CHAPTER SIX
COURTNEY
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In some ways, I wish my legal team would just tell me what they’re thinking. It’s all over their faces.
They may as well just say that they think I’m a gold digger. Or they think I cheated on him. Or I never deserved him because I came from Nowhere, Arizona.
It’s the unspoken judgmental nods that irk me.
Especially Zander Sterling.
It’s like he despises me.
Yes, I read his stupid website, it’s why I chose him.
I will be paying Sterling Obsidian a lot of money at the end of this. Seven figures most likely. The least he could have done is give a little spiel about how great his company is.
How much of a shark he could be.
I wasn’t asking him to perform a stage play, for God’s sake. Just a couple of words to calm my nerves and convince me I’m in the right place and in good hands.
Nope.
Mr. Sterling seemed to take offense and, frankly, treated me with disrespect.
While my self-worth has improved over the past few years, there’s still a part of me who will always be that girl from South Tucson with holes in her shoes and parents who couldn’t give up their drugs of choice to take care of me.
Their crude messages eventually stopped when I no longer replied. Six months into my marriage, I sent them photos to share our news.
The message I got back was sickening.
So you did whore yourself out to a rich prick. Good, tell him to send some money to your loving parents.
I felt sick to my stomach and hid their response from Adam. He never wanted to meet them, and I was happy with that. Although hearing him talk about them as if they were trash didn’t feel nice.
He always had horrible things to say about most people. That was his excuse for restricting who I spent time with, saying it reflected on him and his organization. I didn’t see how. The media wasn’t that interested in me unless there was a charity something-or-other on.
I was boring.
But it continued. Adam particularly didn’t like Kylie. We met at the Kate Spade photo shoot that same night, shared contact details, and stayed in contact. Now we were fast friends.
Adam didn’t like it at all.
Even now Kylie is a famous supermodel.
In fact, he didn’t like anyone I met outside of his social circle.
Kylie, in return, doesn’t like Adam. She keeps most of her thoughts to herself, but she’s said enough over the years that I’m well aware.
“Court, he can’t tell you what to do and spend,” she said in the early days.
“It’s his money.” I shrugged.
“Actually, it’s not.” Kylie said. “But I know a friend in a similar situation. This is what she does.”
The piece of information she shared that day changed my life for a while.
I sneakily found a way to use my cards to extract cash by purchasing expensive handbags, shoes, and jewelry, then returning them.
I demanded cash back instead of putting it back on the card.
While some said no, most didn’t. The Blackmore name was powerful, and I spent a lot in their stores.
Then I opened a secret bank account in my name and squirreled it away. Eventually, I found an online digital marketing course. It was a learn at your own pace course, so every day I spent a few hours going through the program.
I passed with top marks.
I loved it. I loved learning. I realized I was much brighter than I’d thought while at school, stressed and malnourished, tiptoeing around my father’s outbursts.
I gained confidence in myself and brainstormed business ideas. I was going to share a strategy I’d put together, hoping he’d be impressed and change his mind, when Adam accused me of being infertile and said I needed to see a fertility specialist.
That was just over a year ago.
A year of being off birth control pills and still no baby. Even I was a little surprised. But his constant accusations of being infertile had irritated me. Of course, I couldn’t tell him it had only been a year since I’d stopped the pills. He would have been furious.
The doctor knew.
And so, we had a plan we worked on together.
My job was to placate him.
“Are you staying home today?” I asked one morning, snuggling up to my husband a few months ago.
He cupped my bare breast, flicking my nipple as he climbed over me. My body reacted, but I was sore from the soulless sex over the past few days.
I was ovulating.
The window had passed, but Adam pushed.
The love felt like it had gone between us. I was nothing more than a baby-making machine for him. It was all he talked about when he was home, which wasn’t often.
“You should be with child.” He pressed inside me, determination on his face as I closed my eyes and let him do what was needed. “I’m not happy, wife.”
Familiar shame crashed down over me as it did every time he mentioned it, as if it were my fault.
Now I felt he could be right. It was over a year, and I still had youth on my side at almost twenty-six.
He came inside me, then shoved a pillow under my ass. “I’ll have a shower. You stay there.”
“I know the drill.” I rolled my eyes, tossing my arm over my face.
