Johnson Family 2: Perfect Read Online Free PDF

that mattered. She was his wife, and now the allotted time had passed, he expected her to follow through on her promise to give him a child.
    ****
    Daniella walked briskly past Roxanne and down the hallway toward the elevators that would get her out of the building and away from Cyrus. She didn’t say a word to the receptionist she passed in the main lobby of the executive floor. She stabbed the elevator button and waited, blinking back tears of frustration.
    He was a Neanderthal. He was a selfish prick.
    She wished there was someone she could call and complain to, but his request—no, his demand—was too outrageous, and she had trouble digesting the enormity of it. Even though right before they’d separated he’d told her he wanted a child, she hadn’t believed he was serious. Now she knew how serious he was. How could she possibly explain his angry ultimatum to anyone?
    There was no way she was going to have a baby because he said so. He could hold his damn breath until he turned purple.
    She rode the elevator to the atrium on the first floor, relieved the erratic beat of her heart had lessened to a slower pace. Her brisk walk slowed as she neared her white CL-Class Mercedes coupe in the parking garage.
    With her brain no longer smothered in frustration and what she unwillingly admitted had been panic, she could think clearly.
    “I want children, and I need a wife,” he’d told her what seemed like ages ago.
    As proposals went, it was tragically unromantic, but she’d said yes. For the most part, they wanted the same thing out of marriage—companionship. Combined with a mutual respect, it had been sufficient. Her parents had proven love didn’t mean you’d have a happy marriage. The whole sordid story of how her parents’ relationship fell apart was never far from her mind.
    She’d wanted children, too, like Cyrus, but not on the same timeline. She’d had plans to expand her gallery which, true enough, she’d done over the past few years. Now she was on the brink of opening a storefront in New York. Even if she considered his demand—which she wasn’t about to—she simply didn’t have time to devote to a child. Not when she would be pulled in numerous directions in the coming months.
    She stewed on the problem. Cyrus had the financial means to drag out the divorce indefinitely, and he was hell bent on doing so. She knew of at least one divorce battle that had lasted for ten years! There was no way in hell she was going to fight him for that long. If she was to get out of this relationship, she had to force his hand. But how? He wouldn’t change, and the more she fought him, the harder he dug in his heels.
    Daniella entered her car and sat there for awhile, thinking.
    Cyrus’s comment about Roland made her uneasy. She and Roland had stayed away from each other after her separation from her husband. Partly because of Cyrus’s warning, but mostly because she’d felt betrayed by her ex.
    But a month ago Roland had made an unexpected visit to her gallery. According to him, he’d dropped by to say hi and see how she was doing. He’d apologized profusely for his role in her deception and said he wanted to be friends. She’d put him off, not sure she wanted him in her life again, because though he’d come clean, she’d been disappointed he’d taken the million dollars from Cyrus.
    As she pulled out of the parking deck, she called her attorney, Davis Williams, the one person she could talk to and trust. “I need to talk to you. Are you free?”
    “Can you come now?” he asked.
    “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    His building was located nearby, and soon enough she’d parked on the street and was headed up in the elevator to his office. She’d known Davis for years. He’d been a friend of her mother’s and had handled her parents’ divorce when she was a child. After her mother’s death, he’d ensured the proceeds from her life insurance policy had been administered according to her wishes.