Chapter 27
Avery
“I can follow up with the clinic she used, but if the director signed off on it, there’s a very low chance of fraud, Mr. McAllister. Not many people would risk their careers for a patient they have no connection to.”
My heart sank once more as I clutched my phone in my hand, Ted’s voice coming in through the speaker loud and clear.
Foolishly, I’d had hope we could make a case for proving Ana’s claims as illegitimate. Somehow backtracking through Google that she’d paid for a fake test and slapped my and her names on it to try and pass it off in order to gain access to my house.
There were plenty of documented cases of false paternities before this. Why not hope that this one was among those statistics?
While Ted was typically one to entertain my delusions, this one was clearly not one of them. Even as I begged him to dig deeper, he sounded hesitant. I’d pay him a handsome salary to do whatever was necessary, yet clearly his ethics were keeping him from making audacious claims.
“Is there any history of fraud with the clinic?” I asked.
“Again, I can look into it, but I haven’t heard anything.”
I fisted my hand in my hair and bent over to rest my elbow against my knee, balancing the phone on my other one. I was so damn tired of this—of getting screwed over at the last minute when I was finally finding myself on steadier ground.
When would it end? When would I finally be able to live my life peacefully without someone or something coming in to bulldoze it all down and force me to start over?
“I know this is disappointing,” Ted went on. “Right now all we can do is wait to see what the other party is requesting. It could be a few simple things and some money.”
“She wants the house,” I argued.
“If that’s the case, then they’re going to need to be willing to negotiate. You’re currently residing and paying the bills. That gives you more claim over the property as of right now.”
‘As of right now’ wasn’t exactly guaranteeing me forever. Not to mention everything that was inside of the property. My skin crawled at the thought of Ana rooting around my family’s personal property, looking for anything of value that would be worth her while in fighting me on.
What’s to say I kept this thing going for the next decade? Fighting her on every choice she made until she gave up and cut loose? Was that possible or would the courts force me to negotiate despite my wishes?
I found it ironic that, eventually, a baby would have the same amount of rights as me to claim property. Hell, it could probably be argued he had rights now if Steele found his client the right judge with an equally bleeding heart.
“I want my family’s assets left alone,” I mumbled into the phone.
“I know you do, but unfortunately, we’re past that point. I can call you when I get the reports sent over with what they’re interested in. After that happens, we’ll go from there.”
Dismissed. He was done dealing with me. We’d lost and Ted was cutting himself loose.
He’d gone into this thinking it’d be a cut and dry case with no frills, a little bit of paperwork to sift through and a hefty paycheck at the end. Taking me on as a client hadn’t come with a posted warning that he’d be getting more than he bargained for after signing our contract.
And now he was pulling out.
I couldn’t blame him.
If I had that option, I would, too.
“Sure,” was all I said before ending the call and tossing my phone onto the bed next to me.
I leaned the weight of my head against both palms, threading a hand through my hair and gripping the strands in my fist, a long sigh escaping me.
If it wasn’t for Brandon currently blocking my bedroom door with his body, I’d march downstairs and try to scare Ana and her lawyer into fleeing the premises, damned if the cops were called on me afterward.
Who cared at this point? Maybe being thrown in jail for the weekend would help clear my head.
Maybe I could even get some jailhouse legal advice.
The kind where I’d be paying someone under the table to find out where Ana was currently staying and scare her into getting the fuck back on a plane and heading home to Russia.
Cruel? Sure, but I was well passed giving a fuck at this point.
“Avery,” Brandon said, his soft footsteps coming over to me.
Through the strands of hair falling over my eyes, I watched him sink to his knees in front of me and reach out to wrap both hands around my wrists. He gave them a gentle tug, clearly trying to peel them away from my scalp where I was holding onto the roots hard enough to hurt.
The pain was helping clear my head though, breaking through the noise of my mind that was slowly devolving into a chaotic mess.
“Hey,” he tried again. “Look at me.”
I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. If I did, he’d see the tears brimming in my eyes. Looking weak in front of Brandon was the last thing I wanted. Not right now, at least, when I should’ve been keeping things together.
Running into snags and fixing them were a part of my job. Yet the second it had anything to do with my personal life, I was crumbling.
The second he was able to force me into dropping my hands, I fell forward until my forehead rested against his shoulder. He let go to wrap his arms around me, practically cradling me in a tight, comforting hold.
“What do I do?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.” He dragged his fingers lazily through my hair, trying to comfort me with the simple touch. “But I’m here with you. No matter what you decide to do.”
“Help me get rid of her.”
“You asking me to help you hide the body?”
Despite my horribly plummeting mood, I laughed. “Would you?”
He was quiet for a while, simply continuing the motion of his hand running through my hair. The gesture was soothing on more levels than I thought possible and exactly what I needed at the moment, regardless of how tough I wanted to pretend to be.
