by Elise Faber
Bad Divorce
Elise Faber
BAD DIVORCE
BY ELISE FABER
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
BAD DIVORCE
Copyright © 2019 Elise Faber
ISBN-10: 1-946140-26-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-946140-26-5
Cover Art by Jena Brignola
Contents
Billionaire’s Club
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Billionaire’s Club
Also by Elise Faber
Billionaire’s Club
Full series information at
www.elisefaber.com/billionairesclub
Bad Night Stand
Bad Breakup
Bad Husband
Bad Hookup
Bad Divorce
Bad Fiancé
To those of us who wear armor and lock our hearts up in steel chests.
Don’t be afraid to relinquish the key.
One
Bec
Bec closed the file she’d been working on and stretched her arms above her head. Her shoulders ached, her eyes burned—she’d gone way over the thirty minutes of continuous computer screen time her optometrist recommended—and she was the absolute last person left in the building.
Seriously.
Security had come by her office an hour earlier, telling her they’d locked up and the high-rise was empty.
Except for her.
She probably should have been lonely, being the singular human presence around, but Bec loved this time of night. It was after one, and she’d been in the office since six the previous morning working on a case she was preparing for trial.
But fuck, did she love finding a legal loophole in a contract and being the one to decisively close it.
Nothing was better than that.
Not being made partner several months before. Not the money or the power. Not having a slew of paralegals whose job it was to go line by line through all the paperwork pertaining to her cases and find loopholes like the one she’d just spent hours scouring for.
Those were all intoxicating in many ways.
But still, nothing topped the law itself.
The different interpretations, the way it morphed based on a court’s or judge’s decision, how it changed from year to year. Even finding this particular loophole after all the others before her had failed sent her pulse thundering.
One lawyer to rule them all.
Snorting at her inner SciFi nerd—not that she’d had much spare time to indulge in any form of hobby as of late . . . okay, as of the last ten years, if she were being honest—Bec knew it was all worth it. Law was her first love, and it was a constantly shifting spider’s web, a fragile and intricate and complex lover.
But it also made sense to her when so many other things in her world did not.
“And now I’ve killed my own buzz,” she muttered before logging off her computer, grabbing a stack of files from her desk, shoving them into her briefcase, and then slipping on her suit jacket and black pumps.
Down the elevator, through the locked door to the garage, and into her car.
Quiet.
So quiet.
She’d grown up in New York—or at least spent enough of her formative years in the Big Apple for her accent to reflect her time there—and felt more comfortable in big cities. San Francisco was a nice metropolis, but it had a definite sleepy time . . . or at least the district where her office was located did.
Normally, she liked that, preferred it over the way New York had always buzzed with activity.
But Bec had been . . . feeling weird as of late.
She was used to city life—the expensive rents, the exhaust fumes that hung in the air at all hours of the day, the horns and sirens and screeching brakes.
But this quiet? Fuck, did it hit her straight in the gut.
Or maybe it wasn’t the quiet so much as disquiet?
Bec was a simple woman. She didn’t censor herself, didn’t trouble over hurt feelings or someone’s toes being stepped on. She took care of business in the quickest, most efficient way possible.
That was Rebecca Darden. What she was famous for—at least in the legal world.
No prisoners. Decisive. Smart as hell and not a fucking pushover.
She’d spent a lifetime studying and working and losing sleep and clawing and fighting and struggling against the pressures of being in a male-dominated field to become that woman.
And yet . . .
“Fuck,” she said and turned on her car, making her way through the quiet city to her apartment. “I’m losing it.”
Because she couldn’t help but feel that even though she’d finally met her goal of being partner, of being revered and feared and even sometimes reviled—all fine qualities in her opinion—that she was missing out on something.
There.
She’d said it.
Rebecca Fucking Darden felt that somehow along the way to all her success she’d missed out on something.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out what the fuck that something was.
A bigger challenge?
Nope. A month before, she’d taken on a case with impossible odds and had just that evening figured out how to win it.
Longer hours?
Hell no. At this point, she was paying for an apartment she was hardly ever in.
More money? No. She already had an obscene amount.
Better relationship with her father? Nope. Things were . . . well, at this point, she’d pretty much given up hope for a happy ending in that sector.
Different friends?
