Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Grady
Aknock on the office door pulls me out of my thoughts, and I raise my head to find Dominic standing in the doorway.
“Sorry, I knocked twice, but you didn’t answer.”
His black hair is tied back in a French braid, the fade sharp along his temple. He wears a light gray sweater under a suit jacket and matching black slacks, and he carries a portfolio under one arm as if he just came from a meeting.
I rub my tired eyes. “Sorry about that. I was caught up in work.”
He takes in the mess on my desk, and his eyebrow lifts. “So I see. What’s all this?”
“I’ve decided to start writing for myself again.” I give him a hard stare. “And it’s not monster smut.”
He smirks. “No, leave that for my mate to handle.” He tilts his head to the side. “This isn’t the desk you were checking out in the showroom.”
“No, Emily surprised me with it.” I run my hand along the beveled edge. “Custom built for my needs.”
“She does good work.” He holds up the portfolio. “Do you have a moment?”
I cap my pen and set it down. My knee protests as I shift in the chair, the joint stiff from not moving from my position all morning. I move a stack of paper aside and motion to the clear spot.
He sets the portfolio on the desk and flips the leather cover back to reveal legal documents. “I looked into your trust, as promised.”
I pull the first document toward me, skimming the dense paragraphs.
“The relevant clause states that ‘Any amendment to the terms of this trust must be approved in writing by the designated trustee, with notarized consent from all named beneficiaries.’” He points to the paragraph in question.
My stomach sinks. “Which is my father. He has absolute veto power on anything we propose.”
“The release conditions are wrapped up even tighter,” he says. “As you know, there are age and marriage thresholds. But there are also residency requirements and documented proof of financial need, which must be verified by a third-party auditor selected by the designated trustee.”
I turn to the last page of the unsigned amendment my grandmother drafted before her death. Her name is typeset above the blank signature line. Margaret Elizabeth Finch.
She had been a supporter of the arts and always encouraged me to spread my wings beyond my father’s ambitions with his company.
She had planned to remove my father’s control over my share of the trust, but a heart attack ended her life before she could execute the changes. The original terms remained in force.
“I’m sorry,” Dominic says. “We looked for any loophole, but we can’t find one.
And to be honest, if your dad’s as big of a dick as he sounds, I don’t think he planned to give you access to this money even when you turned thirty or got married.
Guys like that will clutch tight to the purse strings to control you until their dying breath. ”
He closes the portfolio but leaves it sitting on the desk.
I let the knowledge sink in. When I first left Connecticut, I had told myself I was fine without the money. When I left for the second and final time, I told myself the same, but Dominic had given me hope.
For a moment, numbers rearrange themselves in my head.
The office on Harbor Street. A house large enough for four adults and children.
A college fund for pups who don’t exist yet.
The kind of financial cushion that would let Emily take a week off without calculating what the lost labor would cost her.
I could have brought all of that to them.
Except none of them had asked me to.
I exhale as a weight lifts from my shoulders. “Okay.”
Dominic studies me with concern. “That’s it? Just okay?”
I study the closed portfolio, the leather worn at the corners from being carried in and out of offices for years. “What else would you like me to say?”
“This isn’t a delay, Grady.” His jaw tightens. “Your trust fund is inaccessible without either written approval of the designated trustee or documented evidence of bad faith in the original drafting. And there is no evidence. I’ve looked. My entire legal team has looked. The trust is airtight.”
I lean back in my chair. “I heard you.”
Dominic frowns. “You’re taking this better than expected.”
“The trust was always conditional. I knew that.” I straighten a stack of papers. “I just hoped the conditions were negotiable.”
“They’re not.”
“I accept that.”
“Did your visit back home really go that badly?” Dominic asks. “Is there no chance for reconciliation?”
I shift in the chair, and my knee protests. “Not under the conditions they demand.”
He stiffens. “What kind of conditions?”
“Arranged marriage.”
“Ah.” He lets out a bitter laugh as he walks over to the sofa and sprawls onto it. “I’ve been there. A couple of times, in fact. Was their pick horrible?”
I ease my leg off the stool and spin my chair toward him. “No, she was perfect.”
His brows furrow. “That must have made it hard.”
“It didn’t.” I fold my hands in my lap. “I don’t want perfect. I want Emily, Jared, and Leif.”
He cocks his head to the side. “Do they know how much you gave up to be with them?”
