Love So Dark: Billionaire Romance Duet

by Stasia Black

  I release the breath I’ve been holding. Yes. Of course, he’s right. The courts aren’t the boogeyman. I believe in justice, don’t I? No matter how much they pay their attorney, the facts are on my side. I didn’t know what I was doing last time and I let them steamroll me.

  I set my jaw. Not today. Besides, I’ve got my own bulldog lawyer this time. I nod at Don and he smiles again as he holds open the door to the courthouse.

  The courthouse is a newer building. My heels clack clack on the black and white tiles once we’re inside. Don consults with a uniformed man who points us down one of the hallways branching from the large open area.

  “We’ll be meeting in courtroom three,” Don says.

  I swallow and follow him. Last time it was so informal. We met in the Judge’s chambers around a table. But when we step into the courtroom, the judge is wearing the full robes. The same judge that heard our case the first time. Dammit. I hate that he already has preconceived notions of me based on my abysmal presentation at the initial hearing.

  No. Don’t overthink it. Today is a new day.

  I try to focus on other details. The courtroom isn’t large. It doesn’t look like one of those rooms where you’d see a trial like on TV. No beautifully finished bench up front or rows of pews for the public. Nope, just fluorescent lights overhead and a bunch of desks arranged in a large rectangle. Then again, Don told me that this isn’t a real trial yet, that family court cases often don’t actually make it to trial. Like less than ten percent of them. This is what’s called a motion. It’s where cases are argued to a judge and then he makes a decision.

  No one’s sitting in the desks that make up the long sides of the rectangle. But at one end, David and his wife are already in their seats. I hold my shaking hands behind my back. The last thing I want them to see is how much this gets to me. That any part of me is scared that they could actually succeed in taking Charlie away.

  I internally shake my head no. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let that happen. I think of him at the park with Shannon. She wanted to be here, but neither of us liked the idea of Charlie staying with some unknown babysitter today. No, instead, Shannon planned a day full of his favorite things. First, they’re going to the park. Then they’ll head to the children’s museum with the giant foam blocks that Charlie likes to make a life-sized fortress out of, which then gets bull-dozed with their bodies. God, Charlie laughs so hard every time he throws himself into the walls and it all comes down in a soft tumble of blocks. Charlie giggles and—

  Don holds his hand out, putting gentle pressure on my arm to urge me forward.

  Oh God. My baby. I can’t lose him.

  I stand up straighter and then walk to our seats beside David and Regina, our lawyers between us. Not before their lawyer looks me up and down with a smirk, though.

  It probably won’t set a good tone if I flip them all off.

  No. Control, Cals. This has to be about projecting the perfect aura of total control and calm. I sit down and stamp the most placid expression possible on my face.

  The judge sits impassively at the other end of the rectangle from us. Even though he’s not sitting behind a bench, the distance between us and his robes make it feel just as imposing.

  “The honorable Judge Casey presiding,” says the bailiff.

  The judge nods and then we’re off. The lawyers argue through each affidavit they’ve prepared. An affidavit is the large document with all the evidence they’ve previously filed with the judge. I’ve learned all kinds of lawyer-speak over the past few weeks. Don and I talked through each individual piece of so-called ‘evidence’—aka exhibits—David’s side produced and it takes every ounce of control not to lose my shit when they trot out all the crap they have lined up for today.

  “If you’ll look at exhibit twenty-three to my affidavit, Judge Casey,” David’s lawyer says, “you’ll see evidence of Miss Cruise’s history of drug addiction.”

  It’s only because Don coached me through this yesterday that I don’t stand up and start yelling about what a hypocrite David is. Exhibit twenty-three is a picture of me doing a line of coke off David’s glass coffee table, my hair all disheveled and makeup smeared. And oh yeah, I’m in my underwear—a leopard print bra and thong set David bought me that barely covers anything. Great first impression for the judge.

  It’s the next one that really sets my teeth on edge, though.

  “Mr. Kinnock also noticed symptoms of drug use while picking up his son for his weekly custody visits.” He looks down and reads from a piece of paper. “Dilated pupils. Traces of powder around her nostril. She was agitated and paranoid.”

  As he reads, I grow more and more incensed. Seeing all of this in their evidence pile yesterday made me feel sick. A small part of me still couldn’t believe that David took a picture of me in that moment in the first place… and now was not only planning to use it against me like this, but that he planned to tell even more lies about me. And such horrible lies. Saying that I do drugs regularly and get high at all is bad enough, but that I’d do it while I had Charlie in the house? I want to reach over the aisle, grab David’s too-fine featured face, and smash his nose into the table. I want fucking blood.

  “It’s on the basis of her continued drug usage,” David’s attorney goes on, “and fears of child endangerment, that Mr. Kinnock requests full custody. Effective immediately.” He sits down.

  Thank God I was prepared ahead of time. It’s only because I knew all this was coming that I’m able to sit without twitching a single feature as Don stands and objects on my behalf.

