Page 30 of Don’t You Dare Marry Me (Love in Massachusetts #3)

twenty-four

“Ms. Kerrbox, I think you might have a problem.”

Abagail furrowed her brow, her phone pressed to her ear as she listened to her lawyer’s voice. She hadn’t actually spoken to the woman in a few months, so this call had been relatively out of the blue for her.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been petitioned by Estelle to determine your competency.”

“What?” Abagail’s voice rang through her office.

She immediately stood up and moved to the door to shut it.

She didn’t need anyone else to hear this conversation, and she certainly didn’t need to know what Ivy would think of her then.

The amount of family drama that had come to her place of work lately was overwhelming.

She was typically so good at keeping the two separate. “What are you talking about?”

“The paperwork came here instead of to you, I think because she was trying to prove that you were too incompetent to take care of it.”

Abagail shivered as she listened to Marta continue to prattle on.

“But they’re questioning your competency to keep control of the family funds and businesses. She’s determining whether or not you should be in charge and if you need a guardian.”

“That’s bullshit.” Abagail sat down heavily in her office chair, rubbing small circles into her temple.

“Never in the thirty plus years that I’ve known this woman has she put her foot forward like this.

My brother? Yeah, he absolutely would have pulled some kind of bullshit like this.

But Estelle? She’s a weak-hearted soul who rolls over before she—” Abagail stopped.

She tensed. “It’s not Estelle. I mean, she’s doing it, but Warren’s behind it. ”

“Your nephew?” Marta answered.

Abagail nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose.

She should have known better than to think that he was going to walk away so easily.

“It’s complicated family drama that they’re now bringing to the courts.

Wonderful.” Her lips thinned as she frowned.

How was she going to explain this one to Nicola?

“This petition could put a whole lot on pause for you, but I don’t think much will come from it in the long run.”

“Of course it won’t. They’re full of horse shit.

” Abagail cringed. Anger burbled its way into her chest and continued to boil away.

She wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet.

She tried to relax a little because she wasn’t mad at Marta.

She was mad at Estelle, and she was really ticked off at entitled Warren.

Did he think that he’d end up with control of it all?

He wouldn’t even know what to do with it.

Abagail had even taken great pains to create trusts that he couldn’t touch and ruin in the case of her untimely death.

He and Estelle would be set up financially, but they wouldn’t be able to screw around with all the hard work that Abagail had put into it.

“What are the next steps?” Abagail asked. This was something completely out of her realm of understanding. She didn’t know the process. She’d never predicted or even anticipated that something like this could happen—at least not while she was actually competent.

“We wait for the courts to start the process of evaluations. We’ll argue that if—and I emphasize if— a temporary guardianship happens that it shouldn’t be either Estelle or Warren, or anyone from the family, actually. Do you have any suggestions as to who that could be?”

Abagail immediately knew who. “Elia Sharpe.”

“Will she be accepted by the family?”

“Not without prompting, but they don’t have any ill will toward her from my understanding. They don’t know her that well.”

“Right. We can argue for that if Estelle makes a motion for temporary guardianship. She hasn’t done that yet.”

Abagail started to take notes on a small pad that she had by her desk. She was going to spend the next few hours researching what all of this meant, that was for certain. And even better than that, she was going to cut her family off at the source. It was time they learned to swim.

She and Marta were on the phone for another hour and had a secondary meeting set up for later that week.

Abagail waved to Ivy as she left the office with a concerned look on her face.

Could she see through Abagail’s mask into the news she’d just gotten?

Or was she concerned about something else entirely?

Perhaps her ex-wife was wreaking havoc again.

It was a good thing Abagail had a meeting—yes, that’s what she was calling them now—scheduled with Elia tonight because she was going to have to tell Elia exactly what was going to happen in the future. Or at least a strong potential.

With her anger still burning after the phone call, Abagail stayed in her office until it was time to leave and meet up with Elia at her bar. They’d had this meeting scheduled since their last one, still trying to work through the damage that Abagail had caused at Thanksgiving.

Fuck, Abagail was useless sometimes.

