Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
By the time Julian knocked on Isla’s door thirty minutes later, her nerves had been calmed by a second glass of wine that’d put her in a mellow mood as she greeted him.
All her pep talks might never have happened, because the minute she opened the door to him, she was reminded why she’d had such a strong reaction to him earlier. He was… beautiful.
“Come in,” she said, stepping back to admit him.
“I’ve driven by this house a thousand times and always wanted to see the inside.”
“I’d give you the tour, but the history is lost on me. I didn’t even remember that Woodrow Wilson was a president.”
He laughed, and oh my… What laughter did for his already handsome face… It ought to be a crime to look like him when you spent your days unraveling marriages.
“This house was the home of the legendary Cass Elliot from the Mamas and the Papas back in the sixties.”
Isla gave him a blank look that made him wince.
“Come on! ‘California Dreamin’’? ‘All the leaves are brown…’”
He could sing, even if the tune rang zero bells for her.
He groaned dramatically. “You’re killing me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a laugh as she led him to the kitchen. “Denny gave up on me recognizing his musical heroes years ago. I’m more of a Swiftie than a classic rock kind of girl.”
“Mad respect to Taylor, but you’re missing out by not checking out the classics, too.”
“Duly noted. I’ll look into Cass Elliot.”
“Mama Cass. She was incredible. Fun fact, she helped to put together the legendary trio of Crosby, Stills and Nash.”
Isla did her best to look impressed but was clearly at a disadvantage in this conversation.
“Look them up, too. You won’t regret it.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Sorry to go on about music, but you’ve moved into a neighborhood that defined the LA music scene in the sixties and seventies. Check out the Laurel Canyon playlist on Spotify. You’ll love it. I’ll send you a link to that and a couple of others.”
She held up the bottle of wine to ask if he wanted some.
“Sure, just a quick one.”
Isla poured him a healthy glass, hoping he’d stay for a minute. Or two. “How do you know so much about that era when you’re…”
“Thirty-eight,” he said with a grin. “My maternal grandmother was a singer and songwriter who was part of the Laurel Canyon scene back in the day. I got my education and my love of music from her. She made sure all her grandchildren understood the musical history of our home city.”
“Did she know any famous people?”
“She knew all the people. Joni Mitchell, Cass Elliot, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Zappa, Morrison. Her stories were the thing of legend. Sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, and all of it right here in the Canyon. She lived up here her entire adult life and is the reason I bought up here.”
“That’s very cool.”
“You have no idea, but you will if you check out Laurel Canyon’s musical history. The LA music scene was basically founded right in this neighborhood.”
“I’ll definitely check it out.”
“Anyway, I didn’t mean to go on about it,” he said with a sexy grin. “But you’re staying in Mama Cass’s house.”
“Have a look around.”
His eyes glittered with unrestrained delight that sent a surge of something that might’ve been desire straight down her backbone. Holy shit.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not at all.”
He took his wine with him as he wandered into the living room for a closer look at the framed images of legends that now made more sense to her after what he’d said.
“This is amazing,” he said of the painting depicting Cass Elliot. “That’s the rest of her band, the Mamas and the Papas. And look, you’ve got Frank Zappa, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, too. I have that same poster of Joni’s Blue album at my place.”
“There’s another one of hers in the bedroom. Ladies something.”
“Ladies of the Canyon, another classic.”
“Do you have a degree in music or something?”
“Nah, just a grandmother who brought me up right. She taught me to play the guitar when I was five, and I’ve been playing ever since. She exposed me to all the best music.”
Isla curled up on the sofa with her drink, thrilled when he sat in one of the overstuffed easy chairs. “Is she still with us?”
“Nah, she died about ten years ago. I miss her every day. We were buddies.”
“That’s so sweet.” This is a man a girl could fall madly, deeply in love with, Isla thought, that was if she wasn’t about to file for divorce with him as her attorney. “What was her name?”
