She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, I fixed it because that’s my job. I ensured your end is ironclad and had the documents couriered over. They lost them. Twice. His office is either extremely incompetent or the courier is.” When she was silent, he continued. “I inquired about the contract last week and do you know what his lawyer suggested?”
Her stomach was twisting into worried knots. “No, what?”
“That I let him know how much I’d be willing to take to overlook a few clauses. Again, clauses not in your favor.”
She gasped.
“My thoughts exactly,” her lawyer said drily. “And when I said that what he was suggesting was illegal, he said I’d heard him wrong and the contract would be on my desk in a few days. Guess what.”
“It’s still not there?” She felt sick.
“Bingo.”
“What does it mean?”
“It means that whoever you are determined to keep from having parental rights from this baby is equally as determined to try and weasel their way out of things. And now you’re calling me and asking me to forget it? I just find that awfully convenient.”
She did, too. Her stomach clenched in misery. Something about this wasn’t adding up. Asher hadn’t mentioned anything with the contracts, and he was careful not to mention the baby . . . unless he was planning on doing something awful?
Surely not. This all had to be a misunderstanding.
“Let’s put it on a back burner for now,” she told Sprigham. “I’ll make a few calls and find out what’s going on.”
“Keep me posted.”
She hung up, staring at her phone. Asher’s latest text showed on the screen.
Asher: Hey, baby. Do you and my baby feel like having seafood tonight? I can make reservations at this sweet little place I think you’ll like. Let me know. I know you’re busy but I’m determined to kidnap you and practice my way with you. :)
That . . . did not sound like the text of a man about to screw her out of parental rights. She didn’t understand.
“It’s awful!” one of the triplets wailed, diverting her attention. Distracted, Greer looked up to see Bunni pouting at her reflection. Her breasts were overflowing the cups of the gown’s bodice. “I can’t go down the aisle looking like this!”
“Then you shouldn’t have been eating so much coconut ice cream,” Tiffi said, turning and admiring her butt in the mirror, oblivious to the dressmaker trying to pin things in place.
Greer tucked the phone into a pocket and got to her feet. Her own problems would have to wait a bit longer. “This is why we’re here,” she soothed the distraught bride. “So last minute things can be fixed. What if we added a ruffle of lace to the top?”
The dressmakers got to work and Greer didn’t get a chance to think about the lawyers or Asher for the rest of the afternoon. The girls insisted on last-minute changes to all three dresses and Greer ran interference between the triplets and the dressmakers, all of whom were stressed. By the time she got into the back of the Dutchman sedan with Kiki, she wanted nothing more than a hot bath and to be left alone.
The moment the car pulled up to the driveway, though, her phone buzzed with an incoming text. Asher again.
Asher: They must be keeping you hopping. How about I grab some takeout and head over there? Or do you want to meet here for more privacy? Let me know—I’ll wait on you.
Troubled, she thought about Sprigham’s words earlier. The contract Asher’s lawyer wanted her to sign was a terrible one, and now that they had modified it, the correct contract kept disappearing. And bribery? It was too much to be believed . . . except Asher’s strange little deal with her to spend time together for the next month to practice sex. It was clear the man didn’t need an ounce of practice, and she’d happily gone along with it because she thought she got what she wanted out of the situation.
In other words, him.
Something wasn’t adding up, though, and she couldn’t figure it out.
She didn’t text Asher back. Not yet. She needed to turn things over in her mind for a little longer, to mull on the situation. To come to a logical conclusion, because nothing so far seemed logical in the slightest.
Greer headed up the stairs to her room, and her phone buzzed yet again.
Vader: My office, please.
Her father? What now? Quelling the guilty feeling in her stomach—why did it feel like a trip to the principal’s office? She’d done nothing wrong—Greer turned around and headed back downstairs, to her father’s study.
He looked up as she entered, frowning. “Shut the door behind you.”
She did, and then sat down across from him. “Is everything all right?” Was he getting cold feet now, too?
Stijn narrowed his eyes at Greer. “I heard Bunni is too fat for her dress.”
Good lord. Was this what he was worried about? “We added a concealing ruffle to the top of her gown and she’s fine. This is why last minute alterations are necessary—”
“I hired you to keep things running smoothly, Greer. Why did you let one of my brides put on weight?”
Taken aback, she was silent. He . . . he wasn’t serious, was he? “She’s an adult, Vader. I didn’t watch what she ate. I assumed she was old enough to feed herself.”
“Well, you assumed incorrectly.” He flipped a page of one of the magazine proofs spread out on his desk. “Tell her to fast until the wedding.”
With so much going on? “I’m not sure that’s a good idea—”