Page 51 of Forever King

“No, send her in as soon as she arrives. I’ll be waiting.”

I walk back into my office and try to sit down, but I’m too jumpy. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous about a meeting with anyone, much less Cynthia Dwyer. I’ve known her for years. For God’s sake, we practically lived together for my entire first semester at college. She knows me almost as well as my family does, so I have nothing to be nervous about.

Except the entire reason for our meeting.

After checking the time on my watch for what must be the tenth time in less than two minutes, I see the second hand finally signal it’s nine am. My heart races, so I stand up to walk around my office. A little exercise never did anyone any harm, right?

Sure, except with the way I’m feeling right now, my heart might explode out of my chest if I walk too fast. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m this nervous. I need to get it together, or Cynthia is going to think I’ve lost my mind.

A quick tap on the door is followed by it opening, and she walks in looking as confident as ever. That’s a good sign. I notice she’s done something new with her hair. Maybe some kind of highlights to make the brown more golden? I’m not sure. I simply recognize she looks different than the last time I saw her a few days ago.

“Matthias, how are you?” she asks before leaning in to give me a hug. “Sit down. Let’s talk. I have some things to tell you.”

Jesus, I don’t think my nervous system can take this kind of overload. If she doesn’t tell me something to put a fucking smile on my face in the next minute or so, I might just stroke out.

“Good, I guess,” I say as I take a seat at my desk and she sits down in front of me. “How are you?”

While she rifles through her briefcase and pulls out a stack of papers, she answers, “Same. Good. You know how it is.”

Ordinarily, if this were one of our usual meetings, I’d ask for specifics, but today I don’t have the bandwidth to discuss some issue with her dog or how the escrow process with the house she’s buying has become a bear and a half.

This isn’t one of our usual meetings, though. Today I’m all business, or at least the business she and I have together.

“So what’s the word?” I ask far too eagerly.

If this were a normal business meeting and she wasn’t my lawyer, I’d likely have given away any upper hand I have by being so impatient. Thankfully, that’s not going to hurt me with Cynthia.

When she looks up from her stack of papers, I know the answer isn’t the one I want. She nods, practically swallowing her lips, before she sighs.

No, that’s never a good sign from your lawyer.

“She won’t sign. That’s what her attorney told me right before I walked in here this morning. She simply won’t.”

Fuck!

I’m to blame for this mess. I was so busy dealing with the death of my father, being upset with Ava being with Theo and then his death right after we fell in love that I never dealt with the one issue I should have. Then I had to run King Industries and create a life with her and now three kids that I completely forgot.

Now that damn problem has come back to haunt me.

“She won’t take the money?” I ask, desperately wishing that could solve this problem.

Cynthia frowns and shakes her head. “Nope. And she doesn’t care about the house either.”

Furious at myself, Jillian, and this whole fucking mess, I stand up and begin to pace through my office. “Then what thehell does she want? We didn’t own anything together other than the house and a couple cars, but she’s had them all this time. Fuck, she had the house this whole time. I thought she was living there.”

“She was. In fact, when I put it to her attorney that you’ve been paying for that house all this time and could easily take it back and throw her out onto the street, he didn’t seem to care at all.”

I stop next to Cynthia’s chair and let my shoulders sag, finally feeling defeated over this divorce disaster. “What do I need to do? She doesn’t want money or the house I thought she cared about. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. If I don’t, I won’t be able to marry Ava in less than two weeks, which will break her heart. I can’t do that to her, not because of this. So tell me what you think I should do to fix this problem.”

For a long moment, Cynthia doesn’t say a word. I get the feeling she has an idea, but for some reason, she’s hesitant to say it. She doesn’t have to worry about it being too outrageous. If there’s even a chance it might work, I’ll do it.

Finally, she answers, “She wants to meet in-person.”

Damn. I wasn’t expecting that.

“Really? Why?”

She scrunches up her face and says, “I get the feeling Jillian has something she wants to say to you but doesn’t want to do it through her attorney. We’ll be there, of course, but I won’t be surprised if she asks to speak to you one-on-one.”