New York, Actually: A sparkling romantic comedy from the bestselling Queen of Romance

“The Tanner case. You won.”

“In a contested divorce, there are no winners. Everyone is a loser.”

Marsha studied him. “Is everything all right? Now I think about it you’re later than usual, and you look different.”

“I’m good.” Braced for marital drama, he walked into his office. There were plenty of days when he wondered why he did this job. Today was one of them.

But Elisa Sutton wasn’t crying. Instead she looked animated.

Even Daniel, experienced as he was in handling the emotional roller coaster that accompanied divorce, was surprised.

And suspicious. Was Marsha right? Had she taken a lover?

“Elisa?” Anticipating a confession of a sexual nature, he pushed the door shut. If his client was about to fill his office with her dirty laundry, he intended to contain it. “Has something happened?”

“Yes. We’re back together!”

“Excuse me?” Daniel put his laptop down on his desk, playing catch-up. “Who? I didn’t know you were seeing anyone. We talked about the risks of you getting involved with someone else at this point—”

“It’s not someone else. It’s Henry. We’re back together. Can you believe that?”

No, he couldn’t believe it.

Elisa had cried so many tears over the past few months he’d considered issuing a flood warning for midtown Manhattan.

“Elisa—”

“You’re using your serious lawyer tone. If you’re going to warn me this isn’t a good idea, don’t waste your breath. I’ve made up my mind. At first when he said he was going to change, I didn’t believe him, but after a while I realized he was sincere. We’re making a go of it. He is still my husband, after all.” Tears welled in her eyes and she pressed her hand to her mouth. “I never thought this would happen. I didn’t see it coming. I thought it was over.”

Daniel stilled. He hadn’t seen it coming either. From what he’d observed so far, Elisa and Henry’s marriage was so bad that if they’d been able to bottle the vitriol there would have been enough toxins to poison the whole of New Jersey. And although he’d learned that the blame was usually shared, if not always equally, in this case the lion’s share belonged to Henry, who was the coldest, most selfish man Daniel had ever met.

He’d employed a lawyer who was known to be as savage as a Doberman, and he’d set him on his wife, the woman he had supposedly once loved and with whom he shared two previously happy, but now traumatized children.

Fortunately Daniel had no problem being a Rottweiler when the need arose.

He frowned. Since when did he use dog analogies?

Walking Brutus was clearly getting to him.

“Last week you were in here crying,” he said carefully. “You told me you didn’t care what it took, but you never wanted to see him again.” He kept his tone free from emotion. Clients invariably brought so much emotion into his office he’d learned not to contribute anything extra.

“That was last week when I thought there was no hope for us. He hurt me.”

“And you want this guy back?”

“I really believe he is committed to changing.”

Daniel felt a ripple of exasperation. “Elisa, once they reach a certain age people rarely change, and they certainly don’t do it overnight.” Did he really have to say this stuff? Didn’t people know this? “There’s a phrase about leopards and spots. You’ve probably heard it.” He waited for her to acknowledge this, but she ignored him.

“I’ve already seen the change. On Saturday he turned up at the house with gifts. Thoughtful gifts.” Her eyes were bright. “Do you know Henry has never bought me a proper gift in all the years we’ve been married? He’s a practical guy. I’ve had kitchen equipment and once he bought me a vacuum cleaner, but he has never bought me anything personal or romantic.”

“What did he buy you?”

“He bought me a pair of ballet shoes and tickets to the Bolshoi. They’re touring.”

Ballet shoes? What was she supposed to do with ballet shoes? In his opinion it was Henry who needed to wear the ballet shoes to help him tiptoe over the thin ice he was standing on.

He kept his expression neutral. “And you were pleased with that gift?”

Elisa flushed. “He bought them because I loved the ballet when I was a little girl. When we first met I was still hoping to make it a career, but I grew too tall. I don’t know how he came up with the idea. It was so thoughtful. And he bought me roses. One for every year of our marriage. He took one off for the year we were separated.”

Daniel waited for her to comment on the irony of that, but she said nothing.

“That’s what it took to persuade you to forget the fights and the misery and start again? A pair of ballet shoes you can’t wear and a bunch of roses? Those roses will be dead in a week.” And their marriage in even less time than that.

“He also bought me a ring.”

“A ring? Elisa, two months ago I had to stop you from throwing your current ring into the Hudson River.”

“I know and it was good advice. I had it valued and— well, never mind. That’s history now. Henry told me he’d been doing a lot of thinking and that whatever we had when we first met must still be there. He wants to work at rediscovering it and he gave me another ring as a token of his commitment.”

“Commitment? This from a man who consistently undermined your confidence and then walked out, leaving you with no support?”

“He needed space, that’s all. Our children are at an age when they’re very demanding.”

“Did he tell you that? Because from what you’ve told me he left that part pretty much entirely up to you.”

“And because I was so wrapped up in the children, I didn’t give him the attention he deserved.”

Daniel sat down behind his desk and breathed deeply, banking down the anger. Something was happening to him and he didn’t like it. “They’re children, Elisa, and he is supposed to be the adult. Parenting should be a shared thing. I know you’re scared and I understand that staying together can seem like the easy option, at least in the short term. Unraveling a marriage, particularly when there are children involved, is daunting to say the least. But—”

“Oh, we’re not doing this because it’s the easy option, we’re doing it because of the children.”

“It was because of them you originally wanted a divorce.”

“But children are always better off with two parents, don’t you agree?”

He thought of Harriet, hiding under the table with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands over her ears. “I don’t agree.” He kept his face expressionless. “My personal opinion is that children are better off being raised in a calm, positive environment with one parent than an explosive environment with two.” Damn. Never before had he expressed his personal feelings in front of a client.

“But then you’re a divorce lawyer.” Fortunately Elisa didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. “I wouldn’t exactly expect you to be a supporter of reconciliation. You need to justify your billing hours and the more we string this out, the higher your bill.”

Daniel felt a flash of annoyance. “I’m no saint, Elisa, but I can assure you that my advice comes from a desire to do the best for you and the children, not from a need to add hours to my billings. And my advice in this case is don’t do it. You first came to me because your daughter had started wetting the bed and was displaying behavioral problems, and your son’s asthma was getting progressively worse. You were convinced that the atmosphere in the house was responsible.”

“And I was partly to blame for that. I was very upset about the affairs and I didn’t do a good job of hiding my feelings.”

“He was the one who had the affairs.” Daniel reminded himself that his job was to offer legal advice, not marital advice. Normally he had no problem with that, but today—

“Is something wrong? Are you sick?” Elisa was peering at him closely. “You don’t seem like yourself.”