Seth poised to stand, but Stephen put a hand on his forearm in warning. He didn’t have to look Seth’s way for Seth to understand his motivation. Let Spike dig his own hole. But still, Seth couldn’t let this woman be harassed for half an hour or however long just to build a case.
He cleared his throat. “We have drinks from the bar. We don’t need anything further. Thank you.”
She exhaled, nodded, and strode away before they could change their minds.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” Stephen said, looking first at Spike, then his manager, who hadn’t bothered to introduce himself to Seth because he was on his phone cutting a deal or arranging a haircut appointment. Seth couldn’t tell which.
Stephen obviously didn’t give a shit. “Serving Mr. Rozhkov with bogus paperwork was a dirty trick. We all know the truth of Toby’s parentage. Even you, Spike, because if you really, truly believed he wasn’t yours, you would have fought to extinguish your parental rights during the divorce. You didn’t. I don’t know why, but I suspect it’s because you always like having a trick or two up your sleeve.”
Spike bobbed his eyebrows.
“Well, let me say this not as the Rozhkovs’ attorney, but as your former brother-in-law. Toby is not a commodity to be bought, sold, or traded. He’s a child who is wanted very much, not only by his mother, but by his stepfather.”
A cold prickle of realization rolled down Seth’s spine. Legally, that’s what he was. He was Toby’s stepfather, regardless of how he’d come to be it. That meant he not only had a moral responsibility, which he’d gained that day he’d taken Toby to the beach in Bermuda, smeared sun block onto his cheeks, and got him to breakfast, but a legal one as well. He’d be damned if he ever gave up either willingly.
“Point being?” Spike asked, now looking at them both over the top of his sunglasses.
His manager finally disconnected his call and set his phone atop the table. “What, no drinks? Well, whatever. We’ve got a sound check at seven. Listen, here’s the deal.” He tapped the tabletop, then bent at the waist to pull up his briefcase.
He handed a stapled bundle of papers to Seth and one to Stephen.
Stephen scanned his at what seemed to be record speed, probably just looking for keywords, but Seth got caught up on the very first paragraph.
Sergei Rozhkov to be paid $100,000 for a term of one year. During that time, the aforementioned may not address questions about the paternity of Tobias Coffman to any members of the media or other…
He closed his eyes, shook his head, and read the same bullet points again and again. The scenario didn’t seem any more clear than when he’d started. This time, he knew there wasn’t something being lost in translation. This guy—this asshole—wanted to turn his own flesh and blood into a publicity stunt. To give him the notoriety Meg had carefully shielded herself and her son from. To draw attention toward an indiscretion Meg did not commit.
And for what? To sell some records?
“Why don’t you just sign off your rights?” Seth asked. Stephen had said not to talk, but this… He hadn’t expected this insult.
Spike shrugged again. “Rock stars go through shit like this all the time. When Toby’s like thirty and Hollywood has discovered him as the next big thing or whatever, people will expect me to come out of the woodwork. Seriously. It’s a thing. We’ll be best buds by then. He’ll understand.”
“Is there something wrong with your brain? Perhaps you’re missing a significant chunk of it. Maybe you were dropped on your head as a child. Repeatedly.”
Spike turned to his manager and tapped him on the shoulder. “What did my shrink say? Said there was a name for it.”
Stephen propped his chin atop his fist and just watched. That was as close a thing to explicit permission as Seth was going to get, so he decided to go for broke.
“I’m not signing that.” He nudged the proposal packet across the table. “Not only is it despicable and tasteless, but if you’re going to pay me to give my soul away, at least make me an offer higher than what I earn in a year.”
“Two-fifty,” the manager said.
Seth shook his head. “You’re missing the point. I’m not signing that for any amount. And maybe you’re right. When you’re an old man and Toby is grown, perhaps you can hope for the relationship you don’t have right now and people will discover you and that shit you call music again. Maybe you’ll be mature enough by then. But thirty years is a long time to hope your son will forgive you.”
He knew that for a fact, because it’d taken him twenty to forgive his parents. Yeah, he’d grinned through it all, but what else could he do? Make everyone else suffer for his misery? Make them feel his abandonment as keenly as he had? It had taken him twenty years to get to the point where he’d care enough to attend either parent’s funeral, should he be notified of it. There was no worse trust to break than a child’s, even when that child was nearly grown.