would have wanted."

He scoffed. "So you're here because? I thought that I'd seen the last of you."

Kevin Blake is one of those men that can walk into a room and seize the attention of every single person. He's important. He's known. He's respected. He has an entire team of staff that fall at his feet. Associates that worship his words and scramble at the click of his fingers.

But all I saw was a coward.

"You're just a weak man," I said, staring at him, finding him smaller and smaller by the second. "You're weak. It's never been about me. It's been about you and your insecurities and your inability to live with the fact, that you weren't good enough for someone. And I'm not going to burden that. I'm not going to concern myself with whether or not I'm good enough for you. I'm good enough for me. You can be miserable alone."

He didn't say a word but his shoulders continued to rise and fall with deep breathing.

"Why are you miserable?" I asked, leaning forward in my chair. "You hav— had everything. You had a great job and a beautiful wife and a daughter. You have a great career and money and an apartment that people would kill for. I know that money can't buy happiness but mom was an angel. She was perfect and you never, ever appreciated her. Your life could have been so full if you'd just embraced what you had."

My gaze cast down as I thought about the words that I was telling him. Words that I needed to listen to just as much as he did. The difference was, I had an extra twenty years to embrace what I have. And I didn't want to waste them being miserable and stupid.

"What is this about, Bethany?" He leaned back in his chair, poker face in full effect. "I have work to do. So, get on with it so that I can call the police and have them collect you."

Right, that's what it was all about. In that moment of devastation over the fact that the only parent I have left, hates me, I'd almost forgotten what the mission at hand was. I dropped my folder of paper work on his desk and tapped it.

"Copies. Because I'm not stupid enough to give you the original documents."

He stared at it with boredom.

"Yeah, I can't wait for you to burn a hole in it with that glare. So, I'll just dive right in, shall I?" I mimicked his cavalier attitude and leaned back in the seat. "You don't have shit on me, Kevin. In order for you to have legal rights to mom's ashes, in order for you to have been able to legally sign the permit keeping the ashes in this apartment, you'd have had to have been married to her. Which, on the permit, you stated that you are married. You signed it as her spouse. But you divorced from her four years ago."

There it was, his tell, the bop in his throat as he swallowed. His jaw clenched and I knew that he hadn't been expecting that, at all.

I smiled, I couldn't help it. "You divorced mom back in 2015, correct? Three years after she was diagnosed. But you didn't tell me. You didn't tell anyone. Right?"

Ooh, if looks could kill.

"I'm not answering a fucking thing."

"Fine, I'll continue," I stood up and smoothed down my dress skirt. Yep, I'd dressed for the part. I couldn't help it. Cream pencil skirt, blouse and a tailored blazer along with a pair of platforms. It was office chic. Sophisticated. The look of a lawyer that was about to crush the case. "So, back in 2015, you filed for a divorce. Which, from a legal standpoint, it's just a divorce. From a personal stand point, fuck you for doing that to mom when she was so sick.

"Because she was sick. In fact, I had a look into how sick she was at the time. Yeah, her medical records were clear and said that she was not of sound mind and she hadn't been for a few months. I took the liberty of getting some legal advice and as it turns out, she would have been ruled unfit to sign legal documentation. Especially changes to an existing prenup."

He flinched and I continued to pace his office while I spoke.

"Now, again, changes to a prenup are standard. Expected even, as your assets grow and change. Except in this new prenup that was drawn up and signed, mom agreed to being left with nothing on the grounds of a divorce. No money. No assets. No property. I couldn't understand it at first. I mean, she was going to die. Why would you need to get a divorce let alone, leave her with nothing?"

He didn't snatch up the chance to answer me when I prompted him. So I sighed and continued. I had to admit, I was having a good time.

"Honestly, at first, I just wanted to find a loophole that would get me out of trouble for stealing mom. But the more I dug, the more I discovered. Beautiful. I digress. Back to the divorce. Yeah, I couldn't figure out the logic until I checked mom's will—"

"You don't have access to that."

