Chapter 6: Nine Thousand a Month

Dominic found me at the kitchen island with the gray file box open and the statements fanned out in front of me.

He had come straight from the tower.

His tie was loose, and his glasses were on his forehead.

"Jonas said you got your papers," he said. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Abby."

"Dwight grabbed me. Jonas took care of it."

His mouth went flat.

"I'll thank him properly later," he said.

"Sit down."

He sat.

I turned the first statement around and pushed it across the stone.

He put his glasses on and read.

I watched him do it.

I watched him reach the bottom of the page, and the small gray line of type.

*Remitter: C. Garrow.*

He went very still.

"Who is C. Garrow?" I said.

Dominic took off his glasses.

He put them down on the counter, carefully.

"My mother," he said. "Constance."

The kitchen was quiet.

The refrigerator hummed.

"She died six years ago," he said. "I read the eulogy at her funeral."

"I said she was the strongest person I ever knew."

"Dominic."

"She paid them." His voice had no color. "She paid your aunt nine thousand dollars a month. For twenty-two years."

"Two hundred and sixty-four times," I said.

He closed his eyes.

I turned over the next paper in the pile.

It was a letter on heavy cream stationery, typed, signed in blue ink.

I had read it twice in the car.

Dominic read it once, standing up.

*Mrs. Diekema, the arrangement stands as discussed.*

*The child is to be raised in your home. My son is never to learn that she exists.*

*On her twenty-second birthday she may claim the trust in her own hand, in person, and you will receive the sum agreed.*

Keep reading free with an account. Start Her Billionaire Father Spoils Her Rotten from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.