Chapter 12
Astoria was reviewing the quarterly sustainability report when Gerald’s name lit up her phone screen.
She considered letting it go to voicemail—she was nearly finished with work, and the weekend stretched ahead with the promise of uninterrupted quiet—but Gerald didn’t call on Friday afternoons unless something had gone wrong.
She answered on the third ring. “What did she do?”
There was a pause, then Gerald, with an edge in his voice, said, “She filed an emergency motion about an hour ago claiming you violated the temporary orders.”
Astoria set down her pen. “On what grounds?”
“The Cascadia contract. She’s claiming the capital expenditure approval last week required her notification under the temporary orders and that you deliberately circumvented the process to diminish marital assets.”
The Cascadia project, her sustainable hotel development that was two years in planning.
It was the crown jewel of Shepry Global’s expansion into eco-tourism.
Astoria had followed every protocol, documented every decision, and copied Gerald on every significant communication precisely because she’d known Valerie would look for ammunition.
And yet still…
“That’s absurd,” Astoria said, her voice flat and unaffected. “The notification requirements apply to asset sales and new debt instruments. Capital expenditures from approved operating budgets don’t require spousal notification. We confirmed this with the court already.”
“I know. And we’ll make that argument Monday morning.”
“Monday,” she said dryly.
“Yes. An emergency hearing, nine a.m. on Judge Whitcombe’s docket.” Gerald’s tone carried the particular wariness of a man who had spent over forty years watching people use the legal system as a weapon. “I’m sorry, Astoria. I know you had plans this weekend.”
She hadn’t, actually. Her plans had consisted of an empty house, perhaps a swim if the weather held, and the continued effort of not thinking about things she couldn’t afford to think about. But Gerald didn’t need to know that.
“What do you need from me?”
“Documentation first. I need every email, memo, and sign-off related to the Cascadia approval. I want a paper trail so clean it squeaks.” She heard him shifting papers on his end.
“I’ll draft the response tonight and tomorrow.
But I also need case law, specifically recent precedents on breach-of-order claims in high-asset divorces, specifically where the alleged breach involved routine business operations.
There’s a law review article from last year I want to cite, but I need the supporting cases. ”
“The courthouse law library—”
“Has everything we need, yes. I’d go myself, but I want to focus on the response brief.”
Astoria was already closing the sustainability report after saving the file, her mind shifting into crisis mode efficiently.
This was manageable. Frustrating, manipulative, and exhausting, yes, but manageable.
“I’ll head there now. Send me the citation for the article, and I’ll pull the precedents. ”
“I’ll email it in five minutes.” Gerald paused. “Astoria.”
“Yes?”
“This is harassment. We both know that. The motion has no merit, and Judge Whitcombe will see through it. But Valerie is counting on the disruption, the expense, and the sheer exhaustion of having to defend yourself over and over.”
“I know what she’s counting on.”
Her marriage had taught her exactly how Valerie operated.
The Friday filing wasn’t accidental. It was strategic and designed to maximize disruption while minimizing her response time.
Valerie would have known Astoria had plans, or would assume she did, and the thought of ruining them would have been part of the appeal.
“Don’t let her see you rattled,” Gerald said.
“I never do.”
She ended the call and sat for a moment in the silence of her corner office. The sun had shifted while they talked, casting long shadows across her desk. Gloria had left an hour ago, and the executive floor was empty, the weekend exodus complete.
Astoria allowed herself thirty seconds of something that wasn't quite anger. It was deeper than that, more worn. She’d endured eight months of this.
Eight months of motions and countermotions, of accusations dressed up in legal language, of her entire life picked apart and examined and found wanting.
She'd built an empire from nothing, but she couldn't seem to build a wall high enough to keep Valerie out.
The thirty seconds ended. Astoria gathered her laptop, her phone, and the leather portfolio she always carried to meetings. She checked her reflection in the window glass—composed, immaculate, the ice queen who never cracked—and walked out of her office.
The drive to the courthouse took twelve minutes at this hour, the Friday traffic already thinning as people scattered toward restaurants and homes and anywhere that wasn't work.
