“Does that include poker winnings?”
“Does she know about them? Do you file income taxes on those funds?”
“No and no.”
“Then we’ll leave that off the table. So what’s your number?”
“I don’t know. Nothing ridiculous, just a million or so? It’s like a fifth of the income generated off the corpus.”
“She’ll go after that.”
“But not the corpus, right? I think there’s a spendthrift clause.”
“If it’s the Bradford Family Irrevocable of 1968, which I believe it is, my father drafted the terms, so you can bet your best flask no soon-to-be ex-wife is invading anything. I’ll need to see a copy of the documents, of course.”
“Prospect Trust has everything.”
Samuel T. ran through various file this, counter that, disclose whatever, but Lane checked out. In his mind, he was upstairs in his bedroom with the door shut and Lizzie fully naked in his bed. He was all over her with his hands and his mouth, closing the distance of the years and going back to where they had been before Chantal had showed up in designer maternity clothes.
Whatever he was facing with his father and the debt … it would be so much easier if he had Lizzie with him, and not in just a sexual way.
Friends helped each other, right?
“Sound good?”
Lane replugged into his lawyer. “Yes. How long?”
“Like I said, I’ll file everything today with another ‘friendly’ judge who owes me a favor or two. And Mitch Ramsey has agreed to serve her the summons immediately. Next comes hashing out the marital settlement—and my guess is, she’ll get one hell of an attorney on her side for you to pay for. You’ve been living apart for more than sixty days, but she’s going to need to leave this house ASAP if you’re going to stay here. I don’t want to trip that wire and delay this two months, thanks to a cohabitating argument from the other side. My guess is she’s going to contest everything, because she’s going to want as much money from you as possible. My goal, however, is to get her out of your life with the clothes on her back and that quarter-of-a-million-dollar engagement ring you gave her—and that’s it.”
“Sounds good to me.” Especially as he didn’t know if there was a pot to piss in anywhere else but his own accounts. “Where do I sign?”
Samuel T. made short work with various pieces of paper, presenting them for a scrawl in blue ink on the corner of the bar cart. It was all over quicker than Lane could finish his first bourbon.
“You want me to give you a retainer?” he asked as he gave the Montblanc back to his attorney.
Samuel T. finished his own drink; then put more ice and more Family Reserve in his glass. “This is free of charge.”
Lane recoiled. “Come on, man, I can’t let you do that. Let me—”
“No. Frankly, I don’t like her, and she doesn’t belong in this house. I’m looking at this divorce case as housekeeping. A broom sweep to get the trash out.”
“I didn’t know you disliked her so much.”
Samuel T. put his hands on his hips and stared at the Oriental. “I’m going to be completely honest here.”
Lane knew where things were going just by the way the attorney was gritting his jaw. “G’on.”
“About six months after you left here, Chantal called me up. Asked me to come over—when I said no, she showed up at my house. She was looking for ‘a friend,’ as she put it—then she shoved her hand down my pants and offered to get on her knees. I told her she was out of her mind. Even if I were attracted to her, which I have never been, your family and mine have been linked for generations. I would never, ever be with a wife of yours, divorced or separated or together. Besides, Virginia is a fine state to go to college in, but I wouldn’t marry a girl from there—and that was what she was actually after.”
Man, he hated being right about that bitch sometimes, he truly did.
“I’m not surprised, but I’m glad you told me.” Lane put out his palm. “I’ll repay you the favor. Someday.”
“I am certain you will. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll run these down to the courthouse.”
The attorney shook what was offered to him, bowed ever so slightly, and then left with the glass still in his hand.
“They can arrest you for open container,” Lane called out. “Just FYI.”
“Not if they can’t catch me,” Samuel T. hollered back.
“Crazy,” Lane muttered as he finished his own drink.
As he went to pour another, his eyes drifted over to the oil painting over the mantelpiece. It was of Elijah Bradford, the first member of the family to make enough money to distinguish himself from his peers by sitting for a major American artist.
Was he, at this very moment, rolling in his grave?
Or would that come later … because where they had all sunk to got even worse.
Gin rode a wave of panic down Easterly’s grand staircase.
As soon as she’d seen the vintage maroon Jaguar pull up to the house, she had changed out of the clothes she’d worn to jail, for godsakes, and put on a silk dress that ended well north of her knees. She’d also taken a moment to brush her hair. Mist more perfume on. Slide her feet into a pair of pumps that made her ankles look thinner than ever.
Going by the closed parlor doors, she knew her brother was talking to Samuel T. about The Situation. Or … Situations.