Page 16 of Silver Fox's Secret Baby

"Surely, they have telephone service in South America."

"Not in every area. Not apparently where she was going." He sat up, leaning forward again. "I understand that the situation is stressful for you. I promise, I am looking into this."

"But only around your billable hours,” I quipped, feeling defeated and yet determined to fight it.

He let out a sigh. "I'm on track to become a partner."

I hadn't started working yet, nor received the signing bonus Henry said he was going to give me. I knew from experience that it wasn't good to spend money before you had it.

But maybe it was time for me to retain Mr. Thompson as my attorney. "How long do you think this will take, and how much would you charge me?"

His brows rose in surprise. "Yesterday, I thought your financial circumstances were tight."

"They've loosened up a little bit.”

He thought for a moment. "If you pay your retainer of, say, $3,000, that'll be about ten hours of work and I would imagine that would be enough to track down how this new will came to be. It may or may not include the work to create the papers to contest it and file them in court—"

"Fine." I stood. "Will you draw me up an invoice and send it to me? The meantime, I can give you $1,000 right now, which should give me a couple of hours of work, am I right?" It would nearly deplete my bank account.

He nodded. "Ms. Layton, I meant what I said, that I would do this pro bono."

"But I can't afford to be put at the back of the line because of that." I pulled out a notepad from my purse and wrote down Henry's address. "Pax and I will be at my mother’s house for the next day or so, but then we’ll be staying here."

He took the paper, looking at the address, his brows rising again. "Riverside Drive."

"It's a friend of mine."

“You have important friends.” He said it more to himself than me. Then he looked up. “I assure you, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“My mother trusted you, Mr. Thompson. I hope I can too.”

“Please, call me Lucas.” He came around his desk. “I promise you, I’ll figure this out. Gwen was a lovely woman, and she was devoted to you and your son.”

I left his office, getting into the elevator for the long ride down. I wasn't normally an assertive or demanding person, and when I was, I found it took a lot of energy from me. So when the elevator doors closed, I leaned against the wall, hoping I did enough to convince Mr. Thompson... Lucas... to take my case.

None of this today had been easy, but I remembered my mother once telling me that challenges were God's way of making us stronger so that we could live a more fulfilling life and meet our potential. I wasn't sure what lessons were going to be learned by taking Henry up on his offer or pushing Lucas Thompson harder to look into my case.

In fact, I wondered if maybe I should get another lawyer. Who knew what sort of screws my father was going to put on Lucas?

Then again, he’d probably do that to any lawyer I hired. If my father had put all his time and energy into legitimate work instead of scheming and manipulating, he'd be successful. Of course, it probably wouldn’t be as fun for him. I’d long suspected that there was a part of my father that enjoyed hurting people. Like yesterday, I think he relished watching my reaction to learning that I wouldn’t be getting anything from my mother.

I returned home and found Marie in my mother's office.

When I walked in, she jerked up and gave me an expression as if she'd been caught. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be back so soon." She shut the drawer.

Her behavior was odd, considering she'd been my mom's assistant and probably knew more about what was in this office than my mother did. "What's going on, Marie?"

She came around the desk looking forlorn. "I just can't believe your mother would have done this to you, and I was hoping that maybe there was something in her desk that would prove she hadn't."

I nodded because that made sense. "Why are you acting like you shouldn’t've been doing that?" That was the part that didn't make sense.

"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to get your hopes up. I thought I would just look and see if there was something we could use, but if not, well, then you wouldn’t be disappointed."

"I appreciate your trying to spare my feelings. I suppose the person—probably my father—who put this in motion likely got rid of any evidence. The good news is that I have a job and a place for us to stay. It also means that I can keep you on. I'll be honest in that the job will be mostly helping with Pax, but I'm also planning on starting a business, and maybe you can help me with that too."

Marie's eyes lit up. "How did this happen? It's like a miracle."

I nodded. "The man I had interned for during my senior year in college has offered me a job. He also happens to be Victoria’s father. He's allowed us a place to stay in his house."

---