19. Ares
A res~
I was not in a good mood. Despite Capri answering her phone each night, I missed her, and while I had expected as much, I hadn’t expected to miss her as much as I did.
Before marrying Capri, I’d had no reason to rush home, women available in every port.
However, now that I wasn’t interested in anyone but my wife, things were inherently different.
Walking into TCC, I wasn’t surprised when someone stopped me, asking my name. “Ares Cormac?”
Doing my best not to snap at a man that was just doing his job, I said, “Yes.”
Handing me two manilla envelopes, he said, “You’ve been served, sir.”
Taking the envelopes, I wasn’t upset or even surprised by the summons.
Being who I was, I was served quite a bit, mostly by companies trying to court-date their losses.
However, TCC’s lawyers weren’t paid a fortune an hour for nothing.
It also wasn’t unheard of for a process server to wait in my lobby all day until they saw me, so this really was par for the course.
Forgetting about the process server, I made my way to the elevators, mentally calculating how long it’d be before I could get home to my wife.
While I had all kinds of shit to attend to, none of it seemed as important as seeing Capri.
I was officially in love with my wife, and wasn’t that a sonofabitch.
Capri could barely stand me, blaming me for the downfall of her grandfather’s company, yet here I was, fucking lost to how I felt when I wasn’t with her.
As soon as the elevator doors slid open, Ulma was already calling out to me. “Mr. Cormac, Frost Langley called, and he’s insistent on seeing you today.”
I gave her a terse nod. “Give me ten minutes to get settled, then get him on the line for me.”
She resembled a bobblehead as she started nodding, but I just ignored her as I made my way to my office. For whatever reason, Frost Langley made her anxious, but I’d never been too interested to ask her why. As long as he wasn’t rude to her, I minded my own business.
Entering my office, I shut the door behind me, needing a few moments to regroup and adjust to the time change. While I only got jetlag if I flew out of the country, I still had to remember that I wasn’t two hours ahead anymore.
Tossing the envelopes on my desk, that’s when I noticed the return address on the top envelope, and that immediately stopped everything around me.
What the fuck?
It was from the law offices of Corrine Shadow, and I knew enough to recognize her name as being one of the top divorce lawyers in the state. She was semi-famous for some of the state’s most high-profile divorce cases, including a few celebrities.
Grabbing the envelope, that’s when I noticed that the other envelope’s return address was Martha Holdings, and whatever was going on, I didn’t need the details to justify the anger that was already returning.
This time, I was definitely going to kill Drummond Cohen if this shit was what I suspected.
As soon as I pulled the papers out, I saw the words Dissolution of Marriage, and it was enough to make me see red in a way that I hadn’t ever had before.
The day of our wedding, I’d made myself clear about only being married once, and no matter her reasons for filing for divorce, Capri was out of her fucking mind if she believed that I’d grant her a divorce under any circumstances.
Sliding the papers back, I grabbed the second envelope, and it only took a quick glance to recognize the contract of sale between TCC and Martha Holdings.
However, this copy had the original company names reversed, which meant that Capri had sold Martha Holdings back to TCC.
Flipping through all the paperwork, I saw that both our signatures were on the back page, and if I wasn’t so fucking pissed off, I’d admire her ingenuity for pulling something like this off in a matter of days.
Grabbing my desk phone, I called Peter, knowing that if anyone knew the details about one of our acquisitions, it’d be him. “Hey, Cormac,” he greeted. “Welcome back.”
“Did my wife come in while I was gone?” I asked, getting right to the point.
“Uhm...yeah, yes,” he answered. “She asked for the original contract of sale between TCC and Martha Holdings, and since you gave her equal administrative power over TCC, when she filed the sale, we put it through. Uhm...your signature was on the contract, Ares.”
“No, it’s fine,” I lied. “I’m just touching base on anything that I might have missed while I was gone. Did she sell or buy anything else?”
“No, just Martha Holdings,” he answered warily. “Original terms and conditions.”
“Thanks, Peter,” I said before hanging up.
I was going to fucking strangle her.
After I strangled her father.
After dialing Ulma, as soon as she picked up the phone, I said, “I need to go out again. Call Frost Langley and tell him that I can meet him in two hours, arrange conference room seven.”
“Of course,” she immediately replied.
Giving myself a few seconds, I pulled out my phone, then searched the county records to fuel my anger some more. Pulling up my name, I saw the filing as public record, and it was only a matter of time before the media got ahold of the information and our private lives were no longer private.
I tried to recall a time when I’d been this furious, but I couldn’t. Despite her feelings for me, Capri and I were married, and her constant disregard for that fact was pissing me the fuck off. Whether she liked it or not, we were a team now, and it was time that she started acting like it.
Grabbing the envelopes, I left my desk, stopping only briefly enough to address Ulma. “If Frost cannot make the meeting, text me immediately.”
She nodded frantically. “Yes, of course.”
Once I was in the elevator, I called Brett Haung, TCC’s PR magician.
Even if Capri decided to request a voluntary dismissal of our divorce today, the information was still out there, and there would always be a record that she filed for divorce at one point in time, something that I might not ever forgive, truth be told.
Seriously, I couldn’t ever recall having this fucked-up of a Thursday before.
“Mr. Cormac,” Brett greeted as he answered the phone.
Getting straight to the point, I said, “I pissed off my wife enough that she filed for divorce while I was out of town.”
“Oh...uhm...okay...”
I almost rolled my eyes. “If you get any calls from the media, tell them that my wife was simply trying to get my attention, and now that she has it, there will be no divorce.”
“Is that what happened?” he chuckled.
“I have no idea what happened,” I admitted. “I’ve been in Chicago.”
“Anything else?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered as the elevator doors slid open to the lobby. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’m back from speaking with my wife.”
“Of course,” he replied. “Good luck.”
Hanging up, I made my way to the parking garage, having left my car when I’d flown to Chicago on Monday. While having a driver came in handy sometimes, I liked driving myself if possible. I had control issues, even with something as simple as driving.
Luckily for me, traffic was light around this time of day, so I had managed to get to Martha Holdings within ten minutes, and even though Capri owned the entire building, it was well-known that I also had free reign of the place, being her fucking husband and all.
When I reached Capri’s office, her assistant immediately stood up when she saw me. “Uhm, Ms. Cohen is in a meeting right now, Mr. Cormac-”
“What did you call her?” I asked, my voice deceptively mild, my steps frozen as I regarded her closely.
“Uhm...Ms...uhm, Ms. Cohen,” she stammered, immediately realizing her mistake.
I eyed her with a look that I usually reserved for my enemies, but that’s how pissed off I was right now. “My wife’s last name is Cormac,” I reminded her. “Is that clear?”
“Yes, of course,” she rushed out.
“Where is she?” I practically snapped.
“Well, she’s...she’s in conference room three, but she’s in a meeting with-”
I turned from her, then headed back towards the elevator, knowing exactly where the conference room floor was. When Peter had presented Martha Holdings to me, I’d done my research, even studying the layout of the building that I’d been about to buy.
“Mr. Cormac!” Gina cried out. “You can’t interrupt her-”
The elevator doors closed on her protests, and it actually surprised me that she was under the impression that she could stop me. Even if she knew about Capri filing for divorce, I was still Ares fucking Cormac.
Something that my wife was finally going to understand.