CHAPTER FOUR
Cynthia Murdock and her attorneys sat quietly on one side of the conference table while George Grantham with his team of attorneys, representing her ex, sat on the other side.
Although the arbitrator sat at the head of the table and was technically in charge of the proceedings, it was clear to everybody in that room who was really in charge.
Or they wouldn’t be sitting up there like wooden soldiers, each glancing at their watches every few minutes, as they waited for the other party to this disagreement to appear.
“Honestly, George, this is ridiculous,” Cynthia said to the opposing counsel. “Where’s your client?”
George Grantham smiled. He knew her too well. “He’s coming, Cynthia. Keep your skirt on. He’s a busy man. He has a corporation to run.”
“And he has an arbitration to settle! Vincent Fontaine is not in charge of this. But when did that ever stop him? It’s always what he wants. We’re here, at his corporate headquarters building, because that’s where he insists we meet. And we all, like the idiots we are, agreed to do it.”
“You can always leave,” George said.
“Not until I get what’s mine, I’m not going anywhere. And I will prevail,” she said in that entitled way George could never abide. What Vince saw in that bitch was a mystery to him. Although, if he were to silently admit it, she wasn’t wrong about anything she said.
But he could never let that witch win. “Still in love, are we?”
“Love? With him? Please! What’s there to love?”
Her eyes, it seemed to George, showed that there was plenty to love.
“He’s moved on anyway,” Cynthia added. “What’s his new playgirl of the week? What’s her name?”
“Cecily?” asked George, although he knew she knew the name.
“Cecily Steinem? That whore? Talk about going low. She can have him!”
They always said that, George knew, but they always seemed to know exactly who Vince was dating, and where he was going, and what he was doing. Always. It was as if Vince dumped them, but those women never dumped Vince.
They waited nearly fifteen additional minutes before the door to the conference room finally opened and Vince walked in.
What just galled Cynthia wasn’t the fact that every lawyer on the opposite side of the table stood up: they worked for Vince. They were supposed to show due deference. But the arbitrator and her own attorneys stood up too! She could not believe it.
But she held her peace. She had bigger concerns on her mind than why men felt it their obligation to always kiss his fine ass.
And that was the regretful part for Cynthia.
His ass. Because although he was a bastard from way back and everything she abhorred in a man, he was still fine.
And so gorgeous it was ridiculous. And so rich it was obscene. Nobody could take that away from him.
Vince sat down beside George and his other lawyers, and everybody else sat down too.
“Let me do all the talking, please, Vincent,” George whispered to his client as they both were sitting down.
“If you say what I need you to say, then I won’t say a word. If you don’t,” said Vince as he looked at his lawyer and best friend, “then I will.”
And that was that. Vince always had the last word. George steeled himself for a rocky ride.
And then the arbitrator called the proceedings to order.
Cynthia and Vince had been divorced for only three months when she filed a dispute over the terms. She was arguing that the court ordered Vince to pay her restitution for the egregiously defamatory comments about her in public, while Vince was arguing that that big fat fifty-five-million-dollar settlement he agreed to pay her covered that and any and everything else associated with that divorce.
It was in their prenup and he was sticking to it.
He felt he was especially generous to her when she truly didn’t deserve a dime.
“It was an historically-high lump sum of money that negated everything else she was asking for,” George said to the arbitrator. “My client should not have to pay out another single dime to this greedy woman!”
“That’s for me to decide, Counsel,” the arbitrator fired back before Cynthia could.
“And beyond all of that,” said Vince, as everybody looked at him, “everything that I said about her, and I mean everything, was nothing but the truth.”
“You lie!” said Cynthia. “You called me a whore in public.”
“And?”
“I’m not a whore! I’m not!”
“Ye protests too much,” Vince said as the arbitrator was banging his gavel.
“That’s enough both of you!”
And on and on it went. For hours they argued back and forth. The arbitrator was more the referee than the tryer of fact. But eventually he heard both sides and agreed to issue his ruling in two-to-four weeks out. And then the proceeding was over.
Vince remained seated as everybody else stood up.
George noticed how Cynthia kept looking over at Vince.
Although a beautiful woman with that flowing strawberry blonde hair, her greediness was so pronounced that he couldn’t bear the sight of her.
But she still loved Vince. Of that George was certain.
“You know what’s going to be a miracle?” she asked Vince as her lawyers waited for her to come on.
Vince finally looked up at her. To George, he seemed bored with her already. “What?” he asked her with no affection whatsoever.
“You’re going to miss me dearly. And not just in the bedroom either.”
Vince stared at her. He could see how she could have once turned him on.
But that turn-on was so long ago that it seemed like a far-away mirage that never really happened.
But it had. He actually had the gall to marry this woman once upon a time.
“That wouldn’t be a miracle,” he said to her unblinkingly. “That would be a disgrace.”
“Fuck you, Vince Fontaine!” Cynthia yelled at him.
“You will never do that again,” Vince shot back.
And on that note, Cynthia turned in a huff and walked out of that conference room. Her attorneys, smiling as if they wanted Vince’s approval more than their client’s, left too.
Vince looked at George. “Your verdict?”
“Guilty as charged,” George said.
“Meaning?”
“Oh you’re going to pay her more money. How much? I can’t say. But you definitely owe it to her.”
“I don’t owe her shit,” Vince said angrily as he stood up. “That gold digger got every dime she’s getting from me and I’ll appeal it to the highest court in the land if I have to.”
George smiled. “The Supreme Court is not going to hear your divorce disputes.”
“Who said anything about the Supreme Court?”
“Then what highest court in the land you’re talking about?” And as soon as George said it, he realized what his friend and client was talking about. “The court of public opinion.”
“I’ll destroy her.”
“You’ve already done that.”
“She hasn’t seen nothing yet.”
“And she’ll win more money from you.”
“Won’t matter. Her reputation will be in even more tatters than it’s in now.”
George should his head. “You’ve always played too rough, you know that? You don’t have to annihilate your enemies. Destroying them should be enough.”
Vince nodded. “Yes, it should be. But it’s not.”
Then Vince stood there, with his hands in his pockets, as if he was pensive.
“I thought you was glad to be rid of her,” George said.
“I am. But I’m tired of failing in the most important part of my life.”
“Marriage number three?”
Vince nodded. “Right.”
George considered his friend. Here George was this never-married, always eligible bachelor with nothing but open relationships.
Yet his reputation was that of a wholesome family man.
Vince, on the other hand, had many lady friends, but he was in fact a one-woman-at-a-time man even though his reputation was that of an unrepentant womanizer.
But he wasn’t. He was far from it. But nobody would believe it. “What’s next?”
Vince exhaled. “I think I’m going to go to my house in Connecticut for a few weeks. I’m bushed. I can use some peace and quiet.”
“You?” George smiled. “Give me a break. You’ll be married again before the year is out.
Mark my words. Which, as your lawyer, only helps my bottom line.
But as your friend?” George’s smile slowly dissipated.
And he shook his head. “Slow it down, partner. Just say no to love this time around. Try lust for a change. You ever tried lust for a change? It’s quick.
It’s easy. It’s gratifying. And guess what?
It’ll never, and I mean never, cost you fifty-five thousand dollars, let alone fifty-five million. Keep love out of the equation.”
“It was never in the equation,” said Vince, to George’s shock, as he left the room.