Leading the Witness

by Chantal Fernando

  “I don’t know,” Jaxon continues. “The men in this place are falling, one by one, and I’ll place a bet you’re next.”

  “What about the women? Can’t Yvonne be next?” I groan, throwing her under the bus.

  Jaxon starts to laugh. Hard. “Does Yvonne even date? Trust me, she’s going to be single until the end of time.”

  He has a point. “Well, whatever this contagious disease is, I want no part of it.”

  “You say that now,” he says enigmatically, standing up and wiping his hands together. “I’m going to go and grab a coffee. Do you want one?”

  I shake my head. “No, but thanks. My client is due any minute.”

  “See you at lunch,” he says, exiting my office.

  I finish the last of the carrots and celery, pondering the conversation we just had.

  Maybe I’m not as opposed to finding “the one” as I pretend to be.

  My client, Laurie Karen, arrives, and we go through her case, and I write down her statement about her husband, who turned abusive and started threatening their three children. It’s hard to listen to, but this is the reality of the world we live in. Pretending things like this aren’t happening won’t fix anything. There’s bad in the world, but it’s up to us to stand against it.

  This is why I became a lawyer.

  Everyone sees the status, money, and all that, but this right here is why I chose family law.

  If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m going to do it.

  “LET ME GUESS, YOU want the usual?” Riley asks, fiddling with the red bandanna she always wears. “And a coffee?”

  I nod, even though I really wish I could drink a beer right now, which I do order for lunch on occasion when the day has been stressful. “Yes, please. Pretty busy in here today.” I glance around, taking in all the people. I’m glad it was her who came to serve me, even if I had to wait a few minutes. “Guess everyone is finding out about our secret spot.”

  She flashes me a lopsided grin. It’s fucking cute. “I sure hope so. I really need the place to pick up a bit. How’s your morning been?”

  Why does she have to be married? And who is her husband? I don’t know much about him, not even his name. Is he good to her? Does she love him? She must. Riley isn’t the kind of woman to marry someone she doesn’t love. She never mentions him though. But that doesn’t surprise me. As friendly as Riley is with me and my coworkers, she always has a guard up. She never lets conversations about her ever get too personal, instead preferring to keep it professional yet friendly. She intrigues me.

  Not that it makes a difference. As much as I like to have fun, and have been known to not have too high of a standard for the women I date, I do have lines I won’t cross. I deal with people who get divorced, cheat, and play dirty every day, and I see the destruction it brings to families. I’d never willingly be the cause of that, regardless of how I felt about a woman. Besides, I’d never want a woman who would cheat anyway. But despite all that, I still find myself wanting to be around Riley, to talk to her, even though I know that nothing can ever happen.

  Pretty fucked-up.

  I need to meet more women. I haven’t been putting myself out there like I normally do.

  Forget about Riley.

  And I will, just not yet.

  “Not too bad,” I tell her as she slides me my coffee. “Had a little free time, which was rare, but the rest of the day is going to be busy. I have to go to court again.”

  “Your life is so much more interesting than mine,” she says, placing the coffee in front of me and leaning forward on her elbows. “The best thing that happened here today was that a girl Preston went on a date with last week walked in. They’d met online and it was apparently the worst date ever, and she had no idea he worked here. You should have seen both of their faces.”

  I laugh at her story, at the way her face gets all animated, like she’s so excited to be telling it. I could listen to her talk for hours; I don’t care what she has to say. I’m hopeless; I know.

  “So what happened?” I inquire, wanting to hear more.

  “Well, Preston was the only one available to serve her, so he had no choice. She hesitated for a bit, I think she was considering walking out, but in the end she awkwardly walked up to the bar and ordered a mocktail,” she says, softly laughing to herself. “They both pretended the date never happened, that they didn’t know each other, but it was so painful to watch. Their body language . . . I almost felt sorry for Preston.”

  “He should have played it off, made a joke or something,” I chuckle. “What was so bad about the date?”

  “She spoke about her cat the entire time,” Riley deadpans, shaking her head. “And asked Preston if he wanted to meet him. His name is Meowth, like the Pokémon, and when Preston said he didn’t like cats, he’s more of a dog person, she started crying.”

  I can’t stop the laughter that spills out of me. Only Preston would find a chick like that.

  “Bet you’ve got a few of those stories,” she adds, her sassy attitude making an appearance. I’d never let her know it, but I like her attitude. She thinks I can’t handle it, but she has no idea. And I guess she never will.

  Right woman, wrong timing.

  “I might,” I reply, shrugging. Sometimes I play into who she thinks I am. It’s safer that way. She thinks I’m a womanizer, and I have been in the past, but I’m not like that anymore. It’s pretty hard to be when you only have eyes for one woman, whether she’s yours or not. In my case, I’m a sucker for punishment. “But I’m not going to tell them. I think you’d enjoy that a little too much.”

  “I probably would,” she agrees, our gazes holding. It’s a little dangerous whenever we look into each other’s eyes, because I can read her so easily. They give everything away. Big and hazel, all her emotions flutter through them. And when she smiles, she uses them too.

