Chapter Text
A folder landed with an unceremonious thwack on his desk. “Congratulations, Gold, you’re getting the Lefleur case.”
“What? Why?”
David Nolan shrugged and took the armchair across from Gold’s desk. “I don’t really know. You stomped through the conference room looking like a bear with a bee sting and five minutes later she asked if her case could be switched to you.” He grinned. “Maybe she likes you.”
“She probably thinks I’m more intimidating,” Gold pointed out. His handsome partner often had to fend off the advances of recent divorcees on the rebound. Gold had never had that problem.
“Well, you are, a lot, and she’s going to need it. Her soon-to-be-ex mother-in-law is a real piece of work.” Nolan stood. “I’ll let her tell you the particulars. The junior partners are pretty bummed that you got her, though; they were all hoping for a shot.”
“That lucrative a paycheck?”
Nolan shook his head and laughed. “Were you paying any attention at all when you blasted through my meeting?”
“I needed coffee.”
“So, no, then. Okay. She’ll be here in about an hour for your first meeting.”
Gold frowned as Nolan let himself out. When did the boy start making appointments for him? Gold opened the folder and began to familiarize himself with the case. No children, so no custody battle, thank God. Very few mutual assets, the only sticking point an apartment that the women were arguing over. There was little of Gaston Lefleur in the file, as if he had no actual part in the divorce proceedings; it was all more than a little odd.
A quiet knock on the door dragged him out of the file. “Yes, what is it?” he asked, shuffling the papers back into their folder.
“Mr. Gold, right?” The voice was unmistakably female and Australian.
“So it says on the door, dearie,” Gold sighed. He raised his head to look at the newcomer and his jaw dropped.
Jesus Christ. She was gorgeous .
The woman smiled. “Well, you never know, you could be an intern taking advantage of his lunch break.” She entered the room more fully and Gold hastily rose to his feet. In her sky-high heels she was only a few inches shorter than he. Her eyes, the most incredible blue he’d ever seen, swept over him. “But I doubt many interns can afford Armani.”
What? Oh. She was still talking about his little quip. But who the hell was she? “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me,” he said, thankful his voice hadn’t cracked like a teenager’s. “Who are you?”
She frowned a little. “Didn’t Mr. Nolan tell you I’d be coming? I’m Belle Lefleur; I asked for you to take over my case.”
Of fucking course she was. Well, now at least he knew why the junior partners had been vying over this particular file. If this divorcee went on the rebound, she’d have no shortage of eager applicants.
“Ah, yes,” he said aloud. “Have a seat, dearie.” He indicated the set of armchairs in the corner of the office and, after collecting her file, joined her there. In his experience, trust was not best established across a large mahogany desk. “I have a few questions for you. First: why switch to me? Nolan’s a perfectly capable attorney.”
“I’m sure he is,” she replied, lowering herself into one of the chairs. “He’s also very sweet and charming. My mother-in-law will eat him alive.”
“So you asked for me because I’m decidedly not charming?” he asked with a wolfish grin.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip and she looked thoughtful. “Well, you didn’t seem charming at the time.”
Gold wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Right, well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go over the file with you. It’s a little scant on the details, and I need to know them. All of them.”
“All of them?” Mrs. Lefleur chewed on her lip again. “Really?”
“I don’t like surprises. The last thing you need is your mother-in-law springing something on me that I don’t know about. I have to be prepared for every contingency.”
“Right, of course. Okay.” She sighed. “We were married a little over a year; we were together for a few months before that.”
“Quick engagement.”
“He was The One. I was so sure of it.” He smirked, but refrained from mocking her, and was surprised when she mirrored his expression. “I’ll bet every single woman who’s ever sat in this chair has said something similar, hasn’t she?”
“Well...yes. The men, too.”
She giggled and his face grew warm.
“Any previous marriages?”
“No.”
“Children from another relationship?”
“No.”
“Any mutual assets not mentioned in your file?”
“No.”
