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J.R. Montgomery is fucking ruthless.
“Let me be clear, Mr. Wells, you do not want to go up against me in court. And neither does your spineless lawyer. I will bury you.” His eyes are fixated on Matt, cold and angry; ones I’ve been on the receiving end of on more than one occasion while growing up. “You try and take my son down, Mr. Wells. I can promise you, as his lawyer and his father, I am taking you down too.”
Matt leaves my office with his tail between his legs. I’m not sure if my Matthew Wells problem has completely disappeared but I can say for sure he won’t be going to my ethics board…at least not today.My father drops me back off at my house, tells me he will be in touch, and to let him know the second I hear from Matt going forward. I enter my house, my mind still racing from the revelations of the past hour. I hear a noise in my living room and I make my way towards it to find Andrew on my couch watching television. My eyes sweep the length of the room in search of Charley. “She’s in your room. She wanted to lay down,” he says as he bites into pizza that I assume he’d had delivered.
I nod and make my way to my room to find her lying in my bed, curled into fetal position. I climb into bed behind her and wrap my arms around her. She turns in my arms and I feel my heart breaking when I see the look in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I brush my knuckles down her face and I relish in the softness of her skin. “I’m sorry I took so long.”
She shakes her head before she looks down, drawing circles in my chest. “What were you doing at your office?” she asks quietly. I sigh, wondering how I’m going to tell her about this recent development. I don’t even have a chance to respond when she continues. “You went to see Matt…” Her eyes avoid mine as she sits up and plays with her hands nervously. “To discuss the email he sent?”
My heart plummets.Wait, how did she know about the email? Did that asshole forward it to her?“How—”
“He texted me. Showed me the email,” she says as she hands me her phone. On the screen is a screenshot of the email followed by a message from Matt.
Matt: Sent this to OUR beloved marriage counselor. Within minutes he was calling me, telling me to meet him at his office. Probably didn’t want to leave a paper trail that he was willing to trade you to save himself. I wouldn’t be so sure that he’d never give you up, my darling wife. Maybe the pussy wasn’t worth his practice? Gotta love the irony, after all of the lies, you’ll be left without anyone to take care of you. Which is all you really wanted, right?
I am fuming. I want nothing more than to find him and rip him limb from limb. I do not need a reason to be angry with him, having spent the better part of the last hour resisting the urge not to lunge across my desk for his throat.
I note the timestamp on his text message.This was before we met at my office. Smug bastard actually thought I was going to give in to his bullshit?
“You didn’t believe this, did you? Did you really think I was going there to give you up?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “But I just wish you would have told me.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you. I just didn’t want you to worry.” I stroke the hair from her face. “There is something else…”
Her brows furrow slightly and her teeth find her bottom lip. My cock tries to respond, but I will it down.Not the fucking time.
“There’s a tape…” I trail off. “Matt bugged my office.”
Her eyes widen to the size of saucers and her hand covers her mouth in horror. “Bugged as in…” She looks away from me in confusion. “But…when? How? You mean like…he heard us?”
“Yesterday during his session. And yes, that would mean he heard us this afternoon.”
“We…I…” She lets out a breath, and the tears well up in her eyes instantly.
“My father handled it, baby. Everything is okay.”
“How!? Between that and whatever his private investigator has, he has a strong case against us, against you. I’ll hate myself if he makes trouble for you.Legaltrouble.”
I pull her into my lap and stroke her back. “No hating yourself. It’s taken care of. My father’s a dick, but he’s a great lawyer.” I shake my head. “Him planting that bug was the worst thing he could have ever done. It’s a federal offense, Charlotte. He tampered with people’s privacy. Yours included.”
“Oh…he has other people on tape, too?”
“I saw four couples in between your sessions.”
“And he heard…” She blows out a breath.
“J.R. knows what he’s doing. He’s handling this. Your soon to be ex-husband doesn’t want to risk incarceration, Charley. Nor does he want this in the public affecting his reputation.”
“Can you get in trouble for your patients that were compromised?” It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I heard Matt’s revelation. I have a responsibility to my patients and due to my actions, I’ve betrayed them. As a consequence of my behaviors, their privacy had been violated. They trust me with their secrets…their skeletons, and my sins have allowed them to be brought to light.
“If we were to proceed with prosecuting Matt, then I would need to inform everyone whose privacy was violated. My guess is it won’t come to that. But…I still have the responsibility to tell my patients, Charley. I may not have done right by you and Matt, but I’ve tried to do right by all of my patients.”
“You did right by me,” she says, and I have to resist the urge to snort.
“I think you’re a bit biased. An unbiased party would say I had a large hand in bringing chaos to your life.”
“I welcomed it.”
