Driftwood Cottage

She saw the hurt in his eyes and regretted being so candid. “Oh, Connor, it’s not that. I love you. That’s why it’s so hard to see what you’re doing to yourself with the kind of cases you take. I know it sounds dramatic, but I almost feel as if you’re selling your soul.”

“The cases I take—and win, by the way—will get me a partnership in a very prestigious law firm, which means you and our son will never want for anything,” he responded defensively.

“I appreciate that you want to support little Mick, but we could get by on less. I’d rather have you truly happy.”

“You could ensure that if you’d just come home,” he said, then waved off the remark before she could respond. “Never mind.” He regarded her with resignation. “I know that’s not happening, not now that you’ve apparently made a new life for yourself here.”

He looked for an instant as if he wanted to say more, maybe even to plead his case once again. Heather waited, wondering if he was about to take a step closer and kiss her the way he might have done a few months ago. His kisses, always intoxicating, always persuasive, never failed to move her.

But the joy and contentment she found in his arms was fleeting. Once her feet touched down on solid ground again, she had to face the same reality. She and Connor were as close as they would ever be. They couldn’t grow together as married couples did.

Instead of reaching for her now, though, he backed away. He shoved his hands in his pockets as if he feared making a move that would be rebuffed.

“I suppose I should get on the road,” he said. “I have some case files I need to go through tonight.”

“More divorces, of course,” she said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted the bitter, judgmental tone of them.

As she’d expected, his expression immediately turned defensive again. “Of course. That’s the kind of law I do.”

“And you’re very good at it,” she admitted. “Your clients are lucky to have you. I just think it’s sad to be surrounded by people who are so miserable and embittered.”

He held her gaze, tried to make his case. “Heather, don’t you get it? People who are going through a tough time emotionally need to have someone in their corner they can count on to protect their interests.”

“Of course I get that,” she said. “But it’s as hard on you as it is on them. Every time you get caught up in their stories, you become more and more disillusioned about marriage.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said impatiently. “I’m the objective outsider, remember?”

She smiled wearily at the characterization. “If only that were true.”

“It is true,” he insisted.

“No, Connor, you take every case personally and add it to that mental ledger you keep as proof that marriage can’t work. Tell me, whose side are you on these days? Always the husband’s? Or have you started taking the wives as clients, at least some of the time?”

He seemed thrown by the question. “Most of my clients are men. What’s your point?”

“That in every single instance, you’re still trying to get payback for what you believe your mother did to your father all those years ago. As I said earlier, you’re still that little boy trying to get revenge because his mom walked out on his dad and on him.”

“That’s absurd!”

She held his gaze. “Is it?”

He was the first to blink. “I’m not having this discussion again,” he said finally. “I need to get on the road.”

She let the subject drop and nodded. “Drive safely.”

At the door, he hesitated again, looking torn, but then he walked out without another word. Heather stared after him and sighed.

Forget their fractured relationship, she thought. How could he not see that as long as he focused his law career on disintegrating marriages, he’d never find the kind of happiness he deserved?

One of little Mick’s toys landed at her feet just then. Relieved by the distraction, she laughed as she walked over to his playpen and picked him up.

“Tired of being ignored?” she teased, holding him close.

“Mama,” he said, patting her face.

She breathed in the scent of baby shampoo and powder. “No matter how bad things are for your daddy and me,” she told her boy, “I have you, and that’s the greatest gift anyone could ever have given me. I will always love your daddy because of that.”

“Da?” Mick said, looking hopefully toward the door.

“He’ll be back soon,” she promised. And she had to figure out how she was going to prepare herself for the next encounter, because clearly they weren’t getting one bit easier.

Thoroughly disgruntled by the parting conversation he’d had with Heather and by the way his family seemed to have accepted Heather and his son into their lives, Connor returned to Baltimore determined not to give any of them another thought. He had plenty of work to keep him occupied, including a couple of high-profile cases that were going to be very complicated and messy.

