“She my friend, Minou, an’ she one o’ your trustees because I trust her. Miss Moonbeam too, she been one of my clients since Day One, she know me, I know her real well, she a frien’ now, not jus’ someone I work with, an’ I trust her because I know how trustworthy an’ honest she is; she’s mom, she got kids too, she carin’ and concerned for their future, jus’ like she care about yo’ future. They both care ’bout you, an’ I trust them both to do right by you, jus’ like I trust ever’ other person in this room.”
Kelly reached over and took Justine’s other hand.
“Justine, don’t you believe him; Johnny saved my life in New Orleans; he taught me there’s a world out there I knew nothing about, and how to survive in it. He’s a good man, the best I know, and he loves you deeply; you’re so lucky to have someone like him in your life, he’ll make sure you have the best life there is, he’ll keep you safe, and he’ll never let you down; when Johnny B’s got my back I feel safer than I would with a platoon of marines, and you should too; he’s the best of the best, believe it…”
As she said it, Justine saw the look Kelly gave Johnny, one quick glance, but it was enough to feel the sudden gust of longing and sorrow that she could never be in his life, no matter how hard she wanted it to be. Suddenly, Justine felt very close to Kelly Delano, and a pang of sorrow for her tragedy, Hollywood superstar though she was; with the pick of the Hollywood elite ready to fall at her feet, and the most eligible men in the world poised to do her bidding, still she’d managed to fall in love with a man who’d never feel the same way about her, who’d never even know.
“Johnny, you haven’t told me why I still need trustees; surely I’m old enough now…” said Justine, hoping to cover her confusion amid the welter of emotions Kelly’s words, spoken and unspoken, had stirred inside her.
Johnny grinned at her, and Justine shifted in her seat at that grin; she’d seen it before, usually just before he shoved a wet dishrag or a handful of ice cubes down the back of her panties, so she braced for impact.
“Baby-girl, I already tole you how Mama, Mister Bruno, an’ Mister Jerome, with help from Miz Cassie an’ a few other people, sold-off all your daddy’s companies, stock options, shares, negotiable bonds, everythin’ he owned or had a share of, an’ deposited it all, for when you ready an’ all growed up, in offshore tax-havens aroun’ the world; right now, you worth maybe fifteen million dollars an’ change, mebbe even more, I ain’t been following too closely what Miz Cassie been doin’. You cain’t trust one man or one bank with all that; things happen, banks fail, people get greedy, so we set up a board of trustees an’ put your money all over the place, a little here, a little there, so you don’t lose it all if somethin’ happen; for now, the chairman of your trustees is Miss Cassie, an’ she set up the whole thing so no trustee can financially benefit from the trust, jus’ you, jus’ like mama Jane wanted.”
Justine sat stock-still, the words ‘Fifteen million dollars’ once more circling around and around in her head. Johnny squeezed her hand, bringing her back down to reality with a bump, clearing her head enough for her to ask some questions that might help her make sense of this whole crazy situation.
“Johnny, you didn’t answer me before; is this why Angel Graves is here too? Is she one of these ‘trustees’ you say I have?”
Before Johnny could answer, Angel spoke up, a big grin on her face.
“Most people call me Angie, Justine. Like Johnny said, where Tommy goes, I go, but I’m no trustee. I could never deal with the paperwork. I’m just here to make coffee when Moon’s tired of being asked, though it’s not as good as hers, of course, and to provide the comic relief, and Birdie, sorry, ‘Robin’ is here because it never hurts to have a big guy hanging around in back! Besides, he likes to watch Cassie and Tommy play the kind of brain-games that would make Einstein faint with envy; believe me, they have ways of tying things up that a kitten and a ball of string couldn’t manage in a million years. You have some strong allies sitting around this table, so relax, dear, they’ll do right by you.”
Justine shook her head dazedly; she knew she was supposed to be rich; hadn’t Johnny told her that way back when they first ran from New York? But that was one thing; now, these people, superstars and darlings of the world’s media, somehow they were part of all this too; had been for years. How could she have been so unaware?
Of course, the answer was staring at her; they’d deliberately kept her ignorant, and for one tiny second she felt a tiny spark of resentment, just as quickly quenched at the realization that if she’d known, Carlo would have found out, and he’d have taken it all, or at least tried to.
