Page 40 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

“Ms. Delaney, Mrs. Midland, I apologize in advance for the language I’m about to use, but we’re all adults here.”

Across the room, Meg saw Kyle stiffen. She stared at him, willing him to look at her, to meet her gaze one last time before he read those words. His eyes swung to hers, and Meg drew a sharp breath. His gray-green gaze looked cold and expressionless, and Meg drew a shaky breath.

“What does it say?” Kyle folded his arms over his chest and tore his gaze from Meg’s. “Are you planning to read it aloud?”

Franklin gave her a questioning look. She nodded silent consent, then closed her eyes again. The room fell still for a few beats. Then Franklin began to read.

“I, Matt Midland, agree to take photos for Meggipoo’s smutty cookbook,” he read.

His voice went up on the word smutty , and Meg tried not to flinch.

She could picture the words in her mind, the drunken blur of Matt’s handwriting on a stained napkin, the memory of crumpling those words into a ball and throwing them at him .

You never take me seriously , she’d shouted. I’m a professional, too, dammit.

Franklin kept reading. “In exchange, Ms. Delaney will provide a minimum of twenty-five sloppy BJs between now and June 26. Signed, Matt ‘Big Bone’ Midland.”

The room was silent. Meg kept her eyes closed, and she entertained a brief fantasy that everyone had stood up and left the parlor. That none of this was really happening—the humiliation, the shame, the ridiculousness of this whole case coming down to blowjobs and a goddamn cocktail napkin.

But as the silence drew out, she forced herself to open her eyes again. Everyone sat staring at her. Meg heard her own heartbeat hammering in her ears, and she looked down at her hands as she wiped her palms on her jeans.

Her attorney was the first to speak. “I think it’s clear from this note that Mr. Midland was not inclined to take this project seriously. As you can see, the only compensation he requested was?—”

“BJs?” Sylvia stared at Meg, then looked at Kyle. “I don’t know what those letters mean. Is that what I think it is?”

Kyle stared at his mother like he’d never seen her before. He nodded once, then looked away, his expression conveying nothing more.

It was the Midland family lawyer who came to his rescue.

“I believe that’s slang terminology for fellatio,” he said to Sylvia, the tips of his ears glowing tomato-red as she frowned back at him.

He turned to Franklin and cleared his throat.

“If we’re to believe that note is authentic, it appears Mr. Midland was suggesting his photography skills could be purchased at a rate of twenty-five occurrences of oral stimulation, which is preposterous. ”

“Preposterous?” Meg’s lawyer pounced, his eyes taking on a rabid gleam. “I can assure you the note is authentic, and furthermore, if you’ll refer to the case of Jones v. Jones referenced in your packet?—”

“You can’t honestly think that would hold up in court?” Albert stood up, his eyes blazing like he wanted to take a swing at the other lawyer. “A cocktail napkin? A note that was most likely written by someone in a state of intoxication? An implication of prostitution and?—”

“Even if you try to argue this isn’t a legally-binding contract, the fact remains that Mr. Midland, by penning this particular missive, was indicating a general irreverence for the project, and for my client. I don’t think I need to remind you that?—”

“Were the terms of the contract fulfilled?”

Kyle’s words hit Meg like a punch in the abdomen. Everyone stopped talking at once. Meg looked at Kyle and felt a surge of ice wash through her veins. He wasn’t avoiding her eyes now. He was staring at her, his gaze boring into her, drilling through her mind, her soul, her heart.

“I beg your pardon?” Franklin said, directing his attention to Kyle.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Kyle said, his eyes never leaving Meg’s. “I was speaking to Meg.”

“I—um—what?” Meg stammered. She tucked her hands between her knees to make them stop shaking.

“Were the terms of the contract fulfilled?” Kyle repeated, his gaze still locked with hers.

“This is ridiculous,” Sylvia sputtered. “It’s obvious Matt wasn’t in his right mind when he wrote that, and even if he were, that’s hardly the sort of evidence that would hold up. Twenty-five sloppy BJs? For the love of God, what kind of?—”

“Answer the question, Meg.” Kyle’s voice was hollow and felt like a stake driving into her chest. “Unless you want me to?”

The attorneys’ gazes swung back and forth between the two of them, realization dawning as they seemed to grasp that there was more going on here than legal wrangling.

Beside Kyle, his mother sputtered. “This is asinine. I want everyone to stop this line of discussion immediately. It’s disrespectful, crude, and entirely irrelevant to the case at hand.”

Kyle tore his gaze from Meg’s, and she felt the floor drop out from under her. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t really be throwing her under the bus like this.

“They’re the ones who took it to this level,” Kyle said, his voice eerily soft as he spoke to his mother.

“If they’re going to make the claim that this is a legitimate contract, and these are the terms Matt supposedly set out, then I think we’re within our right to address whether the terms of the contract were fulfilled. ”

He looked back at Meg, and she saw something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Remorse? Jealousy? Sadness? She couldn’t identify it, but she could identify the feeling in the pit of her own stomach.

Betrayal.

Not the first time she’d looked into a pair of gray-green eyes and felt a sinking sense that her whole life was about to unravel.

Every pair of eyes in the room had shifted to her, and Meg wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer humiliation. She looked up at her attorney, who for the first time ever, seemed at a genuine loss for words. He shook his head. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“You’re right, she doesn’t,” Kyle said. “I’ll do it for her.”