“Leif has an idea, but it doesn’t matter. Money couldn’t give me what I needed to be happy.”
“It was a hell of a lot of money. That’s hard to say no to,” he says with the air of someone who has lived the experience.
“What happened with your arranged marriages?” I ask.
“The first was Chloe.” He turns his head to stare out the window toward the Homestead. “She was my everything, so I was happy to go along with it, but then things happened. I was young and stupid, and I lost her.”
Chloe had only told me some of what she went through before we met, but what she’d shared was rough. Kicked out of her pack, ostracized by her peers, extorted by her mother, and almost sold off as an Omega to a pack she hated.
But meeting the Wrights, and reconnecting with Dominic, had changed the trajectory of her future, and mine in the process.
“The others were Omegas picked by my familial pack,” Dominic continues. “We tried with a couple, but they were all nasty, money-hungry vipers. The money was tempting, though.”
“Money is like that,” I agree.
“It removes a lot of obstacles.”
“What hurts isn’t the money. It’s that my grandmother loved me,” I say. “She drafted that trust with my name on it because she believed I was capable of doing meaningful work.”
My thumb finds a grain line in the walnut and follows it, the ridge warm beneath my skin.
“She didn’t care if I published a novel or opened a bookstore or spent the rest of my life reading other people’s manuscripts in a shed by the water.
She just wanted me to have the freedom to choose.
And my father has been using that intention as a leash for years, trying to control my future. ”
Dominic’s attention shifts to the pages scattered across my desk. “So what are you writing?”
My first instinct is to cover the nearest page, which is absurd. I’ve spent my adult life asking writers to hand me their most vulnerable work and trust that I will treat it gently. Apparently, the experience is considerably less comfortable from the other side.
“A story about how four people fall in love.”
“Fiction?”
“Technically.”
His mouth curves. “Does the handsome architect play a significant role?”
“At present, he has one line.”
“Make it memorable.”
I trace a finger over my notes. “My grandmother bought me my first typewriter when I was twelve, despite my father insisting it was a distraction.”
“Well, your father can keep control of all the money. He doesn’t get control of this.” He gestures toward the desk, the pages, and perhaps the cabin beyond them. “The money was supposed to give you permission to choose your life. You’ve already chosen it.”
“I have.” My manuscript pages catch the light, handwritten lines dense with ink, and somewhere in there is a line I was trying to remember when Dominic arrived. “Which is why I’m going to utilize all of my benefits once I join the Wright Pack.”
His head whips back toward me. “You’re taking us up on the offer?”
“As long as me losing the trust hasn’t changed your mind,” I say, suddenly uncertain.
“Not at all.” He leaps to his feet. “Though I want you to understand it’s about more than benefits. That was my hard sell on you joining because it mattered, but we’re going to be family, which means all the messy and wonderful things that come with being part of each other’s lives.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Emily’s helped me to understand that.”
“Have you told Chloe yet?” he demands, before he shakes his head without waiting for an answer. “No, of course you haven’t, or she would have already been shouting it from the top of the grand staircase.”
I lean back in my chair. “I believe Emily and Jared are putting together a proposal.”
“They can have anything they want.” Dominic rushes toward the door, pauses, and circles back to grab the portfolio. “I’ll prep the paperwork. When are we doing this?”
I laugh at his excitement. “You’ll have to ask Emily.”
“We’ll do it by the end of the week.” He spins back on his heel, striding toward the door. “There’s no changing your mind, Grady. You’re ours now.”
“Thank you for looking into the trust, Dom,” I call after him. “You didn’t have to.”
“I did have to.” He pauses to peer back, the portfolio tucked under his arm. “You’re pack. Or you will be, once the paperwork is filed. That means your problems are my problems, and I solve problems. Well, usually.”
I wave that away. “Don’t worry about the trust. It was a long shot.”
“I’m sorry your grandmother never signed the amendment.” He gestures to the desk overflowing with paper. “But for what it’s worth, I think you’re doing her memory proud, even without the money.”
With a tap on the doorframe, he heads out, but his words linger long after he’s gone.
Pack.
My father had controlled me for years with the promise that one day, if I became who he wanted, his problems might become mine to solve.
Dominic had spent weeks trying to solve mine before I was legally his family.
The inheritance may be gone, but I had not left Connecticut empty-handed.