Acrimonious (Remington Family Law #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

An arduous schedule for the day ran through Julian Remington’s mind as he took care of some personal business first thing in the morning.

In. Out. Back in. Deeper this time. A hard push that drew a satisfied moan from his eager partner.

McDavid custody hearing first thing after eighteen months of wrangling.

Partner meeting midmorning if he made it back from court in time.

New client meeting over lunch.

Court at four with Jenna Simsbury, who should get full custody of her three children as of today—again—after months of back-and-forth.

A three-hour gig with his band at eight would round off a sixteen-hour day.

Any number of other things might arise to make an already chaotic day even more interesting.

As a partner at Remington Family Law, Julian never knew what to expect from one day to the next, and he liked it that way.

He could be hit with anything, from an emergency custody hearing to a call from one of Hollywood’s A-list stars looking for help with a divorce that’d drag on for years, to one of the firm’s longtime clients seeking visitation with a grandchild.

Sharp fingernails dug into his back as he picked up the pace, ready for the big finish so he could get on with what promised to be another long, complicated day as one of LA’s top family law attorneys.

He doubled down on the deep strokes, going for broke. Come on, let’s get this done.

She went off with a shout, which gave him permission to take his own pleasure. “Oh, oh, Julian… Oh God, I love you.”

He stopped short. She what? No, no, nope. He abruptly withdrew from her.

She pushed silky dark hair off her stunning face. “What? Julian…”

He’d already dealt with the condom, pulled his pants on and was buttoning his shirt.

“Where’re you going?”

“To work.”

“But we were…”

“We’re done.”

Her big blue eyes got even bigger. “Th-this time or for good?”

“Remember when we started this, and I said it was just for fun? When I told you not to get attached?”

Her eyes filled with tears that he so did not want to deal with. “I… I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes,” he said with a sigh, “you did, or you wouldn’t have said it.”

“I take it back.”

Julian reached for her hand and kissed the back of it. “You need to find yourself a nice guy who’s available for the things you want. That guy isn’t me.”

Her lip quivered as more tears filled her eyes. “But it could be. We’re good together.”

“We’re good together in bed.”

“Isn’t that the best place to start?”

“It’s not going to happen, sweetheart. I’ve said that from the beginning when I told you I don’t do relationships.”

“Yes, but I thought—”

He placed a finger lightly on the full lips that had brought him real pleasure, but not true love. Never that. “You thought wrong.”

She was crying openly now.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I was honest from the start about what this was—and what it wasn’t.”

“You care about me, too. I can tell! Why won’t you let yourself have feelings?”

He didn’t have time to deal with a question that’d take all day to answer. “Because I don’t want to. I’ve got court in an hour. I’ve got to go.”

Julian had just enough time to run home to shower and change.

His driver, Ernie, would pick him up at home and get him to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown for a trial he’d been working toward for a year.

He couldn’t wait to present the case and to watch his client’s ex-husband’s face when he presented irrefutable proof of his douchebaggery.

While that wasn’t an official legal term, it should be.

Bryan McDavid was the poster child for the concept.

Stacey got out of bed and followed him to the door, grabbing his arm. “You can’t just dismiss me like hired help when you’re finished with me.” The angry edge to her voice was new and unattractive.

When he turned to face her, he saw she was naked as the day she was born, with her considerable assets on full display. Those assets didn’t change anything for him. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

The tears had dried up, and her pretty eyes seethed with outrage. “I said something I didn’t mean. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Take care of yourself, Stacey. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Julian!”

She was still screaming his name from her doorway when the elevator doors quietly came together to get him out of there.

Julian leaned against the back wall, closed his eyes and sighed over yet another near miss.

Why did they never believe him when he told them—in the bluntest possible words—that he’d never fall in love with them, he’d never marry them or be anything more to them than a hard cock once in a while? Why did they always want more?

What else could he have done or said to prevent this latest in a long list of scenes that occurred whenever he had to remind a woman that he was exactly who he’d said he was from the beginning?

Most people spent their lives waiting and hoping to hear those three little words.

For Julian, his brothers and sisters, they were the worst three words in the English language to hear from a romantic partner.

Love, as they’d experienced it, was a battlefield, a place where people tore apart those supposedly dearest to them on their way out the door.

No, thank you.

The Remington siblings wanted nothing to do with that four-letter word.

The other one, the less socially acceptable four-letter word?

They were all for that one, but when l-o-v-e entered the room, they were out the door so fast the heads of their now-former partners were left spinning as they hit the road and never looked back.

Maybe Julian should’ve clued Stacey in on what he’d been thinking when they were having sex. He should’ve told her he was reviewing his schedule for the day and making a mental list of things he needed to do ahead of each appointment.

Then she’d know what a heartless bastard he really was and would realize she could do better.

After Julian made a quick stop at home to shower, shave and change into one of the bespoke suits he was known for, Ernie picked him up for court, the one place in the world where everything made sense to him.

That’s where he helped his clients get out of the very thing Stacey wanted with him.

It’s where he negotiated the future for innocent children who’d become pawns in their parents’ wars, the way he and his siblings had once been.

Ernie handed Julian a tall Americano with oat milk.

At nearly seventy, Ernie was a proud Vietnam veteran who still wore a missing-in-action bracelet on his tattooed forearm.

He’d been a nineteen-year-old Marine when he was sent to the jungles of Vietnam to fight a war that’d never made sense to him or most of the guys he served with.

He’d tell you they’d served their country and would do it again, despite the decades of PTSD most of them had lived with, not to mention the less-than-welcoming reception they received when they’d first returned home.

These days, Ernie hung his hat out at the beach in Venice in a “shack by the sea”—as he put it—with his girlfriend and loved his job as Julian’s driver.

“Thanks,” Julian said for the coffee Ernie bought for both of them any time he picked Julian up at home.

“How was your night?” Ernie asked.

“Better than my morning.”

Ernie glanced at him in the mirror. “How’ve you already had a shitty morning?”

“Had to give Stacey the bad news that I meant it when I said I don’t do relationships.”

“Ah, and I take it that went over well?”

“As it usually does.”

“Like a fart in church?”

Ernie always made him laugh, even when he didn’t want to. “Something like that.”

Another thing he loved about Ernie was that he knew when Julian needed quiet to prepare for the day. Today, he was more interested in brooding than preparing, thanks to the scene with Stacey, which had upset him the way it always did when things went sideways with a woman.

Julian often suspected that eight of the nine Remington siblings had gone to law school just so they’d never again find themselves as helpless as they’d been as children.

For ten long years, they’d been the knotted rope in a tug-of-war between their parents that seemed like it would never end.

Their lawyer parents had been focused on winning at all costs, regardless of the consequences for their children.

When it finally ended, no one was a winner, least of all their kids.

Julian and each of his siblings carried the trauma of that interminable, ugly, public nightmare with them as they helped others disentangle themselves from commitments they’d once expected to last forever.

The fallout had been made worse, if that was possible, by the reality TV show their parents agreed to do featuring the spectacle of their divorce, claiming it’d be good for business.

While it had, in fact, been great for business, it’d been mortifying for their children, especially Julian and the siblings who’d been old enough to understand what was happening while they did what they could to protect the younger ones from the worst of it.

If there was one thing he and his siblings had learned the hard way, and had seen time and again in their practices, it was that nothing lasted forever, and it was far easier to be alone than to get involved in something you couldn’t walk away from when it no longer worked for you.