Page 4 of Better Daddy
“Incubator?” Cal’s face lights up. “Are we getting chickens next?”
“No.” Lo is the one who practically shouts the single word, but it might as well have been me. Over the last few months, my brother has brought home forty-odd plants, at least half a dozen fish, and an oversized cat, all because of this damn woman’s riddles. “You promised no more things.”
“This is for Sullivan. Nothing to concern you.” Madame E turns and sashays out.
For me? There is no bloody way I’m bringing home a chicken or any other type of feathered creature. Especially since Cal’s enormous cat, one of Madame E’s more outlandish suggestions, would probably eat it.
“Wait.” Cal rushes after the old woman, with Lo on his heels.
“For fuck’s sake, let the woman go. We need to work.” I stalk to my office and slam the door. They won’t listen to me, but that’s no longer my problem. Inside my quiet office, I can get back to work so that when T.J. gets out of school, I can focus on him.
Since I’m forced to live in Jersey while my wife and son remain in the flat we once shared in New York City, I don’t get nearly as much time with him as I want. If I have it my way, that’ll change soon.
This move was forced upon me by my father’s will. Even in death, the man is a force to be reckoned with. Maybe it should have come as a surprise that he was in bed with a woman not even half his age—hell, she’s practically half my age—when he died, but alas, it wascompletely on brand for Terrance Murphy. The will is what truly shocked us all.
Before the reading, we were all under the impression that it would be straight forward. He’d leave the firm to his two sons and our best friend Brian, who’s always been like another son to our father. The firm he spent his entire life building, elevating it from a two-person operation in Jersey to the current massive office in New York.
Technically, he did all of those things. He just put the firm into a trust first and included a bunch of ridiculous stipulations for us to keep it. Brian, Cal, and I can eventually take over, but in order to do so, we have to spend a year in New Jersey, working and living in the building where he long ago started out.
If that wasn’t enough, our spouses and children are required to live here with us as well. And getting my wife, who filed for divorce just months before my father’s death, to agree to leave her beautiful New York penthouse for a run-down mouse-infested flat in Jersey hasn’t been easy. She’d rather finalize the divorce than ever set foot in this building.
But I have hope that I can change her mind.Hell, all I have is hope. I cannot lose everything. For months, I’ve been haunted by the idea that I drove away the one person who has always been there for me because I focused too much on providing for my family and too little on actually being with them. I’ve made it my mission to show Sloane that isn’t true anymore, that I can be better. But with this bloody trust issue thrown into the mix, it’s become exponentially harder. If I abandon the idea of living in Jersey, if I stay in New York, where Sloane and T.J. live, I’ll lose the firm, and won’t be able to provide the life they deserve.
Eyes closed, I run a hand over my face. I’ve spent enough time berating myself. There’s no point in doing it again. I need to focus all my energy on doing better.
On the other side of the flimsy hollow door, the bell chimes. Then the sound of my favorite voice floats down the hall.
“Where ishe?”
“Sloaney,” Cal calls.
“Where is he?”
The angry tone should probably worry me, but any fear is drowned out by the knowledge that Sloane made the forty-minute drive from the city to see me. If Madame E had said Sloane was coming, then maybe I would have stuck around and listened to her. That’s the kind of foresight I’d prefer. Not the nonsense she was spouting about an incubator.
I’m standing, ready to round my desk so I can greet her, when she storms in, blue eyes spitting fire.
She stomps—impressive in five-inch heels—across the room, straight to me. “You,” she accuses, poking me in the chest.
I have no idea what I’ve done this time, but it got her here, so I can’t be too upset about it.
My lips twitch, but I know better than to smile when she’s this angry. “Hi.”
“Come.” She clutches my burgundy tie and yanks me toward the door. The glare on her face says she’s upset, but fuck if I’m not a little turned on. There was a time when she’d drag me out of my office by the tie for sex. It still baffles me, how we got from that to divorce papers, but I’ll do anything to get that kind of passion back.
Sloane has always inspired me to be my best. From the moment I met her, she blew me away. Her brains and her fierce attitude drew me in and quickly led me to obsession. The first time I saw her argue in torts class, I knew I’d met my match. For more than a decade, she challenged me to be better. A better attorney. A better man.
But for the last few years, I’ve been failing her.
“We have to talk.” She drags me down the hall and into the supply cupboard.
As the door shuts behind us, dousing almost all the light, she tosses her purse onto the counter. Even in the darkened space, I can make out every detail of her expression. Probably because I’ve been obsessed with this woman for half my life.
Her dark hair is a bit of a mess, but the contrast between it andher light skin tone and stunning blue eyes literally steals my breath every time I look at her. My beautiful Irish wife captures the attention in every room she enters.
I’m still dumbstruck by the sight of her when she crosses her arms over her chest and huffs a hard breath out of her nose. Bollocks. Whatever I did must really be something.
Her nostrils flare as she inhales and exhales, like she’s trying to calm herself. “Do you remember that night back in September?”