  “Your honor, that’s a picture from three years ago before my client was even pregnant. Whatever bad decisions my client might have made in the past—before the responsibility of motherhood, no less—have no bearing on the current circumstances. As for the word of his client,” Don inclines his head toward David and gives the judge a look that conveys, seriously? “it’s a clear case of he said, she said. My client does not currently use narcotics of any kind whatsoever. Mr. Kinnock’s charge of child endangerment is completely unfounded. My client is so adamant about proving this, she’s insisted on voluntarily taking a drug test to shut down this line of questioning.”

  I smile over at David’s side of the room. Their lawyer blocks my sight of him and the Shrew but I can only imagine their faces. They never thought I’d actually call their bluff, did they?

  As soon as Don showed me their exhibits yesterday, he made it clear how much they were banking on pushing the drug angle. “They are going to try their hardest to make you look like an unstable drug user. They don’t have facts, so they’ll go hard with this. You saw the picture and your ex-boyfriend’s testimony. That, coupled with the other things they’re presenting…” he rubbed his temple. We were sitting in a large conference room at his law office, papers spread out all over the long table. “It’s all specious, of course.”

  Specious. That’s when you know you have a good lawyer. When they use words you try to remember so you can google them when you get home to find out what the hell they mean. I could guess enough from context here, though. It’s all specious, i.e. bullshit.

  “But?” I pressed, stuffing another bite of muffin into my mouth as I waited anxiously for him to continue.

  “But,” he continued, looking apologetic and anxious at the same time, “what I worry about is that, in the end, it all comes down to a human element. The judge. He won’t unsee what they’re presenting. It’s the same judge who presided over your case the first time and gave David initial custody. He might not have forgotten how unstable you came off during that first meeting.”

  I cringed.

  “Don’t worry, though,” Don was quick to assure me. “The facts are on our side. They don’t have any real proof. Just an old picture and hearsay from your ex.”

  I shoved the empty plate of pastries away, crumbs and tiny seeds from the muffins littering it. “You just said the judge can’t unsee what they show him.” I shook my head
, mind spinning. Then I sat up straight in my chair. “Wait, I know. I’ll just take a drug test to prove it’s all crap.”

  Don immediately shook his head. “They can’t make you take a drug test. I just said they don’t have any proof—”

  I waved a hand. “No, I mean I’ll volunteer for one.”

  He kept shaking his head. “It’s never a good idea to offer something the court isn’t forcing you to do.”

  “But it will show them. The judge can’t think I’m a druggie if the results are right there in his face.” I got more and more animated as I thought about it. “And it will show what a liar David is too.”

  Don paused even though he looked like he still wanted to argue back. His eyebrows were drawn, but he huffed out a breath. “I guess if it’s what you really want… I could call my friend who’s a social worker and she could set it up. We could even make it happen tomorrow at the courthouse so the judge will see we’re serious about it, if you really want to make it a statement. And he’ll have the results within the week.”

  I nodded adamantly. “The sooner the better.”

  Don still looked reluctant but finally agreed. “I’ll set it up.”

  So it’s with great satisfaction that I see David’s lawyer startle as Don makes his pronouncement.

  “Miss Cruise,” the judge addresses me directly, stern eyes laser focused, “is it correct that you are volunteering for a drug test?”

  I sit up straighter in my chair, feeling like I’m in the principal’s office. Though of course, this is way, way more serious and making a good impression has never been more important. Charlie’s face flashes across my mind and my gut clenches. “Yes. My lawyer has arranged for it to be done today by a social worker if that’s oka— um, acceptable.” I swallow and want to kick myself for stumbling over my words like that.

  The judge nods and looks back down at his papers. “Next exhibit.”

  I finally take a breath again. I still can’t believe David would stoop so low as to accuse me in the first place. I glance over and see the Shrew whispering in his ear and roll my eyes. Oh right, I forgot. He can’t think for himself anymore.

  Then I shudder. That woman wants my son, along with David, the cheater, liar, and all-out bastard. These are the people trying to take my sweet Charlie. No. I won’t fucking let it happen.

  I look back up at the judge as their lawyer brings up the next affidavit about my brief stint in jail and the stalking charges.

  My face flames in spite of my determination to stay cool. I hate how persuasively their lawyer paints a picture of me as an unstable woman. Stalking. Deranged and lighting a car on fire. Being locked up before I could do any more harm. The way he talks about me, I wouldn’t want to leave a child under my care. I have to fight the urge to slink down in my chair. The blatant facts aren’t wrong, but—

  But what? It’s not the whole story. It’s true, but I don’t know how to argue it.

  Don stands after their lawyer sits down again and I swallow hard, trying to gulp down all my fears with it. All right, time for my attorney to earn those hard-earned bucks I’m paying him.

  “My colleague has tried to paint a picture of a manipulative drug addict,” Don says, “but that’s a tall tale stretched from a single Polaroid picture and a couple other cobbled-together stories.”

  “I’d hardly call police reports mere stories,” David’s lawyer interjects.

  The judge stares David’s lawyer down with a glare that says what words don’t have to, and he shuts up.

  “As I was saying,” Don continues, shooting his own heavy look in the other lawyer’s direction before focusing his attention back on the judge. “Miss Cruise’s story can much more easily be explained not as that of a troubled girl dependent on alcohol and drugs—proof of which the opposing counsel has no further evidence than a single photograph—but simply that she was a naïve young woman who came to be in the unfortunate circumstances of finding herself with child.”