With this bunch on her side she couldn’t think that he’d have got very far with it. It was a moment almost of epiphany; Johnny had been perfectly right to distrust Carlo, he’d been right all along; even his own father had warned Johnny about him. The sound of Jerome clearing his throat caught her attention, as it did Johnny’s.
“Johnny, the main reason I asked for this meeting was to introduce Justine to her trustees, but also to clarify a few things. Now that Justine and Carlo are getting divorced for sure, we had to take steps to make sure Giancarlo Pellini never sees a penny of her inheritance; under New York law, he could conceivably be able to lay claim to a sizeable chunk, if not half, of everything Justine stood to inherit, or at least tie it up for years while lawyers scrabbled and squabbled over it, just so she couldn’t get to it; Bruno never wanted that to happen, and I certainly didn’t, either, so we have a way to cut him and his scheming out of the picture for good.”
He paused, to let what he was saying have time to sink in, and get them ready for what was coming next.
“John, the best way around this is to remove you as a trustee; we already have paperwork in-hand to show you relinquished that duty on Justine’s eighteenth birthday, and then we can transfer all her funds to you, with yet more paperwork in-hand to prove incontrovertibly that the transfer to you was made after her legal majority, but before she married Carlo. This will have the effect of retrospectively removing the possibility of Carlo being able to make any kind of claim in the future if and when the marriage fails.”
He paused again, seeing the rebellion rising in Johnny’s eyes, so he plowed on, hoping to get to the point before Johnny boiled over.
“It will also prove beyond doubt that we ceased being her trustees the instant that transfer was made; no paperwork, no minutes of meetings, no records of any kind will exist beyond the date Justine passed her trust over to you five years ago. The only records that will remain will prove incontrovertibly that you became the sole owner and possessor of all Justine’s funds the day after her eighteenth birthday. You take ownership, we fade away into the background, and Carlo Pellini and his shysters will be left scratching their heads. ”
Johnny was stunned; no, this wasn’t going to happen, it belonged to Justy, not him, he wasn’t going to help himself to everything so many people had worked so long to keep safe for her, it wasn’t right…
Tommy shifted in his seat, causing Johnny to look in his direction.
“Johnny, please, listen a minute before you fly off the handle. Any trust can be broken if you put enough time and effort into it. Mind, it’d take a lot to bust this one up, but Cassie says it could be done. So we looked for something that wasn’t just ‘might be okay’. We looked for something ironclad ‘will work whatever happens’, and you’re it. The only person in the world we’d trust with this is you; you and Justine are a couple, inseparable, and we all know you’ll only ever do what’s best for her. By giving you ownership of all her funds back in the past, before she ever married Carlo, he and the slickest lawyers he can hire aren’t going to be able to pry a thin dime out of her. We all know you wouldn’t act less than honorably when it comes to protecting her interests, and while we all here know who and what you both really are to each other, at the end of the day, legally, if push came to shove, you’ll still be her brother, not her spouse, and they won’t be able to touch a single cent of ‘your’ money. Think of it. Carlo tried to marry money, but she gave it all away before she married. Oh I want to see his face when he finds out!”
Tommy started to laugh, and even Johnny grinned as he thought of that glorious sight, relaxing as the sense of what Tommy said trickled through. Only one thing troubled him, though.
“OK folks, I understand what you done, and why, but Miz Cassie, you can explain why am I not a trustee no more?”
Cassie leaned forward and patted Johnny’s hand.
“Think, Johnny; if you were still a trustee, you wouldn’t have been able to benefit financially from the trust, in fact, we wouldn’t have been able to do what we needed to do to protect Justine’s inheritance; we couldn’t have assigned it all to you. By retrospectively removing you from the Board of Trustees, we could legally sign-over all of Justine’s investments and trust funds to you, at her request, of course, properly documented, and drop out of sight. Let me explain something.”
Cassie leaned on the table, her eyes on Justine and Johnny.
“John, your mother wanted to make the trust as watertight as possible, so she included a couple of strange, but perfectly legal conditions; the terms of the trust are interesting, with self-perpetuating trustees, zero remuneration, and complete freedom to invest, with no ‘cautious investor’ rule, but she also included the direction to the trustees to make payments of principal and interest to Justine or as directed by her whenever she deems fit but not as directed by anyone else, even a court, unless she delegates the right to receive the proceeds of the trust to you, John. If that happens, since you’re of full age the trust ends, we disappear, and everything is yours, free and clear of any possible claim from Carlo.”