Page 45 of The Marriage Bid
“It wasn’t a lot.”
“How much, Tyler?”
I groaned, already regretting the call. “Fifty million dollars.”
“Fifty! What the fuck, Tyler!”
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this.”
“Like a concerned older brother? Why did you give in to him at all if it wasn’t true?”
“I don’t know, I just panicked! You know how real it looks if you’ve read the paper. Plus the stuff he had on Dad. It made sense at the time.”
“Goddamn. And does Sebastian know about this?”
“Of course he does. But I can’t bother him right now. He’s busy with the new kid.”
“New kid. What new kid?”
Oh. Oh. “Um… Seb didn’t tell you?”
“No, since you two love hiding things from the rest of us.”
Shit. I had exposed Seb without meaning to, and now Nolan was angry with me for another reason. I wasn’t doing myself any favors here, and I needed his help. “That’s Seb's secret; I’m not touching it. He’ll tell you when he has the time.”
“Seb has a kid. What the fuck?” He said more to himself than to me.
“Uh… I called because I needed your help.”
“Shouldn’t you be calling Carey? He’s a lawyer. He’s best suited for this, and it’s not like you need my help, anyway. You two seem to be doing fine without me.”
“Nolan.” He could be like this sometimes if he was not included. He loved helping us so much that not seeking aid from him was taken as an insult. It was cute sometimes, but sometimes it could be grating. “I’m asking now.”
“What do you want?”
“I need Kelly.”
“Why? I thought you wanted to sue the paper if what they printed was lies.”
“Yeah, I will be getting round to that, but first I need to know who’s still blackmailing me. Someone has been carrying on Channing’s legacy and continuing the blackmail. I’ve been paying them for years, but now that they’ve pulled the plug, the gloves are off.”
“You’ve been paying the Channings more money on top of the fifty million!”
Put like that, it sounded like I had behaved like a dumbass. “Just ten grand a month, nothing serious.”
“Just ten grand. Oh god.” I could imagine him rubbing his forehead right now. I wanted to explain myself further, but each word I spoke made me look like the fool I had been. The problem is, I thought I was paying Saffron the money. If it had been going to her, it wouldn’t have bothered me that much. Technically, she was my wife, and it was chum change to me. But after seeing her living arrangement, and unless she had a colossal drug habit, that money was not going to her. “So why are they going to the papers now? Did you stop the funds?”
“Kinda.”
“Of course you did.”
I could tell him about the Saffron angle, but then I would have to admit not just to being blackmailed into coughing up money but also to being married to someone I didn’t care for. I was already looking dumb; that would only make me an egghead in Nolan’s eyes.
“I guess they’ll publish more if the article wasn’t everything.”
“It wasn’t, and that’s what I am afraid of. Hawthorne and Hawthorne can weather a single article. A drip of information might be hard.”
“But you’re sure it’s fake?”
