Sophie (The Boss 8)

But we were rich. No one would doubt our innocence, and if they did, we had an army of lawyers to buy away that doubt. Someone would come to help us put our things back. We would be shaken up, but this would blow over once the law was satisfied. Rich people didn’t get treated the same as poor people; I’d seen enough evidence of that even before I’d married a billionaire. The class divide that put impoverished people under more suspicion than those who had the means to support their criminality made me furious. Even worse, I was thankful for that divide now that it affected me directly.

Jenna asked Neil and me to wait in our bedroom while she completed her walk-through, and the police did the living room and kitchen. I went into the dressing room, where all my jewelry had been dumped onto the floor. I knelt with a sigh and started picking up tangled necklaces.

“It was Valerie,” Neil said, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he took in the pile of shoes, his and mine, mixed in a big heap.

And I wanted to say that it couldn’t have been Valerie. That she wasn’t like that. That she and Laurence had their problems with us, but they would never do anything like make a false CPS report.

But I couldn’t do that anymore. Now, I could only despair that she had been so cruel. Had this been what they’d envisioned? Had they hoped the cops would find something to incriminate us? To rip Olivia away from us?

“Are you sure?” I asked quietly.

Neil scoffed bitterly. “I didn’t want to believe it, either. But the search warrant… Sophie, Laurence is a prosecutor for the State of New York. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

My stomach dropped to my feet. “No.”

With a grim nod, Neil said, “I was afraid it would be something like this. I expected it. I just didn’t think Valerie would participate. Or that it would be conducted with such outrageous overreach.”

I took both of Neil’s hands in mine and stepped in front of him. “Baby...I have to ask you something.”

He closed his eyes. “No, Sophie. I do not have any drugs in the house.”

That he’d already known what I’d planned to ask somehow made his answer more painful. “You know I had to.”

“I do.” He pulled his hands back and put them in his pockets, instantly building his patented Neil Elwood emotional barrier.

“Don’t do that. Please.” I reached for him and held onto his elbow. “Be angry. Be hurt. But be something.”

“Sophie, if I get angry now, I’ll do something I regret. I’ll call Valerie and argue. I’ll threaten Laurence. I’ll…” He cut himself off. “I am angry. I’m furious. I’ve only felt this dangerously close to losing all control once before, and you...you know what I tried to do.”

He didn’t mean his suicide attempt. After Emma and Michael’s accident, Neil had tried to have the other driver killed. He hadn’t gone through with it, but he’d given it enough consideration that he’d frightened himself. That it was so close to the back of his mind now scared me.

“You wouldn’t do that,” I whispered, not just because I wanted it to be true, but because it was true. Neil wasn’t that man, not even when he’d been facing the worst pain of his life.

“If something happens...if Olivia is taken from us…I don’t trust myself.” He couldn’t finish whatever his next thought was, his voice choking up and dying off.

I put my arms around him. “It’s going to be all right.”

Mentally, I ran through everything I knew about child custody, which wasn’t a lot. But I did know that everyone rolled their eyes at the phrase, “grandparents’ rights.” Maybe Valerie and Laurence didn’t have a leg to stand on. I suspected that working for the government provided Laurence with quite a few extra legs, though. Like the slimy millipede that he was.

“Baba? Neil? Sophie?” Amal’s voice echoed from the hall outside our room.

It was too early for her to be home from school. El-Mudad hadn’t left to pick them up that long ago. Neil raced from the dressing room and pulled the blankets over the pile of sex toys on the bed just quick enough to avert disaster.

“Did everybody just forget I had a half-day today?” She stomped into the room, red-faced and sweaty. “Nobody was there to pick me up. I had to Uber home, and security wouldn’t let the Uber driver on the property without your permission, and nobody was picking up their phones! I had to walk from the gate!”

“Lower your voice, please,” Neil said calmly.

“No! What are the cops doing here?” Amal demanded. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Where’s my father?”

“Your father is picking up Rashida.” Though my neck ached from tension, I managed to sound super mellow. “The police are here because someone contacted CPS.”