All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) by Lindsey Forrest Page B

you’d divorce her, but maybe you felt the same way she did, that you were mated for life.”
    She still didn’t look at him, but she heard his sharpness above her head. “Considering Kevin was filing this subpoena at the very moment you were driving her home, I find her comment more than a little self-serving and her request more than a little suspicious.” He waited until she looked at him. “Listen to me, Laura. You are not to feel guilty. You didn’t cause this. I should have filed years ago and spared us all several highly unpleasant months. I had my reasons, but—” He gave a shrug. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time over the next few months to regret waiting. But I don’t want you to worry about her.”
    “I can’t help it,” she said wearily. “She’s my sister.”
    Oh, heavens, how had she gotten herself into such a melodramatic situation – feeling sorry for her lover’s wife? Maybe Cam had been right. Maybe she needed a keeper.
    “She’s upset right now,” Richard said flatly, “but deep down Diana is a very pragmatic woman. She’ll curse me out and drown her sorrows tonight, and tomorrow she’ll go weep on Kevin’s shoulder because Lucy won’t talk to her about this. Then Kevin will call Tom to open negotiations. We have an offer all ready to go.” He covered her hand. “Before we ever talk money, which I promise you is what she cares about most, she has to waive any claims about Francie, sign a custody agreement, and drop the subpoena. That’s why you aren’t going to testify.”
    Laura’s mind was in turmoil. She pulled her hand away from him and stood up to carry her cup back to the counter. “I still think – Richard, you don’t know that Di will go along with that. I think,” her voice faltered, “she cares about you more than she wants to admit.”
    Richard shook his head in answer.
    She picked up a towel to wipe the counter, wishing she could wipe this whole situation clean as easily as she cleaned up the stray coffee grounds. “I think I should go see that lawyer.”
    He faced her across the island. “That’s a good preventive measure. I’m giving Diana an excellent incentive to cooperate, but God knows how long before she decides to go along. Laura—” His voice turned serious, and she stopped cleaning to look up at him. “If it ever comes to that deposition, don’t be concerned about either Francie or me, do you understand? Tell the truth. There’s very little damage you can do to either of us. Don’t hand Diana any weapon she can use against you. Just tell what you know, and let me worry about the damage control.”
    But she couldn’t, she thought with a sinking heart. She’d had the entire evening, between emails, to work her way through the possible quicksand of testimony. What if, by accident, Kevin asked the right question – was Francie pregnant? Now that she and Meg were thwarting Emma’s lawsuit for Cam’s death, she couldn’t run the risk of admitting the truth about Meg. Telling Richard in private was one thing. Telling Diana in a public pleading that Emma might access was quite another.
    But she couldn’t tell Richard now. What if Diana made him testify? What if they asked him the pertinent question? Emma might be able to get her hands on that too. As long as he didn’t know about Meg, he could honestly say that, as far as he knew, there’d been no consequences to that long-ago relationship.
    She hated feeling so paranoid, but Emma’s vicious attack and her attempt to sue for Cam’s death put Meg in too vulnerable a position. She didn’t put it beyond her sister-in-law to try to overturn the adoption if she ever found out that Francie had lied on the birth certificate, depriving Richard of his rights. She’d heard of adoptions overturned for one parent and not the other.
    What a disaster! She’d been home less than three weeks, and she was embroiled in a tangle of lawsuits and emotions with her sister and her brother-in-law, her