No fucking way. Her group of women—and now a few men—were the shit. They kept her sane and laughed at her jokes and were really incredible people.
She loved them, and that was saying something, especially coming from her and her limited tolerance of bullshit. She didn’t like easy, let alone love easily.
And she loved every one of them.
So . . . what?
That was the fucking problem. She didn’t know. Normally, she’d just turn a particular puzzle over in her mind until she figured it out, as she’d done with the contract that evening.
But she’d been turning this freaking enigma over in her mind for months, and Bec was no closer to discovering the exact source of her unease.
“Boo fucking hoo,” she murmured, pulling into her parking spot and making it up to her floor via her private elevator. The lift went directly to her penthouse—yes, the apartment she hardly spent any time in was a ridiculously expensive penthouse that required a series of codes to access
it.
Because of that private elevator, Bec didn’t expect to see another person waiting for her when the doors opened with a soft ding and she stepped off.
But there was another person waiting just outside her front door.
A person she never expected to see again.
Luke Pearson.
Her ex-husband.
It was one-fucking-thirty in the morning, and her ex-husband was sitting on the floor outside her apartment.
Asleep.
Fuming, she marched over to him and kicked his shoe. Hard.
“Luke,” she snapped. “Why in the ever-loving fuck are you here?”
His lids peeled back, sleepy green eyes met hers. “Becky,” he murmured. “You’re gorgeous as always.” The drowsiness began to fade from his expression. “Did you just come from work?” He glanced down at his phone. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Of course I know what time it is—” Bec bit back the rest of her words. Fuck, but wasn’t this conversation an exact replica of the broken record they’d played way too many times over the course of their relationship?
She crossed her arms. “Never mind that.” She shot him a glare that had withered balls much bigger than Luke’s. “Why did you break into my apartment?”
He stood, towering over her. Once, Bec would have said that his size made her feel petite, feminine, soft, which was atypical for a giant Amazon such as herself. Today, it just pissed her off. She was tall for a woman, almost six feet in heels, and was used to using that fact to her advantage.
No longer hunching her shoulders to appear shorter. Hell, no. She wore heels if she wanted and as high as she wanted—
And she had this man to thank for that fact.
“Stand tall, sugar pie,” he used to say.
Yes, Luke had called her—world-famous, tough as shit lawyer—sugar pie.
But that had been a long time ago, when she’d been broken and . . .
Her heart, the one she liked to pretend didn’t actually exist, pulsed with old hurt.
Because she’d merely been an entertaining side project for him, a broken toy to fix, a puzzle to figure out and one to discard when he couldn’t find a satisfactory answer.
Memories.
Aw.
Motherfucking memories.
“First, I didn’t break into your apartment. This is the hall. Second,” he hurried to add when she opened her mouth to argue semantics, “I didn’t break in. You used our anniversary as the code.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Well, she was changing that tomorrow . . . today . . . fuck, yesterday, now that—
“Go away, Luke,” she said, pushing past him and unlocking her door while blocking his view of the keypad that was identical to that of the elevator. Her front door’s code was not the date of her anniversary with her ex.
But Luke probably already knew that, given that he had been sitting on the floor of her hallway rather than on her couch, beer in hand, feet making prints on her glass coffee table.
Men.
Fucking men.
She slammed the door closed behind her and secured the chain lock. The knock approximately one second later did not surprise her. Bec dropped her briefcase to the floor then opened the door just enough to shoot angry eyes at him through the narrow gap the chain allowed.
Serious green eyes fixed onto hers. “We need to talk.”
“Luke,” she snapped. “I’m exhausted. It’s the middle of the night. I wouldn’t have any patience to talk to my best friends right now, let alone my ex-husband.”
“Funny story about that,” he said, his lips curving. “Turns out that I’m not actually your ex-husband.”
Two
Luke
He yawned and rubbed a hand over his mouth, neck aching, head pounding, back stiff as shit.
Man, he was getting old if he was sore just from sleeping.
Except . . . he opened his eyes and finally clued into awareness.
His Becky had always said he was slow.
His lips twitched. Because he’d loved nothing more than when his Becky gave him sass. Luke pulled out his cell from his pocket, checked the time, and grinned as he pushed to his feet outside her apartment. He’d fallen asleep in the hallway, after listening to Becky moving around inside, probably fixing a cup of tea, slipping into a pair of those silky, stupidly expensive pajamas she loved, and finally padding on quiet feet to the door, no doubt to check if he’d gone.
