Chapter 3 - The Man Who Came Back for SupplementsDesmond returned the next afternoon carrying a paper bag of expensive prenatal supplements, the kind his assistant had probably been instructed to buy weeks ago and never delivered. He walked into my hospital room with the easy confidence of a man who believed nothing that had happened the day before required an apology.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, setting the bag on the table without looking at Josephine in her bassinet.
"Considering everything, remarkably clear-headed," I said.
He nodded, missing the edge in my voice entirely. "I spoke to my mother. She agrees the girl should still have a comfortable life. We'll set something up. A monthly allowance, a college fund. Reasonable, but separate from the main trust. It's not personal, Mabel. It's about the family line."
"I understand completely," I said. "You've made your position very clear."
Something in my calm seemed to relax him. He sat down in the chair beside my bed — the same chair he hadn't touched during labor — and actually smiled.
"I'm glad you're being reasonable about this. I know it's not the ideal situation, but I think if we're both mature about it—"
"Desmond," I said, "when did you open the apartment on Franklin Street?"
His smile didn't move for a full second. Then it did, just slightly, at the edges. "What?"
"The Tribeca apartment. Two-year lease. Rent paid through Special Projects Consulting." I kept my voice perfectly even, the same flat tone he'd used in the delivery room. "When did you sign the birth certificate acknowledging your son as an Ashworth heir? Eleven months ago, I believe. Which means you were legally required to disclose that to your co-trustee within thirty days."
Desmond's face had gone very still.
"You've been in breach of the trust agreement for roughly eleven months," I continued. "The agreement you signed. The one I drafted, back when you needed my father's law firm connections more than you needed my last name on anything. Did you actually read it, Desmond? Or did you just sign wherever I told you to sign, the way you've done for eleven years?"
He stood up so fast the chair scraped against the floor. "You froze the accounts."
"I did."
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"You can't do that. I run this company."
"You run the operations," I said. "I hold the trust. Those have never been the same thing, and I never corrected you when you started acting like they were, because it was convenient for both of us at the time. It's no longer convenient."
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