Next thing I knew, he was leaning over me with a scowl. “Perhaps if you lose that attitude, Courtney, you might be pregnant.”
I gasped and shoved him. “That’s not how babies are made, Adam; get off me!”
It was the first time he’d scared me.
He straightened and covered me with the sheet angrily. “I’ve done my part. Now you do yours. Can’t believe I chose a malfunctioning womb.”
I flushed with anger and disgust.
“How dare you!” I sat up on my elbows, and he nudged me down.
“It’s been six years since we got married. I told you back then I wanted a family. I shouldn’t have waited. I’m thirty-six, Courtney. If you can’t fucking conceive, then I want that fucking doctor to tell me.”
He’d pushed for information months ago, but doctor-patient privilege restricted him from getting it. Thank goodness.
That morning, Adam walked into our ensuite bathroom, wondering if the problem was me.
Was I infertile?
Or was it psycho-symptomatic, which was a real thing? Perhaps deep down I wanted more time before becoming a mother?
Guilt washed over me, and I decided I needed to give it my all. So I did. I went to all the appointments, ate all the right food, and tossed all the toxic products in our home. I did yoga, visualizations, went insane...
Nothing changed.
Adam became increasingly impatient and agitated, leading to that fated day. Never in our entire marriage had Adam physically hurt me. Emotionally, yes. Psychologically, I was aware he was controlling, but given where I’d come from in life, I never thought I had the right to complain.
The day I told him that people often got pregnant when they stopped trying, it created another argument.
The final one.
“Stop trying? Have you even tried? All this talk of business and education. I see bottles of fucking vitamins and you sneaking off with Kylie. You think I don’t know? Your fucking security reports to me!” he yelled.
“I’m allowed friends, Adam.”
“You should be focused on healing whatever is wrong with your body, not going out socializing. That is what a good wife would do.” He scowled. “A good mother.”
Something about those words struck me where it hurt.
“It might not be me!” I yelled and said what I had held back for months. “You refuse to get tested.”
“You bitch!” Adam’s fist took me by surprise, punching me in the jaw, and I fell to the floor.
I’d grabbed my face, shocked as he kept going. The pain, the ungodly pain. The feel of his large shoe kicking me in my empty womb, the piercing sense of my hair being torn out as he ripped me off the ground. The smell of anger on his breath as he spat in my face.
I didn’t know this man.
When the blackness came, I welcomed it.
I didn’t go to the police, but I took pictures on my phone and hid them with a password.
Now I’m back after Zander called me to his office, and the three men are seated around the same table.
Adam has started playing hardball. He knows I will never reveal what happened between us. The shame of it all is too crushing.
I guess he still holds the power.
“You will’ve seen the news,” Zander adjusts his monitor so that the headline is clearly visible.
I nod, feeling sick to my stomach.
It reads: Tech giant’s wife takes lover and demands five-billion-dollar settlement.
“Clearly that’s not the sequence of events,” I say, my eyes darting between the men. “I told you I met John after I left.”
It’s true.
I met John when I visited a college campus, and he was everything Adam wasn’t. Not rich, super chilled out about almost everything, and covered in paint.
He asked me out, and I said yes.
It didn’t occur to me until halfway through our first date that he knew who I was. My photo was in the news at times standing beside Adam, but he kept me so sheltered that I wasn’t aware that everyone knew me.
I had fired our private security, and it’s something I need to reconsider. But for the past few months, since leaving my husband, I was dating John.
Very casually.
And not before.
“It’s a smear campaign,” Zander continues, almost disregarding my response. “We could sue him, but we need proof. Who was with you when you met the painter?”
“John,” I correct him. “His name is John.” He nods without meeting me in the eye. “I met him a few weeks after I moved out of the house. It was just a friendship to start, and...well, it’s not serious.”
“Just sexual?” Zander asks.
I flinch at the question. Even Jason and Sean seem a little taken aback by his direct and somewhat inappropriate question.
Isn’t it?
“Is that relevant?”
“Yes. You’re a married woman.” He looks me straight in the eye, as if disgusted that a twenty-six (almost) woman could have a sex life.
I press my lips together. “Separated.”
“Which we will need to prove.”
Unbelievable.
Who is this guy working for? Me or Adam?
I recross my legs. “I was on my own when we met. Visiting Columbia University. He was painting the wall outside the admissions office.”
