Pleasing Mindy

Pleasing Mindy - Chapter 2

Ashford, Surrey, England...

"Sign here, here, and here, and then we'll be all set."

Galen held his breath as Trix signed the places on the forms where the solicitor pointed out. When the ink began to dry on her last signature, he let out a slow breath.

The solicitor took back the pen he'd loaned Trix, stacked the piles of paper that had been scattered around the table, and placed them into his briefcase. He stood hurriedly to his feet as if he couldn't wait to leave.

"Thank you for traveling all this way, Mr. Peabody," Galen said, standing, and offering his hand to the middle-aged man on whom he'd recently come to depend for legal counsel.

Mr. Peabody gave Galen's hand a hearty shake. "I will have everything ready for you to pick up tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Carmichael. I must leave now if I want to avoid rush hour back to London." He turned to Trix. "Good day, Miss Noyes," he said, tipping his head before moving toward the exit.

"How much is he costing you?" Trix asked Galen as he reclaimed his seat.

"A bloody lot."

"You could have gotten a cheaper one."

"I could have, but the stakes were too high for anything less," he stated in response to the reproof in her voice and silver eyes. How dare she?

"How are you going to pay his fees? Especially now that you—"

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you destroyed my life," he snapped.

"I've said I'm sorry, Galen, several times, but I know it will not erase what I did, the trouble I've caused you."

"You're right about that." Galen crossed his arms and stared at her, thankful for the umpteenth time in the past eight months that he'd never revealed the identity of his biological father to her. Call it instinct or foresight, but he'd always been wary about sharing private information with her. What a freaking bigger mess this would have been if he had.

All Trix knew was that he'd grown up believing his father was dead when in fact he'd been alive for the first seventeen years of Galen's life. But she didn't know that his father was the late Luciano Andretti who owned one of the most successful textile companies on the planet. She didn't know that the half brother he'd spoken of was the infamous reformed playboy, Massimo Andretti, the current CEO of the Andretti multibillion-dollar corporation.

Growing up a penniless bastard had been bad, but the embarrassment of discovering that he was the penniless bastard of one of the richest men in the world—a man who didn't give a fig about him—had kept Galen from broadcasting the news of his lineage to the world. And neither had Massimo, the only legitimate heir to the Andretti fortune.

Only family, close friends, and a selected few in the States knew he was an Andretti. His deceased mother and aunt, and his recently deceased grandfather, were the only Brits who'd known the truth. Telling the world that he was an Andretti might have helped with the trouble he'd found himself in when he returned to England eight months ago. But it would have been humiliating if Massimo, with whom he'd been locked in a court battle for the Andretti fortune and who'd called Galen a conniving little usurper a few days before Galen left Granite Falls, had refused to come to his aid.

Galen wished he'd kept even less important private information from Trix. He wished he'd never told her about his grandfather, or told her where he was living.

He wished he could say that he wished he'd never met her.

He glanced at his watch. "Listen, I need to get on the road. It's been a long day."