Page 6 of Timeless Pages

Chapter six

Dominic

M orris's demeanor relaxed when we “found” Evan with his nose in a book in a secluded corner of the store. When he decided that we needed to hunt Evan down so that he could be part of the business discussion, he made a beeline for where Isabella was. I quickly rushed ahead of him and called for Evan to warn him that we were coming. I didn’t know why, but I felt it would be bad if Morris found him with Isabella.

The deer-caught-in-headlights look on Isabella’s face confirmed my suspicions.

“Now that we’re all here, I want to discuss numbers. I feel my asking price is more than generous, and I’d like to fast-track the sale,” Morris said.

“I admit,” Nate said, “the price is good. As far as fast-tracking goes, we’ll move as quickly as possible, but our lawyers will need time to draw up the contracts, and since Jason only just died, I imagine it will take time for you to get the deed put in your name.”

“I’ll have all that handled in a day or so,” Morris assured us.

I exchanged a look with Evan while Morris’ attention was on Nate. It should take him far longer than “a day or so” to finalize all of Jason’s estate paperwork. If he can do it that quickly, we’ll need to look into how. The last thing we wanted to be involved in was a shady deal.

“All the same, it will take longer than two days on our end to get everything in order and do our due diligence,” Nate replied.

“As businessmen, I’m sure you understand that if I find another buyer willing to close earlier, I won’t have any other choice but to go with them,” Morris replied.

We didn’t do business with people who tried to manipulate us or force our hand. I turned to leave the shop, assuming my friends would be right behind me, when I heard Evan shout.

“We’ll double your asking price to keep you from selling it to someone else!

” I spun to look at him in shock and saw that Nate was taken aback as well.

“Of course, that will be with the caveat that you will adhere to our necessary timetable. If you agree, I’ll write you a check right now for ten thousand dollars as a deposit. ”

“Evan,” I started, but quickly shut my mouth after the look he gave me. Whatever was going on, it was serious. Morris turned to look at me when I spoke and was waiting expectantly for me to finish my sentence. “Do you need a pen?”

“You don’t even have the checkbook, numbnuts,” Nate chuckled and rolled his eyes as he pulled the checks from his jacket pocket. “This doesn’t mean we’re keeping it a bookstore, though.”

“I’m confident I can still change your mind before that decision has to be made,” Evan laughed as he took the checkbook and pen from us and then turned back to Morris. “Well, what do you say? You’ll never get more for this place than I’m offering now.”

Morris fidgeted as he thought about his decision. He looked toward the backroom, where Isabella probably still was, for several seconds before nodding to himself. “It’s a deal,” he replied, shaking Evan’s hand with a beaming smile. “I’ve waited this long. What’s a couple more weeks?”

His statement puzzled me, and I saw my ordinarily calm friend’s jaw clench as he wrote out the ten-thousand-dollar check. Whatever this was, it wasn’t about him wanting the bookstore. It had to do with the beauty in the back.

He handed Morris the check, and we shook hands with him again, promising to meet soon with our people to get the ball rolling. Then, we left.

Nate and I turned to Evan when our limo pulled away from the curb. “Care to explain what just happened?” I asked.

“You were right to be suspicious,” Evan replied, looking at Nate. “Something is definitely going on there. She lives in the store. That’s her home, and according to what she said, Jason left the shop, if not his entire estate, to his niece.”

“If she owns the shop, how can her father sell it?” I asked skeptically. Ownership was ownership. And if he didn’t legally own the shop, he couldn’t sell it.

“Apparently, he has conservator papers for her,” Evan replied.

“Why?” Nate asked.

“I don’t know,” Evan replied. “But I know she plans to fight it.” His eyes turned to me.

“You should have seen the look on her face when you were looking for me, and she heard her father’s voice—stark terror.

I’ve never seen someone in so much fear before.

She shoved me in the closet so that he wouldn’t see me there. ”

“Why would he care if you were in there talking to her?” I asked.

“Why would she flinch when he touches her?” Nate countered.