Zander stares at me.
“I don’t have any witnesses. He will attest to it.” I fling out my hands. “I did not have an affair!”
Again, there is barely a reaction as he makes notes on his tablet and makes a humming noise.
I want to reach across the table and throttle him with his tie. The fact that he’s so damn good-looking is an absolute hindrance.
I wish he were old and ugly.
John and I spent a few days in Hawaii recently because I wanted to get away from New York and have a break before launching into the legal proceedings.
Zander was right; it was purely sex. We had little in common, and I found him a little boring. John made me feel beautiful, smart, and desired at a time when I needed it.
The morning before we flew home, I came out of the shower and heard him talking on the phone out on the lanai.
He hadn’t heard me.
“Dude, she’s rich as fuck. You should see this room. I’m looking out over Waikiki Beach while drinking a mimosa. Haven’t opened my wallet once since we arrived.” John chuckled.
He hadn’t. Not even to buy me a drink or a frangipani to tuck behind my ear.
I wasn’t expecting to fall madly in love with John or for him to pick up the tab. I was aware that the vacation was outside his budget. Until I overheard that call, it hadn’t bothered me to slide my card over each time.
But his words had put a sour taste in my mouth.
When we got home, I ended it.
John showed up at my place two nights ago wanting a second chance, wanting to know why I ended it.
In all honesty, I probably would have slept with him if not for one thing. Every time he stepped close and clutched my hips, I thought about the glowering man sitting before me.
Zander Sterling.
Why?
Sure, I’d have to be blind not to be attracted to his strong jaw, sky-blue eyes, and what is clearly a well-toned body under his expensive suit. But there is no love lost between us.
The man clearly doesn’t like me and thinks I’m just after my husband’s money.
I am.
He has been emotionally controlling for years and then physically hurt me in a way no man should do to a woman.
Thank God we didn’t have children.
Blaming me for being infertile when he refused to get tested was cruel. I know it’s me, but the fact he put all the blame on me was unfair.
I glance at the monitor once more. For Adam to paint me as a philander and gold digger in the press is dirty, given the violence I endured that day.
I won’t let him win.
I’m taking my fifty percent of our assets.
He can go fuck himself.
“No one is accusing you of having an affair, but we need to get our facts aligned. If their team can prove otherwise, it can topple our entire strategy. You could end up with nothing.” Zander says.
“Could that happen?” My mouth falls open.
Zander nods and stands where he removes his jacket and undoes his tie. “Yes. But I’m not going to let it.”
I glance at the other men, wondering what is happening. He’s usually not this casual.
“I hope you don’t have any plans tonight, Mrs. Blackmore. Usually, when a spouse does something like this, it only gets dirtier.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he walks to the door and tugs it open. “Kathy, order us some dinner.”
I shuffle my chair back.
“Yes, sir. Pizza?”
“I’m gluten-intolerant.” I share, assuming he’s ordering for all of us.
“Predictable,” Zander mutters.
Sean smirks, tucking his tablet under his arm. “I have to meet my wife at the hospital, Mr. Sterling.”
Zander gives him a nod.
“Have a good evening, Courtney.” Sean smiles my way.
“Thank you,” I reply.
“You can head off also, Jason. Mrs. Blackmore and I can get this done tonight.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Zander says, darting a narrowed-eye glance my way.
Apparently, I’m staying.
The two men disappear out the door while Kathy hovers, waiting for her order. When I open my mouth to tell her I’ll be fine, Zander beats me to it.
“Two salads, three pizzas, sodas and garlic bread.”
For just the two of us?
That’s a lot of food, and I doubt it’s his usual meal plan by the looks of his body. Not that I care. The jerk. But it’s clear his ass is rock solid, his back broad, and that he has thick, powerful biceps.
Biceps are a weakness of mine, but I barely notice his.
Liar.
His forearms are roped, and each time he’s rolled his sleeves up, I’ve noticed the same large wristwatch.
If he didn’t display such condescending behavior toward me, I might find him attractive. Instead, I don’t.
Mostly.
“Is there someone else joining us?” I ask, imagining all that food arriving.
Zander walks to the sofa and sits with a sigh, as if I’m the most annoying person in history.
“No,” his answer is almost a growl.
God, it’s going to be a long night.