"I don't, no. But I have resources. Associates. Please, let me finish. So, in mom's will, it states that I was to get her half. Her fifty percent in the unfortunate event of her— her death. She updated that will the moment that she was diagnosed. All that she changed was that I'd get the beach house too. You signed it. And then you waited until she was losing her fucking mind before you changed it again."

Breathing in deep, I tried to remember that this was never going to work if I was letting emotion rule me. Emotion had been a big part of this entire thing, how could it not be? I just had to be sure that it didn't get out of hand.

"Those documents should never have become court official. Not without a lawyer and at least two witnesses. Which leads me to the next chapter in this series of fucking fraudulent events. The name of the lawyer on the documents didn't sound familiar but the face that went with her photo when I googled it, bingo. Laura Wallace. She spent a lot of time in this apartment back in 2015. A lot of time in your bedroom. Which is a weird place to have meetings. I can't prove that you were having sexual relations with the lawyer handling this prenup, but I'm almost certain it would be a matter of interest in an investigation.

"As well as the fact that one hundred thousand dollars was drawn from your account and three hours later, fifty was deposited into hers. Again, not upholding evidence. But enough to open an investigation. And the two signing witnesses, I wonder how much of their twenty five thousand each is left? Probably not a whole lot considering how easy it was to put the pressure on and have them squealing."

He ran his hand across his jaw. "You want cash, right?"

My laugh was strangled in my throat. Could he be any more delirious. "No. I want you to open a trust fund for Megan's little girl. One that she can access when she graduates. And I want you to stay away from Megan."

To any other person, he wouldn't have seemed the least bit concerned about what I'd just said. But the flicker in his brow was enough to let me know that he was curious.

"She's doing just fine on her own and she doesn't need you. Her daughter deserves a better father and upbringing than I had, that's for sure. So I'm keeping hold of this evidence in case you ever decide to come along and fuck things up for them, got it? But the trust fund needs to happen and I want proof that it's been arranged."

"I'm not interested in being a father, Bethany. So you can rest assured that I won't be making an appearance in the near future," he stood up and offered his hand, as if I was just another client or an opposing counsel who he was fed up negotiating terms with. It was cold and as much as I wanted to hate him, it hurt. "I'll arrange the trust fund in the next week."

"I'm not interested in shaking your hand," I told him, words vicious and trembling as I spoke through a clenched jaw in order to hide the pain. "I reserve hands shakes for people that I respect."

"Handshakes aren't about respect, they're about an agreement. Cementing an agreement."

"I don't have to agree," I shrugged. "It doesn't matter what move you make from here, I've got the upper hand. whether we shake or not, I can give this evidence to the firm, and you're finished, I think even jail. So yeah, in this case, handshakes are about respect and I don't respect you."

"Likewise," he dropped his hand. "You could have gone far in Law. You'd have been ruthless and respected, I could tell. Instead, you wasted that natural talent on a lazy, convenient hobby. It's an embarrassment to my name."

I'm floored. He's blindsided me and knocked me down a notch to where I don't feel in control of the situation anymore. It's unnerving because I had such a tight hold on it a moment ago. He hasn't been this blatant about the subject since it happened. Back then he shouted for hour hours about the choice that I'd made. It had turned into the cold shoulder not long after, getting no words from him unless it's to say "when are you going back to College, Bethany?"

My jaw dropped to answer but the words caught and I stammered. No. No stammering. Even if he did tell me why he hates me, there were a few compliments in there somewhere. Which was totally the wrong thing to be excited about when he was being such a bastard. "I'd rather embarrass you and be happy, than do something that you approve of and be miserable. I mean, nothing really makes you happy anyway. You don't even know the meaning of the word. You're selfish, what you think of me has and never will matter to me, Kevin."

He stood up and leaned over the desk, shouting with his entire chest. "I was happy once and that all changed the minute you came into fucking existence!"

I swallowed. "Nothing surprising about that. Like I said, it should have been you, not mom. I would give anything to have her back."

"She's not even your mother," he snapped the room into silence. Not that it had been loud before but now there was something desolate about the eerie quiet that exposed my frantically beating heart. "Cassandra was not your biological mother."