“Freida Lewis. Look her up. She’s got songwriting credits on a few songs that hit the charts at various times. She was friends with Joni and Cass and the other ladies of the canyon and had affairs with a few of the guys, too. She never would tell me which ones.”
“Gee, I wonder why not?”
He laughed. “I told her she’d become a prude in her old age, but she said her lips were zipped about who she slept with back in the day. But, she added with a twinkle in her eye, I’d be impressed with her taste in men.”
“I think I would’ve enjoyed hanging out with her.”
“Oh, you would have. My friends were crazy about her. She used to have us up for weekends when we were in high school and let us drink beer and smoke pot and swim in the pool at all hours. My mother would’ve flipped out if she’d known that.”
“She wasn’t like her mother?”
“God no. My grandmother was a hippie flower child, and my mom was all about conformity. When she announced her plans to go to law school, my grandmother almost sprained her eyes from rolling them.”
“Whereas most parents would’ve been thrilled if their kids took that path.”
“Freida wasn’t most parents. She was all about bucking the system, and my mother is all about working within it.”
“Which one are you more like?”
“I’ve got some of both in me. I mean… I work within the system as an attorney, but I’m always looking for creative ways to manage it on behalf of my clients.”
“Manage it how?”
“Well, there’re a lot of nuances to be found within the law, if you’re looking for them. I’ve had clients who would’ve ended up paying an ex a lot more in spousal support if we hadn’t negotiated other things the ex was interested in as part of the settlement.”
“That’s an interesting approach.”
“Well, any divorce lawyer worth their retainer is looking for ways to save their clients money in the long run. That’s why our firm is focused on mediation and trying to stay out of court. The longer these things drag on, the more it costs everyone involved—except the lawyers.”
“Wouldn’t it be in your best interest to let it drag on?”
“Financially, yes, but ethically? Not so much. Our firm is well established thanks to my grandfather and my father, and we don’t need to engage in the games some attorneys like to play to eke every dime they can get out of their clients.
In fact, we call out that practice when we encounter it in opposing counsel.
I’ve filed my share of ethics complaints against attorneys who are in it to squeeze as much money out of their clients as they can with little regard for what’ll be left for the client to live on after they litigate the hell out of their divorce—and inevitably end up where they would’ve been without the protracted battle. ”
He offered a sheepish grin. “And that’s probably way more than you ever wanted to know about being a divorce attorney.”
“Actually, you just told me the most important thing about yourself. That you put ethics ahead of financial reward. Could I ask you something else that’s probably way out of line?”
“Sure. Go for it.”
“How many of your clients have fallen in love with you on their way to divorce court?”
“Oh, um, well…” His face flushed adorably, and her crush exploded into full-blown desire.
In the thirty seconds of charged awareness that passed between them, Isla realized how long it’d been since she’d felt real desire.
Years.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“I think you enjoyed embarrassing me.”
She laughed. “Maybe a little. You’ve got to admit it’s a reasonable question.”
“Is it, though?”
He held her gaze, seeming as perplexed as she was by whatever seemed to be happening between them, and then he shook his head as if trying to clear his mind of salacious thoughts.
Isla wanted to tell him not to try so hard to move on from this perfect moment, one unlike anything she’d experienced before. Stop it, she thought. Just stop. You’re in no place to be looking for magic with someone else when you’re still married and nowhere near being free to pursue something new.
But, oh, how she wished she were free to lean in and kiss this beautiful, sweet man who was looking at her the same way she was probably looking at him.
“I, uh, wanted to talk to you about the paperwork I brought.”
That suddenly, reality returned to remind her he was a lawyer delivering documents that would lead to the dissolution of her marriage. And that was all he’d ever be to her—a means to a long-overdue end.
Julian drove away from Isla’s house feeling an urgent need to put some distance between himself and his friend’s sister before he did something that could never be undone.
