Contractually Yours

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

ENFIELD UNDERGROVE

The guard’s hold on my elbow is light. It’s a show more than him actually keeping me under his control. It’s not like I’ve been a horrible inmate.

He leads me down the cold hall and toward the door that somehow screams freedom. The same glowing EXIT sign that every other public, government, or commercial building exterior door in this country hangs over it. There’s nothing special about this one. It’s nothing more than a feeling.

Another guard opens the door. We pause just beyond the threshold, and the guard leading me unlocks my cuffs before handing me my phone and wallet.

“Have a good afternoon, Mr. Undergrove,” the guard says. “We don’t want to see you back here.”

I incline my head. No, that’s fair. I don’t particularly want to go back to prison either. As exciting as it was, I think I’ll pass.

My attorney, Nash Van Doren, is waiting for me with a frown. I don’t think this man knows how to smile. Not in my presence anyway. He should be thrilled to see me at all times. It means he’s getting another paycheck for something ridiculous.

“Mr. Undergrove,” Nash greets.

“Aw, come on. Aren’t we friends, Mr. Van Doren?”

Nash gives me a deadpan expression, and I grin. He doesn’t say anything further while he leads me to his black SUV. He opens the passenger side door for me, and I grin. “Such a gentleman.”

No reaction. No response. He waits for me to settle before shutting the door. I watch him round the front of the vehicle, and join me inside. Once his door is closed, he turns the engine on and shifts to face me.

“You paid some woman to lie about you assaulting her, Enfield?” Nash demands.

I shrug, turning my attention out the window. The sun is bright today. I wish I had my shades.

Tammy—the woman I paid to lie to accuse me of assault—wasn’t excited, but she enjoyed the payday. Honestly, I thought she’d keep up the ruse longer than she did. It’s hard to get good help these days.

“I should have known you were lying when you outright insisted that you ‘beat her senseless’ in a tone you’ve used to talk about afternoon tea,” Nash hisses.

He backs out of the parking space and pulls up to the parking lot exit.

“If you’re that desperate to get out of a marriage contract, then simply refuse, Enfield.

There’s no need to put that bullshit on your reputation. ”

“I want my trusts,” I say dully. “I want my shares of the company.”

Nash sighs. “Do you hear yourself? You’re willing to be convicted of assault and battery and live in prison, where you’re not going to see your trusts or company shares, but out of prison, you insist on them.”

“Tells you how much I don’t want to be married to some stupid biddy,” I say, shrugging.

He sighs again. I’m waiting for the day he fires me. It’s coming. I can feel it.

“There has to be some way out of the contracts and still get what’s owed to me,” I complain and watch him as he concentrates on the road. “Isn’t there? How can you not have found a loophole yet?”

Nash doesn’t look at me. “I’ve examined every document you’ve given me and, from what I can see, the only way to get ‘what’s rightfully yours’—your words and literally no one else’s—is through marriage.

They’re privileges for those who further strengthen the family, not a birth entitlement.

You already have that trust, and you’re burning through it with the nonsense you continue to pull via paychecks to me. ”

He stops at a traffic light and looks at me. “Listen. I understand. I’d be furious and dig my heels in if my parents pulled something like this, but Enfield, you’re going to empty your bank account with your antics and have nothing left. Is that what you want?”

“I want to be my own fucking person and not live by some barbarically archaic marriage contract to some fucking woman I don’t love just to be an equal part of my fucking family,” I snap.

Nash inclines his head. But I’m not finished. The nonchalance I’ve carried around for years feels like it’s being stripped from me and I continue to unload.

“Marriage does not make someone magically mature. I have two degrees. I’m ready to be a part of this fucking business.

I have ideas. I have plans that could bring us further into the future and be incredibly profitable.

But I’m not allowed to if I’m not fucking married!

If I don’t have a damn kid with a woman that my parents choose based on pedigree and social standing.

Do you understand how fucked up that is?

I’m not worth shit to these stupid people if I’m not married with kids!

I’m so fucking sick of stupid bullshit that my family insists on maintaining simply because we’ve always practiced and lived this way.