  She’s not as immune to me as she wishes to be, which is just another reason why this is so fucked-up. Yet here I am, getting my daily dose of her, even when I know this is all we’ll ever be.

  “Let me know if you want anything else,” she says, heading to serve some other patrons who approach the bar.

  I’m left there, watching her, waiting for my food to arrive, wondering what the fuck I’m doing with my life.

  I’VE JUST GOTTEN BACK to my office when Yvonne sends a call through.

  “Hello?” I say down the line, shuffling into my seat and turning on my computer.

  “Hunter? It’s Derick,” my old friend from law school says. I haven’t heard from him in months, so I have a feeling he’s going to ask for a favor. That’s the only time either of us call each other these days, and I should know, because the last time I called him I asked if he could call in a favor with one of his cop buddies.

  We exchange pleasantries until he gets straight to the point. “I need a favor. Any chance you can take on another client last-minute? You’re the best in family law, and this man is my real estate agent and he can pay your full rate. I kind of owe him one.”

  So everyone just owes everyone fucking favors now.

  “What’s the catch?” I ask him. Referrals and taking on a new client is no big deal, but there’s usually more to it when someone calls and asks.

  He’s silent for a few seconds, then says, “Yeah, he has a mediation meeting with his ex tomorrow morning.”

  That would do it.

  I check over my schedule. “What time?”

  “Ten a.m.”

  “Why doesn’t he have a lawyer already?” I ask, because this is leaving it a little fucking last-minute. I guess this is the catch. My schedule is pretty full, but I probably could fit this meeting in. Lucky for him.

  “Well, I offered to help him out,” he explains. “But he wants you. He called your firm, but your receptionist said you aren’t taking on anyone new at this point because your workload is too full.”

  Shit.

  I don’t exactly have a good feeling about this, but I do
owe Derick a favor, and if this man wants me, well, I guess I can give him that—for Derick, anyway.

  “All right, send me over the details. And Derick—” I start.

  “I owe you one. I know. I know.”

  Yes, yes, he does.

  chapter 3

  RILEY

  “WHY ARE LAWYERS SO expensive?” I complain to my mom, covering my face with my hands. I really need Riley’s to earn more money, because I have no idea how I’m going to cover all these fees. I need to do this on my own, especially since I don’t want any of Jeremy’s money in this divorce. The only person I can count on is me. “Why is divorce so expensive? I put all my money into the pub, and now I’m going to have to come up with more just to get out of this shitty marriage. Aren’t I entitled to make a mistake or two without having to literally pay for it? They should put me in a class to teach me better decision-making skills instead.”

  To be fair, I was twenty-two when I married my soon-to-be ex and was not in a good place. Much too young to be making any type of rational decisions.

  And this isn’t even the worst mistake I’ve made, not by a long shot. My fingers absently find the black bracelet on my left hand and hold on to it.

  “Told you not to marry him,” my dad calls out from the couch, where he’s watching a basketball game.

  “Thanks for the reminder, Dad,” I say dryly, leaning back on the wooden dining room chair and studying my mother. We look nothing alike. She has short, light hair, while mine is long and dark, and her eyes are green to my hazel. “You liked Jeremy at the start, didn’t you, Mom?”

  She cringes and then shrugs. “He was okay, I guess. You loved him, so that’s all that mattered to me, that you were happy.”

  My mom never once admitted to not liking Jeremy, but I could tell she wasn’t over the moon about him either. I just assumed it was because she thought getting married so young wasn’t a good idea, which it wasn’t, but still. I was in love, and I was happy at the time, and I wasn’t really thinking of the future.

  When I met Jeremy at a bar, he was cute and kind of shy, and I liked that. He was a little on the geeky side, and not my usual type, but something about him drew me in, and we started dating. I wasn’t in a good place, I was lost, and looking for escape from everything that was going on back then, and he helped bring me out of it. He had his shit together, and he was a good influence when I needed it. He was so different from the men I’d started hanging around, and the crowd that was slowly becoming my own worst nightmare. He occupied my time, away from the bad influences, and instead we got lost in our own bubble. Everything was a blur of I-love-yous and moving in together, followed by a quick proposal. I don’t know why we rushed everything. It felt right at the time, I guess, and I couldn’t have known how things would turn out.

  I just need to take it as a lesson, learn from it, and move on.

  “I was happy once, wasn’t I?” I say more to myself than my mom as I glance down at where my wedding ring used to be. The first few years were good. I remember being happy, and the two of us having a lot of good times together. We’d take long road trips, just enjoying being around each other, but as the years passed, things between us changed. I guess we both grew into different people.

