by J. K. Coi
Bria remembered how it had hurt to watch her mother break after each miscarriage, and watch Frank standing by her side, saying and doing the right things in front of the doctors and nurses but without any hint of emotion. The life bled out of their marriage more with each trip to the hospital, and they were never able to get back what they’d lost.
Bria had vowed never to let that happen to her. But as the years passed, she’d let her guard down and tricked herself into believing that her mother’s mistakes wouldn’t catch up to her.
Of course, they had, and now she was paying the price for ignoring the lessons she’d learned so long ago.
She’d ended up in the exact same place—broken and weeping over the loss of her baby while her husband sat beside her with his hand on her arm. But every time she’d looked to Leo for support, he hadn’t really been there. Physically present, yes, but emotionally disengaged—like he couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. And after she got out of the hospital, he’d run off to his boxing club more and more often, working out his anguish and frustration with his fists instead of at home with her.
After months of the walls between them growing, of the silence becoming more unbearable, she couldn’t do it anymore. Leo obviously couldn’t trust her with his pain, and she couldn’t risk another miscarriage. So she’d found herself a job at a competitive new firm and focused on the goals that she’d set for herself before he came into her life.
Bria rubbed her eyes. Her future at Bergmanis Dorfman hinged on this case. She needed to win—
At the sound of a car squealing into the driveway, she looked up from the screen, wincing seconds later as the front door slammed.
“Bria!” Her name bounced off the beautiful Italian marble tile in the foyer and up the grand staircase, echoing to the cathedral ceilings of the second floor.
This wasn’t going to be pretty.
She set aside her laptop and carefully got up from the bed so as not to disturb her piles of work. She rushed to the door to shut it against him, but Leo was already up the damn stairs, must have taken them two at a time, and he pushed his way into the room, his massive frame crowding her backward.
She gasped. Everything about him was intense, from the fire in his steel-gray eyes to the hard angles in his cheeks. You’d think that after almost two years of marriage, she would have gotten used to the effect he had on her, but it had never happened. She’d stayed away from the house as much as possible since their estrangement for that exact reason. Because as soon as he was in the same room, she was hit with memories: of laughter and late nights, of running her fingers through his thick black hair, gazing into those eyes as her body exploded in orgasm, hearing his hoarse voice calling out her name, and cupping those cheeks and telling him she never wanted to let him go.
Desire and regret collided, hitting her like a heat wave rolling off the pavement. Her mouth was dry, her breathing was short, her breasts aching. She had consciously been avoiding this—the possibility that he could undermine her resolve—but she should have known that her body would eventually betray her.
She couldn’t deal with him so close.
It threw all her senses into overdrive, challenging the hard decisions she’d struggled with the last few weeks. Even the scent of his aftershave reminded her of when she had bought it for him, lovingly picking it out with high hopes that he would like it. Now he wouldn’t wear anything else, and the scent made her stomach clench.
The five o’clock shadow across his face only enhanced the hard angles of his jaw, making him seem dark and dangerous. Magnetic. He practically vibrated with tension as he stood in front of her clutching a thin sheaf of paperwork in his tight fist…a fist with scrapes across all the knuckles.
His dress shirt was unbuttoned, and his tie had been loosened, revealing the edge of a deep bruise reaching for his collarbone. He might know better than to let himself get hit in the face when he went to that boxing club, but apparently he didn’t think anyone would notice the other cuts and bruises.
There’d been a time when she’d loved Leo’s rough edges. That assertive, predatory, no-mercy instinct had just seemed a part of his larger-than-life personality, a part that she was obviously still drawn to despite her recent reservations and objections.
She drew back sharply and looked away, putting more space between them. “What are you doing in here?”
He immediately stepped back and frowned. “My God, what was that? Are you afraid of me?” His expression tightened as he tried to hide how much she’d just hurt him.
She felt a stab of guilt, even though he’d misinterpreted her actions. She’d never been the least afraid of Leo and never would be. She just couldn’t afford to let herself love him anymore.
She crossed her arms. “What are you doing here?” she repeated, stubbornly refusing to show any softness. She knew him too well. He would sniff her hesitation out in seconds and run with it, tearing down the carefully placed brick and mortar she’d used to bolster her defenses, piece by piece, until she was broken all over again.
He shook the papers at her. “Why did I have to hear about this from my client?”
She frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe if you’d let me see what that is instead of waving it in my face…” She grabbed it from him and smoothed out the creases he’d made in the pages.
Oh. Her brows lifted as she realized that he was holding a copy of her letter to André’s wife about the settlement proposal. “I assume this means you’ll be representing Mrs. Cordeiro in these negotiations.”
“This isn’t about the negotiations,” he snapped angrily, in contrast with her attempt at a little bit of formality to keep this discussion from going off the rails.
Too late.
Leo was a force of nature. He lived life big and loud in all respects…which meant that when he got riled up, everyone was sucked into the vortex along with him.
