Nicholas POV:
Her hands were shaking on her lap, but I didn’t care. I kept my eyes on her, waiting for her answer.
“Geoffrey’s assistant sent me the files after she’d gone through them. There was some miscommunication between us. The one she picked wasn’t the one I assumed she meant when I sent out the award letter. We didn’t figure it out until a few days later.” She finally looked up at me. “You were still out of town and I was just trying to take initiative. I tried to explain as courteously as I could that a mistake had been made.”
“But then you ignored all of Miss Taylor’s following correspondence?”
Her eyes welled up in tears and I sighed. “I’m sorry. I tried to take care of it. She wouldn’t take the hint that it was over, it wasn’t hers to have.”
I glared at her. Maybe grown a little too.
“Don’t put this on her. This was your mistake and you should have told me about it from the start. Why did you keep it from me when I asked for the essays?”
She was full-on crying at this point. I retrained from rolling my eyes.
“I didn’t want to get in trouble and I didn’t want Geoffrey’s assistant to get in trouble.”
I snorted and shook my head. “You are not to have any further communication with Miss Taylor. I am taking it from here. Get back out to your desk.”
She stood up and started rushing to the door.
“You aren’t fired, but don’t let anything like this happen again.”
She turned and nodded before scurrying out. Fucking incompetence. Pissed me off. I probably should have fired her. But I was a fucking nice guy.
A few minutes later she informed me Benson had arrived.
“Send him in and hold all my calls.”
I stood and greeted Benson at the door. He was a small, nervous man who could sweat through his clothes in minutes. But he had a great legal mind, and I kept him on retainer to deal with any personal matters.
“Thanks for meeting me here today,” I said as we took our seats.
“Sure, Mr. Rowe. No problem.”
I pulled out the file I had been working on, handing it over to him.
“I want you to put these things into contract form and I need it back in my hands by tomorrow morning. Can you do it?”
He read through the pages and I tried not to puke watching the beads of sweat form on his bald head. I started to wonder if I should get him a towel when he finally glanced up at me again.
“You want me to draft a prenup for you? Congratulations. I didn’t know you were engaged.”
I swallowed thickly.
“Well, that part is still in the works.” Kind of. The really early stages anyway.
He didn’t question me further. That was the good thing about Benson. He took care of shit and didn’t want to know any more than he needed to know.
“You don’t have anything in here about separation of assets in the event of divorce,” he noted. “Would you like me to add in some standard clauses for your approval?”
I shook my head. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“I must advise you to let me add those in. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t urge you to protect your assets.”
I knew the stakes. But I was the one pursuing this path with Willow and in the event she agreed, married me, had children with me, and changed her life for me, I was going to enter the agreement by taking some risk of my own.
“At this point, I don’t want any provisions about divorce terms except in the case of children. I will let you know if that changes in the future.”
He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Okay then. This shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll have someone bring it to you tomorrow morning.”
“I want you to do it. I don’t want anyone else to see this except you. Can you bring it to me at my house in the morning?”
The fewer people involved in my personal life, the better.
He nodded. “Sure.”
Smart man. He knew a big bonus awaited him.
“One more thing. I know you drafted the scholarship award paperwork and I wanted to enact the clause regarding revocation in the event of criminal activity.”
He scrunched his eyebrows, waiting for me to continue. I told him about the incident, asking if it was legally possible for me to rescind despite the lack of official police involvement.
“Well, you have the final say. You are covered in the event you deem the recipient unfit to continue as the awardee.”
I smiled at his words. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.
“Okay then, I’ll be in touch when I decide what course I want to take. There will be some stipulations at the very least attached to Mr. Grant’s scholarship if I decide to let him keep the award. I’ll let you know in a couple of days.”
He nods.
“Is that everything?”
“Yes, that’s it. Thanks for coming in.” I walked with him to the door, trying to avoid a look of disgust on my face when I shook his sweaty hand. I needed some fucking sanitizer.
No sooner had he left than Francis walked in, sat down, and put his feet up on my desk.
“Can I help you?” I asked, glaring at his shoes.
I met Francis shortly after his father passed away and left the company in his hands. He was a few years older than me, but still, I think he considered me a mentor of sorts as he got his footing. We got along well despite owning rival companies.
We became even closer following my breakup with Rosemary. He and Geoffrey were really the only two people who knew more than the vaguest details about what happened, and even they didn’t know everything. A few years later, we merged our companies and now operated one of the top media conglomerates.