Come Back to Me

Chapter 18: Present Day

Three things happened today.

I became the co-owner R&R.

I met the boys' housekeeper and loved her.

I found out I'm pretty much under house arrest.

Davenport had arrived, not knowing what to expect. He was shocked and then immediately joyous that I decided to take Riley's share.

He insisted on going through the whole thing, page for page, explaining all the legal jargon and totally numbing my brain. It was easy enough to understand for the most part, and nodding at him kept the explanation going at a good pace. 

Until we got to the part about what would occur if either Noah or I died. It had been written that in the event of either of our deaths, the other would buy the deceased's share. When I questioned why we couldn't designate beneficiaries as Riley had done, he tried his best to gently remind me that neither Noah nor I had anyone to leave it to. Which then made me ask who Noah's beneficiary had been in the contract between him and Riley. Poor John had stammered, clearly uncomfortable with divulging that I had also been Noah's beneficiary.

It had taken me a moment to absorb that information. Noah had named me to take over for him even without knowing if we'd ever be in each other's lives again. And, of course, Riley had known that, too.

I had stopped John when he tried to jump back into the document.

"Wait," I put my hand palm down on the contract. "How many other things has Noah named me on?"

John wouldn't answer that one. "Oh no, I'm not going to get in the middle of that one. I'm his lawyer, but like I said yesterday, even he doesn't pay me enough to handle this kind of thing. You two can work through that when I'm not here."

"It was worth a try," I muttered. 

The rest of it consisted of me having to sign my name a couple dozen times. I had acquired one half of a marketing firm, a house, millions of dollars in bank and investment accounts, and a freakin' boat. John was selling the boat immediately. 

We had more meetings set up for the following day. There were some more forms I needed to fill out with Riley's financial advisors, and John wanted to take me to the bank to get new cards so I could access all my new wealth.

With all that out of the way, I had nothing else to do. After Davenport's departure, I picked through everything in the study but found nothing interesting. It was slightly suspicious that a bunch of the desk drawers were locked. I'd be asking Noah about that later.

My wandering took me all throughout the house. I wasted a good amount of time rummaging through every drawer in the kitchen, amazed by all the gadgets I found. Half of them looked like torture instruments. I assumed they made sense to someone who knew a lot about cooking. Much to my mother's disappointment, I had never been interested in learning more than necessary to survive. 

Microwaves were invented for a reason.

I started snapping pictures of stuff and sending them to Beth with notes like, "Who's a Rich Bitch now?" and "You could fit at least 3 dead bodies in this fridge". She wasn't responding, which meant she was at her bakery and probably busy. I needed to call her soon. She was going to lose her mind when I told her all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. What I needed most was her to reassure me that I hadn't made a horrible decision.

It wasn't a choice that was made lightly or without terror.  My life was going to take a drastic turn into more unknown territory - territory that included Noah and all the baggage that came with him - but there was no way I could just let my brother's company go.  I was part of the R&R name.