Luke had shifted to the side by then, well out of sight of the peephole, so he’d heard those soft footfalls hesitate by the door before they’d retreated back into what he presumed was her bedroom.
Then his imagination had gone to work, or further R-rated work anyway, picturing Becky sliding between satin sheets, stripping off those silken pajamas, reaching a hand down between her thighs—
Yes, he was a sick bastard.
No, he didn’t give a damn.
Regardless, it was early, barely six, and so Luke was in prime position to get a jump on Becky. It had been after two before she’d headed to bed, and even his workaholic of a woman wouldn’t already be in the office. Plus, he’d slept here so she couldn’t avoid him again. He’d get her to talk to him, get her good and mad so she couldn’t ignore him.
Because while it might have been a decade since he’d seen his Becky, Luke had never forgotten her.
Never gotten over her.
Never regretted something as much as letting her go.
Yes, they’d been young and stupid and beyond immature at twenty-five. They’d had no business getting married, and he’d had no right to be hurt that the woman he’d loved was a go-getter.
Becky had more drive in one of her pinky fingers than most people had in their entire lives.
That work ethic wasn’t common amongst their kind.
Kids with rich parents, who never wanted for anything, who always had the best clothes and cars and toys.
But they’d also been just kids.
Kids who’d wanted nothing more than their parents’ attention and kids who’d been shipped off to boarding school. They craved attention and love more than anything, and they hadn’t been able to find it at home.
Or maybe that was just Luke.
Except . . . once upon a time it had been Becky, too.
He rubbed a hand over his face and stood, trying to shove those memories down. He’d been hurt, so fucking hurt, Becky had left—even though he’d done his best to push her away—that he’d signed the papers.
Divorce papers.
Super smart.
But that was Luke.
Make him mad enough, and he’d do stupid shit without a second thought.
Or, that was usually the case—a lack of second thoughts—but despite his best efforts, Luke hadn’t forgotten Becky. Not then, not now, not ever. He’d had plenty of regrets. And when he found out the small county courthouse Becky had filed for divorce in had burned down, that their paperwork hadn’t ever been fully processed, Luke had hoped.
For the first time in forever, he’d hoped.
His father was dead, his mother was busy traveling the world, and his sister was happily married.
Luke’s life consisted of him . . . and the oil company. And while he’d enjoyed the challenge of running the family business, Pearson Energy, had loved spending the five years since his father’s passing converting the company’s focus from fossil fuels to renewable solar and wind sources, it wasn’t enough.
Yes, he’d sound like a fucking pussy admitting this, but he was lonely.
And no woman could compare to Becky.
Not his former fiancée (and the reason he’d discovered he was still married to one Rebecca Darden), not the string of girlfriends and one-night stands from the last ten years.
Becky was it for him, and he’d been a fool to try to pretend otherwise.
Sighing, he reached out a hand to knock on her door. He’d let her escape the previous evening—earlier that morning—because
she’d had dark circles under her eyes and a hint of panic in her expression.
Like one of his horses.
His mouth curved, knowing Becky would definitely hate that comparison, and he shifted, readying himself to knock again.
That was the moment he heard the crinkle.
Luke glanced down and his stomach dropped.
A note.
Another fucking note.
His temper spiked as he bent to pick it up then it flared to molten, furious attention when he unfolded the paper and read the contents.
Go home, Luke. You know we only make each other miserable.
-Bec
P.S. I changed the code.
P.P.S. Next time you try to hang out and “surprise” me, consider the fact that there’s a camera in this hallway.
P.P.P.S. Route any documentation regarding our former marriage to my office at McAvoy, Darden, and Associates.
“Go home,” he muttered, knocking once more to no answer, listening for sounds of movement inside before conceding that he’d lost this round. Becky must have slipped past him.
He headed for the elevator, punched the down button.
“Go. Home,” he repeated.
He’d done that before.
And it had been the biggest mistake of his life.
Luke might be a lot of things—stubborn, stupid, and worse—but he didn’t repeat his mistakes. He learned from them, and so . . . no, he wasn’t going to leave.
His lips curved into a wicked smile. Besides, in her note, Becky had all but told him to visit her at work.
