Page 5 of Silver Fox's Secret Baby

He looked down for a moment. "You're right. When I saw these papers, I totally agreed with you."

"What do you mean when you saw these papers? You just suggested that she told you all about this."

He shoved his hands into his slacks, keeping his head down like a schoolboy about to get reprimanded. “I'd received a call from your mother about her will. I thought she just had questions, and I had some other pressing clients to work with."

"More pressing than a dying woman wanting to know about her will?" I wondered if my mom had seen this copy of the will and if not, where it had come from.

He sighed. "The point is, I sent one of the paralegals out to talk with her. I said I thought she just wanted the legal aspects explained, and a paralegal could do that."

I wondered if that was true. Were there limitations to what paralegals could do?

"When I realized what was there, I reached out to her, but..."

"But what?"

He looked up at me with regret in his expression. "She'd already died. I'm very sorry, Miss Layton. As I said, this will is completely legal."

“So, who wrote this? The paralegal?”

“Not likely, or if they did, they had another lawyer involved.”

None of this made sense. I didn’t remember anyone coming to see Mom, much less the two visits it would take to write it and have her sign it.

“Where were you?”

He winced. “Like I said, I was busy.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what happened, but there’s no way this will is legitimate. I'm going to fight it."

I turned away from him, staring at the elevator door, wondering how much longer it was going to take to reach the bottom so I could escape. But escape to what? A week ago, my world came tumbling down. It started with losing my job. I didn't blame my boss for letting me go as my work had faltered the last several weeks of my mother's life as my time was consumed with caring for her and also making sure Pax got enough love and attention. But then my mother died, and I felt like my tether to the world was lost.

And now this. I had no job, my father was evicting me, and I wasn't going to have any inheritance. Every worst nightmare that I worried about but deep down didn’t think would happen had just come true.

The elevator reached the ground floor, and when the doors opened, I rushed out.

"Miss Layton." Mr. Thompson caught up to me. "If you think there's something wrong with this, I'll look into it. I'll help you."

I stopped short, looking up at him, my eyes narrowed as they scrutinized him. "How can I trust you?"

He looked at me like a sad puppy. "I screwed up. This is my chance to make it right. I won't charge you for anything. Let me look into this."

His words were a reminder that I would need legal help if I contested the will. Legal help that costs money. Money I didn't have. "Okay, then."

He smiled. "Okay. I'll draw up the necessary paperwork and start trying to figure out what happened. "

"Starting with that paralegal, right?”

He nodded. "Right."

I still wasn't sure if I could trust him, but at this moment, I didn't feel like I had much choice. I left the building, pulling my coat around me as the chilly October air bit into me. With not much money, I decided to take the subway instead of ordering a car to take me home.

As I rode the rails, I tried to work out my next move. Neither Pax nor I had much stuff, so packing up and leaving in a week wasn't going to be a problem. The problem was where was I going to go?

When I arrived home, my mother's housekeeper-slash-assistant, Marie, opened the door. "How did it go?"

I stepped in, taking my coat off, and Marie took it from me. I realized that without my inheritance, I wouldn’t be able to continue to employ Marie.

“Everything is going to my father."

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