That’s how Georgie entered my room, with an accusation and a tone that warned me not to argue. I turned from the chair to see her standing with her hands on her hips in my bedroom doorway, no smile, no nod.
I shook my head. “I just went over it with Dave, Georgie. She’s shown me the ultrasound photos, and records from a legit doctor in London. And we can’t do a paternity test until she’s a little further along in the pregnancy. I’m meeting with him again tomorrow but—”
She wiped her hand down her face. “You aren’t listening! You told me to keep tabs on her, and I’ve been doing just that. I think she’s faking the whole thing.”
“Do you have proof?” I asked, hopeful.
“No, but—”
I turned back to continue unpacking, but she whipped around me and jumped between me and my suitcase. “I lived with Caroline in that suite for the last few weeks. We avoided each other at all costs, but I was always there when she sat down to go through her emails in the morning.”
“So?”
“So…” She smirked. “I hovered in the kitchen, pretending to drink coffee, and secretly watched her type in her computer’s password for nearly a week before I finally had it figured out. When I was on the plane today, I logged in and took a look around.”
I dropped the red mask on top of my suitcase and let my lungs fill with hope. “Georgie, what’d you find in her email?”
She held up her hands to slow me down. “It’s not proof of her faking the pregnancy, but it’s definitely fishy. I rooted around her deleted emails—thank goodness Caroline is too dim to know how to properly use Gmail—and I found an email exchange between her and that ‘legit doctor’ in London. She sent him ￡100,000 and they’re supposed to meet tomorrow for coffee. How weird is that?”
I dropped the red mask on top of my suitcase and took a deep breath. For the first time since the pregnancy announcement, I sensed a chink in Caroline’s armor.
“￡100,000?”
She nodded excitedly.
“How’d she send it?”
“PayPal! To his personal email address!”
I nodded, thinking. “G, I admit that sounds suspicious, but I need some kind of concrete proof of wrongdoing. If we go public with stolen emails, she’ll probably just reveal that the money was more of her philanthropy, some donation sent to Doctors Without Borders or UNICEF. Besides, hacking someone’s email is probably illegal.”
“Who cares if it’s bloody illegal? So is extortion!” she shouted.
“I know.” I leveled my gaze on her. “Which is why I want you to go and stake out that coffee shop tomorrow. We need to figure out what’s going on between them. I know I said no cloak-and-dagger, but—”
“No need to justify, Fred. I think it’s a brilliant plan. I’ll be there.”
She seemed too eager.
“Georgie. I’m serious. No actual daggers at the coffee shop,” I warned.
She smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of it. We all know justice is best served hot and foamy.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Freddie
FIRST THING THE following morning, I walked into my lawyer’s office in Hanover Square. He was already set up in a large conference room on the first floor. He took up nearly half of the large oak table and my PR team was spread out across the other half. Together they made up my brain trust, responsible for both legally extricating myself from Caroline’s grasp regardless of the baby situation and minimizing the collateral damage Andie would feel. It was early, but it looked like everyone had been there since the crack of dawn.
I slid a coffee in front of Dave and he barely looked up from the pile of work in front of him. I had no bloody clue what he was up to, but he had files and papers and two empty cups of coffees spread out before him. At the very least, he looked busy.
“Could I get you a coffee or a cup of tea?” his assistant asked me from the doorway.
I held up my half-full cup. “I’m good, Kathleen. Thank you.”
I felt rather useless standing there, watching them all work. I pulled out one of the chairs closest to Dave and waited for someone to take a break and fill me in on what they’d been doing all morning. Truly, it wasn’t necessary for me to be there, but I wanted to be as close to the solution as possible. For too long, my focus had been elsewhere, but with the games finished, it was time to show Caroline that playtime was over.
A few minutes later, Dave finally glanced up from his work.
“Fred, first of all, you’re a hell of a swimmer.”
I nodded in thanks and pulled my chair closer to him.
“That being said, you’ve worked yourself into a shite situation here.”
“I know that. Have the PR people worked out how to get me out of it yet?”
He shook his head and rifled through a few papers to get to a yellow legal pad buried underneath. “It just doesn’t look good. You see, if we ignore the fact that Caroline has behaved criminally and present the separation as a result of irreconcilable differences, you come out looking like an ass, and Andie is sure to receive more vitriol than ever.”