3. Xavier
3
XAVIER
S he doesn’t want to be here.
That much is clear to me by the way her gaze keeps flitting around the room. Auburn eyes roaming over the walls covered with my degrees, various awards for professionalism and superior litigation, and commendations for philanthropy thanks to the pro-bono cases that make up a small portion of my annual case load.
Grayson Hart won’t fall into that category.
She strode into my office, a quiet storm of tightly reined emotion in a black pantsuit that clung to her curved frame, and slid a check for my full retainer onto my desk. Then she sat down, crossed her legs, and deflated right in front of me. All the bravado, confidence, and purpose melting out of her body in a slow, painful leak that would have broken my heart if I had one.
Fortunately, ten years of this work has relieved me of the organ. Or maybe I surrendered it, knowing I couldn’t rise to the top of my field and become the youngest named partner in the history of my firm if I held on to it. Whatever the case, my ability to place my feelings in a box serves me well, allowing me to leave space for the clients who come to me, hoping I’ll be their saving grace.
Clearing my throat, I slide the check to the side and pull out a fresh legal pad to take notes. Grayson’s eyes follow my movements, and even out of the corner of my eye, I can see her bracing herself. She knows what comes next, and she’s dreading it. The talking, the tears, the vulnerability of divulging the intimate details of her life. But at the same time, she knows, just like I do, that she doesn’t have a choice.
“Alright, Mrs. Hart?—”
“Grayson,” she insists, her voice flat and dejected. “You can call me Grayson.”
“Grayson,” I repeat, nodding as I give her a reassuring smile that does nothing to dispel the tension that’s settled itself in her muscles. “Tell me how we got here.”
She swallows and presses her lips together. I can see her trying to figure out where to start. That’s the thing about marriages. When they fall apart, you look back and realize that the breakdown started long before the moment . Before the loud betrayal or the quiet resentment that finally made you call it quits. You look at the waste of your union and find that there are a million little threads attached to it, weaving their way through it, causing cracks and rifts that rendered it irreparable.
And when you’re sitting down with someone like me, someone who’s entire job is to exploit those cracks and ensure you’re able to create something out of the wreckage, then it all starts to feel like too much. Too much information to sort through, too much pain to process, too much everything.
Grayson has been silent for a full minute now, and I stay in it with her, letting her process. Most attorneys would have jumped in at this point, prodding her with questions and assumptions about what led her here, but I don’t do that because she has to lead. She has to speak. She has to tell me what’s important, and that only happens if I wait patiently to find out where she starts her story.
“I was a fashion designer,” she says finally. “I mean, I am—” she pauses, unsure if she can claim the title anymore. While she finds her words, I write ‘fashion designer’ on the top line of my paper. “When I was a junior in college, I started a plus size clothing brand called Elysian. This is actually one of my pieces.”
She gestures at the luxurious black fabric clinging to her crossed legs, and I study it with renewed interest. It’s a simple piece, classic and stylish, with a thick strip of black satin covering the seam running down her leg. The black blazer and vest she’s paired it with both have the same satin accents, which means they were made to be worn together. The impeccable fit lets me know this suit was made with her exact dimensions in mind. It fits like a glove.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” The beginning of a smile plays at the corner of her lips, but she shuts it down, giving in to the cloud of sadness that clearly hovers above any thoughts of her work now. “Anyway,” she continues, “I started the brand, and it was a small, but successful operation. At first it was just me in my dorm room killing myself because I was sewing everything by hand, but in the end I had a team and a warehouse and had gone through all the trouble of finding manufacturers with ethical practices to outsource production. In any given month, we were doing sixty to eighty thousand in sales.”
A low whistle passes between my lips as I write that number down, knowing that it matters to Grayson now and will matter to me later. This time she allows the smile to curve her lips, and I soak in the pride shining in her eyes.
“That’s impressive,” I tell her, and she nods like she doesn’t believe I’m being genuine.
“About six months after we got married, Brian decided it was time for us to start a family,” she goes on, not acknowledging my comment. “Even though I’ve always wanted to be a mom, I was hesitant. I still had so much I wanted to do before I gave up this entire part of myself to a child, but Brian was insistent. He said we’d be able to balance it all, to make it work. I believed him, and we started trying.”
She grimaces. “Getting pregnant isn’t nearly as easy as you’d think. We ended up going to a fertility specialist, and of course they always warn you about stress and alcohol and all the things the person with the uterus should give up in order to conceive. Naturally, Brian clung to those things, holding them up as the reason the tests came back negative every month.” Her tongue escapes her mouth, passing over her full lips in a quick swipe before she resumes speaking.
“Eventually, he used them to talk me into shutting down Elysian. He said the stress was too much for me, and I might as well say goodbye to it now because when the baby came, I wouldn’t want to do it anymore, anyway. What he failed to mention, even after I caved to his demands, is that his low sperm count was actually the issue.”