We also used to live in caves and drink out of skulls hundreds of years ago.

Times change. We should be changing with them. ”

Silence fills the car. The only sounds in the cab are the noise of the tires on the highway and passing cars. My fists are clenched in my lap. I could hit someone right now, and I’ve never hit a person in my life. Including Tammy Lyle.

“I’m sorry, Enfield,” Nash says.

“This isn’t even cultural,” I mutter and slink down into my seat a little.

“Most people who hear about this are horrified, including those I share it with in this fucked up country. That says a lot right there. A country so damn scared of change that they have laws to try to keep everyone in their 1800s gender roles. They take back rights quicker than they progress in human equality. And they’re horrified by contract marriages. ”

Nash chuckles quietly.

“I didn’t mean to unload on you. I guess I’m preparing for the hours of mutism I’ll be practicing when you drop me off at my parents’ house.”

He’s still smiling as he drives down the highway.

We’ve been surrounded by California forests for a while now, so it’s not too much longer before we’re turning toward Napa Valley.

While we don’t own a winery, my dad’s sister married the Holt Grove heir, so we now have a house in Napa Valley.

That’s where my parents spend most of their time.

The rest of the drive is silent. I watch the familiarity of my surroundings increase the closer we get. My gut clenches. Might just be the prison food I ate this morning. They don’t hire gourmet chefs, after all.

All too soon, Nash pulls into the driveway, and I stare at the house with a scowl. This is where my car is parked. That’s the only reason I’m here. He puts the SUV in Park and shifts to look at me.

“If you can provide me with anything that works in your favor, Enfield, you know I’ll do what I can to exempt you from the marriage contract and assure you still receive your trusts and company shares.

But what I have thus far isn’t helping your case.

Your destructive behavior is only hurting the innocents you continue to bring into the world. ”

He’s referring to my children. Three children, to be exact. With three different women. I have an heir. I have three heirs now. Surely that’s fulfilling some stupid stipulation, right?

The answer is no. My parents refuse to acknowledge my children. Not that they’ve met my children. I would never let them meet my children. Not now.

“I know,” I concede.

“Your bank account is going to get a little thin if you’re not being smart about what you’re doing. The larger trusts aren’t released to you until you meet the requirements put forth, and I can’t do anything about that until I have actual loopholes to work with.”

“I know,” I repeat.

Nash grips my forearm, and I meet his eyes. “Instead of causing chaos, focus on something productive. Find me documents—any and all, even if they look like something irrelevant. Okay?”

“Yeah.” I turn my attention back to the house. That means going inside. I have some shit in the desk drawer in my childhood bedroom. Irrelevant as far as I can tell, but I came across them when I was seventeen and first started butting heads with my parents about this. “Thanks, Nash.”

He grips the back of my neck briefly before reaching into the center consol. His hand comes out holding my car keys. I grin, accepting them.

“Be good. Don’t waste your money. No more bullshit like you just pulled. No more kids that you need to support when you have no money coming in. Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Get out of my car.”

Grinning, I release my seatbelt and push the door open.

My parents’ house looms ahead. I think it’s growing with the seconds that tick by because I don’t want to go inside.

However, I’m a big boy, and while the papers in that desk are likely useless, I’m going to get them.

Then I’m going to see my infant daughter.

Maybe I can get inside without my parents knowing I’m there. Unlikely. They both probably saw Nash’s vehicle. Then again, had they seen it, they’d be outside to make sure they could yell at me before I sneak off.

Sure enough, as soon as I open the front door, my mother is there.

“Enfield!” she shrieks. “What were you thinking? Analise’s family called to cancel the contract we’d drawn up.

Even when that woman announced that it was all a lie, that you put her up to, they’re not willing to look beyond this transgression. ”

I walk past my mother without a word. Silence doesn’t make her go away. In fact, it’s somehow a beacon that calls to my father, and he’s there at the bottom of the stairs. His face is red and furious.

