Never Try To Explain

by Donna McDonald

  Jellica nodded. You were supposed to take your attorney’s advice, right? “Okay. I’ll work on getting calm enough to hear what Greg’s been doing.”

  “Good,” Eleanor said. “Now… when do you get off today?”

  “Mid-afternoon. It depends on when I finish.”

  “Will the boys be okay if you meet me at my office after that?”

  “Sure,” Jellica said. “I can trust them both to be home alone, but Eric works after school today anyway. Noah has soccer practice until five. Will we go later than that?”

  “Two hours should be enough. I’ll see you then,” Eleanor said. “Can I hug you?”

  The request to hug made Jellica laugh. “I guess so. Is this a common attorney practice?”

  “Only with people I care about.” Eleanor put her arms around the woman she liked and the woman she was sure her son loved. “You did nothing to deserve this, Angelica. We’re going to find a way to make sure Martin never bothers you or the boys with this kind of crap again. Trust me to help you. Okay?”

  Jellica nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak without crying. The knot of worry in her stomach was still there, but it had shrunk in half the moment Eleanor Skyler started telling her how she was going to help her deal with Martin. She’d seen the fear in his eyes when Eleanor challenged him.

  “Now stop worrying. If the plants are anything like animals, they’ll pick up on your feelings, right?”

  Eleanor’s words were nice but it was the amusement in her eyes that had Jellica laughing. “Thanks for making me laugh.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll see you later at the office. You don’t have to dress up. Just come as soon as you can.”

  Another nod and she watched Greg’s mother hustle back out of the greenhouse. She was left with relief and the hope that she’d made the right decision.

  Jellica left the greenhouse early with Ophelia’s blessing and rushed home to change. She pulled on her best pair of black leggings and a turquoise tunic that fell past her hips. Pairing the outfit with matching black flats, she drove herself to Eleanor’s office which was located on the second floor of a downtown building that sported its own parking garage. A friendly attendant cleared her to park her old Lincoln in a space between a sporty Jaguar and a Lexus SUV. She patted her old car and said, “I still love you,” before giggling over her silliness.

  Her giggling died off and she almost turned around and left when she saw over twenty people in business suits seated in the well-designed, opulent receiving area waiting to talk to their lawyers there.

  “Ms. Quartz?” A receptionist rose and came to get her when she hadn’t approached the check-in desk. “I recognize you from Mrs. Skyler’s description. She’s expecting you. Let me tuck you into her private conference room and tell your team that you’re here.”

  “I… my team?” Jellica wanted to protest further, but where would she start? “Is Eleanor really here?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. Mrs. Skyler’s in her office still bringing Mr. Carson up to speed on your case. Andrew Carson is our senior partner who runs the firm in Mrs. Skyler’s absence.”

  Jellica nodded and let the pleasant young woman guide her down the hallway to a conference room with leather seats. Her body sank deeply and gratefully into the butter soft leather. She looked around the room in awe and had trouble believing she had just waltzed in here on Eleanor’s orders with no idea of what this place was like.

  Before she could focus enough to calm her nervous breathing, Eleanor and three other people filed into the room. The receptionist who’d ushered her inside appeared once more with a gleaming coffee service and bottles of water on a tray.

  “Thanks, Ashley. See we’re not disturbed.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Skyler.”

  Without even asking, Eleanor poured Jellica a cup of coffee and fixed it just the way she liked it. When she looked surprised at the accuracy, Eleanor shrugged. “I have a good eye for details and tend to remember things.”

  The smiling man seated across from Eleanor chuckled over the explanation. His laughter earned him a stern look, but Eleanor didn’t chastise him. Jellica saw the other two attorneys, both much younger, exchanging discreet but pleased looks at the exchange. One very clear thing was how happy all three were to see her.

  Eleanor finally turned her full attention Jellica’s way. It had her straightening in her seat so she could pay better attention.

  “I will be the attorney taking your lead, but Andrew here will be my second in defending any custody case your ex-husband might file.”

  Andrew reached across the table and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet the person who inspired Eleanor to come back to us,” he said.

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” Jellica replied honestly while he laughed again.

  She shook Andrew’s extended hand as she looked at Eleanor. For the first time, she noticed her petite champion was wearing full makeup and a very nice business suit. Her hair was wrapped and tucked into a meticulous chignon on the back of her head. Discreet jewelry decorated her ears and throat. Jellica recognized it as real instead of costume. She’d sold all the pieces her mother had owned to defray the final burial costs for both her parents.

  “Next to Andrew is Rose who will be tackling the intricacies of any back child support that might be due to you. I know you said Martin made you sign it away, but the law doesn’t work like that with mandated childcare. Child support and providing a proper home are the responsibility of both parents. Rose is a whiz with numbers and assures me the State of Ohio has a precise calculation that should get your ex’s attention when we ask for all that you should have gotten over the years.”

  “Hello,” Rose said, waving and smiling from her seat down the table.

  Still overwhelmed, Jellica didn’t return the pleasant greeting, but she did return the smile and wave.