I’d paused my note taking to take a sip of my coffee, so when Grayson drops that little bomb, I damn near choke on the scorching hot liquid. Her eyes stretch wide with surprise when a sharp bark leaves me, and I slap a hand firmly on my chest in quick succession to silence it.
“Are you okay?”
Setting the mug back down, I nod. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry. Did you, uh,” I cough again, trying to clear out the wobble in my voice that’s as much a result of the choking as it is of the laugh I’m holding in. “Sorry. Did you and your husband end up conceiving?”
“No.”
I write that down and study her face. “Is that the reason you left him?”
“How did you know I’m the one that left?”
Almost on instinct, my eyes go to her hands, tracing over the knuckles of her bare ring fingers. Grayson’s right hand comes up, forming a protective layer over the left. “Oh,” she says, biting her lip.
“Yeah, in my experience, women don’t take off their ring unless they’ve given up all hope, and they don’t usually feel that way unless they’re the ones who pulled the plug.”
“I guess that makes sense, but no, that’s not why I left him. Like I said before, kids have always been a later thing for me. I left him because I got tired of being married to someone who didn’t like me,” she scoffs and rolls her eyes. “God, that sounds so stupid, doesn’t it? Every time I say, it sounds worse than before.”
“No, Grayson, I don’t think that sounds stupid at all. If someone doesn’t like you, then they won’t ever know how to love you,” I tell her, my voice tender, warm in a way it never is when I speak to clients because I only ever want them to see me as the cold, relentless shark who’ll dismember and eat everything in its path to get them what they want.
Grayson seems to appreciate the tenderness, though. She blooms underneath my gentle timbre. Trust and vulnerability unfurls in her gaze, landing like flower petals at my feet. She’s so captivating like this, all open and unguarded, free from whatever burdens and trauma her ex left her to carry. I can’t look away even though I know I should. Even though I know this amount of eye contact, held for this long is weird and borderline inappropriate.
It doesn’t help that Grayson is right there with me, holding us in this moment, both of us refusing to set the other free.
“I’ve made copies of the pre and post-nuptial agreements and gotten the official filings from the court,” Mara, my paralegal, announces as she walks into the room without knocking, breaking our shared trance.
Tearing my eyes away from Grayson, I accept the folders from Mara and open them up. “Thank you.”
“No worries. Grayson, are you sure I can’t get you something? Water, soda, a cappuccino? Xavier has these amazing espresso beans in the back of the freezer in the break room. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I ground some up for you.”
Mara’s enthusiasm and charm make Grayson laugh. It’s not loud, and it doesn’t last long, but it’s a delightful sound that I wouldn’t mind hearing again.
“No,” she replies. “I think I’m okay.”
“Alright, but if you change your mind, let me know.”
“I will.”
Mara turns to me, brows raised. “Need anything else?”
“No, I’m good. Go to lunch and take the entire hour, please.”
Mara salutes me and leaves just as quickly as she came, making no promises to honor my request for her to use the entirety of her break. I tell her all the time that she works too hard, but she always meets my comments with a smart remark about how she learned all about uneven work/life balance from me.
Once we’re alone again, I take control of the conversation, moving us to the more technical, less emotional part of the meeting. This is where I thrive, in the certainty of black letters on white pages that make up clauses and terms and agreements. Because when it’s all said and done, that’s really all marriage comes down to.
I pick my pen up again, and Grayson sits up straighter, her spine turning rigid at the sight of my serious expression. “Let’s establish a timeline. When did you leave Brian?”
“Christmas Eve, last year.”
“And after that point, did you ever have contact with Brian or return to the marital home?”
Grayson shakes her head, shifting in her seat. “No. I didn’t want to see or talk to him because I didn’t want to risk being talked into coming back to him. I wanted a clean break, and I figured that would go a long way towards meeting the one year separation period required for a no-fault divorce.”
My brows lift in surprise, shocked that she knows the term. “So you were planning to file for divorce and cite irreconcilable differences?”
“Yes, I thought that would be best. Brian can be vindictive when he feels like he’s being challenged, and I don’t want to fight with him.”
Glancing down, I study the first page of the divorce petition, finding the line that specifies Brian’s complaint. “It looks like he wants to fight with you, though. He’s saying that you deserted him.”
“I know, but that’s not a thing, right? Like he can’t claim desertion when I’m not the sole breadwinner, and he’s not dependent on me for anything, can he?”
I turn the page, finding the beginnings of a meticulously kept record of un-returned calls and emails and texts, and look back up at Grayson. “Unfortunately, he can. Desertion isn’t only meant for a man who leaves his wife and kids destitute while he goes off and starts a new life. A good lawyer can make a case for it based on you moving out without Brian’s consent and having no plans to return to the marital home. All of which you’ve just admitted to.”
“But that was for the separation period,” she says, her tone harsh, laced with a volatile reaction to the unfairness of the situation. She thought she was doing things the right way, that this would all be simple, but her husband is determined to make it anything but. The slick bastard started the clock as soon as she walked out on him, knowing how he wanted this to go all along. If it wasn’t so fucked up, I’d probably admire the guy for having the wherewithal to play the long game.