His temper was legendary, but then again, so were his passions. He was charming and charismatic, brilliant and quick. He loved to argue, loved to box and work out, loved to laugh, loved to…love. And from the day they’d met, he’d swept her up into his whirlwind sphere, and she felt like she hadn’t been allowed a second to breathe since.
Not that she’d minded, not while it had all still been safe and contained. She’d delighted in his passions…all of them. But everything was different now.
“Then what exactly do you have a problem with?” she asked. “The fact that it’s going to be me on the other side of the table?” He’d taken her under his wing when she started at Ashton Granger Markham as a first-year associate four years ago, and the two of them had worked countless cases together, but they’d never been on opposing sides before. Now that she was working at a different firm, they’d both have to be careful. She would have a particularly intimate understanding of the way he operated…but he would have the same advantage over her.
“Your name,” he bit out. “This letter is signed Brianna Martin.”
She swallowed as the light went on, and she realized she hadn’t told him about her decision to use her maiden name. “You knew this would happen eventually. I have to…we both have to start moving on,” she rushed to add, handing him back the papers. “And that’s why I’m going to ask you again to please move out of the house and let me pay you out your half.”
She refused to give up her house, but all week, she’d been departing in the mornings before the sun was up and staying at her desk until the office was deserted, just to avoid coming home, because he wouldn’t leave.
In New York, they couldn’t get an uncontested divorce until a year had passed, but they could divide their martial assets and negotiate a separation agreement. There was no way she could hold out for a year without that, and definitely not if she had to see him every day. He was persistent and knew all the buttons to push to weaken her defenses.
“This is my place as much as it is yours,” he said. He’d rarely turned his temper on her, but right
now his eyes were dark and unreadable. He seemed to be holding on to control by the skin of his teeth. “If you want me gone, you’ll have to bring it to court, and I’ll fight you to the bitter end.”
“You think I won’t?” she said, her own temper snapping.
He actually laughed. “I think your firm isn’t going to look kindly on its new divorce lawyer losing a bitter, personal marital battle. It doesn’t exactly evoke confidence in your ability to represent your clients in their own divorces, now does it?”
Of course he automatically assumed she would lose. But in one thing, he was right. It would be better for both of them to deal with their issues calmly and quietly.
“Leo, be reasonable,” she implored him. The last thing either of them needed after all that had happened was to hash their problems out in court like the hurting, desperate clients they represented…even if that’s exactly what they were. “Don’t make this worse than it has to be between us.”
Couldn’t he see that this was hard for her, too? So hard, she hadn’t been able to even think the word “separation” at first. They’d spent four years together and had been married for two—and he was right, they’d been happy. Crazy in love.
Then again, it was easy to be happy and in love when everything was going exactly as planned, but when the bottom dropped out of their rosy, fairy-tale romance, she’d realized how wrong she’d been about everything.
If only she felt like she hadn’t been forced to go through it alone.
No, nothing was easy anymore.
“What happened to us, Bria?” he asked in a low voice. Her knees wobbled. “Why did it all fall apart…after? Why can’t we get back to the way things were?”
He reached out and cupped her cheek, his gaze softening. Her breath left in a rush. His scabbed-over knuckles scraped her skin lightly. She shivered with an anticipation and a need she’d thought had been smothered forever, making the hole in her gut spread wider. It was a dichotomy she couldn’t reconcile…and so she ran from it.
She jerked away and backed up to the edge of the bed. He’d talked about “getting back to the way things were” when she’d first come home from the hospital…in the same breath as he’d said they could try for another baby whenever she was ready, like that day was going to come eventually.
“Have you stopped to think that maybe things between us were never as good we thought, and pretending isn’t going to fix anything?”
“Giving up certainly isn’t going to fix anything,” he said. “The only way to figure this out is to stand by each other.”
She laughed through the bitter tears. She’d talked until her voice was hoarse and her tears would have drowned a small village, but he’d shut her out over and over again.
He acted like sharing his pain with her would be some kind of weakness, and it had put this wedge between them. He didn’t understand that marriage meant sharing such burdens together, not shutting each other out, and nothing she’d said had changed his mind.
She’d told him that—a million times. But it hadn’t made a difference. So she was done talking. And crying. And railing. She was done with all of it. Bria just wanted to put this chapter of her life behind her and stop being this broken person she didn’t even recognize.
That meant putting Leo behind her, too.
She never would have considered it four months ago, and the realization hadn’t been easy to come to. But it had become more than clear that she wasn’t the partner for him. She felt adored when life was good, but when things were bad—something she hadn’t experienced to this extent until the miscarriage—Leo iced her out, and to be abandoned when she needed him the most wasn’t how she planned to spend the next fifty years.
“There’s no more point in talking, because nothing ever changes. The only thing we have between us anymore is a professional relationship,” she said, resolve tightening her throat. “We won’t be able to avoid running into each other because of work, so this case will be a good opportunity to learn to put our feelings aside and be cordial.”
“Cordial.” The word fell sharp and cold from his lips. He came closer, using his much greater height to overwhelm her senses. “You can’t confine what we have to mere cordiality.”
