Dating a Lawyer (The Dating Series Book 3)

by B. T. Love

  “He wasn’t even close to his mom,” she replied with a nasty tone. “He didn’t even visit her there when she was alive.”

  “Well, from what my client has told me about their relationship I can tell you that’s not true. So, let me just ask you this: Are you close with your mom?”

  “Objection,” Brad spoke up again. I didn’t look at him this time. “My client’s relationship with her mother has nothing to do with the case.”

  Judge Miller looked over the top of his glasses at me. “I’ll allow it. I want to see where this is going.”

  I smiled and looked back at Claire. “So let me ask you again, just for reference, are you close with your mom?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, what about your dad?”

  “A little,” she shrugged. “Okay, well, what if he passed away and he left you something special to remember him by. Would you give it away? Even if it was too hard for you to look at, or in a case like a house as we’re dealing with, too hard for you to visit? Would you get rid of it?”

  Her eyes sparked with anger; she didn’t like me one bit. “Like I said, Steve and his mom weren’t close.”

  “Can you answer the question please?”

  Her lips twisted. “No. I wouldn’t get rid of it.” As I paused to think of my next question, she added, “Unless someone else who deserved it wanted it.”

  I chuckled, fully aware that she was trying to cover her tracks. “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. We’ll be sure that last part is on the record.”

  Oh Lord, now she really looked like she hated me. “I was the only one who used the beach house after she died,” she spat out. “It will just sit and rot if he keeps it.”

  “Well, I think that’s his right. If he wants to let it rot I think that should be on his terms, not yours.” I looked over at the judge. “No further questions.”

  I sat back down next to Steve. My body was buzzing with energy from my successful interrogation, but I was also nervous to look my sweet client in the eyes. But when I did, he didn’t look as devastated as I thought he would look. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you what I had heard about the pregnancy,” I whispered to him.

  His eyes were sad but understanding as he nodded in reply.

  The judge nodded to Brad. “Your witness.”

  I watched as Brad stood with grace and poise and went back over to his client. He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at his expensive shoes as he readied his next question. “Mrs. Thompson,” he began, “did you lie to your husband about being pregnant?” After he asked this he looked back up and stared into her eyes. I knew he was watching her every move, watching every slight shift of her facial muscles for a sign of her deceit.

  She leaned back in her chair and re-crossed her legs, smiling at him with bedroom eyes, bedroom eyes I wanted to stick my ball point pen in. “No.” She replied simply.

  Her eye twitched like usual. I knew Brad saw it; he had seen it before. We talked about it one night after a dinner out together. I wasn’t even the one who brought it up, he did. He said he noticed it when he would go over specific details of her and Steve’s relationship. He asked the same question at different meetings they had and her eye always seemed to twitch when she answered. After that he used her subconscious habit to see how much she really did lie, which was a lot. He said he’d dealt with worse in his career, though, and said he would still win the case even though she was full of lies. Of course he had to end our conversation that way. Oh Brad, my cocky, smug, arrogant, handsome, sweet, romantic, thoughtful, caring man. He was the perfect cocktail.

  Although I couldn’t hear his heavy sigh I could see it in the way his shoulders shifted beneath his suit jacket. He nodded to her answer and brought one of his hands up to his chin. “So, what Ms. Balkner accused you of—faking both a pregnancy and miscarriage—is false?”

  “Yes, that is a false accusation.” Her eye twitched.

  He nodded and looked over at the judge. “No further questions.”

  “Okay,” Judge Miller said. “Would you like to call another witness?”

  “Yes. Mr. Thompson.”

  Claire stood and left the stand and Steve took her place. The bailiff swore him in and he sat down in the chair, pulling his ankle up over his knee and trying to look as composed as he could for just finding out that his wife had fabricated such a horrible story.

  Brad stood in front of him with a serious face. “Mr. Thompson, did your wife Claire Thompson show you intimate affection?”

  “Yes,” Steve said. “But only during certain occasions.”

  “Can you elaborate on those occasions?”

  “Yes. Uh, for instance, when I bought her things, or took her expensive places. It would make her happy and she was more inclined to sleep with me.”

  “Were there any other times that she was intimate with you without you providing her material things?”

  Steve’s eyes cut up into the air as he thought about it. “Well, I mean, I’m sure there were times when she did. It was just more of a certainty if I bought her something first.”

  Brad shifted his weight to his other foot, his arms still crossed in front of him. “And what about your emotional relationship? Was Claire there for you?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It depends on how you classify being there for someone.”

  “Well how would you classify it?”

  “Um, well I would think asking how someone is feeling, and, making sure they are okay or seeing if they need help.”

  “And did Claire do any of that for you throughout your marriage?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “So she was emotionally supportive of you.”

  “During the normal day to day shuffle I would say yes, she was supportive of me. If I had a hard day at work she would ask if I wanted to talk about it. I appreciated those times.”

  I looked over at Claire who was smiling with arrogance, obviously appreciating how Brad had coaxed Steve into admitting that she had supported him at least in some way.