“So I’m going to have to fight him?”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Grayson. You can admit fault, sign the papers and be done with him forever. However, according to the terms of the post-nuptial agreement you signed after closing your business, that means you won’t be eligible to receive the funds in the trust Brian has been paying your projected earnings into for the last five years.”
Her mouth drops open. “What? Brian said that money would be mine no matter what! He knows I need it to rebuild Elysian, to rebuild my life.”
I shake my head, fighting the urge to tell her that’s the point. That her husband doesn’t want her to recover from leaving him, that he wants her permanently devastated by the dissolution of their union. “I understand, but that’s not what your post-nup says.”
Grayson’s shoulders sag, and she sinks back into her seat with tears glossing over her eyes. My chest tightens as I watch one escape, slipping out of the corner of her eye and sliding over the roundness of her cheeks. Leaning forward, I reach for the box of tissues I keep on the edge of my desk, plucking one up and handing it to her. I’ve done this a million times, handed a client a tissue, reassured them they weren’t stupid or na?ve and that everything would be okay. It’s always been enough, but this time I wish that I could do more. That I could give more. That I could be more for her.
“I’m sorry, Grayson,” I say softly, knowing the words aren’t enough.
“Don’t be. I should have known he would do something like this. He’s spent his entire life watching his father do nasty, underhanded shit for his clients, so I shouldn’t be surprised, especially not after the stunt he pulled with the other lawyers.”
My brow furrows. “Other lawyers?”
Grayson dabs at her cheek with the tissue and nods. “I met with several other attorneys before I came here. They all said they couldn’t represent me because it would be a conflict of interest. When I asked them what they meant, they explained Brian had already retained their services.” She shakes her head, incredulity skating across her features. “What kind of person does that?”
“A smart one,” I answer begrudgingly, making note of the successful deployment of the unethical tactic of “conflicting out” other lawyers. Most people wouldn’t even think to do it, and even less could afford to pull it off. That Grayson’s husband has done both tells me we’re in for a fight. When I look up again, her eyes are on my face. She’s watching me closely, wariness written in every line of her expression.
“You sound impressed,” she says.
“Not impressed. Excited.”
“Excited?”
Her brows crinkle with surprise and maybe a bit of confusion, which pulls my lips up into a grin that bares all of my teeth. “Yes, Grayson, excited. Brian and his team are clearly willing to play dirty, so I’m going to get in the mud with them and make them wish they’d kept their hands clean.”
She nods, but I can tell by the continued dullness behind her eyes that she doesn’t believe me yet. That’s okay. Because once she sees me eviscerate her husband during depositions, lay waste to the pre and post nuptial agreements I’m sure he strong armed her into signing, and file complaints with the Ethics Advisory Committee on every lawyer involved in his little conflict scheme, she will.
My heart pumps with anticipation, blood coursing through my veins at an accelerated rate at the mere thought of a good fight. “You said Brian grew up watching his father do stuff like this for clients. Is he a lawyer?”
“Yes. Brian is a lawyer as well. His whole family is full of lawyers. All of them little minions doing Bernard Lucas’ bidding.”
I’m halfway through writing her father-in-law’s name down when all the pieces fall together. The legal savvy, the dirty tactics, the financial means to pull it off. I drop my pen and look at Grayson, giving her my full attention, making sure this means what I think it does.
“Your husband is Brian Lucas?”
Brian is the oldest son and protégé of Bernard Lucas, a well known, well-respected powerhouse in the world of family law and a close friend of the other named partners here at Savage, Colfax, Kaplan and Allen. We met in law school and became fast enemies because I was the only person in our cohort who refused to kiss his ass. Today, I wouldn’t consider him an enemy, just a random asshole I take extreme pleasure in beating in court whenever I get the chance.
“Yes, is that going to be a problem for you?” Grayson asks, her eyes already glazed over with disappointment, expecting me to fold under the weight of her husband’s last name. I can see that this situation has taken a toll on her. That navigating the early stages of this divorce on her own has left her discouraged and afraid that she’s going to have to cave to Brian’s demands and be just another person crushed by the machine that is the Lucas family.
I’m certain that’s what Brian and his father are expecting her to do. Just like I’m certain they weren’t expecting her to come to me. It’s almost laughable how they counted me out, not even trying to retain my services, leaving me open and available to take Grayson’s case, to get her more than her fair share of everything he has.
“No.” I shake my head for emphasis, another teeth baring grin tugging at my lips. “That won’t be a problem for me.”
Relief smooths the creases in her forehead. “Okay.” She goes quiet for a moment and then sighs. “I can’t believe I’m going to war with Brian.”
“ You’re not going to war with Brian, Grayson,” I toss back, my tone assertive and riddled with certainty. “ We are, and I can promise you, we’re going to win.”