Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
“He does not do inappropriate.”
Did he not? So what was having a mistress then? Super inappropriate?
“But I cannot help myself. Even though I knew this time would come one day, it still hurts, but even so...I want the best for him. And that is why I’m calling. Because he is a good man. For the six years we’ve been together, he was good to me. So very good in every way. And even though he never said it, I knew he loved me, and I loved him, but...”
Lexy remembered how the other woman’s breath had caught on what sounded like a sob, and she...she suddenly felt like she had no right to cry.
“But he said he owed it to you. Because he found out that you are the reason he could race again, and so he said he had to leave me. Because what you are doing for him, it can only be repaid one way. Be your slave for life.”
Lexy’s hand shook as she reached for the phone, and Shayla answered her call after just two rings.
“Lexy? Adriano just told me—”
“I need your help, Shayla. I want you to draft a contract for me. Please?”
“But Leon also had a new contract drafted. Are you saying nothing about it worked for you?”
“He never showed me one. Or he probably didn’t have any chance to, considering I told him I asked for a divorce.”
Silence.
“Lexy, I think we should—”
“Please don’t try talking me out of this,” she begged. “Because if you do, I might really change my mind, and I...I have to do this, Shay. Because Leon is a good man, and so I...I have to do this. Please. Will you help me?”
Chapter Three
Unbelievable.
Leonidas did not like being blindsided. He was not used to it. Rarely ever was. But ever since his wife had asked for a divorce, it was just one shock after another, each time sending him reeling, and this morning was the same.
Why did she ask that he meet with his lawyer first before they talked?
The Kontides & Partners conference room was all clean lines and understated wealth. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Manhattan’s Financial District, the morning sun casting long rectangles across the mahogany table. Framed photos lined one wall—not the usual parade of celebrity clients and landmark cases, but candid shots of people from all walks of life, all of them smiling. Bibles sat on the sideboard, page tabs of assorted colors marking well-worn passages.
Leonidas had been here before, but never like this.
Never as a man whose wife wanted to leave him.
“I am sorry about this, Leon.”
Adriano Kontides stood across the table, silver eyes uncharacteristically grave. The attorney was dressed in his usual impeccable charcoal suit, dark hair swept back from a face that belonged on ancient coins. At forty-five, he still moved with the coiled energy of a man half his age—but there was no energy now. Only reluctance.
He held out a folder.
Leonidas’s gaze narrowed. “Tell me what this is.”
“Something you will not like,” his friend said quietly.
Leonidas accepted the folder. Flipped it open. And drew his breath sharply as the words before him slowly arranged themselves into meaning.
Petition for Divorce.
And beneath that—
Transfer of Patent Rights. Full ownership. Irrevocable.
She wanted a divorce. In exchange, she was giving him her technology. The adaptive racing systems she had spent years developing. The work that could restore his career, save lives, change everything.
She was handing it to him like it meant nothing.
Why?
Why would she go this far?
The silence in the room grew taut, broken only by the distant hum of the city below.
And then the truth came to him, cold, sharp, unwelcome.
She still believed in her technology.
But she had lost faith in him.
Adriano was about to speak when Leonidas reached for his pen. The Mont Blanc his father had given him on his twenty-first birthday. The one he used to sign contracts worth hundreds of millions.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Signing it—”
Or at least that was the plan before his own pen was snatched out of his hand.
Leonidas stared at the empty space between his fingers, then at Adriano, who now held the pen like a hostage. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You are not doing any such thing.”
“We are not that kind of lawyer-client—”
“I am saying this as your friend.”
Pause.
Leonidas’s jaw tightened. “Give me the pen, Adriano.”
“No.”
“I am not asking.”
“Neither am I.” Adriano’s silver eyes held steady. “You are not signing this.”
“It is not your decision to make.”
“And yet here we are.”
Leonidas rose from his chair, and Adriano mirrored the movement. They faced each other across the mahogany table like opposing counsel...except no courtroom had ever seen a case quite like this.
“The pen,” Leonidas said flatly.
“Come and take it.”
Leonidas reached for it, Adriano pulled back, the Mont Blanc gleaming between them as they grappled, dignity forgotten, two billionaires in bespoke suits engaged in something that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a schoolyard scuffle.