15. James
15
JAMES
W hen the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, I looked up from my desk to see Mr. Sutter walking in. He carried his briefcase and a cup of coffee, and he had a determined expression on his face.
"Bronwyn, come on in." I stood and pushed aside the contract I was reviewing and reached across my desk to shake his hand as he sat down. The space felt hollow and cold today, one week until Christmas, but the atmosphere changed when he smiled and clicked open his briefcase.
"James, I have good news for you." He reached into his case and extracted a manilla file folder and slid it across my desk. His slight nod as I picked it up and opened it was encouraging.
Any "good news" from my lawyer was welcome. After the past month of stressing out over Barbra's annulment request and what it would mean for my future, I was ready to put it behind me and get on with my life. The shift in my thinking that had been agonizingly slow in coming happened when Ivy freed me from my ridiculous archaic mindset. Now I was ready to finish the process by finalizing everything.
I sat slowly as I looked over the conditions of the annulment. Barbra was asking for a hefty alimony check every month, but thankfully, she didn't try to stake any claim to my company. She'd have lost the battle, but it would've drawn things out for months. If ten thousand a month got her away from me so I could start over, so be it.
"So it's done? All I have to do is sign this?" I looked up from the paperwork, and Bronwyn nodded.
"That's it. The judge will review everything and get back with us with his judgement. It'll take a month or so, but hopefully, we'll be finished with all that nonsense by the end of January." He narrowed his eyes at me and asked, "Are you sure you're okay? I'm not a typical family law guy, but you seem to be breezing through this quite easily."
My chest constricted at his question. Bronwyn wasn't just my lawyer. He was also a family friend. He'd been at my wedding. He was there when Barbra miscarried that one time, after which she got her tubes tied. And he'd been with me every step of the way building this company. Of course he would know me well enough to know this should’ve been destroying me, if not for my secret reason. Ms. Ivy Hart.
I thought about it for a second, but there really was no other way to explain why I was handling this so well. He was right. I should’ve been falling apart, wrestling with my part in this and blaming myself. But I'd done that for the past nine months. I didn't want to do that anymore. She wanted her freedom, so I was cutting her loose.
"I think the past nine months have been long enough for me to say I don't need to break down about this anymore." I smiled and set the folder on my desk, then took out a pen, signed the paper, and handed the file back to him. "Done, and done." I nodded as he took it and put it back into his briefcase.
"There's more…" He pulled another folder out of his briefcase, this one yellow. I raised my eyebrows as he tossed it onto my desk then closed his case and set it on the ground. "It's the draft for our contract with Ms. Hart and her business, which by the way, I strongly recommend not signing until you've seen her business plan. We have to be sure what we're getting into with?—"
"It's fine," I said dismissively as I opened the folder and let my eyes pore over the words on the page. This contract interested me far more than the annulment paperwork, as this was my future. I wasn’t looking back on something that was crumbling apart. I was looking forward to my future, and it encouraged me.
"James, I'm just trying to do my due diligence with this. Pouring this much money into a company that has no name, no business plan, no structure… It's not a great idea." Bronwyn tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair on which he sat, and I was reminded that as my good friend, he was just doing his job.
I lifted my eyes from the file and sighed. "I understand what you're saying, but you don't have all the details. Ms. Hart ran a very successful firm and only recently parted ways with it to take on this new venture." The fine details weren't mine to share with my lawyer. I wasn't about to tell him how her boyfriend treated her or why she felt the need to leave.
And given my knowledge of growing a startup from the ground up, and the resources I had at my disposal, I was personally willing to guarantee that Ivy wouldn't fail. I just had a few legal questions to run past him. I wasn't really interested in his protective personal opinion.
"James, be smart. You have a lot of money. I could use it as insulation in the walls of my home, but do you really want to throw it at this woman?" He narrowed his eyes at me skeptically and pursed his lips. "You’re sleeping with her… and Barbra only just left."
To those in my inner circle who saw any of this, they'd assume the same thing and they'd be right. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t care about anyone's opinion at all. I wanted to support Ivy and help her. I knew there was a very low probability that anything would ever work out, and it didn’t change my mind at all. Even if she went her way and nothing ever amounted to anything except the amazing sex we'd had, I still wanted to support her.
"Barbra fucked her yoga instructor, Bron. I think I deserve to have a little fun." I winced at how that sounded, as if I were using Ivy as my blow-up doll. Which couldn't have been further from the truth. I sighed hard and rubbed my face. "She left. It's over. I don't think there is some waiting period I'm supposed to uphold, is there? She never stopped sleeping with him, and I'm pretty sure she moved in with him. I think I can move on."
He massaged the bridge of his nose and said, "Just be careful."
"Is there some ethical thing I should know about? I'm giving her two million dollars without any strings attached except for that two percent of her profits she forced me to write in. If we're interacting on a social level… Let's say you're right and we're screwing. Does that mean I can't invest?"
He lowered his hand and sighed and shook his head. "No. It doesn't preclude you from being an investor, but it's tricky ethically. You have to make sure this is a true intimate thing between you or things could get messy… Lawsuits over harassment and… James, she could take your whole company if it goes pear-shaped."
In my gut, I knew Bronwyn was right, but in my heart, I wanted to believe Ivy wasn't that person. She and I sparked, nothing more. I sincerely wanted to see her succeed, so if it ended with her taking advantage of me just so she could get a leg up, I'd gladly give her anything she asked for. I wasn't doing this to be manipulative. I was doing this to help her. It was what I actually wanted.
I decided that if I put good into the world, it would come back to me. And that was the position I was holding to.
Still, I knew it was tricky, just like my lawyer said. Even if Ivy wasn't the harlot Bronwyn suggested she could be, I still had to be careful. My heart was getting involved. I was caring about her far more than a business partner should, and she could get hurt too. That was the last thing I wanted for her, more heartbreak. Maybe I was going a bit too far. Maybe I should back off.