He drummed his fingers on the folder, wondering how he could discover what he wanted to know without being too blunt. “The grounds for divorce…”
“Irreconcilable differences.”
“Yes, yes, I can see that. What are those differences?”
She looked unnerved for the first time, twisting her fingers together and staring at the floor. She crossed and uncrossed her legs - long, lean, perfect legs - and finally rose, pacing a few steps. “Do you really have to know that?” she asked at last.
“I don’t like surprises.”
She sighed and pushed one hand through her thick auburn curls. “We, um...that is, he ...he didn’t...he couldn’t…”
There were a million ways to end that sentence, but Gold knew better than to offer suggestions. He watched as she paced a few more times, apparently attempting to find either the words or the courage to say them. After another moment she returned to her seat, clenching her hands in her lap and staring at her knees. She still didn’t speak, and Gold at last prompted her.
“Was there an affair?”
“What?” She looked startled. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure.”
“Not for you, either?”
Her face burned bright red with shame. Aha.
“No,” she whispered. “They expected there to be, but no.”
“‘They’ expected it? Who are ‘they’?”
“His family. His mother and sisters-in-law. It’s apparently something of a...tradition.”
“A tradition. For a Lefleur wife to have an affair.”
“Yes.”
What in the bloody hell had she gotten herself into? Were they in a sort of polygamous cult and she hadn’t been aware?
She took a deep breath and spread her hands out on her lap. “Gaston couldn’t...he couldn’t…perform.”
“Hence the divorce? There are pills for that, dearie.”
“It isn’t a physical problem. We separated for a bit a few months ago and we sort of...hooked up one night...and a few nights after that. There wasn’t a problem then. But when we were properly together, husband and wife, family dinners, talking about children...nothing.” Her lips were quivering, but whether with sadness or anger he couldn’t tell. “When I was some bint off the street giving him a blowjob in a movie theater everything was fine, but when we were at home in our bed…”
“I get the picture,” he interrupted hastily. Too well.
Belle shrugged. “I thought maybe it would get better, but when we were in the Hamptons with his family, it sort of came out that all the men in his family are like that. His mother had an affair, his sisters-in-law, his cousin...all of them, because the men can’t get it up for their wives. They were all so blase about it! I just couldn’t...his mother sat there looking at me like I was crazy, and I wanted to ask her if she didn’t realize that expecting the situation would create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s incredible the family hasn’t died out; I have no idea how she managed to have kids.”
“IVF, probably.”
“Oh, God, you’re probably right,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. “I felt like such an idiot. And poor Gaston…” She looked up when she heard the snort he couldn’t quite suppress. “No, I mean it. He loves me, I know he does. It hurt him as much as it hurt me. He was just waiting for me to screw the gardener, or the mailman, or the pool boy. He expected to discover me with my paramour every time he came home, and he wasn’t angry or jealous about it, he was resigned . Like he couldn’t do anything to prevent it, like it was inevitable. He didn’t trust me at all, and I just couldn’t live like that anymore.” Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now, and Gold handed her the box of tissues he kept on the end table. “I kept telling him I didn’t want anyone else, I wanted him but he didn’t believe me. He never had.”
“Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Lefleur,” Gold said when she appeared calmer. “You see now why it was important for me to know? Your mother-in-law could easily have turned the tables on us and claimed that you were having an affair.”
“Please don’t call me that,” she sighed. “Call me Belle, or if you must be formal, use my maiden name, French.”
“Very well, Miss French. I see that the main point of contention is the apartment. You claim that Mr. Lefleur gave it to you?”
“When I told him I was going to file for divorce, I also said I’d move out. He told me to stay in the apartment and he’d find another place. He said...he said I deserved it.”
“Ah. Well, as you no doubt know, the problem lies in the fact that he does not actually own the apartment.”
“Right,” she huffed. “I knew that was fishy. Why would you give your son an apartment in name only? The control issues in that family…”
“We’ll have to make a fairly strong case for your ‘deserving’ it, as the law is technically on her side,” Gold warned her. “How far are you willing to go?”