He’d wanted to kiss her so badly, he’d nearly forgotten all the many, many reasons why he could never do that.
First and foremost, he was her attorney and was ethically bound to serve only her legal needs, but even more importantly, Denny trusted him to see his sister through a difficult time in her life.
He needed to stay focused on the job at hand and not on how adorable she’d been while needling him about his clients falling in love with him.
And yes, it’d happened a time or two, usually toward the end of a long grind when he’d picked up on a vibe from a client that she might be interested in continuing their relationship once her divorce was finalized.
It’d happened twice before the divorces were even final, with a not-so-subtle suggestion that they meet for a drink.
The subtext had been clear… They were hoping for much more than a drink.
He'd never once crossed that line with a client, and he wasn’t about to start now.
But that he’d been truly tempted… His mind whirled with disbelief as he drove the short distance from her place to his.
And holy shit, she lived close to him in that rental.
In a city the size of Los Angeles, Denny had settled her right down the road from him.
As he drove the G-Wagon into his garage, he was still wondering what the hell had happened just now.
He’d planned a quick stop to drop off the documents and had ended up drinking wine with her and going on about musical history that she had no connection to.
But from the second he’d stepped into that storied home, he’d been captivated by her.
Their conversation had flowed effortlessly, and her interest in hearing his stories about legendary musicians who’d lived in their neighborhood had seemed genuine, even though she’d never heard of them.
He'd send her a couple of playlists to listen to so she could get a sense of where she was now living and what had taken place there once upon a time.
“That’s a great way to take a step back and pretend like nothing weird happened just now,” he muttered as he walked into his house, dropping his work bag inside the door and kicking off his shoes.
He’d already been reeling from the bomb Kaidan had dropped at dinner, which was probably why the encounter with Isla had taken on an odd vibe. His emotions were all over the place after hearing his notoriously contentious parents might be back together.
For fuck’s sake.
That just couldn’t be true. Their children had barely survived their first rodeo with those two, who’d torn each other—and the nine of them—apart over a decade of battle that’d led them both to be the kind of family lawyers who tried their best to never let that happen to their clients.
Ironic, right?
They’d done everything wrong in their own divorce, which had cost them both millions of dollars and untold agony for everyone involved, but they worked hard to keep that from happening to strangers who were clients.
Julian cracked open a beer and sat on a stool at the island, thrust back in time to an era he tried to never think about lest he be derailed by emotions he’d spent years in therapy putting behind him.
As the eldest of the nine siblings, he’d been on the front lines, often absorbing painful hits in an attempt to protect his precious brothers and sisters.
He’d done whatever he could to keep them sealed off from the worst of it, often at his own expense.
He regretted nothing, but if his parents were back together…
The very thought of it filled him with unreasonable rage that he’d kept hidden from the others at dinner. He’d been so shocked by Kaidan’s comments that he’d ceased to function for a few minutes as she spelled out the somewhat irrefutable evidence that something was up.
He honestly didn’t want to know, but he also didn’t want to be blindsided if it was true.
He checked his phone for the first time in two hours to find a flurry of texts from his concerned siblings, each of them looking to him for guidance on how to handle this latest chapter in their family’s sordid history.
If only he had the answers they were looking for.
He responded to each of them with the same thing. Let’s not worry about something that may or may not be true. Reminder that we’re not children anymore and don’t have to be dragged into anything that goes down between them.
That was probably why he’d reacted the way he had to Isla. He’d gone there in a state of shock and had been comforted by her kind, sweet demeanor.
That’s all it was.
It’d been a lot lately, between running into Aimee, the culmination of several intense cases, the scene with Stacey and now hearing his parents might be reconciling. No wonder his reaction to a simple conversation with a woman was way out of character.
Women didn’t get to him. He didn’t allow that to happen. Ever. And his close friend’s younger sister? As lovely as she was, she wouldn’t be the exception to his rules.
He’d send her the playlists he’d promised her, and that would be that.