  “That’s interesting,” Brad went on, “because I was under the impression, from your statements in meetings we have had with your lawyer, that Claire was never there for you.”

  “She was there for me like a . . .” His words hung in the air as he searched for them. “I . . . I would say friend but friend is too strong of a word. She was there for me like a surface friend.”

  Brad eyebrows lifted. “A surface friend? What is that exactly?”

  “Well, a surface friend is someone who is your friend for appearance. I never felt like she was truly my friend. She never shared things with me like a friend would; she never took care of me like a friend.”

  “And what about when your mother died? Did she act like a surface friend then? Because she says she helped you a lot through that horrible time in your life.”

  “Helped me?” he said, letting out a small laugh. “Yeah, she tried to help me right into a bottle of alcohol.”

  “But didn’t you drink alcohol regularly?”

  “Kind of,” he shrugged. “I wined and dined her a lot.”

  “So what was so wrong about her offering you some alcohol at that time in your life?”

  Steve’s head barely shook from side to side as his eyes glazed over with a distant memory. “I didn’t want to drink. I wanted to hold her that night.” His eyes looked up at Claire and they were moistening with the gloss of tears. “I wanted my wife—my companion—to tell me that everything was going to be okay. I wanted to hold her; I wanted her to hold me. But instead all I got was a bottle of alcohol shoved in my face.”

  Brad nodded. “And what about when she lost the baby? She claims you weren’t there for her at all. Were you just purposely mistreating her to get back at her for not being more responsive to your needs when your mother died?”

  Steve stared straight ahead into his wife’s eyes. “No.”

  Brad leaned forward. “No? Then why did you cut her off emotionally
during that difficult time she was going through?”

  His lips pulled in as he tried to hold back his emotions. “Because,” he finally said, his voice breaking, “I knew she made the whole thing up.”

  My mouth dropped open at his confession. I never knew that he knew the truth about what Claire did; he never told me. That must have been why he didn’t seem so upset when I revealed it.

  As my eyes fixed to the side of Brad’s face I could see that his eyes were clenched shut as he thought about his next move. Steve’s admission came out of left field and it threw a giant wrench in his case. And now his mind was reeling, searching for the right move to make . . . if there was one.

  Brad opened his eyes and focused on my client. “You knew about your wife faking a pregnancy and a miscarriage?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did you know about that?”

  He squirmed a little in his seat and looked down at his hands. “I, I listened in on her phone conversations.”

  Claire pulled in an audible breath. “You jerk!” she shouted at him. “How dare you disrespect my privacy like that!”

  “Mrs. Thompson,” Judge Miller called out. “There will not be any more outbursts like that in my courtroom, do you understand me?”

  Claire sat back in her seat and crossed her arms, her lips puckering into an over-glossed pout.

  Judge Miller motioned to Brad. “Continue your questioning.”

  Brad nodded and looked back at Steve. “Were you a controlling husband? Because listening in on your wife’s conversations is a form of controlling behavior. Maybe fear was another reason she felt she needed a way out of your relationship.”

  “Objection,” I called out. “He’s badgering the witness.”

  Judge Miller looked over at me. “I’ll allow it. There was a bit of badgering on your part with Mrs. Thompson.”

  I grunted to myself as Brad continued, “Were you a controlling husband?”

  “No,” Steve answered honestly.

  “You say Claire used you for your money, but maybe you baited her with your money. Did you make her do things for you and then pay her afterward?”

  “Objection,” I called out again. “Your Honor, Mrs. Thompson never once brought up any controlling behavior on my client’s part during our meetings together. Mr. Hunter is trying to cast doubt.”

  “Again, much like you did, Ms. Balkner.” He looked at Steve. “Answer the question, Mr. Thompson.”

  Steve shook his head. “If you’re insinuating that I paid her for sex then no, I never did anything like that.”

  Brad thought for a moment. “Going back to listening in on your wife’s phone conversation, what exactly did you hear her say?”

  Steve looked back down at his lap as if admitting what he did was the same as owning up to a horrible crime. “She was on the phone with one of her friends—I don’t know which one—and I heard her say that she was going to tell me she lost the baby. She said her period was due and she was going to pass off her period as the miscarriage.”

  My heart sank in my chest. How could she do that to him?

  Brad’s eyes inspected Steve’s face. “And did she say why she was doing all of this?”

  “No, she just laughed about it. She made a joke about me not being able to get her pregnant in the first place.”

  “And that’s why you weren’t supportive when she told you about her having a miscarriage,” he said, more of a statement on his part than a question.

  Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

  Brad looked over at the judge. “No further questions.”

  Judge Miller cut his eyes over at me. “Your witness.”

  “Oh,” I said, jumping out of my seat. As I passed Brad I could see the defeat in his eyes. It was such a bitter-sweet moment. I had this case in the bag which was an amazing feat for me, especially when going up against such a fantastic lawyer. But it also meant that I was defeating my boyfriend, the man I loved. I didn’t quite know how to feel about it.