  “The remaining member of our team is Lyle who I have instructed to make Martin’s worst nightmare come true. If your ex doesn’t drop the custody case, Lyle will be drawing up a malpractice suit based on Greg’s investigation. We may or may not actively pursue the malpractice case, but only because I’m fairly sure Martin will back off immediately once he believes we’re serious about filing.”

  “What exactly did Greg find that you think constitutes malpractice?” Jellica asked.

  “You’ll have to ask Greg for specifics. I don’t need them at the moment. In fact, I think the threat of filing will be enough to achieve our goals. However, I trust my son’s work explicitly and he says there’s definitely a potential case.”

  “I can go over the details with Ms. Quartz,” Andrew offered.

  “No,” Eleanor said firmly to Andrew. “Greg must do it. Jellica has reserved the right to decline any of the measures we’re suggesting.” She looked at Jellica. “Did you bring the paperwork Martin gave you?”

  Jellica nodded and handed over the paper she’d taped back together. “I dramatically tore it up in front of him. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were probably wishing you were ripping body parts off him instead of just tearing paper.”

  Jellica rubbed her nose. “That’s not too far off the mark.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Eleanor said. “We’ll need to formally depose you to gather the information we need to get started. I’ve already pulled your divorce paperwork since it’s a matter of public record in our state. It might be a tad upsetting to rehash this crap, but you’ll survive it.”

  “I really don’t want to sue Martin. I just want him to leave the boys and me alone.”

  Eleanor folded her hands on the table. “I know. And that’s our plan. But if he insists on dragging you into the court, I intend to make it worth your while. No, that’s not true—I intend to see he makes up financially for whatever hardship you’ve endured because of him.”

  “Winning to me would be Martin leaving our children alone like he has the last sixteen years. Even when we lived with him, h
e wasn’t involved in their lives. He hired a nanny to help me and went on with his life. I went to the ball games and the parent-teacher meetings. He was never a father, and after the divorce, he couriers over birthday cards once a year with twenty dollars in each of them.”

  “Twenty dollars,” Eleanor said tightly, shaking her head. “His current children go to private school.”

  “I couldn’t afford to pay the tuition at the school they’d been attending. After the divorce, I moved them into the public school nearest the house Martin bought for us. It’s been fine.”

  “Only thanks to your positive outlook and work to support them,” Eleanor reminded her.

  Jellica nodded. “I did the best I could with what I had. The boys may look like their father, but they don’t really know him. It may be selfish of me, but I don’t want them to ever know him. He’s a bully and not a good role model. My sons are good guys and I want them to stay that way.”

  “They will be good guys no matter what happens. I raised one of those myself.”

  Jellica shrugged and said nothing. She wasn’t thinking of Greg that way at the moment. Eleanor seemed to find her non-response funny because she laughed.

  “Talk to Greg,” she ordered. “Clear the air so we can proceed without further impediments.”

  Jellica handed over a piece of paper with writing on it. “I will talk to him first opportunity I get. Here’s my down payment as promised.”

  Eleanor gingerly took the paper from her Jellica’s fingers. “Oh, it’s your yoga class schedule. Great. I’ll make a copy for Brittany.”

  Jellica nodded and smiled. “Thank you for being so supportive, Eleanor. I will do what I can to reciprocate your kindness.” She stood and looked around the table. “Thank you all. Helping me today inspires a gratitude within me that is larger than any words I could possibly imagine speaking to you.” She put her hands together and bowed her head to them. “Namaste.”

  Eleanor discreetly looked at her watch. “Very good then. You know, Greg might still be in his office if you want to get your confrontation over with. Just make sure he’s still on your side when you get done ripping into him for whatever it was he did to make you so mad.”

  Jellica knew a hint when she heard one, but only her real friends were privy to why she was mad at Greg. She certainly wasn’t telling his mother. “How far away is his office from here?”

  “Not far—just two buildings down the street. Greg’s on the third floor. It’s a short, safe walk. Leave your car in the garage. No one is going to say anything.”

  “Okay,” Jellica said, sighing in defeat. “I guess visiting him at work makes sense since I’m already down here.”

  “Lovely. I’m sure he’s as anxious as you are to return to being on friendly terms.” Eleanor smiled because she could afford to enjoy her small victory. She knew exactly where her son was. He was exactly where she told him to be because trust was a special two-way street between mothers and their sons.

  “Namaste, Eleanor,” Jellica said, bowing to her champion.

  “Namaste,” Eleanor answered, bowing her head deeply to hide her grin.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Greg, you have a visitor asking to see you.”

  “I specifically remember asking you to clear my calendar this afternoon, Francis.”

  Fran crossed her arms at his use of her full name and glared. “Which I did as requested, Mr. Grumpy, but she’s a walk-in. Do you want me to send her away? I could always tell her you’re in too sour of a mood to see new clients.”

  Greg ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t say anything back because Fran was right. “I guess I shouldn’t be sending any potential client away.”

  “No, you really shouldn’t. I’d like to take a vacation this year,” Fran said cheerily.

