Page 29 of Necessary Cruelty

Bullshit.

“There’s always something you can do. Aren’t you the guy who never stops talking about how it was the IRS that took down Capone? If there’s a crime, there’s a way, that’s always you when you’re bragging about a case. Well, this isn’t just a crime, it’s a fucking travesty.”

“And it’s also ironclad.” West leans back in the leather chair and drums his fingers on the African Blackwood desk that probably costs as much as the average paralegal’s salary. He might pretend to be the morally upstanding assistant district attorney, but he enjoys the trappings of wealth as much as the next trust fund baby. “I’ve read over this thing at least a dozen times, and at least half of those were only because your father begged me to help him find a loophole. If you want to get pissy with anyone, it should be him for signing this damn thing in the first place.”

The familiar anger rises in me. “Because he should have known my mother would die in childbirth and invoke the codicil?”

“Of course not.” The look he casts me isn’t without some empathy — we are talking about his sister, after all. “But the fact remains that your mother’s portion will return to Abbott holdings in a year unless you fulfill the requirements. There isn’t any way around it.”

Leaning back in my chair, I lift my legs and rest my dirty heels on top of the immaculate desk. “And the fact that you’re an Abbott doesn’t have anything to do with your unwillingness to help. How much of that money will be going to you if I don’t marry a Founding daughter, dear uncle?”

“Watch your tone with me, kid.” West’s steely-eyed gaze makes it clear that he can only be pushed so far. “I don’t need your money, but if you don’t want my help, then feel free to let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

It’s eight in the morning, the earliest that the doors of the courthouse open. I know that because I had waited outside for the past hour or so. Way too early for this shit. Not like I ever actually get sleep, but my mind never races the way it has for the last few hours, ever since I got the news that the only person standing between me and the poorhouse is Zaya fucking Milbourne.

“Okay, you’re right.” I’m not going to apologize, but West knows better than to expect that from me. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“Exactly what the agreement says: convince the girl to marry you and get her pregnant, ideally within a few months, but the contract gives you a year. Keep in mind, there only needs to be a confirmed pregnancy for the codicil to be fulfilled.”

I raise a mocking eyebrow. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

“Miscarriage,” West bites out. “My mother struggled with fertility issues, so the contract provides some allowances. Married by nineteen and pregnant at least once by age twenty, those are the requirements.”

I wouldn’t be able to think of a more ridiculous situation if I tried. “But why nineteen? I haven’t even graduated from high school yet. Marriage can’t wait for longer than the first semester of college?”

“Your Grandpa Abbott believed in marrying young. He met his wife when she was fifteen, and they had their first child only a year later. It’s something of a family tradition.”

Because the rich are allowed to have predilections that would be forbidden to anyone else.

“Except nobody forced you to get married when you were still in high school.”

“I’m an Abbott, not a Cortland. Your father wanted a piece of our pie, and he knew what that might require. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

It’s hard not to feel like someone is making a point of conspiring against me. Grandpa Abbott died when I was still a kid, but he had to have known the kind of chaos that would result from this stupid agreement.

This shouldn’t be legal.

The basic mechanics of it could be manageable. Getting married so young isn’t even really the problem — a quickie divorce after a few years should be relatively easy to brush under the rug. There are plenty of girls who’d be willing to visit a clinic, or at least take a settlement for child support and then be on their way.

It is the who that has become my major sticking point.

“What about this crap with the girl needing to be from a Founding family? The Abbotts aren’t Founding.”

“And that fact stuck in his craw until the day my father died.” West lets out a rueful laugh, as if the insane ramblings of a demented old man are somehow humorous. “I’m not saying you have to like it, but if you want your inheritance, then you know what you have to do. Marry a Founding girl and get her pregnant, then the two of you can quietly divorce as if it was just a short and forgotten chapter in your lives. You don’t even need custody of the baby to make this work.”

I want to rip out every hair on my damn head. This is the most frustration I’ve felt in my entire life. “The only Founding daughter even remotely appropriate is Zaya Milbourne. I’m not exactly her favorite person in the world.”

“Sounds like you’ve got some buttering up to do.”

I’ve spent the majority of the last five years making her life a living hell. There isn’t enough butter in the world to grease my way through Zaya’s defenses. The minute she finds out that the my future is in the palm of her hand, she’ll crush it into dust.

I grit my teeth. “Zaya hates me.”

And I hate her.

“A year will go by before you know it.” West’s smile is grim. “Better get started changing her mind, and soon.”

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