Amanda Cinelli - Reunited For The Billionaire's Legacy

“I only want the painting of the Pyrenees,” he broke in. “She can have the rest.”

He’d cycled a race there. It had sentimental value to him.

Jerry nodded and resumed the exhaustive list. Coburn couldn’t believe he and Diana had accumulated so much stuff in two years. The free spirit in him thought it utterly ridiculous. He waved a hand at Jerry. “She can have it all. Whatever’s on the list, let her take it.”

He needed to get out of this room now .

Jerry looked thrown. “Okay—just give me a moment. I’ll move on with the life insurance policies and retirement savings.” He started flipping pages. Coburn blew out a breath, stood up and walked to the windows. This whole thing was ridiculous, insane . He and Diana both had enough money individually to never have to worry about their financials. He was seriously thinking of making his will out to a nature organization for when he eventually left this world.

He turned and leaned back against the windowsill, his gaze moving to his wife. She was still sitting there frozen, as if she was on another planet. He had the vicious urge to do something to shake her out of it.

“We’ll start with the life insurance policies. You—”

“Enough.” He waved a hand at Jerry. The lawyer set the paper down with a slow movement, both of the legal experts absorbing his aggressive tone and stance. He pinned his gaze on his wife’s face. “Diana, are you all right?”

She lifted her chin, her dark eyes flaring with emotion for the first time. “Perfect.”

Exactly what she’d said to him last night after he’d taken her apart with his despicable behavior.

Jerry eyed him. “Should we continue?”

“No.” He kept his gaze trained on Diana. “The agreement is fine, all of it. I, however, am not ready to sign.”

Diana bolted upright in her chair. He registered the movement with intense satisfaction. His wife was awake. “What do you mean,” she demanded slowly, “not ready?”

“I mean I’m not ready to sign.”

“Why not?”

He lifted a shoulder, sloughing off the incredulous part of his mind that questioned his sanity. “I want more time.”

Diana’s eyes spit fire at him. “For what? You know I’m leaving the country in three weeks, Coburn. I want this done before that happens, and I’m sure you do, too.”

He wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. But he was going to take his brother’s advice and figure it out.

“So sorry to disturb your plans,” he murmured in a voice as smooth as churned butter, “but that’s just the way it is.”

“Coburn.” Jerry jumped in when it appeared his client might go loco. “It’s highly unusual for a party to back out at this point when we have all the fine print agreed upon. Once Diana leaves the country, it’s doubtful we can facilitate anything, given the spotty communications she might have where she is staying.”

He gave the lawyer a withering look. “It took my wife twelve months to come out of hiding and face me. She can damn well wait for another few.”

Jerry’s jaw dropped. Chase gave Coburn a wary look as if appealing for direction. Diana flicked a look at the two lawyers, her eyes ice-cold and full of purpose. “Could you give us a second?”

The two men looked relieved to be leaving the room. Coburn closed the door with his foot behind them and stood watching his wife, arms folded over his chest. Diana got to her feet, crossed to him and stood mere inches away, her stony face not hiding for one moment what he could read in her eyes. “Don’t you think last night was payback enough, Coburn? Why are you doing this?”

He narrowed his gaze on her. “You were the one to instigate the hot breakup sex this time, sweetheart. I only went along with it.”

Fury wiped the composure from her face. “Do not do this to me. Do not play games with something so important.”

“Why not?” He moved close enough to her that he could inhale her distinctive floral scent. Her fear. “How important was this to you when you ignored my phone calls for weeks? When you refused to talk it out like a rational human being?”

Her eyes flickered. “I did that because it was over. To end the vicious circle that happened between us time and time again... To save us.”

“No.” He caught her jaw in his fingers and commanded her attention. “You did it to save yourself. And to hell with how I felt.”

“Coburn—”

“Save it.” His razor-sharp words cut through the air like a knife. “Learn what it’s like to wait and wonder, Diana. Learn what it’s like to be stuck in purgatory like I was. I can tell you from experience it isn’t pretty.”

He turned and yanked open the door. Diana set a hand on his shoulder. “I am going. Jerry will find another way to make this happen, and it will be done. Do it the easy way without dragging us all through that.”

He turned around, never feeling so cold and emotionless in his entire life. “Enjoy your self-exploration, Diana. I hope you get your answers.”

He walked out of the conference room and away from the closure he’d wanted so desperately. If it added another complication to his already convoluted life? So be it. That had been far, far more satisfying than what he’d walked in there to do.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he wouldn’t sign?”

Her father’s enraged voice boomed in Diana’s ear, intensifying the dull throb in her temples. She put down her spoon and pushed her half-eaten bowl of soup away as the ache in her head mixed with the uneasy sensation in her stomach to inspire a distinctly unwell feeling.

“He said he needed more time.” She fixed her gaze on Wilbur Taylor’s flinty, gray-eyed one and the expression he reserved solely for conversations about her ex-husband.

“More time for what?” her father huffed. “So he can add another socialite to his list of fame?”

Her mouth tightened. “I have no idea, and frankly I’m over it. I’m leaving on Friday. It can wait until he sees reason.”

Her father waved a hand at her. “Never mind. I’ll sic David Price on it.”

She put her spoon down, her blood pressure rising. “Jerry is perfectly capable of taking care of it. It’s my business, Father. Stay out of it.”

“Jerry Simmons is a fine lawyer, but he isn’t a pit bull like David. David will have you divorced in minutes.”

“No.” She cut the idea off at the pass. Although she couldn’t say she didn’t have her doubts about Jerry’s ability to handle Coburn after her husband had walked all over him two weeks ago in that conference room, this was her decision to make, and she didn’t want her father anywhere near it.

“Fine.” Her father shrugged his broad shoulders. “But I don’t think you’re handling this very well. You shouldn’t be giving him any choice.”

Diana picked up her wine and took a sip. What did he think she handled well, beyond her patients? She’d spent her life trying to live up to her world-renowned orthopedic surgeon of a father, who overshadowed everything in his wake with his big personality and impossible standards. But measuring up had become a fruitless pursuit she’d finally abandoned for her own sanity.

“Your father is only considering what’s best for you, Diana.” Her mother, ever the peacekeeper, attempted to smooth the waters.

And pursuing his own witch hunt of her husband... Her father had never liked Coburn from the minute he’d laid eyes on him. She’d always wondered if it was because he saw too much of himself in Coburn—a man who viewed the world as his oyster and took his pick of it as if it was his divine right. That was what her father had done in marrying her mother, his secretary at the time, then carrying on a five-year-long affair with a brilliant fellow doctor whose brain apparently turned him on more than his society wife.