AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Drake
One week after the most horrific news delivered to us over a goddamned cell line by Jacqueline’s lawyer, and my throat still ached.
I’d lost my father. My best fucking friend. The man I’d looked up to and had worshiped as a kid.
Gone without a goodbye, one last hug, or a word of thanks for all he’d done for me. I managed to go through the motions, even hitting the gym to release some of my anger and aggression, but Preston didn’t fare as well.
He’d escaped into his mind, shutting me out immediately after the call. I couldn’t rouse him to converse with more than grunts or nods. The worst part? Preston didn’t cry. Didn’t lean into me when I pulled him in my arms, didn’t let go of the emotions he bottled up inside him. For once, I couldn’t read his face, and his eyes were dim and empty.
I tried to be patient while he worked through the tragic grief we’d been slammed with, and it fucking hurt like hell that I couldn’t comfort him.
Dad didn’t have a lawyer or a will as far as I was aware, but I didn’t care about anything he’d left behind.
I just wanted him back.
Twice, I broke down in Preston’s bathroom, choking on sobs to keep silent. I’d moved into his condo without a discussion, knowing he would eventually need me, but I hadn’t realized how much I needed him. The distance he put between us even though I stayed close by his side lanced pain through my chest twenty-four-seven atop my grief.
I was powerless, a sense of hopelessness shrouding me with dark heaviness that barely allowed me to sleep at night.
Jacqueline’s lawyers contacted us—Mr. Agosti and Mr. Barone of Agosti & Associates—then travelled to Boston at my request, since Preston refused to go anywhere. They arrived looking like mob bosses, the fine cuts of their suits, polished dress shoes, and expensive watches reminding me of the Casswell name and its value. It had been Mr. Agosti himself who had dropped the bomb of death on us the night Preston had finally admitted to loving me.
Talk about a goddamned upheaval of emotions from one extreme to the other.
The four of us sat at the dining room table in strained stillness regardless of Mr. Agosti beginning to explain Jacqueline’s final wishes. I heard every word he said but focused more on the wan, wilted man on the chair close to mine and what the reading of Jacqueline’s will would do to him.
Escape his ears completely?
Cause a rent in the wall he’d shoved his emotions behind?
I held his limp hand, praying for the latter, some sign that my lover would return to me.
All legal paperwork over the sale of Casswell Global had been completed. Mr. Agosti assured Preston there would be no issue with the settling of her estate, but he didn’t speak or even seem to care about how Preston stared at the edge of the table in front of him.
Jacqueline had owned six properties I hadn’t known about that were scattered around the globe, the private jet they’d been using to travel the world, millions in stock and bonds, and life insurance, never mind her offshore accounts and personal property, most notably artwork, antiques, and jewelry.
Preston was already a millionaire on his own, but he was about to become one of the richest men on the face of the earth.
In sweats but at least freshly showered, he remained unmoving. I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand atop my lap, listening to the lawyer across from us drone on about Jacqueline’s assets I could not give two shits about.
He mentioned Dad who’d been set to receive a third of the estate if she passed first, but with him gone too, the entire Casswell fortune would now be split in two.
Half to Preston, her only son.
The other half to…me.
Preston didn’t flinch at the unexpected news, but I jerked my focus off his pale fingers to gawk at the lawyer. “What did you say?”
“Half of Jacqueline Casswell’s fortune now belongs to you, Mr. Hemmings,” Mr. Agosti repeated.
“That’s not right.” I shook my head. “There’s got to be a mistake. I’m not—wasn’t ever adopted. I’m not—wasn’t—her son in any way.”
“I assure you, Mr. Hemmings, she was very clear on her wishes when we met with her last weekend.”
I stared at the gray haired man as he shuffled through the paperwork in front of him. “Last…when did you say?”
“She flew Mr. Barone and I to Greece just this past Sunday and made amendments to her will. Odd timing with her death on the heels of the changes, but they won’t be called into question as the helicopter crash has already been declared an accident by the Greek authorities.”
Fucking hell.