  “Fine. Send her in. You can go ahead and leave for the day. I’ll see her out and lock up,” Greg said, not caring that his ambivalence showed.

  “Brandon is here too. He said he was going to be reorganizing. You’ll have to chase him off.”

  Greg nodded. He hadn’t told him what Jellica had said to him yet. Mostly he’d said nothing because he was blatantly and willfully ignoring her directive to stop his investigation. What Brandon had discovered was too important to let fall by the wayside because of an empty threat—a threat his mother was in the process of neutralizing. He was never going to be allowed to skip brunch again, but it would be worth all his Sundays to see Quartz taken down.

  Fran disappeared and moments later the most beautiful woman he’d ever known walked into his office.

  “Hi,” Jellica said.

  Greg stood and stared. “Hi. Are you okay?”

  “Mostly,” Jellica answered honestly. She walked to the chair in front of his desk and sat before looking at him again. “Please sit. I won’t take much of your time. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  Nodding, Greg lowered himself back to his seat. “Did my mother find you?”

  “Yes. I just came from her office.”

  “Good,” Greg said firmly. “If anyone can convince your ex about the mistake he’s making with his threats, it’s the Honorable Eleanor J. Skyler.”

  Jellica swallowed. “Her office is like something out of a movie or TV show. I don’t think I’ve ever been so intimidated. She’s assigned a whole team of people to deal with my problem.”

  Chuckling, Greg smiled at Jellica’s description of her experience. “Her office has a very high record of success.”

  “I don’t want to sue him. I just want him to leave me and the boys alone. She doesn’t seem very hopeful that he will do that.”

  “You may change your mind once you hear the findings of my investigation. Actually, Brandon Wu is the genius investigator. I just know how to connect the dots. Well, that and I know several people in law enforcement. I do quite a deal of charity work and it brings me a lot of networking help when I need it.”

  “And the best ice cream in the world,” Jellica said, then blushed when a sexy smile bloomed on Greg’s face.

  “Who did Mom assign to your case?”

  “Outside of herself? Andrew, Rose, and a man named Lyle. He wasn’t a divorce attorney.”

  “Andrew and Rose are compassionate and thorough. Lyle’s a pit bull when he engages in a cause. She gave you all her best people.”

  “I got that impression.”

  A loaded silence fell between them. Greg wanted to tell her everything, but he needed to cover the most important things first.

  “What did I do to make you so angry at me? I’m asking because I honestly don’t know.”

  Jellica rolled her eyes before glaring. “So you always bound out of bed first time after being with a woman and trot off to work without a second thought? That’s not alright. In fact, it’s nearly unforgivable. The only way I would have felt less important is if you’d tossed twenty dollars on the nightstand before zipping your pants.”

  Greg was torn between laughter and chagrin. His face flushed. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  Jellica glared harder. “What other way would you put it? I couldn’t have been that bad. You kept me up all night.”

  Greg ducked his head and thought. Nothing was going to make up for his insensitivity. His mind had been on Brandon’s revelation and not on Jellica’s feelings. He was going to need time and another chance. He’d pay whatever it cost.

  “I am deeply sorry I hurt you by leaving. That was the most incredible night of my life with the most beautiful, responsive, and generous lover I’ve ever known. The last thing I wanted to do was leave.”

  Jellica threw up a hand. “Then why did you?”

  Greg swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Because Brandon finished going through the paperwork from your ex-husband’s office. He never found any conclusion filed about the car accident your parents were involved in. I know you told me to leave this alone, but I couldn’t do it. You needed to know the truth. I have that for you now.”

  Jellic
a put a hand to her now rapidly beating heart. “What are you saying? Are you saying my parents didn’t commit suicide?”

  Greg shrugged. “Suicide was never proven. The results of the police investigation were inconclusive. Just over a year after it happened, the police report was closed. The last entry said it was just as likely that bad road conditions and a driving rainstorm caused their car to veer off the roadway and go over that cliff.”

  “My God.” Jellica covered her eyes with her hands. “All this time I thought they just… and I wondered what was so bad about our life. I knew their business was struggling…”

  “Not as bad as the bankruptcy court made it seem,” Greg assured her. “If you’d had unbiased representation, you might have figured it out back then.”

  Jellica stood and paced. Her mind was a jumble. “So did Martin do this to me on purpose?”

  Greg blew out a long breath. “I’d dearly love to say yes, but I can’t. It was more like he just dropped it all and never followed through. It’s a clear case of incompetence, but I doubt it was malicious. My guess is his new wife and their hasty marriage created an eventful enough situation that your ex-husband simply let your case drop off his radar.”

  “Guess that’s something,” Jellica said.

  Greg nodded. “He’s still a bullying ass though.”

  “Human and flawed is not the same as evil,” she said quietly.

  “And that’s why I didn’t come crawling back to you to deliver this news,” Greg said just as quietly. “You have a good heart. I wanted to give you time to figure out for yourself that I’ve been falling in love with you these last few weeks. I like your sons too. Eric and Noah are the good young men you’ve raised them to be. I want them to have those cars they want almost as much as I want to sleep with you again. I think that means I want all three of you.”