Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Zander
“Eat,” Navy commanded.
She’d stopped by the firm and brought me lunch.
The past week had been busy as hell for me.
I was preparing for trial, and right before a case, I usually locked in.
Though I utilized our paralegals and private investigators, I immersed myself in my clients cases.
I wanted no stone to be left unturned, that way I’d never be surprised by anything the opposing counsel threw my way.
“I’m not hungry,” I declined, not even bothering to look up at what she had. Truthfully, I didn’t remember the last time I’d even eaten a full meal. I’d been surviving off coffee and pretzels while I worked.
She sighed and slipped my pen from my hand. Before I could get frustrated, she sat on my lap, and her closeness was more than enough to calm me. Navy pushed the file I was writing in up and set the to go box down.
Navy had always been the only woman to treat me as well as I treated her.
Truthfully, that was why I didn’t take love and relationships seriously.
I wanted the kind of love my parents had, and the women I’d dealt with over the years weren’t worthy of or capable of giving me that.
The closest thing I had to it was my friendship with Navy.
“Sweet girl, I don’t have time to eat. Opening arguments start Monday and—”
“You always have time for yourself. I know you’re busy and I honor your commitment to your clients, but you need to take care of yourself.
If you don’t, I will.” She opened the to go box, and I couldn’t lie and say the meal didn’t look appetizing.
It looked like she’d gotten my favorite Cajun pasta from the café downstairs.
After shoveling a bite of pasta onto the fork, she lifted it to my mouth and said, “Open up.”
I thought she was playing, but she fed me until the box was empty. When it was, she wiped my mouth, then cupped the back of my head and kissed my forehead.
“Have a good day, bookie. I’ll talk to you later.”
I was so speechless from the gesture, all I could do was watch as she walked out of my office. The sound of my office phone ringing pulled my focus from her.
“Yeah?” I answered, massaging my temple.
“Mr. Gough, Mrs. Williams is here to see you. I told her you were busy but she wanted me to call and see if you could see her for a moment.”
Sighing, I sat back in my seat. I really didn’t feel like dealing with Ebony, but maybe busting a nut would help me relax.
We’d been dealing with each other on and off for the last two months, but I hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks.
The last time we linked up, her husband pulled up.
He followed her because he thought she was cheating.
Instead of denying it, Ebony came clean and asked me to leave so they could talk.
I tried to but he wanted to drag his nuts, which resulted in him getting his ass beat before I left and went to the kickback Carson and Venus hosted.
After that, I didn’t expect to hear from Ebony again.
Quite frankly, if she wasn’t here to give up the pussy, I wasn’t sure what else she could want.
I typically dated women who were attached or too busy to want something serious because it was easy to cut them off when the time came.
I usually didn’t have to worry about them wanting more from me than I was willing to offer because they got those things from someone else.
Only a handful of times did women get so attached that they were willing to leave their boyfriends or husbands for me, and once that happened, I called the arrangement off.
“Send her up, but no one else unless it’s my family.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hung the phone up and tossed the to go box and went to my bathroom to brush my teeth.
By the time I was done, Ebony had made herself comfortable on the small sofa in the corner of my office.
She hopped up at the sight of me, nervously twiddling her thumbs as I closed the space between us.
I noted the jerky gestures . . . her gnawing at the corner of her bottom lip.
Clearly she was nervous, and I was curious as to why.
“Wassup?” I greeted, motioning my head toward the sofa so she’d sit back down.
“Thanks for seeing me. I’ve been calling you, and you haven’t answered.”
“I turned your notifications off,” I admitted honestly, sitting next to her. “Figured you needed time to work things out with ya husband and I didn’t want to be a distraction.”
She chuckled. “There’s nothing to work out. He wants a divorce.”
My heart dropped. Regardless of how I felt about marriage, I hated to hear hers was about to end.
“Damn. I’m sorry to hear that, Ebony.”
I covered her hand with mine and gave it a gentle squeeze as she released a shaky breath.
“It’s fine. Our marriage was over years ago, otherwise I wouldn’t have cheated with you.” I didn’t respond when she paused, giving her the space to continue. “So, I stopped by because since he’s divorcing me for cheating, he’s not going to continue to take care of me. You have to.”
For quite a while, we merely stared at each other. A puff of a clipped laugh escaped me, and when her expression remained serious, I laughed harder.
“Yo. You can’t be serious, Ebony.”
“Oh, I’m very serious. My marriage is ending because of you. I think it’s only right that you take care of me financially.”
“Nah.” My head shook as I stood. “Your marriage is ending because you’re a cheater, and you weren’t a very good one if we’re being honest. I told you to make sure you turned your location off before you got to the restaurant and that I’d pick you up from there in case he had a tracker on your car because you were concerned that he was suspicious.
You’re the one who chose not to heed my advice, so whatever the consequences of your actions are, that’s on you. ”
Scoffing, she stood. “You seriously don’t plan to help me pay my bills? I’m losing my husband because of you, Zander. Giving me money is the literal least you could do.”
“The least I could do is nothing. If you need a divorce attorney, I can put one of my lawyers on the case and comp the fees, but that’s all I got for you, E.”
She stared at me before releasing a long, slow breath. “Is that your final answer?”
“It is.”
Ebony’s eyes squinted as she took a step back.
She looked me over before bumping into me and storming out of my office.
Times like these made me not want to deal with romantic situations at all.
It didn’t seem to matter how clear I made my intentions and what I had to offer, there were still times where the lines blurred all too easily.
I hated what Ebony was going through. Hated that she was likely going to be forced to get a job or find another man to take care of her because of our affair.
I didn’t feel guilty about the divorce because they shouldn’t have been together any-fucking-way.
As much as I didn’t want to give her spoiled ass a dime, I ended up sending her ten thousand dollars via Apple Pay before wishing her well and blocking her damn number.
Whatever happened between her and her husband no longer concerned me.
My current priority was this upcoming case, and I couldn’t let anything distract me.