“I made sure it was just me.” He slid a pointed look at Bindu. “It wasn’t easy.”
“Why are you acting like you’re doing me a favor?” The gall of him! “I didn’t ask for the cov—the HOA to not be here. I’m not afraid of them. I’ve done nothing wrong. Unless you’re suggesting that I have?”
“My grandmother is the one who’s been through trauma here, and your vicious little group should be sending her flowers to sympathize. Not flooding her inbox with threats.” Cullie was the hardest person in the world to charm, and Bindu had never been more grateful for that fact.
“I know. I’m sorry,” he said, still pouring on the charm and gloriously wasting it on Bindu’s favorite person on earth.
“So we’re here for an apology, not an eviction attempt, like your band of bullies suggested in their emails?” This from Alisha.
“It’s a little bit more complicated than that,” he said, gaze slipping between the three women. He was obviously used to speaking to a roomful of people and making them feel like he was entirely focused on each one individually. “Would you like some coffee or tea?” He pointed at the chairs around the meeting table, inviting them to sit down, but Bindu would give him even more of a height advantage than he already had when hell froze over.
Cullie picked up a bottle of water from the sideboard and pointed it at him. “What we’d like is for you to get to the damn point.” She pulled out the chair and plopped into it with some force.
“Well then, let’s get to it.” Leslie pointed to the chairs again, and when Alisha and Bindu didn’t sit, he sat down. If Cullie’s rudeness bothered him, he didn’t show it. “Richard was a heart patient.”
“I know.” The doctor who’d declared him dead had told Bindu that Richard had a pacemaker. “I mean I know now. I didn’t before.”
He met her gaze, every hint of amusement gone from his eyes. “His family wants to sue.”
“Excuse me? Sue whom?” Alisha asked.
Bindu sagged into the sideboard. What in God’s name was happening?
“Is it a crime to not know a friend’s health history?” Cullie said.
“Richard had a family?” Bindu said. He’d had five ex-wives, for heaven’s sake. Of course he did. He couldn’t possibly have been as alone as he’d seemed.
Alisha went to Bindu and took her hand. Cullie stood and did the same.
“Yes, and he also had a substantial amount of money.” Leslie’s gaze took in the three of them standing there, hands linked, registering something that made the green of his eyes deepen.
“I guess what they say about writers being starving artists isn’t true.” Bindu threw a look around the ornately appointed conference room with jazz music piping softly through artfully concealed speakers. “Then again, he lived here. Obviously he wasn’t a pauper.”
“I’d be careful what I say,” Leslie said. For words that harsh, his voice was kind.
“Are you a lawyer?” Trust Alisha to ask the right questions.
He nodded, perfectly pomaded silver hair barely moving. “I’m the person Richard entrusted with executing his will.”
“Why would we care about his will?” Bindu said, starting to lose patience with this drama. The headache that had been nudging at her ever since she’d stupidly let them give her something to knock her out yesterday pushed forward. She kicked herself for waiting until noon for chai.
The weighed-down, and weighing, look in his eyes only pushed the headache closer. He took a long, meaningful pause. “Richard left everything to you.”
“What?” all three of them said together.
Bindu yanked her hands out of Alisha’s and Cullie’s and pushed off the sideboard. “How?” She started pacing. “Why?”
No one answered. No one said a word. Alisha, even Cullie, stood there slack jawed. But Fancy-Pants Lawyer didn’t have the luxury of sitting there, studying her as though she were on a witness stand. To hell with that.
She pointed at his face. “You’ve made a mistake. That’s not possible. I barely knew him.”
He had the gall to raise a brow at her.
“Cut the judgment and say what you’re thinking. I need answers,” she said.
His eyes softened. “It doesn’t matter what I’m thinking. Rich obviously thought he knew you well enough to leave his life’s earnings to you. And also all future royalties from his books.”
What the hell, Richard!
“That makes no sense!” Yes, she raised her voice.
He stood and approached her as though he meant to comfort her, but she stepped away, and he stopped. “His family agrees with you. He has five children from his five marriages. I’m pretty sure they’re all going to come together to fight his will.”
“How much is it?” Cullie asked.
This time Bindu did cut her off. “I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I don’t want it.”
His eyes narrowed. She didn’t care. He could take his assessing eyes somewhere else.
“It doesn’t work like that. My job is to make sure Richard’s wishes are carried out. And . . .” He swallowed. “And to make sure there was nothing suspicious in the fact that he changed his will so close to his death. Obviously, the circumstances of his death don’t help.”
Bindu sat down. She didn’t care if his height gave him power. More accurately, her legs didn’t care, because they gave out.
“The circumstances of his death?” Alisha said, ears picking up the important parts, Ganesha bless her. “That sounds an awful lot like an accusation. Isn’t there a conflict of interest here? You seem to be coming at this from a place of bias, given the harassment your HOA has been inflicting on Bindu for months now.”
The flash of surprise on his face was almost comical. He couldn’t believe that someone had dared accuse him of anything nefarious. Never mind the accusations he’d been generously tossing Bindu’s way. “The HOA board is concerned about the negative press from the death of a resident as famous as Richard under these circumstances. I’m working with them to allay their fears.”
Bindu pressed a hand to her heart, and yes, she gasped. “The poor things. First the bras in my lanai and now a friend’s death in my home. Their fears are certainly what need to be allayed here.” She turned to Cullie. “Does Amazon deliver smelling salts?”
Cullie gave him a glare for the ages, and he looked down at his shiny shoes.
“It doesn’t sound like executing Richard’s wishes is all you’re interested in,” Alisha said, yet again slicing through the noise to what mattered. “How well do you know the family?”
“It’s admirable how much your daughter and granddaughter support you,” he said, looking directly at Bindu. If he meant to use their connection and win them over with flattery, he didn’t know who he was dealing with. “It says good things about you.”
Cullie stepped into his space, eyes fiery with anger. “Don’t act like you’re Binji’s friend to manipulate her when you don’t know the first thing about her. She can see right through the likes of you. We all can.”