The Temporary Wife - By Jeannie Moon Page 0,2

hackers from breaching banks and investment firms. Firms like his father’s. So while Will could buy Jason’s company and not think twice about the cost, Jason could take down the server at his father’s firm with one well-placed virus. He wouldn’t know what hit him.

He had to do the same with protecting Molly. There had to be a strategy, something he was missing. Something that could protect his niece and give Meg Rossi the support she needed to fight his parents.

And then it hit him. Something so simple, he almost laughed. Something his parents would never see coming. The only problem would be Meg. Somehow he had to get her to trust him, and he didn’t know if she would. Ever. He’d broken her heart into a million pieces when she was only sixteen; getting her to put her faith in him wasn’t going to be easy.

***

“They’re trying to take her away from me.”

Megan Rossi twisted her fingers while her sister Caroline rubbed her back. Meg should have known the Campbells wouldn’t respect their daughter’s will. They didn’t respect anything or anyone. And now they wanted Molly, and there was no way to stop them.

Caroline had come over as soon as Meg was served with the papers petitioning for full custody. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything she could do. As brilliant as her sister was, Meg needed a lawyer, not an engineer.

“Do you think they’ll go through with it? I mean, they’ve been threatening for months, but it’s not like you’ve kept Molly from them.”

Caroline was being logical, but there was nothing logical about what was happening. This was about control. In short, the Campbell family took what they wanted and never thought twice about it.

Meg had firsthand experience with that. “How am I going to fight this? They probably have ten lawyers on their payroll, each one dirtier than the last. I bet they’ve been gathering information since the day the will was read.”

Feeling overwhelmed, one tear dropped from her eye, and then another, and soon her sister was hugging her close. The grief was swamping her, the guilt that she wouldn’t even be able to carry out her best friend’s wishes was crushing her soul. Missing Grace was bad enough, but losing Molly now would be unbearable.

“All Grace wanted was for Molly to be raised in a normal home, not living the life of an heiress. Not being raised by the staff. Their argument is that since I’m not giving her a stable home, her family is better equipped to deal with her.”

“How are you not stable? You’re a teacher, a great job for a woman with a child, you’re well educated, you took every dime you had to buy your own home so she could have a nice place to live and go to good schools. I don’t get it.”

“They say they’re worried about how I will provide for her. There’s also been a lot of talk about security.”

“Security? What kind of security?”

“The little munchkin has a hefty trust fund. My Home Protect alarm system doesn’t quite equal the security on the estate.”

“Yeah, well, there were armed guards on the estate. I think that surpasses most home security,” Caroline said.

Meg nodded. There may have been an occasional pass by the local police, but no armed guards near her place.

There were other things, too, but what it all boiled down to was that they thought Meg wasn’t good enough to raise their granddaughter. They’d always hated that their precious Grace was best friends with the estate manager’s daughter. They’d tolerated it, thinking the relationship would burn out, but it never did. They weren’t about to let anything continue with Molly, no matter what the will said.

“I can’t lose her, I just can’t. But there’s nothing to stop them. You know what Mrs. Campbell said the last time Molly was there? That my single lifestyle was troubling them. They’re worried I have strange men in the house.”

“You? You just started seeing someone after, like, three years—ever since you dumped that banker. What was his name?”

“Eric.” Eric the asshole. “The point is, they’re even using the fact that I’m thirty and unmarried against me.”

“So if you had a husband they’d back off?”

“Maybe. But that’s not happening. Not any time soon.”

“I don’t know about that,” Caroline said. “Grant would marry you in a heartbeat.”

Meg sighed. Grant. The adorable and oh-so-sweet phys ed teacher she’d started seeing just a couple of months ago. They’d been friends since she started at Shore Primary School,