Page 90 of Signature Of You

“I’ll pull back a little and get your approval before I make big decisions.”

“Thank you and I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate…”

“I get it.” And I did. The parent role was hard. Our mother did everything right. She was the constant parent but every time our father decided to acknowledge us and showed up for a weekend of fun, providing things our mother couldn’t because his role was part time, we took it out on her when she couldn’t do the things he could. The older we got the more we learned to appreciate the consistency over the pop ups and splurges. “I’m not offended. I promise I understand, but there’s something else we need to discuss right now.”

A panicked look flooded her expression and I wanted to tell her not to worry but truthfully she needed to. “Is something wrong?” She pulled away from me and sat up straight, lowering her feet to the floor.

“Don’t know yet. Hang on. I need to get something.”

She nodded while I left the room and returned with the contracts that Drew had sent me earlier today.

I handed them over and she frowned flipping through the pages, glowering harder with each line she read.

“What is this?”

“Dresden sent them to Drew. He wants to meet about Gracie and sent those as a threat to get you to agree.”

She looked down at the contract in her trembling hands and that made me move closer. “Hey, look at me.”

Her eyes slowly crawled up to mine, misting over. “He doesn’t get to either one of you unless he goes through me and that’s not happening.”

“Okay.” She shook her head. “But if he wants her and she’s his…” She swallowed thickly not wanting to speak the possibility out loud.

“Doesn’t matter. He has to go through me and I promise that’s not happening.”

“But she could be his,” Cadence said lowly. “He could take her from me. He has money, I don’t.”

“You have me. Fuck his money, Cadence. Let’s not worry about that right now because he’s not saying he wants her. Only that he wants to meet about this.”

I pointed to the contract and her eyes lowered. “I don’t know what this is.”

She flipped the pages a few more times still coming up empty with the expression she offered.

“Drew looked those over and so did I. It’s a songwriting contract. An exclusive one. It says that he paid you a hundred grand over four years. Money he advanced you to write for artist on Global Records. With any song you completed you’d have a fifty-fifty royalty split.”

“But I never agreed to this.”

“You said you wrote songs and he paid you.”

“I did but I never signed a contract. I never agreed to any terms and he damn sure never gave me that type of money.”

I lifted the contract and shuffled to the last page, pointing out the signatures. “You didn’t sign this?”

“No. That’s not my signature. It looks like someone tried but it wasn’t me. I never signed these. Either he did it or he had some do it.”

“You’re sure? Maybe he told you it was something else.”

“No, I didn’t sign that. That is not my signature.”

“That’s good but it’s still your word against his.”

“Can’t a lawyer get someone to analyze this? To prove I wasn’t the one that signed it? Aren’t there people who do that?”

“Yeah there are and if you’re sure you didn’t…”

“I did not sign that contract.” I leaned in and kissed her temple.

“Okay calm down. I’ll call Drew tomorrow and we’ll figure this out, but Dresden wants to see you.”

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