When all this is done, I’m going to ruin him, and I’m going to take his stupid scorpion paper weight and keep it on a shelf in my office in between my antique globe and my bonsai.
“There is a business dinner that I would like Cora to attend. I’ve provided reasonable notice, and the event does not materially conflict with her own obligations.”
Chambers nods. “That sounds like a function that, bysigning the prenuptial agreement, Mrs. Maddox has committed to making reasonable effort to attend.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid she is declining to attend. Unreasonably.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Maddox deems this function to conflict with her personal obligations.”
At least he’s not so craven that he doesn’t even attempt to fight her corner. I decide to turn the screws. “Do you know my brothers, Mr. Chambers?”
“Everyone knows the Maddox brothers.”
“Then you know my brother Gideon is the chairman of Maddox Publishing. It’s hard to remember the properties under that umbrella, but I believe you might be familiar with one of their smaller holdings. Tilly and Gaskin?”
Mary Ellen Gaskin is Chambers’s richest, oldest suburban woman.
“The firm has an excellent reputation.”
I hum in agreement. “And I believe you and I have several clients in common, as well. Drury, Anderson, Lake. GRT. Westhill LLC. Well, perhaps not the companies themselves, but there are connections there, if I’m not mistaken?”
Despite the fourth-tier law school, he’s smart enough to follow me. Corporate investors will scheme, borrow, and beg to get in with Maddox Capital, and on my word, they’d most certainly make their mothers, wives, and daughters drop their pretty boy lawyer like a bad habit.
To his credit, I can’t see him sweat. “It’s a small world,” he says.
I nod. “And it turns on the simplest of things. Like a business dinner, for example.”
He sips his water. I fold my hands and let him do the math. How many of his clients will he sacrifice for his golden goose?
After several long moments of reflection, he sets hisglass down and answers. “Let me ask you, Mr. Maddox, what did Mrs. Maddox say when you cited section seven, subsection R?”
“I do not see how our private conversations are your business.”
He smiles apologetically. “Forgive me. I should be more direct. As your wife’s lawyer, I must assert that she cannot possibly be held to agreements that she is unaware that she has made.”
“She signed the prenup.”
“She did,” he concedes.
“What are you saying?”
Again, he lifts his glass and sips his water, clearly weighing his next move. When he sets it down, it’s with a thump. “She didn’t read it.”
“Bullshit.”
“She didn’t. I saw her face when she learned that she’d signed away her children. She had no idea.”
My pulse spikes. “No judge in New York will invalidate that agreement.”
“I am aware, but I’m telling you, she didn’t read it, and that joke of a lawyer that you arranged to represent her didn’t explain it to her, either. It was blatant malfeasance of counsel, and yes, I’m aware that no judge in New York will rule my way on that, either. Doesn’t make it any less true.”
He holds my gaze, but he’s got his hands under his desk so I can’t see if they’re shaking. I revise my initial assessment of him. Does he want her? Have some grandiose plan to rescue the damsel in distress and make his fortune in the process? Never happening. She’sbeenrescued, and I’d happily spend a fortune to bury him.
I relax in my seat and smile at him. “Then you understand that she’d never do anything to risk her children.”
His face hardens. “You’re a cold bastard.”
I incline my head. I can’t argue. Instead, I observe him in silence, stoking the tension while my brain races.
