Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I thought for a minute. What would I have done? “I only work with couples that genuinely want to make it work. If I’d heard your story, saw the look in your eyes, I wouldn’t have taken you as a client. Because I’d basically be giving the party who wanted to make it work false hope in that case. Not to mention, it would be wrong to take money to do something I knew was never going to happen.”
“Has that happened to you before? Have you had clients where one wants it to work and not the other?”
“It has. It’s not uncommon, actually. I have separate sessions in the beginning so the parties can say things freely without worrying about hurting the other person’s feelings. I find I get more truth in those sessions than anything else. When I first started, I had a couple that had been married for twenty-seven years—a wealthy, very social couple with two grown daughters. The man was gay and living a life he felt he was supposed to live after growing up with ultra-conservative, religious parents. It took him until he was fifty-two, but he came out of the closet to his wife and told her they should separate. He felt terrible and had been staying because he loved her, just not in the way a husband should love his wife. I wound up counseling them to separate and helping her get through it.”
“Shit. Wish we’d been sharing space back then. I could have gotten her a nice settlement,” Drew joked.
I shoved at his chest. “Thought you only represented men.”
“How rich were they? I might have made an exception.”
I laughed. “Why do you only represent men? Because of what your ex-wife did to you?”
Drew shook his head. “Nah. Just do better with men.”
His answer was vague, and I had the feeling he was reluctant to answer.
I squinted. “Give me the real reason, Jagger.”
He searched my eyes. “You might not want to hear it.”
“Well, now I’m curious, so whether I want to hear it or not, you have to tell me.”
Drew’s jaw flexed. “Angry fucking.”
“Pardon?”
“When I represented women who were pissed off and angry, they wanted to get even.”
“So…they were bitter. That’s normal in a divorce.”
Drew looked embarrassed. “They wanted to get even with their husbands with me.”
“You slept with your clients?”
“I’m not proud of it now, but yes. I was recently divorced and angry myself. Angry fucking can do a lot to help you temporarily release that rage.”
“Isn’t having sex with your clients against some lawyer rules or something?”
“Like I said, they weren’t my finest moments.”
I could tell Drew wasn’t just saying he was embarrassed. He really regretted the way he’d acted, and he’d been truthful with me when he could have lied. It wasn’t my place to judge his past. I’d rather judge him for the honesty he was showing me today.
“Angry sex, huh?” I tried to hide my smile.
He gave a slight nod and watched me cautiously.
“Well, I think you’re a womanizing, egotistical, self-centered jerk.”
Drew pulled his head back. “What the fuck? You wanted me to be honest.”
“I didn’t think you would honestly be an asshole.”
He was just about to respond again when I leaned close to him and cracked a sneaky smile. “Did I make you angry?”
“Are you trying to make me angry?”
“I’ve heard angry fucking can do a lot to help you temporarily release that rage.”
Before I knew what was happening, Drew had lifted me into the air and flipped me flat on my back on the couch.
He hovered over me. “Nice. Then I’m glad I piss you off daily. We’ll need a lot of work on our anger issues.”
Chapter 27
Drew, New Year’s Eve, Two years ago
Judges hate hearing cases on New Year’s Eve. But I knew what my ex-wife was up to. She thought dragging me into court on our anniversary with some vague emergency motion was going to upset me. Was she really that fucking clueless? Did she think I was sitting home pining for her three months after our divorce was finalized? I’d gotten what I wanted from her out of our divorce: my freedom and liberal shared custody of our son. Whether or not he was my biological child didn’t change the way I felt about him. He was my son. No paternity test was going to tell me otherwise.
The smartest thing Alexa had ever done was not fight me on shared custody. After I offered to pay a hefty monthly child support—even though technically I could have probably paid nothing—she was suddenly amicable to sharing custody. Money was all my ex-wife was ever interested in. Even while I was married to her, I think I knew the truth down deep.
I’d called her to find out what the fuck she was up to half a dozen times, but of course she didn’t answer. The manipulative side of her had reared its ugly head in the days since I’d packed her bags and had them moved to a rental a few blocks away—a rental I still footed the bill for. If it weren’t for Beck, I would have tossed her shit out the window when I changed the locks. But I wanted my son close to me, and he didn’t deserve to live in a tenement Alexa could barely afford.