Page 289 of The Lies We Play

This is where I could bring up that he doesn't need his grandfather’s fucking money. That I signed a new contract and my sponsorships alone could support the three of us. That he has managed my investments well enough that we have buildings, assets, accounts, and a future that is not dependent on Cornelius Saint Claire leaving him a dime.

It would be useless.

This is not about money.

Not to Hal.

He has been trying to help his grandfather do something decent with all of it. Create jobs. Protect employees. Turn a family built on taking into a structure that gives something back.

Now it has become a mission.

And Halston Saint Claire, on a mission is not a man you can talk out of caring.

“So we hire lawyers and fight the assholes,” I tell him. “I’m all in. Team Hal creates a better legacy for the Saint Claires.”

Liv looks at me. “That sounded like a campaign slogan.”

“I’m still workshopping.”

Halston doesn't smile.

“But,” he says, “my grandfather wrote a codicil.”

“A codicil?” I ask, because, as much as I am trying to be a good partner to my almost-lawyer boyfriend, I am better at stats, hockey, and knowing when a forward is going to fake left and cut right.

“A codicil is an amendment to a will,” Halston says. “A legal add-on. It can change part of the will without rewriting the entire document.”

“Okay.”

“He told me about it around Thanksgiving,” Halston says, “when I told him I was not going to the dinner and would be going to Toronto.”

I grin before I can stop myself, because he went to Toronto with me.

Then the timing catches up. “You didn’t tell us.”

He looks at me.

“It didn’t seem important back then.”

Liv’s head tilts. “Back then?”

“Back then, he was healthy,” Halston says. “And died two weeks later. And there’s a second piece to the codicil that isn’t done.”

Liv doesn't speak.

I don't speak.

Halston’s hands stay flat on the marble. He looks at them like the answer might be there, embedded somewhere under the stone.

“The codicil amends the succession structure of the family trusts,” he says. “The default structure—the one my grandfather inherited from his father, who inherited it from his father—says I assume direct management of the trusts when I turn thirty.”

Liv says, “So not now.”

“What happens until then?” I ask.

“Until then, the trusts are managed by a trustee panel. My stepmother. Whit Whelan. Margaret Ellery. Two others.” His mouth tightens around the names. “They have full fiduciary authority. They can buy, sell, allocate, divest, restructure, donate, and reorganize anything inside the corpus as long as they have consent and my signature. If I don’t sign, they get nothing.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “So we don’t have to worry?”