Astoria drove on autopilot, her mind cataloging what she'd need: the article Gerald mentioned, supporting precedents, and anything from recent appellate decisions on business judgment exceptions to marital notification requirements.
The courthouse law library occupied the third floor of the older judicial building, a relic from before the sleek modern courthouse was built next door.
It smelled like old paper and furniture polish, and the fluorescent lights hummed at a frequency that had given Astoria a headache more than once.
But it had the most comprehensive collection of family law resources in the county, and on a Friday evening, it would be nearly empty.
Astoria pushed through the heavy wooden doors and nodded to the librarian at the front desk, a gray-haired woman who recognized her from previous visits. "Working late, Ms. Shepry?"
“Unfortunately.” Astoria managed a small smile. “I’ll be in the research room if anyone needs me.”
“I’ll be closing the main floor at eight, but attorneys can stay in the research room as long as they need. Mr. Bracks already called ahead, so you’re all set. Just make sure the door latches behind you when you leave.”
“Thank you.”
The research room was a glass-walled space at the back of the library, furnished with long tables, power outlets, and access to the legal databases that weren't available on the public terminals. Astoria chose a seat facing the door and began unpacking her laptop and notes.
Gerald’s email had arrived with the article citation and a list of relevant case numbers. She pulled the first volume from the shelves and settled in to work.
This, at least, she could control. Valerie couldn’t file whatever motions she wanted and time them to disrupt her. She could lie with a smile on her face and manufactured righteousness in her voice. But she couldn’t change the law, and she couldn’t change the facts.
Astoria found the first case and began taking notes.
An hour passed, then most of another. Astoria worked methodically through Gerald’s list, pulling volumes from the shelves and flagging relevant passages.
The research room was quiet except for the scratch of her pen and the occasional hum of the air conditioning cycling on.
She’d removed her blazer at some point, draping it over the back of her chair, and her heels sat abandoned beneath the table.
The fluorescent lights cast everything in the same flat, shadowless glow.
She was deep in a 2024 appellate decision—a case where a husband had claimed his wife violated temporary orders by authorizing routine maintenance on a shared commercial property—when the door opened.
Astoria looked up, expecting the librarian to let her know she was locking up for the night.
But it wasn’t the librarian.
Miller Scott stood in the doorway, a canvas bag over one shoulder and a stack of files pressed against her chest. She wore well-worn jeans and a soft blue sweater, her hair loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back in her usual twist. She looked like she had been called away from something else, a Friday evening interrupted, just like Astoria’s had been.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
“I didn’t—” Miller started, then stopped. Her eyes swept the room, taking in Astoria’s spread of documents, the empty tables, and the glass walls that suddenly, to Astoria, felt like a cage. “Rachel sent me. For research.”
“The emergency motion.”
“Yes.”
Of course it was the same emergency. Rachel would need the same precedents Gerald did and would be building the same arguments, just from opposite angles.
It made perfect sense that she’d send someone to pull cases on a Friday night, and it made perfect sense that the someone would be Miller.
Astoria had just somehow failed to think it through to this logical conclusion.
“The library is large enough,” Astoria said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt. “We don't have to work on top of each other.”
Something flickered across Miller's face, there and gone before Astoria could fully name it. “Right. Of course.”
Miller chose a table on the opposite side of the room, near the windows that looked out onto the darkening courthouse square. She unpacked her bag with the same methodical efficiency Astoria had used an hour ago: laptop, legal pad, a handful of pens. She didn’t look in Astoria’s direction.
Astoria returned to the appellate decision, but the words swam in front of her eyes.
“The court finds that routine maintenance expenditures, when consistent with historical patterns and within the scope of ordinary business operations, do not constitute a violation of…”
She read the same sentence three times without absorbing any of it. Across the room, Miller’s pen scratched against paper. Minutes later, a chair creaked and pages from an old book turned with a soft whisper that Astoria’s ears tracked without her conscious permission.
This was fine. They were professionals. They could occupy the same space without—