The Billionaire's Fair Lady. Barbara Wallace
“I think so. I skimmed most of them.” Like the man said, the letters were intimate. Reading them closely felt too much like reading a stranger’s diary.
A stranger who was her father. Come to think of it, the woman described on those pages didn’t sound very much like her mother, either.
“You’ll notice the dates, though,” she told him. “The last letter is postmarked. Nine months before I was born.”
“As well as a couple of weeks before his accident.”
The car accident that killed him. Roxy had read a brief account when doing her internet research.
The attorney frowned. Somehow he managed to make even that expression look sophisticated. “You’re positive your mother never said anything before last month?”
He was kidding, right? Roxy shot him a long look. What was with all these repetitive questions anyway? She’d already laid out her whole story. If he planned on dismissing her, then dismiss her. Why waste time? “I think I would have remembered if she did.”
“And she didn’t explain why?”
“Unfortunately she was too busy dying.”
The words were out before Roxy could pull them back, causing the lawyer’s eyebrows to arch. Clearly not the best way to impress the man.
Seriously though, how did he expect her to answer? That while on her deathbed, her mother laid out a detailed and concise explanation of her affair with Wentworth Sinclair? “She was pretty out of things,” Roxy said, doing her best to choke back the sarcasm. “At first I thought it was the painkillers talking.” Until her mother’s eyes had cleared for that one, brief instant. You have his eyes….
“Now you think otherwise.”
“Based on what I read in those letters, yes.”
“Hmmm.”
That was it. Just hmmm. He’d begun twirling the pen again. Roxy didn’t like the silence. Reminded her too much of the expectant pause that followed an audition speech while the casting director made notes. Here the expectation felt even thicker. Probably because the stakes were so much higher.
“So let me see if I have this straight,” he said finally, drawing out his words. “Your mother just happens to tell you on her deathbed that you’re the daughter of Wentworth Sinclair, the dead son of one of New York’s wealthiest families. Then, when cleaning out her belongings, you just happen to find a stack of love letters that not only corroborates your claim, but lays out a timeline that ends right before his death.” He gave the pen another couple of twirls. “Ties up pretty conveniently, wouldn’t you say? The fact both parties are dead and unable to dispute your story?”
“Why would they dispute anything? I’m telling the truth.” Roxy didn’t like where this conversation was heading one little bit. “If you’re suggesting I’m making the story up—” She knew he didn’t believe her.
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m simply pointing out the facts, which are convenient.” He leaned forward, fingers folded in front of him. “Do you know how many people claim to be long-lost heirs?”
“No.” Nor did she care about any claim but hers, which happened to be true.
“More than you’d realize. Just last week, for example, a man came in saying he’d traced his family tree back to Henry Hudson. He wanted to know if he was eligible for reparation from the city of New York for his share of the Hudson River.”
“And your point?” Anger ticking upward, she gritted her teeth.
“My point,” he replied, leaning closer, “is that he had more paperwork than you.”
Son of a—The man all but called her a fraud. No, worse. He was implying she made up the story like it was some kind of scam. As if she hadn’t spent the past month questioning everything she’d known about her life. How dare he? “You think I’m lying about being Wentworth Sinclair’s daughter?”
“People have done more for less.”
“I—You—” It took every ounce of restraint not to grab the nameplate off his desk and smash it over his head. “This isn’t about money,” she spat at him.
“Really?” He sat back. “So you have no interest at all in gaining a share of the Sinclair millions?”
Roxy opened her mouth, then shut it. She’d like nothing better than to say absolutely not and make him feel like a condescending heel, but they both knew she’d be lying. If it were only her, or if she lived in a perfect world, she could afford to be virtuous, but it wasn’t only about her. And Lord knows her world was far from perfect. That was the point. Being Wentworth Sinclair’s daughter could be her only shot at not screwing up the one worthwhile thing in her miserable life.
Try explaining that to someone like Mike Templeton, however. What would he know about mistakes and imperfect worlds? He’d probably spent his whole life watching everything he’d touched turn to gold.
Right now, he was smirking at her reaction. “That’s what I thought. Sorry, but if you’re looking for a payout, you’ll have to do better than a stack of thirty-year-old love letters.”
“Twenty-nine,” Roxy corrected, although really, why bother? He’d already made up his mind she was some lying money-grabber.
“Twenty-nine then. Either way, next time I suggest you try bringing a document that’s more useful, like a birth certificate perhaps.”
“You mean the one naming Wentworth Sinclair as my father?” The battle against sarcasm failed, badly, and she mockingly slapped her forehead. “Silly me, I left it at home.” When he gave her a pointed look, she returned it with an equally pointed expression of her own. He wasn’t the only one who could do judgmental. “Don’t you think if I had something like that, I would have brought it with me?”
“One would think, but then one would think your mother would have named the correct father thirty years ago, too.” He was folding the letter and placing it back in its envelope. Roxy wanted to grab his long fingers and squeeze them until he yelped. One would think. Maybe her mother had been afraid no one would believe her either.
“You know what,” she said, reaching for the stack of letters, “forget this.”
What made her think uptown would want to help her? Uptown didn’t care about people like her, period, and she’d be damned if she was going to sit here and let some stuffed-shirt lawyer look down his nose at her. “The only reason I came here was that your directory ad said you handled wills and estates, and I thought you could help me. Apparently I was wrong.”
She snatched her leather coat off the back of her chair. If Mike Templeton didn’t think her problems were worth his time, then he wasn’t worth hers. “I’m sure another law firm will be willing to listen.”
“Miss O’Brien, I think you misunderstood. Please sit down.”
No, Roxy didn’t feel like sitting down. Or listening to any kind of explanation. Why? Rejection was rejection regardless of how many pretty words you attached to it. She should know. She’d heard enough “thanks but no thanks” in her lifetime. And they felt like kicks to the stomach.
She jammed her arm into her coat sleeve. Emotion clogged her throat, and she absolutely refused to let him see her eyes water.
“By the way,” she said, adjusting her collar. “Your ad said you welcomed all types of cases. If you don’t mean it, then don’t say so in the headline.”
An unnecessary jab, but she was tired of playing polite and classy. Besides, being called a gold-digging fraud should entitle her to at least one parting shot.
“Miss O’Brien—”
She strode from the office without turning around, proud that she got as far as street level before her vision grew blurry.