Chapter 8: You Have A Son

Zake's POV

"Henry Carrington passed on the fourteenth. Peacefully, at home."

Spencer Thompson opened the meeting.

"Per his explicit instructions, no public announcement was made until the estate proceedings were underway." He looked around the table. "We're here today because those proceedings begin now."

Across from me, Kiera sat with her hands folded on the table and her face was completely blank, unreadable. She hadn't looked at me since she sat down.

I hadn't stopped looking at her.

Thompson moved through the preliminary details: assets, holdings, the structure of the estate. Standard language. I'd read most of it already. Beside me, Derek was quiet, daphne had her pen uncapped, making notes.

"The whole of Henry Carrington's estate," Thompson said, "including his controlling shares in Thompson Financial Group, all associated properties, and all liquid assets, is willed solely to his daughter, Kiera Griffin."

Daphne's pen stopped moving.

She recovered in about two seconds, straightened slightly, expression smoothing back into composure, but I caught it. Years of working with her meant I knew every version of her face.

Fiona, across the table, did not react at all. She just sat with her hands folded and looked at Thompson.

Kiera hadn't moved.

"However," Thompson continued, adjusting his glasses, "the transfer of said assets is possible upon the fulfilment of a condition outlined in a codicil attached to the primary will."

The room went very still. Thompson cleared his throat.

"In order for the inheritance to be legally transferred, Ms. Kiera Griffin must enter into a legal marriage with Zake Langston, Executive Director of Carrington Financial Group, within thirty days of this reading." He set the paper down. "The marriage must be legally registered and must remain intact for a minimum of one calendar year. Should either condition go unfulfilled, the estate will be dissolved and redistributed per secondary provisions."

Everywhere went completely silent.

Daphne had gone very still, Derek had his eyes on the ceiling and Fiona remained perfectly calm, which told me she'd already know.

I watched Kiera read the clause herself from the copy Thompson slid across the table, watched her eyes move through it once then twice and the color from her face drained and then came back as something else entirely, something that ran much hotter.

She looked up.

"No!" Her voice came out sharp.

Thompson opened his mouth.

"No," she said again. "I am not agreeing to this. This isn't legally enforceable. You cannot will a person into a marriage..."

"Ms. Griffin, the clause is entirely legal under..."

"I don't care what it's under." She pushed back slightly from the table. "My father, a man I haven't spoken to in nearly a decade, does not get to arrange my life from beyond the grave. I won't do it."

"The alternative is..."

"I heard the alternative." Her jaw was tight. "I'll take it."

I looked at Thompson, then at Derek.

"Leave us alone," I said.

Everyone looked at me.

"Everyone out," I said. "Please."

Daphne's eyes moved to me, then to Kiera then back. She stood first, "Of course," she said pleasantly and left.

Fiona stood without a word, touched Thompson's arm briefly on the way out, and the lawyers filed out behind her. Derek was last, he caught my eyes at the door and his expression said, I told you this was complicated, without him saying a single word.

The door closed and the room went completely quiet.

Kiera was already on her feet.

"This is insane." She said.

"Sit down..."

"I'm not sitting down." She moved away from the table. "He cannot do this. He doesn't get to be absent for years and then reach back from the grave and..."

"Kiera..."

"No." Her voice cracked slightly. "Whatever my father thought this was going to accomplish..."

"What it's going to accomplish," I said. "Is keeping years of work from being dissolved."

"I don't care." Her voice rose. "He wants me to marry a man I don't know and I will not..."

"You know." I cut her off. "I'm not pretending it didn't happen."

"I am." She turned away. "I was very good at it for six years and I'd like to go back to that."

"That's not an option anymore." I said.

"It has to be." She turned sharply. "It was just one night in a bar, you probably didn't remember me, you've probably had a hundred nights like that and..."

"You left before I woke up," My voice came out lower than I wanted. "You didn't even leave a name. I had nothing to look for."

"Because it was just one night..."

"Now it's something else." I moved around the table toward her. "The situation is what it is, Kiera. Henry wrote the clause and the clause is binding. You can walk away from the inheritance but you cannot away from the fact that this company needs what you legally hold."

"That is not my problem." Her voice came out rough.

"It becomes your problem the second you sign the estate documents." I said.

"Then I won't sign them." She said quickly.

"Then everything he spent years building dissolves." I stopped, close enough that she had to look up slightly to hold my gaze. "Is that what you want?"

"What I want," her voice dropped low and sharp. "Is to not be legally required to marry a stranger."

"We both know that I am not a stranger." I said sharply.

"You are a stranger." Her voice cracked. "You might not remember that night but I do. Every single second of it and I cannot..." She stopped, pressed her lips together. "I cannot marry you. It's not possible."

"It's not only possible, it's..."

"You don't understand." She cut me off.

"Then help me understand." I said.

"I can't do..."

The doors burst open.

"Mama!"

The boy burst in the room at full speed, he ran directly to Kiera and she caught him instantly, hands going to his shoulders, and her entire composure cracked completely.

A flustered assistant appeared in the doorway. "I'm so sorry..." She said, breathing hard. "I told him to wait, he just ran."

"It's fine." Kiera's voice was soft, she pulled him against her side. "Jayden I told you to wait for me "

"You were taking forever..." He whined.

"I said I'd be out in ten minutes." She said.

"It felt like a hundred...'

I didn't move. I stood exactly where I'd been when the door. She had a son, and he looked about five to four years old. Was he...

"You have a son?" The words came out before I could stop them.