Page 120 of Good For Me

“Lou is the owner?”

She nods. “My grandpa’s business partner.” That brings a wince to her face. “Former business partner.”

Anger surges through me—at her douchebag ex, at the universe for taking her grandfather away, at any and everything that would put that look on her face.

“And Kurt…works for him?”

“His firm handles payroll here. That’s how we met, back when my grandfather was alive.” She makes a face. “I have no idea what he was doing here today, though. Payroll is way beneath him. The firm has minions for stuff like that.”

I have a feeling she’s exactly the reason he was here. If his firm is doing payroll, he must know she still takes shifts here occasionally.

“What was he talking about?” I ask. “The disbursement?”

She sighs and takes a long sip of water before she responds. “My grandfather and Lou had an agreement. They set it up after his first heart attack. If anything happened to him, Lou agreed to buy his share and place the money in a trust for me. Grandpa had a small life insurance policy, too.” She blinks hard but it’s not enough to dispel the moisture in her eyes. “He was taking care of me right up to the end.”

I rub a hand across her back as she blinks some more, finding her control. I wish she would let herself just cry for once. How many times have I watched her pull herself back together?

“The trust paid out for my undergrad and some living expenses but the majority of the money doesn’t come to me until I graduate college.” She gives a watery smile. “Grandpa’s way of making sure I got my degree.”

“Let me guess—Kurt handles the trust.”

She nods, looking annoyed. “I should have looked into getting it transferred a long time ago. I honestly just didn’t want to deal with it.”

“Because you didn’t want to have to see him?”

“Yes.” But she chews her lip and I know there’s more to it than that. The waiter appears with our food so I keep quiet for a few minutes while she eats.

“Why else didn’t you want to deal with the trust?” I finally ask.

I can sense the debate going on in her head. She’s trying to decide how much she wants to open up to me.

“The plan is for me to use that money for grad school,” she finally says. “And whatever is left could be start-up money if I decide to start a business.”

It clicks into place. Her reluctance to talk about grad school. Her insistence that she’s doing it in spite of the baby. The expression she always gets whenever someone brings up her post-college life.

She doesn’t want to get her MBA. But for some reason, she feels like she has to.

Your grandfather would be really proud.

The asshole’s snide words come back to me, the way her face had looked after. She told me, that very first night, that she wanted to do the things that he hoped for her after he died. She’s still trying to make him proud. Maybe even still trying to make up for the mistakes she made when she was a confused, pissed-off teenager without a mother.

“Grad school is pretty expensive,” I say carefully, knowing that I could easily screw this up if I push too hard. “So there must be a nice chunk of money in there.”

She shrugs. “There won’t be much left after two years of tuition.”

“Have you ever thought of doing something different with it?”

Her eyes snap up to mine, familiar anger blazing in their stormy grey depths. “If I needed money for the baby, of course I would use it. I’m not that selfish, River.”

I hold up my hands, a little taken aback by her reaction. “I didn’t mean for the baby. I’ve told you, we don’t need to worry about money when it comes to this kid.”

“Because you got a new job?” She shakes her head. “It’s great that you got that job, River, but babies are expensive and—”

“Not the job,” I say, slightly exasperated. “I have a trust fund too, you know. A pretty damn big one. If we need money for the kid, we have it.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Then why are you working at a job you hate?”

I think of the derision I heard in her asshole ex’s voice.Not only are you slumming around with a loser bartender, you let him knock you up?