She sucked in a breath. “Leo—”
“Bria.” That word was far from cold. How could it be with so many extremes of emotion rumbling between the syllables? All of them directed at her.
He stepped even closer, and she leaned back in a desperate attempt to maintain the space between them, refusing to meet his gaze. But that vantage point only put her directly in line with the deep rise and fall of his wide chest, and she couldn’t take her eyes off that fading bruise along his collarbone.
“I gave you time because you needed to heal,” he murmured.
He took another step, but now she had nowhere to go. The corner of the mattress hit her knees. “I gave you space because that’s what you said you wanted.”
Her heartbeat quickened, a drumbeat against her ribs.
His finger tipped her chin up. This is what she’d feared since the day she came back from the hospital—the moment when he would decide he knew what was best and would start pushing her. That’s what he excelled at. Pushing. Convincing. Getting his way. He did it in business every day, and although he’d never done it to her, maybe that was only because there’d never been a reason. Now that she was trying to leave him, of course he would fight back, but it didn’t mean that he’d changed. It didn’t mean he was ready to share his feelings with her.
She jerked aside. She bit her lip hard and faced him. “This is not a case that you can win,” she said, hands on her hips. “I’m not a witness you can browbeat until you get the answers you want.”
His gaze narrowed. “You worked hard to land this new client, didn’t you?”
She frowned at the sudden change in subject. “What are you getting at?”
“I know how you operate, Bria. The Cordeiro divorce is just the kind of case to put your name in the papers, make people sit up and take notice. It might even put you in the running for partner at your fancy new firm,” he said, eyes gleaming. He knew that’s why she’d left Ashton Granger Markham. “And you want that very badly, don’t you?”
“It’s a step in that direction, yes.” There was no point denying it.
He crossed his arms, brushing hers in the process, and stared her down. “What do you think your client will say when I bring a motion for your removal due to conflict of interest?”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Try me.”
He had to be bluffing. She shrugged. “Go ahead and bring the motion if you want. I’ll only counter. I signed the husband before you signed the wife, and when it backfires, you’ll end up getting yourself removed instead.”
“Are you so positive about that? Just because you sent a letter to my client first doesn’t mean shit. For all you know, I signed Mrs. Cordeiro a month ago…when you were technically still an associate with Ashton Granger Markham.”
Shit, shit, shit. Could he be telling the truth? If he was, then she was so screwed. And even if Leo brought his motion and lost, he could still cause trouble between her and her client if he made it seem like their marriage might present a conflict of interest. The client would lose faith; it wouldn’t matter if she promised arm’s-length representation. And losing him would undermine all the progress she’d already made at Bergmanis Dorfman.
“What do you want?” she snapped, wondering if she was about to sell her soul.
“A compromise.”
She narrowed her gaze and prepared for the worst. Leo didn’t make compromises. He was famous for going all or nothing. “State your terms.”
“For one, no more freezing me out,” he said. She opened her mouth to protest, and he continued, “I’m not asking for the impossible, Bria. Only common courtesy while we sort our shit out.”
Wary, she said, “What do you mean?”
“We’ll negotiate this case in good faith.”
She snorted. “You had better negotiate in good—”
“And I’ll agree to go through our personal belongings with you and make an itemized agreement to divide everything.” He paused. “Then I’ll let you buy out my half of the house, and I’ll leave.”
“You will?” She hadn’t expected that. Surprised, she crossed her arms. “What’s the catch?”
His grin tugged at her heartstrings, but she shut it down quickly. “I want you home every night. No more staying out late just to avoid me. No more locking doors and hiding.”
She blushed, but it wasn’t as if she believed she’d actually been fooling him all this time. “No way, forget it.”
“Come on.” He leaned in, his voice deep and taunting. “Are you afraid you can’t stick to your guns if you have to spend time with me?”
“Hardly,” she scoffed. That’s exactly the reason. “But I’m starting a new job, and I have a ton of work to do. You know how it goes. I can’t promise to spend every evening at home.”
“Fine. Every weekend and three nights a week, but you spend that time with me. No hiding away in separate rooms.”
“One day of the weekend and two nights a week.”
“Three,” he said firmly.
She felt the noose tightening but couldn’t see any easy way out. “What are these evenings to entail?”
He shrugged. “We’ll do what normal married people do. Make dinner, talk about our day…”
She swallowed and shook her head. “No sex.”
He only shrugged again. His way of saying, No big deal. It was worth a shot. But they both knew it was a big deal. It was a huge deal. And a shrug wasn’t even close to an acknowledgment of her refusal.
“You’re going to try to make me change my mind about the separation.”
He gazed into her like he could see the ragged edges of her soul, while, as usual, she couldn’t see anything in the guarded shadows in his eyes. “If we’re really over, it won’t make any difference what I try to do, will it?”
Her stomach fluttered. Absolutely nothing about any of this was easy, nor had she made her decisions without agonizing over them. “Of course not, but it makes no sense to draw this out any longer than it has to—”