In fact, first thing Monday morning he had an appointment with a film director who’d been working on location in Baltimore, had established a residence here and then moved the movie’s star in to share the place with him. Naturally the tabloids had gotten wind of it. The director’s wife back in Los Angeles had been furious about the publicity, if not about the infidelity, and intended to take him apart in the divorce. Despite the man’s egregious behavior, Connor didn’t intend to let her get one penny more than she deserved.

To be honest, he’d taken the case more for its publicity value than out of any desire to defend the man’s bad behavior. If he could keep Clint Wilder from being taken to the cleaners, it would seal his status as the top divorce attorney in the region. He’d make partner at the law firm by the end of the year for sure.

Even as the thought occurred to him, he remembered Heather’s disdain for his motives. Okay, she was right, at least to an extent. But what was wrong with wanting to be successful? Wasn’t that what most people wanted, to be the best at whatever career they’d chosen?

Still, on Monday morning as he listened to Wilder’s side of the mostly sordid tale, he couldn’t help thinking what Heather’s reaction would be. She’d be horrified that Connor would take the husband’s side over his wife’s. Connor had a momentary twinge about it himself, especially as Wilder boasted that it wasn’t the first time he’d slept with the leading lady in his films, just the first time his wife had gotten wind of it and been publicly humiliated.

“I don’t know what she expected,” the director said, sounding genuinely bewildered. “She stays at home with the kids. What am I supposed to do? Look, just offer her the house, support money for the kids and some kind of monthly alimony. Make it all go away.”

He handed Connor a piece of paper with some suggested figures. Connor glanced at them and shook his head. Even by his usually conservative standards, these would never fly. Not when this man made millions.

“Look, I’ll do what I can, but it may not be so easy to make this go away. You’ve been married a long time, and this isn’t the first time you’ve strayed. Her lawyer could rip you apart. If she gets a sympathetic judge, you’ll wind up paying three or four times this amount.”

The director leveled a look at him that probably intimidated every actor on his set. “Don’t let that happen,” he said quietly. “Understand?”

Connor nodded. All he could do was offer his best advice. In the end, it was his client’s decision. “I’ll be back in touch as soon as I’ve spoken to your wife’s lawyer.”

“Tell that little weasel I have plenty of dirt of my own I can throw at her,” Wilder told him. “If he wants to get tough, I’ll be tougher, and I’ll walk away with the house and the kids. She’ll wind up with nothing. She was barely one step out of the gutter when I met her, and I can see that she winds up back there.”

Connor felt his blood turn cold at the man’s vicious words. For all of his go-for-the-jugular tactics, he still clung to at least some sense of respect for women. Sadly, though, he had dealt with enough men who thought their own behavior should be exempt from scrutiny to recognize a man willing to play hardball. Usually he liked having the kind of leverage necessary to make the other side squirm. Maybe because of last night’s conversation with Heather, today he was the one squirming. The whole thing suddenly seemed so darn sleazy and cruel.

Ironically, it wasn’t Heather’s face he saw in his head, but Gram’s. He heard her reminding him over and over that Megan deserved his respect, even when he was angriest at what she’d done to the family. Gram would be appalled by Clint Wilder, a man willing to publicly sully his wife’s reputation out of greed.

In the end, though, Connor knew he would win for the director in court, because that’s what he did. But for the first time, at the end of the day, he didn’t feel entirely good about it.

When the firm’s senior partner, Grayson Hudson, walked into his office and asked about the case later, Connor shrugged. “It’ll get a lot of publicity,” he said, as if that were all that mattered.

“Just make sure the firm looks good,” Grayson told him. “You’re very good at what you do, Connor. That’s why I used you myself when Cynthia and I split up. But your tendency to go for broke can stir up sympathy for the other side. You make sure that man’s wife isn’t going to come through this looking like Mother Teresa, you hear?”

Connor thought about Wilder’s veiled references to his wife’s past. “Doubtful, sir,” he said confidently.

“Just do your homework, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Not to worry. I always do.”