“Ok, I’ll look into the conservatorship. See what I can dig up. I know it’s already too late, but could you try not to get too attached to the pretty bookshop owner? For all we know, he has an excellent reason to be her conservator. This could all be on the up and up,” I cautioned them.

I found her attractive as well, but contrary to my many publicized exploits, I was far more selective in my partners.

I let them sell the Playboy image because it kept people at a distance.

If they were chasing the gossip about my sex life, then they weren’t looking too closely at everything else, and that’s how I preferred it.

For a society that accepts relationships with multiple partners and pairings, you’d not expect them to care so much about it.

We arrived at our office building, which also doubled as our home, and I went straight to my office to make some calls. Finding the information I was looking for was almost too easy, and I almost wished that my reasons to caution them had been correct.

“Jason Garner left all of his assets to Isabella Wilcox, age twenty-two, his niece and sole beneficiary,” I announced as I entered our penthouse suite.

Evan was sitting at the large marble island while Nate cooked.

They both turned toward me as I continued to recite the background information I had found.

“Her late mother was his twin sister. She died during childbirth. When she turned fifteen, Jason’s jet-setting lifestyle abruptly stopped, and she moved in with him. ”

“What happened to cause that?” Evan asked.

“No idea. Morris let it happen. There isn’t a speck of proof I could find at the surface level of any contact between Isabella and Morris after that.”

“So then, why is he there now?” Nate asked. “The conservatorship? Legal?”

“Not in the slightest,” I replied as I poured myself a glass of wine and sat beside Evan. “I mean, technically, it is legal as far as the court is concerned, but how he obtained it is far from legal. There wasn’t even a paper trail for it. Just boom, the court order is signed and sealed.”

“So she had no idea it was even coming. No way to try and fight it,” Nate growled, taking his anger out on the ground beef he was browning.

“None,” I confirmed.

“And now he’s trying to sell her home as fast as possible,” Evan said softly. “That’s the rush. Now that her Uncle isn’t here to protect her, he wants her back. Back under his roof, where he can control her and do, God only knows what else, to her. ”

My mind drifted back to the odd comment Morris had made about waiting. His comment made much more sense now that I knew what I knew. He had waited this long to get her back; what was a couple more weeks? She wasn’t going anywhere. How could she? He controlled all of her money.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“We help her,” Evan replied.

“How?” I asked.

“Well, for starters, I know which lawyers she planned on calling to fight the conservatorship,” Evan replied as he pulled a picture up on his phone and laid it down on the island for us to see.

“She gave me her list when she shoved me in the closet, I assume, so Morris didn’t find it.

I recognized some of the names and took a picture of them just in case it would be useful. ”

“These lawyers are all shit,” Nate scoffed as he looked over the list. “She’d be better off using ours.”

“I’m not sure she’d see it that way,” Evan warned. “I don’t need to remind you that we’re enemies number two, three, and four right now.”

Nate cursed under his breath as he braced his hands on the island and stared at the floor. “Right,” he said decisively as he straightened and returned to the stove. He turned the burner off with a snap of his wrist and moved the pan to the back of the stove. “We’re going back there. Now.”

I had never seen him take to a woman so quickly before.

Twenty years ago, when we were at the wise age of fifteen and planning our future, we decided that to stay friends and successful business partners, it made sense to share a wife.

In the past twenty years, we’ve never come close to finding her.

Sure, we had individual flings here and there.

We’ve had some girlfriends who looked promising in the past, but those relationships never lasted.

I looked at the meat that would be taco meat forlornly as I followed them onto the elevator.

As the doors closed, I couldn’t help but wonder if we were headed toward something even better than tacos.

Maybe we hadn’t found the right woman yet because we had to wait for her to grow up.

Could Isabella be the one for us? I didn’t care about the age difference, and judging by Evan and Nate’s responses to her, I didn’t think they cared either.

The question was, would she care that we’re seventeen years older than her? Nearly an entire adult human.

Fuck.

What if all she saw when she looked at us was a bunch of old men?