What good would it do trying to postulate in front of Brandon when he knew me inside and out? He could see right through me with hardly any effort and would call me out in record time if I kept it up.
That was the one thing I’d always liked about him. He knew when to keep it real with me no matter the circumstances.
When Brandon finally spoke again, his words shook me to my core. “I would go to the ends of the Earth for you, Avery.”
I pulled back to look at him, surprised to see a set frown on his face. I had half a mind to challenge him on it—to force him to prove his words and put his money where his mouth was.
But wasn’t that what he’d been doing this entire time since I’d come back? Proving to me that no matter how long and how far the distance between us had been, we’d snap right back to where we were always meant to be?
I cupped his face in a gentle hold, bringing him closer to me in order to press a couple of soft kisses to his pursed lips. I widened my legs, allowing him to slip in between them, soon getting trapped when I locked my thighs around him.
He let out a soft grunt, both of his hands coming down to rest on my thighs and give each a small squeeze.
“How did I get so lucky in meeting you,” I mumbled between kisses.
“I like to think that time at lunch when you gave me your extra pudding cup after I forgot my lunch bag on the bus was what really sealed the deal.”
“Of course I did. Your stomach rumbling could’ve woken up a dead man.”
He let out a soft snort. “I was a growing boy. Sue me.”
Smiling, I said, “Yeah. Now I can barely lift you.”
His eyes widened when I scooped him up from under his armpits and hauled him off of the floor, dragging him into my lap. Once my arms were better secured around his body, I flopped back down onto my bed, taking him with me and letting us both collapse into a heap.
Brandon’s startled grunt was the only sound he made, and aside from the slight adjustment he made in order to shove his hand under my back, he laid still against me.
I liked us like this. Pressed together with nothing but our thin layer of clothing separating us.
I wasn’t sure when my mind had made the switch from not wanting anyone to touch me or touch in reciprocation to exclusively needing to have my hands all over Brandon as much as possible. It’d come on so suddenly and with such a strong sense of conviction that ignoring it was near impossible.
Regardless, it felt right. This... This felt right.
“Bran,” I mumbled against his temple, glossing my lips along the hard ridge of his forehead.
“What?”
My stomach squeezed, my self-consciousness suddenly kicking in.
He could be humoring me with all of this.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’d pushed him into doing something he wasn’t exactly 100% on board with.
Fuck knew I had plenty of crazy schemes in the past that I’d somehow roped him into without fail by simple batting my eyes at him and promising to give it a rest for a while after the fact.
I wanted to believe this wasn’t one of those times. That Brandon was also genuine in the obvious chemistry and budding feelings between us and wasn’t simply doing any of this out of a past-filled obligation he thought he owed me.
I wasn’t exactly in-tune with who I was becoming, or what path I’d choose at the end, but what I did know was that I wanted Brandon.
I needed him.
Seeing him on that stupid date had done something to me—changed a part of my brain that I was never going to be able to undo, regardless of how hard I tried to ignore the pangs of jealousy that choked me every time I thought about that man’s hands on him.
He was mine.
“Avery...”
I loosened my arms when he moved to sit up, planting both of his hands on either side of my head while leaning over me.
He had a brow raised. “You got quiet on me.”
Smiling slightly, I apologized. “Sorry. In my head.”
“I could tell. Penny for your thoughts?”
“You’ll end up having to give me many more pennies if you want to know all of them,” I countered.
His brows pulled together. “Good or bad?”
I laughed. Leave it to Brandon to always prepare himself for the worst. Here I was contemplating how to tell him that I wasn’t about to let him go so he could run off and start dating again while he was worried I’d... what, tell him I was done with this?
Absolutely not. Not when we were this deep.
I lifted a hand to tuck a few strands of his hair behind his ear, letting my fingers linger along the shell of it and then dragged my digits down to trace his jaw. “All good. No worries,” I murmured.
He sighed softly, but looked a little more relieved. “I know you’re worried about this Ana thing.”
The reminder had me groaning. “I need to figure out how to prove all of this is false.”
Brandon tilted his head. “You really think it’s fraud?”
“It has to be.”
I couldn’t ignore the ringing of my intuition that was telling me my father would in no way get his vasectomy reversed, and even if he did, there was no way that after nearly twenty years, he wasn’t fucking dry.
The odds were way too severe.
“How are you going to go about proving it?” he asked.
I thought for a moment, tracking the movement of my fingers along his face.
What could I do?
Realistically, anything.
I had enough money to do whatever I wanted. I had a trust fund that could buy a small country and that wasn’t even counting my own separate bank account from my day job.
Why not put it to good use?
“Let’s go down to the clinic and see how far a few thousand can get us in obtaining Ana’s records.”
Brandon’s eyes widened briefly and then a determined look settled on his face. “All right. Let’s get going before she tries to steal anything more from you.”