  All right. So far so good. We ran out of time last night before he could tell me his whole plan for my defense. Most of the time was spent prepping me for what David’s team had in store for us, but he assured me he had this well in hand. I’m anxious to hear it.

  “It’s a story as old as time,” Don continues. “Her parents were unwilling to take her in. And yes, she might have become a little overwrought when the father of her child rejected her.” He looks over at me piteously before turning back to the judge. I shift a little in my chair. I know this is part theater, to paint the girl I was in a certain way, but I hate the pity look. Still, I try to keep sitting with as much dignity as I can muster while Don continues.

  “But you have to remember, as testimony by Dr. Ruth Newsome explains in exhibit twenty-three, a pregnant woman is producing up to a thousand times her normal estrogen levels by the end of her pregnancy. That plus extra progesterone and other pregnancy hormones can create incredible mood swings that account for Miss Cruise’s actions at the time those police reports were filed.”

  He goes on arguing the point. I blink as I keep listening. His whole argument is based on the idea that I was crazy because I was pregnant. Wow. This is kind of humiliating. Hormones. Really, that’s the extent of my defense?

  I watch the judge’s face. I can’t tell if he’s buying it. God, it sounds like the old female hysteria fable. Men trying to man-splain women’s actions and calling anything that has to do with us hysteria.

  In our briefing yesterday, I tried bringing up Jackson’s point, which if I thought I remembered Don even saying something about in our first meeting. Even now thinking of Jackson’s righteous fury on my behalf, talking about how David had abused his position of power over me, isolating me by forcing me to keep our relationship secret since it could get him in trouble… At the time I would have said no, that I fully knew what I was doing, that I was an adult making adult decisions.

  But looking back now, I can see just how naïve I was. For the first time in years, I’ve started to think that it wasn’t entirely my own fault. That I’m not just a stupid girl who always screws everything up and inflated something in my head to be more than it was. David seemed so wise, so confident, like he’d always take care of me and then suddenly he was just…

  Gone.

  He didn’t want me anymore.

  It didn’t compute.

  Sure, hell yeah I was screwed up.

  But maybe the truth is that David was just a predator asshole who saw a pretty, vulnerable girl and wanted some hot ass since he was free from his controlling bitch of a wife for the first time in years. And yeah, the fact that I was an abuse victim probably made me more susceptible and affected how I reacted when my supposed savior suddenly dumped me as easily as if I was last week’s garbage.

  I’m old enough and mature enough to take responsibility for my actions—but allowing myself to see David’s part in screwing me over helps to lift the ridiculous weight of shame I’ve carried for so long. Staring past his attorney and looking at him now, in the shadow of the Shrew, I can see David isn’t who I thought he was. I fell in love with a fiction—he was never the strong, loving, caring man I believed him to be. He was always a selfish coward, out for some pleasure and fun, weak-willed and taking the path of least resistance.

  “So she can’t be held responsible for her actions because her estrogen levels were at an all-time high,” my lawyer declares, zooming my attention back into court. “At the same time she was sleep-deprived due to her break-up with Mr. Kinnock and discomfort from being with child. As you’ll see in the study by Baker, Garcia, and Hammock, et al., sleep deprivation plus sharp hormonal escalation can lead to the symptoms of impaired judgment my client exhibited during the period in question. Since then, however, once her hormones leveled out after pregnancy, she has been a model citizen and parent.”

  I try to avoid scrunching my nose in embarrassment. All right. It’s not the most flattering portrait of me, but I suppose it might get the job done. And Don and I did
talk about other ways to describe that period of time in my life. There weren’t many more attractive alternative explanations to make me come off as sympathetic.

  Don said David and Regina’s lawyers would paint me as a homewrecker who tried to seduce my older, married professor. Apparently there are pictures of me on social media from that time showing I dressed immodestly, exhibiting ‘attention-seeking behavior.’ It’s all infuriating sexist bullshit and a couple of out-of-context pictures from the one party I went to in the early stages with David when I was still trying to make friends outside of him. A girlfriend dressed me up and dragged me to the party.

  David had been furious afterward and confronted me with the pics he’d found on one of my then-friend’s Instagram accounts—a person who was also, I might note, one of his students. Hello red flag. But I didn’t see it that way at the time. He was so passionate about me. He couldn’t stand for anyone else to see me like that when he couldn’t be there, blah, blah, blah. And now he’s resurrecting those pictures to try to take Charlie.

  My hands form into fists underneath the table. Don was obviously right about where David’s lawyers were going to take this. But why aren’t we attacking back? Calling David out for his abuse of power?

  I remember back to yesterday. Don said we shouldn’t resort to petty name-calling and mud-slinging—that it would go over far better with the judge in proving my character if we took the high road. Instead of an overemotional, bitter ex-lover, we wanted to stick to the facts and prove the positive: why I’m a completely stable and productive member of society, as well as a capable and caring mother. I agreed at the time. It all sounded good when Don laid out the not-attacking-David version of the plan, but God, I feel like my character’s getting massacred while David just sits there looking like a fucking boy scout.