To her credit, she took a moment to consider his question. “I put up with his low expectations and his mother’s sniping and his family’s innuendo. I was prepared to spend the rest of my life with him, and it’s not my fault I won’t be. I deserve to leave this marriage with something .” She took a deep breath. “I won’t say anything drastic, like ‘as far as I need to,’ but...pretty far. As far as I can go and still respect myself.”
Gold tried not to smile too broadly. “I’ll contact Mrs. Lefleur’s attorney and let you know when our next meeting will be. Until then…” He handed her a card. “Call me if you need anything, or if you remember anything that will make your case stronger.”
Belle French was really quite something, Gold thought to himself when she walked into the conference room. Mrs. Lefleur sat next to her lawyer, every inch the haughty society matron in a solemn high-necked dress and severe hairstyle, and she glared daggers at her daughter-in-law. The younger woman was dressed in another short, fashionable dress with four-inch heels, and it was clear that the harridan disapproved of every inch of her. Rather than cowering or looking sheepish, Belle tossed her head of curls and glared right back, taking her seat next to Gold.
“I see you’ve seen no reason to stop dressing like a common tramp,” Mrs. Lefleur sniffed.
“No, ma’am,” Belle answered sweetly.
“Disgraceful,” the older woman snapped. “I can’t wonder what Gaston saw in you, but I’m glad he came to his senses.”
Belle rolled her eyes. “I filed the divorce papers, Beryl, not the other way ‘round.”
“Well, it’s clear what you were after from the beginning, anyway. I insist you relinquish all claim to the apartment and move out immediately.”
“Gaston gave me that apartment, Beryl, and I have more than earned the right to keep it.”
“You gave up that right when you gave up on your marriage vows. In my day those vows meant something.”
Eyes flashing, Belle leaned forward. “Not the way I heard it. Don’t the traditional vows call for fidelity?”
Mrs. Lefleur’s face flushed and Gold, loath as he was to interrupt this truly glorious argument, stepped in.
“Mrs. Lefleur, you say that Miss French holds no claim to the apartment. Do you have documents to that effect?”
“Of course we do,” Albert Spencer said haughtily, pulling the deed and bill of sale from his briefcase and passing it across the table. “As you can see, the deed is in the Lefleur family’s name. Mrs. Gaston Lefleur has no claim to it.”
“Gaston gave me that apartment,” Belle insisted. “He said so before he left for France.”
“It wasn’t his to give,” Mrs. Lefleur sniffed.
Gold took up the contracts and looked them over. He leaned closer to Belle and whispered in her ear. “It’s up to you, Miss French. This could be a difficult fight if Mr. Lefleur doesn’t step in for you.”
“All I want is the apartment. She can keep everything else.”
“Well, it appears we’re getting nowhere here,” Gold said turning back to look across the table. “Miss French will take some time to consider and we’ll revisit the issue next week.” He stood and tapped the folder on the table, then walked out of the conference room.
Belle was right behind him.
“What do you mean, consider?” she hissed when they were out of earshot. “I’m not considering anything!”
“I’m stalling, Miss French,” Gold said coldly. “I have an ace up my sleeve - or will have in a little while - and I need time. By all means continue to needle and prod your mother-in-law, it distracts her from the issue.”
“Can you imagine spending holidays with that woman?” Belle huffed, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall next to his door. “And you should have seen the apartment before I redecorated it. It was the place plaid furniture went to die. Not that I have anything against tartans in general, but one can celebrate one’s heritage without drowning in it.”
“Quite. I doubt you replaced the plaids with didgeridoos and boomerangs.”
She smiled, and the sheer brilliance of the expression nearly took his breath away. “You really do have something planned?”
“I do.”
“It has to do with Gaston, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I’ll just have to trust you, then.” She made an odd little gesture, as if she’d thought about reaching for his hand but reconsidered. “See you later, Mr. Gold.”