  I wanted to become more independent and follow my own dreams, and he just grew into a giant dick. He didn’t want me to pursue my passions. He thought opening the pub was a bad idea. He told me I wouldn’t make any money from it, and that it’d be a waste of my inheritance. He started making lots of money from his job as a real estate agent, selling high-priced homes, and the money became all he cared about. He grew up in a blue-collar family and always wanted the finer things in life. So as soon as he got a taste of what life on the other side was, he changed. Suddenly, I didn’t fit into his new world—I wasn’t flashy enough. I grew up in the country, and I’m not really into designer brands, nor did I know what he was talking about when he’d rave about them. I’m not materialistic, and I guess I just didn’t understand him anymore, or vice versa. He never was abusive or mean; he just started to ignore me, like I wasn’t even there. Our priorities changed, and so did our wants. We changed so much that we didn’t seem to know each other anymore. We tried for a few years to make it work, but after I opened Riley’s, I knew we couldn’t go back to how it used to be.

  I never thought things would turn out so ugly between us though. It was sort of amicable at the start. We knew we were both unhappy, and it was a mutual decision. However, things started to change when he started looking at our finances. I think he thought I wanted half of everything because he turned nasty, saying he’d make sure I wouldn’t get a dime. The strange thing is that if he would’ve actually listened to me when I told him what I really wanted, we wouldn’t have to be dealing with lawyers. We’d probably be divorced already. He let his newfound greed cloud his judgment.

  I don’t want any of his money. He can keep the big house he bought; it doesn’t suit me anyway. I’m more than happy in my rental apartment. The only thing I do want is our dog, my dog, Bear. Jeremy knows this, and is refusing to give him to me out of spite. I love Bear, and just because Jeremy bought him for me for my birthday four years ago doesn’t mean he belongs to him.

  My lawyer, however, has other ideas, and thinks we should fight for a settlement amount. The independent woman in me disagrees. I want to leave the marriage as I came into it, with nothing but my determination.

  “Was being the key word,” my mom says, setting a mug of hot chocolate in front of me. “Now you need to concentrate on you, Riley. Find what makes you happy; maybe go do some traveling.”

  “The pub—”

  “Will survive without you for a week or so.” She cuts me off, pursing her lips.

  “After paying for my lawyer, traveling is the last thing I’m going to be able to afford,” I grumble. Riley’s is making a little bit of profit, but not much at the moment. I need to get more regular customers, especially on the weekends. It’s not at the place I want it to be just yet.

  “You’ll get there, Ri,” she assures me, watching as I take a sip of the chocolaty goodness. “You’ll be fine. You’re always fine. And I told you, if you really need money we can help you out.”

  I love that they offered, but I know they can’t afford it, and I’d never put them in that position.

  “Thanks, Mom, but you know I can’t accept that. I need to work this out on my own. I’m not asking for help, I’m just venting about everything and feeling sorry for myself.”

  To two of the only people I’d allow myself to be honest and vulnerable with.

  “Sympathy isn’t going to help you,” she replies with a frown on her face.

  I sigh. “I know, but it might make me feel better.”

  “You’re still young, sweetie,” she says, tilting her head to the side and flashing me a smile. “There’s no reason to be sad. Just start over. Your pub will thrive. And when you’re ready, you’ll meet someone new.”

  If only things were that simple.

  chapter 4

  HUNTER

  “I’M NOT GIVING HER a cent,” the man tells me, chin high in the air. He’s clearly a douche, and I’m already regretting taking him on as a client. No wonder Derick called in a favor, the man is an utter moron. I knew he was a douche when he showed up for our meeting ten minutes late without an apology. He was on his cell phone as he entered my office, paying me no mind, yelling at whoever was on the other end, calling them incompetent and being an arrogant asshole. I should’ve just walked away then, knowing he’d be a pain in my ass, but he signed the representation agreement yesterday and I already cleared my schedule for this.

  And now I’ve spent the past twenty minutes explaining the process and what I expect to be the best-case scenario—making his ex an offer and hoping she accepts it. But he doesn’t want to give her anything. He acts like the laws don’t apply to him. Like he should be exempt for some kind of reason. I don’t know why he feels so entitled, but it grates
on my nerves. He married young and didn’t have a prenuptial agreement—from what I know, he made most of his money after they were married. Because of that, she’s entitled to half. He doesn’t get to take everything just because he feels like it. It’s no wonder he’s getting a divorce. I can’t imagine why any woman would marry this guy.

  “Mr. Rodgers, it doesn’t work like that,” I tell him. “You were married for years without a prenup. As I’ve been explaining, you live in a community property state. The law dictates that you and your wife are to split all assets accumulated or received after you were married.”

  “What I accumulated, you mean,” he grumbles, shifting in his seat. “Isn’t there any way out of this? You’re the best lawyer in the city, surely you can pull something from up your sleeve.”

  I study him for a few seconds while I gather my patience. I see men like this all the time, and normally it doesn’t bother me. Whether I’m representing the husband or the wife, the rich and entitled are something I’ve come to expect. No morals or sense of fairness. If I turn into this, I really hope someone does the world a favor and takes me the fuck out. But this guy just will not listen.

  “I am the best and I’ve saved people a lot of money. But I also can’t change the law. The best-case scenario is that your wife accepts a reasonable amount that is significantly less than half. We want to settle this in mediation, Mr. Rodgers, because I have to be honest, if we take this in front of a judge, chances are he’ll just give her half of everything.”