  I approached the stand. Steve looked up at me and gave me a down-turned smiled. I smiled in return, hoping the look in my eyes was enough to show him that he was going to be okay. “Mr. Thompson,” I began softly. “How did you feel after you heard your wife’s phone conversation?”

  He swallowed hard as he recalled the past. “Like an idiot. I wondered how I didn’t know that all of our relationship had been a façade.”

  “And what about when she finally told you the lie? How did you feel then?”

  “Well, it had been a couple of days after the phone call took place, so I had time to digest everything. When she told me I was just numb. So that’s why I didn’t respond to her in the way she was expecting.”

  “And how do you feel now?”

  “Now?” he asked, unsure of where I was going with the question.

  “Yes. Are you still affected by what your wife did to you?”

  “Absolutely. I think I will always be affected by it. For one, I did lose a baby. Because in the short time I thought she was pregnant it was real to me. So I grieved when I found out. And you know what? I grieved alone, with no friend to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay. And I had no wife to hold and tell her that it was going to be okay. Because she knew the whole time it was a lie. So she never felt the loss of a baby that I did.”

  I was so proud of Steve. What a brave thing to say, to stand up for himself against a woman I knew he still cared for. That had to be hard for him. But I bet what was harder was stomaching the fact that she never loved him, when throughout their relationship he never stopped loving her.

  “And what about the cheating?” I asked. “Why did you cheat on your wife?”

  “Because I already knew our relationship was over. I knew about her lie; I knew about her cheating on me. I figured hey, why not? She doesn’t love me anymore.” He shook his head and let out a small laugh. “She never loved me. I was angry, hurt. I was just as emotional as she claimed to be and I needed someone to help me. Because I had absolutely nobody to turn to.”

  After Steve’s emotional admittance I felt that it was a good time to end my argument. I looked over at Judge Miller and shrugged. “No further questions.”

  I avoided eye contact with Brad as Steve and I went back to our table. I didn’t have the guts to see what he looked like at that moment, but I had the feeling he was somewhere in the range of disappointed and frustrated.

  Judge Miller cleared his throat, drawing our attention. “If you give me a short moment I’m going to go over the details and make a decision on what Mrs. Thompson will be awarded from the dissolution of this marriage.”

  I turned to Steve and sighed. “Steve, you knew all along?”

  “Yeah,” he shrugged.

  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

  He looked past me at his soon-to-be-ex-wife. “Because, I didn’t want to make her look bad.” His eyes focused on me again and he smiled when he noticed my confused expression. “I know it’s hard to understand, but, I loved that woman. I still love that woman. And as much as she hurt me I still don’t want to see her get hurt. I don’t want her to look bad to anyone else. I just want her to go on with her life and be happy.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good man, Steve.”

  I glanced back and snuck a peek at Brad. He was leaning into Claire’s ear, talking quietly with a stern look on his face. That was the first time I had ever seen her not smiling when Brad was so close to her.

  Judge Miller took his glasses off and folded them up in his hands. “I’ve reached a decision. After taking into consideration the emotional instability that the relationship suffered on both parts, I don’t believe that Mrs. Thompson is entitled to everything she is asking for. Now, the first thing I’m going to get out of the way is the house in Maui.” He put his eyes on Claire. “I’m having a hard time seeing why you think you deserve this house. It wasn’t something that was purchased by the both of you, it was a gift meant solely for your husband f
rom his deceased mother. I don’t care how much you used it and how much he didn’t. You’re not entitled to it.”

  I grabbed Steve’s hand and squeezed it hard. We won! Well, we won the house at least. That was what I promised him I would get him, so I was happy that it worked out in our favor.

  “Now to the rest of it,” Judge Miller continued. “Mr. Hunter, your client is requesting five thousand dollars a month in alimony payments. Can you explain why she settled on that amount?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. My client feels she is entitled to that amount because she has not worked for the entirety of their marriage. She has no savings and no skills she can use to get a job that can provide for the lifestyle she is used to living.”

  “Yes,” he nodded, sticking his glasses back on and looking down at his paper. “I understand Mrs. Thompson is accustomed to a certain way of life.” He marked something down and looked back up at Claire. “Mrs. Thompson, I will award you the five thousand dollars per month in alimony payments.” Claire’s grin beamed across the room. “But you don’t get the Ferrari.” Her face fell instantly.

  “But what am I going to drive?” she asked with desperation.

  He put down the paper and leaned forward, folding his arms together on top of his desk. “Mrs. Thompson, five thousand dollars a month would be a dream to most people. You’re just going to have to learn to live on a little less than you’re used to. Go buy a Honda; they’re good cars.” With that he banged his gavel and the hearing was over.

  I stood with Steve and he shook my hand. “Thank you, Roxy,” he said with a satisfied smile.

  I put my other hand on our two that were already joined together. “I’m sorry I called out Claire and made her look bad. I know that bothered you.”

  “Nah,” he shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. You doing what you did helped me to keep my mom’s house. It was worth running her name through the mud.”

  “Well good,” I smiled as we dropped our hands. “I’ll be talking to you in a few days to wrap up the case.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He smiled and left the courtroom, not even taking a moment to look back at Claire.