Crazy for Loving You: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy(20)

In any case, by the time my doorbell chimes out its trumpet blast halfway through the afternoon, I’m on top of the world.

I am rocking this guardian thing.

But a few minutes later, the sour expression on my grandmother’s face suggests she doesn’t see it. She marches into my office, where I’ve finally sat down to catch up on work emails, and announces, “The Rodericks have formally filed a challenge to the will.”

“Wow.” I glance at my dick clock—one of my mom’s pieces of art, which hangs proudly opposite the wall of windows overlooking the beach. Three PM. “Took longer than I thought it would.”

“Where’s Mr. Jaeger?”

“He left. I got this.”

My grandmother peels her reading glasses off in that way that spells doom and tilts her chin down in a way that spells you are so fucked, Daisy.

“You do not got this,” she informs me in that voice that offers not even a sliver of a crack to weasel in an argument.

Like that’s ever stopped me. “Pretty sure I do. Remy’s sleeping. We have a nursery nearly all set up. Nannies lined up for interviews, and—”

“And you have a reputation that will not stand up in a court of family law.”

“Gram-gram. No judge anywhere is going to look at Anthony and Margot Roderick and see anything but a man who’d sell his own wife for partial ownership of a whiskey distillery and a woman whose idea of charity is looking the other way when she sees someone carrying a no-name purse while dressed in knock-offs of last season’s styles. We’ll just have Derek massage my reputation, and—”

“And Westley Jaeger is a decorated retired Marine running his own business who makes you look more legitimate, no massaging required. Get him back.”

I gape at her, because there’s nothing else to do in this situation.

My grandmother does not invite non-family people to family events.

Specifically, to the raising of Carter family children. Control freak, thy name is Imogen Carter.

She lifts a silver brow. “I don’t believe sitting there impersonating a guppy will produce the desired results.”

“Grandma—”

“This is not up for debate. The tabloids are already reporting that you took Remington to a party last night after taking custody of him.”

No point in arguing, because they’ll say what they want. It’s a fact of being covered by the gossip sites. You get used to it. “And we have how many witnesses that will attest to that not being true?”

“Partial witnesses.”

And again with the no point in arguing. One of the luxuries of being rich is that you can get away with so, so much.

Not that I do, for the record. I’m an heiress, not a troublemaker. “So we file restraining orders and make them look bad.”

She sniffs like I’ve insulted her, and I realize her attorneys are already probably on it. Actually, she’s probably also already talked to Emily’s boyfriend, who runs a business cleaning up reputations. I like to say I’ve known him longer—he did some work for me after I was framed for shoplifting a few years ago—but after Emily’s own desperate need for some reputation cleaning almost six months ago, she definitely knows him better.

And she’s far more satisfied with his performance.

“Gram-gram. We’re Carters. We’ll get through this.”

“We’ll get through this far more efficiently with Mr. Jaeger’s help. Get him back.”

I don’t often get headaches, but when I do, my grandmother is involved. “Give me one week, and I’ll be the most picture-perfect guardian you’ve ever seen.”

“Get him back by dinnertime, or you’re disinherited.”

This isn’t the first time she’s threatened to disinherit me, but I suspect it’s about to be the last. The gig’s up. She knows.

She knows I’m going to fuck this up. My heart is racing. My throat is dry. And panic is making the tips of my fingers go numb.

“Mr. Jaeger has an extensive family and far more experience with children than you do. Get him back. Learn from him. Use him to re-cement your reputation now that your situation has changed. Also, I’ve canceled your trip to Japan.”

“What?”

“Leaving the country without Remington so soon after taking custody of him is exactly the sort of behavior the Rodericks are expecting, and exactly the sort of behavior that suggests you don’t put his interests first. God only knows why Julienne put you in her will, but until we’ve resolved the legal issues, your first and only job is being Remington’s new mother.”

I mentally curse in six different languages, but it doesn’t help the gnawing fear now growing in my gut and the sudden realization that Bali isn’t happening either. But I also jut my chin up, because if I’ve learned anything in working for my grandmother for well over a decade, it’s that she actually respects a backbone. “I’m still coming to work next week.”

“You’re staying home.”

“If West is here—” Fuck, what am I saying? That I’ll go get him? I can’t have him here. He’ll see right through me in two seconds, and it won’t be the Rodericks we’re fighting.

It’ll be the man who stood in this office last night and told my grandmother to gird her loins, because he was coming for her great grandbaby.