Second Ave Offices: Labor Day (WLW)

Session #3

Rose sat down at the conference table in the Joshi Firm offices and dispelled a long breath from her lungs, ready for all of this to be over. With the promise of visiting Maya's family home, which apparently was a hotel, she was more than excited to end these tedious proceedings and make sure her family was financially stable. She'd even stayed up most of the night trying to finish the last touches to her loft, though she hadn't entirely defeated the daunting task. Still, she was nearly there and the flight to India would be taking place within a week.

Sitting on the edge of her chair, Rose swiveled it with enthusiastic anticipation and heard Maya giggle from beside her as she also took her seat. "Someone's giddy."

"Someone is." Rose smirked and wiggled her eyebrows, but Maya's face grew stoic in an instant and she heard the doors into the conference room.

Rose spun around in her chair and watched as Gerry stepped through with a haggard glance in their direction, gesturing for the others behind herself to come inside. Gilford walked into the room with such confidence, Rose would have thought things weren't going their way under different circumstances, but she knew better. She returned his smug gaze with one of her own and spotted his eyes narrowing for a short moment before he pulled out a chair. Bex soon followed and sat down in it as Lucas and Lisa soon followed.

However, surprising everyone in the room who wasn't Rose or Maya, the former's siblings came over and sat beside her. Rose gave Lucas an appreciative pat along his shoulders as she sent a gaze of admiration at her little sister. She beamed back and they all zeroed their eyes over at their mother who stared at them with indignance.

"Now that we're here, I assume you've had adequate time to reconsider my client's offer?" Gilford finally interrupted the silence dense with animosity and opened his briefcase on the floor beside his chair. He pulled some papers out and a pen, then shoved them toward the center of the table. "Just sign on the dotted line and we can--"

"Has your client really kept you this much in the dark thus far?" Maya interjected and stood, walking over to the door that adjoined her aunt's old office to the conference room. She held the handle, idling at the door as she sent a perfectly sculpted eyebrow in Lucas and Lisa's direction. "I know this may be a bit blindsiding, but bear with me." She glanced back toward Bex and tilted her head to the side with a small grin. "So, care to inform your lawyer on what transpired in my office yesterday?"

"Look, this is highly unprofessional. First you accuse my client of withholding information, then you speak as if you know something we don't." Gilford stood and held up a particular document that held no legal standing. "Do you not recall that Dante planned on changing his will? I'm sure it would have reflected--"

"The information that I am about to disclose. Yes, you're correct." Maya opened the door and after she nodded inside the office, she moved aside with crossed arms. She stared daggers at Bex as Declan walked into the room and her eyes bulged. Maya directed him to sit next to herself and Rose felt someone leaning around her backside. She spun her chair once more and found Lucas perceptively staring past her toward Declan and realized the man did the same. Maya took her seat again and placed her hand on the papers Gilford sent her way, shooting them back over the tabletop toward him. He caught them and grimaced with bewilderment, opening his mouth to say something, but Maya beat him to the punch. "Right, you wouldn't know who this man is, would you, Reid? Well, this is the man Bex had an affair with for over a decade. He also..." Maya glanced over at Lisa and Lucas with compassion and Rose took her little brother's hand as she spotted it beginning to tremble. "Is the father of her last two children."

Lisa jutted up out of her chair with shock, her breath speeding up the longer she looked over Declan's face. He stood up and walked over to her with tears pooling in his eyes. "We still have to do a paternity test, but I'm certain you and your brother are mine. And I'm so sorry I wasn't there to help in raising you, but from what I'm told, you both have become great, amazing people. And there is something else I need to mention."

"Declan, shut up!" Bex barked from the other side of the table as she jumped to her feet, only restrained by the arm Gilford held across her front. "Keep your mouth shut!"

"I signed a document that wouldn't allow me to see either of you...or my brother. Dante was my half-brother from another marriage which I didn't know until it was too late. That is why you have the trademarks for Huntingtons, something which took my father from me as well." Declan dropped to his feet and took Lisa's hand as she lost her ability to stand, plopping down into her chair once again as tears streamed down her cheeks as if they were a waterfall. Rose spotted the same along Lucas' cheeks and rubbed her thumb against the back of his hand. "If I had known, if Bex told me you were mine, I would have been here in a heartbeat. We met when I was searching for my mother and I hit a dead end. That dead end was put in place by your mother who lied to me for years as well. That said, I received this the other day and would like you both to read it."

Lucas didn't hesitate to take the paper, glancing over at his mother with disgust as he unfolded it, then read aloud, "Dear Declan Schultz. I was informed after years of marriage that you are my half-brother by sharing a mother. I'm sorry to inform you our mother overdosed when I was a child. She gave you up for adoption before then and I was given to our uncle. If I had known about you, brother, I would have never stopped searching for you.

"I also know my wife lied to you, deceiving you into a relationship that bore two angels. While I may not be able to forgive her in this lifetime, I hold no anger toward you or my children. Bex took advantage of your naivety and for that I am greatly sorrowful. I wish we could have known each other in our youth, grown up together and wedding, being one another's best men, but that was not in the cards due to one person.

"Please, learn of your children and be a part of their lives. If I may ask, also look after my daughter, Rose. She has a gorgeous heart and is strong willed, which by no means is down to how her mother or myself raised her. She is just good and that is something we all need in life. I wish we had more time to get to know each other, but my illness has caught up to me. Please, be a family to the children when they need it most and never forget that you are in fact loved.

"Sincerely with love, Dante Johnson."

Lucas trembled from head to toe and lifted his gaze toward his mother as he shook his head. He and Lisa stood and were led out of the room by Declan back into Josephine's old office. As much as she wished to join them, to hear what their first meeting might reveal, she resided herself back to her chair and waited as Bex's face twisted with anger. She sat back down into her chair, but her lawyer remained standing as he stared at the closed office door with alarm. Bex tugged on his blazer sleeve and he begrudgingly sat down, dropping his face into his hands.

"So the prenup has been proven to have been broken..." Gilford began collecting his items and placing them back into his briefcase, save for a single pen.

"What are you doing, Reid?" Bex clenched her fists atop the table and sent her heated gaze toward Rose. She stabbed her index finger through the air as she accusingly said, "This is your fault. How do you expect your siblings to cope with such a heavy burden on their shoulders now? Hmm?"

"The same way I've dealt with you for years." Rose sent Maya a fond gaze, then turned back to her mother with a tranquility she wasn't sure she'd ever felt in the past. "With patience."

Maya sifted through several papers, then sent them over to Gilford. "The new agreement is that Mrs. Johnson will not protest the division of the company and Dante's assets. It also clearly states that due to her affair, she will not receive even the tiniest fraction of the funds."

"What am I meant to do for sustenance?" Bex latched onto the papers and pulled them closer to herself as she began avidly running her eyes over the settlement.

"Simply put, Mrs. Johnson, I believe it is time for you to get a job." Maya shrugged as she took Rose's hand under the table. "You still have your shared accounts with Declan and he has agreed to remove his name from the account. That should be enough for you to get a small apartment and pay the rent in advance for several months while you pursue employment."

Bex bit down hard on her bottom lip as the color drained from her face and Gilford nodded as held up a pen. "Sign them, Mrs. Johnson. You've lost."