“You are out of your mind, son!” he bellows. “Do you have any idea how this looks? How does this paint the family’s image? Of all the shit you’ve pulled in the last few years, this is the most horrendous. Why would you pay a woman to lie and claim that you assaulted her?”

On and on they go. While their words change, it’s all the same shit. My father is furious about how it portrays our family. Our reputation. The family image. Always more important than anything else—including the happiness of their children.

My mother won’t shut up about the contract I cost them with a wonderful girl who’d make a wonderful addition to the family, a perfect wife, and a spectacular mother. She was born to be my wife, but now she’ll have to start over. Who’s going to want me now?

The irony is they both fail to see that’s the exact point. If no one wants to marry me, then I should be out of the woods. No marriage contract. If no one wants me, then that’s not my fault, and I should still be entitled to what’s mine.

Their lamenting continues as I enter my childhood bedroom and pull open the drawer in my old desk. Neither asks what I’m doing. Not even when I remove the false bottom and pull out a sealed manila envelope. I’m not sure they even see it.

I replace the false bottom and close the drawer. Then I leave the room with my parents on my heels, still carrying on as if I’m listening to them. Newsflash: I’m not.

They follow me outside, and their fury shifts to a demand to know where I’m going. I can’t leave. We have details to discuss. I need to stop being a child throwing a tantrum and begin a respectable life.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Without a word or even acknowledging them, I climb into my car and drive away.

Sarah’s apartment is twenty-five minutes from my parents’. I lock the documents in my glove box before getting out and climbing the stairs two at a time to the third floor. My knock on her door is louder than I intend. It echoes in the hall.

I’d like to get her into a nicer place. She’s refused my every attempt at moving her somewhere else, though.

Sarah opens the door and smiles. “They let you out, huh?” she asks.

I lean in and kiss her cheek. “Didn’t you hear? It was a lie. It never happened.” I warned all three baby mamas of what was about to happen. Sarah rolled her eyes. I could hear it over the phone. Amelia’s response was the same, though she did make her displeasure known.

Courtney was furious. Then again, she’s always angry at me.

Not that I blame her. It’s not like I asked her before I intentionally knocked her up.

Out of all the shit I’ve pulled, that’s the one regret I have.

Not my son. I don’t regret him. I regret that I used Courtney as a tool. It’s her body, and I fucked up.

“Come in,” Sarah says and takes a step back so I can come inside.

The apartment is small, but it’s nice. It feels more comfortable than nearly any other place I’ve ever been.

“She needs to wake up to eat, so go ahead. She’s in her room.”

I incline my head and move down the short hall to where my baby daughter’s room is. She’s wrapped in a swaddling blanket as if she’s in a cocoon. She has a head full of dark hair. Maybe I’m biased, but she’s the most beautiful little girl.

Smiling, I carefully pick her up and bring her to my chest. “Look at you growing,” I murmur and press my lips to her forehead. “Sweet, perfect little girl.”

As I look at her, I think that perhaps my anger toward my parents has grown so greatly because they refuse to acknowledge my children as family.

They’re born out of wedlock to someone they don’t approve of.

Three separate someones. Their disregard for my children never ceases to make red-hot anger surge inside me.

When I brought the birth of my first son, Ronan, to them four years ago and told them I insisted they include him in all future attempted marriage contracts, and they refused to acknowledge, never mind disclose, that he exists and is of my blood…

well, that killed any lasting affection I had toward them at that point.

My children exist. They’re mine. I love them, and I’m proud of them. Even if I had them for the wrong reasons.

I sit in the rocking chair and stare at Theodora. My first daughter. I amend my thoughts so that they’re now my only daughter. Nash is right. No more kids. While I know none of my children suffer or live in poor conditions—I did choose their mothers purposefully—they deserve more.

Sarah hands me a bottle, and I gently coax Theodora awake while Sarah sits on the hassock in front of me. “You done with the shenanigans now?” she asks.

I sigh. No, I just need to be smarter about them. Nash is right. My bank account is going to run thin if I’m not careful. I have babies to think about. And I sure as fuck won’t be the next victim of these stupid marriage contracts.