Everything she touched lately seemed to be turning into a problem of its own.

Elia, and Abagail’s stupid decision to kiss her when that hadn’t really been what she wanted anyway.

Nicola, and… well, all the sexual things they’d done and then Warren walking in on them at the Cape.

Hell, if her family really wanted to get into the weeds, and they found out that she’d paid Alanna’s bill, they’d certainly throw that back in her face, wouldn’t they?

Even though it was with her own money and not the family finances.

Scraping her nails against her scalp, Abagail closed her eyes and tried to think.

Who had she become in these last few months?

Because it wasn’t someone she liked. Not that she liked much of herself before, but she at least had an understanding of who she was.

But now? She wasn’t even sure what she was doing.

What she did know was that she needed to resolve whatever was between her and Elia, because damn, she needed her best friend fully back in her life.

The bar was full of people, which on a Friday night, Abagail would expect.

She loved showing up here unannounced just to make sure that everything was working as it should and that customers were being taken care of.

She still needed to do a deep dive into the books and see what her nephew had been up to with the bar, since he technically was the one who was running it.

Though Abagail couldn’t remember the last time that he’d actually done anything in the realm of ownership or management.

She’d taken over since someone needed to be in charge and he flat out refused to learn the skills.

Abagail had a drink in her hand as she sat at one of the high-top tables and waited for Elia.

The text had said Elia was only ten minutes away, but it’d take her a bit to find parking nearby or to walk to the location.

It wasn’t the best for that, but the foot traffic certainly helped, especially when there were any events in downtown Boston that would funnel people by them—which actually happened a fair amount.

As soon as Elia walked through the door, Abagail instantly eased.

That was what she’d mistaken for love and relationship.

And it was that, it just wasn’t romantic.

Elia had been absolutely right. Abagail didn’t do romance—ever.

Smiling, Abagail stood up and held her arms out for Elia.

She pressed a kiss to her cheek and sighed as she breathed in her best friend’s scent.

If only she’d spent some more time on herself, then perhaps she would have realized what she was feeling before she screwed up the only friendship that she had.

“Thanks for coming out here. Next time I’ll go to you.”

Elia hummed and her lips pulled upward into a smile. “I miss your bar.”

“Warren’s bar?” Abagail answered with a slight tease in her tone.

“It’s your bar.” Elia slid onto a chair, and Abagail mimicked her pose.

Abagail waved over a waitress so that she could get Elia a drink.

As soon as that was ordered, Abagail straightened her shoulders and looked her best friend over.

She couldn’t ever deny it, love looked good on Elia.

She was happy and settled, and even though these meetings were tense, Elia still looked better than she did before.

“Can we perhaps skip through the bullshit and move straight to I’m an ass, and I apologize again?”

Elia froze, her brow furrowing as she locked her gaze on Abagail. “You’ve never been one for pleasantries.”

“No, but I’m tired of this. Aren’t you?”

“Tired of what?”

“This.” Abagail waved her hand back and forth between them. She wasn’t even sure what she should call what she was feeling—which was half her problem, she realized that—but she still didn’t have a word for it.

“Tired of what, Abagail.” Elia raised her chin up.

Damn Elia for making her do this work. Well, not really, but Abagail still hated that she needed to some days. “This tension, this hurt, this distance and brokenness that I’ve caused.”

Elia hummed, canting her head to the side as she eyed Abagail over. “And you want to apologize for it again?”

“Always.” Abagail glanced down at the table before flicking her gaze back up to meet Elia’s. “I want what we had back, not this new thing that I’ve made a mess of.”

“What happened to the Abagail who avoids these kinds of confrontations?”

“She’s on vacation.”

“A permanent one?” Elia asked.

“Unfortunately, probably not. But today, I sent her on vacation, and I’m not sure when she’ll be back.” Abagail downed the rest of her drink, fully intending to order another one. She turned to get the waitress’s attention when she froze.

Nicola stood in front of her, a tray full of drinks in her hand and a surprised look on her face as she equally seemed just as frozen as Abagail.

“Abs…” Nicola murmured.

Abagail frowned. “What are you doing here?”