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“We’ve got to re-evaluate the hearing,” Magda said, focusing on her laptop. “I just checked my email and Richard sent me something new. Something they’ve been hiding from the courts.”
I looked up at her from my glasses where I’d been going back through the briefs to make sure we hadn’t missed any points in the marital assets.
“What? What could they be hiding?” I asked.
“They have two children together,” she said flatly.
“Fuck me,” I cursed, putting down my salad.
I stayed away, for the most part, from family and custody law. It was part of my job sometimes, but I preferred simple divorces. Just two people who didn’t want to be together anymore. Cases with infidelity were easy, especially if there was a pre-nuptial agreement, and I was good at splitting marital assets. Most of my cases settled out of court, and I hadn’t yet lost a case that actually made it to court, but none of the ones who went to court had been custody cases.
The reason that I didn’t do many custody cases was simple: I had an extremely soft spot for children. I hated it when parents used their children as bargaining tools. It made me think of my family, of my little brothers, Elijah and Carter, of the way that Liam and I mostly had to take care of them because our parents simply didn’t care enough. Now, both Liam and Elijah had made families of their own, with my adorable niece and nephews, but Carter... Carter was still having trouble.
As the second eldest, I had kind of a caretaker syndrome when it came to kids, and I wanted what was best for them – and that usually wasn’t what I was fighting for in settlements. I hated that this case just got that much more complicated because it involved kids. As far as I was concerned, they were the real victims, and they were the ones that needed to be taken care of, regardless of their parents’ egos and wants.
“Goddamnit,” I cursed again, and Magda looked up at me.
Great. Now I would have to spend evenmoretime with her, and even though that was now more tolerable than it’d started out, I doubted that she had the chops to navigate a custody case.
MAGDA
Roarke’s demeanorhad definitely changed when I mentioned children would be involved in this case. It made me curious enough to ask him, “Do you have children?”
Roarke looked at me. “That’s a pretty personal question, Riley.”
I flushed. “I’m sorry,” I said, and Roarke laughed.
“I’m only teasing you, Riley. Keeping you on your toes. I don’t have any, no. You?”
“God, no,” I said quickly. “I’m too young.”
“I’m certainly not,” Roarke admitted and he looked almost… regretful.
“Do you like children?” I asked him curiously.
“Love kids,” he confessed. “Two of my brothers have kids,” he told me. “I love them to death. Eric, Magnus, and Mikayla are great and we all get along like wildfire.”
“You have brothers?” There I was again, asking him more personal questions, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. Roarke Brentwood might be turning out to be a lot different than I’d initially thought. I would have never thought of him as the type of guy who liked kids, for example.
“Three of them,” he said. “Liam’s the oldest, then me, then Elijah, and the baby is Carter.”
“Are you close?” I asked. “You must be, right?”
Roarke sighed. “Not for a long time, no. Until recently, we hadn’t talked in years. But Liam and Elijah reached out because they needed some legal help because of my nephews, so that kind of changed things a bit and now they are back in my life and I’m in theirs. I try to stay in touch.”
“I’m an only child,” I offered, and then shut my mouth. Why was I offering personal information about myself, now? I certainly didn’t need him asking questions about my family. Not if I didn’t want him to know about.. Argh. I was acting weird, and maybe I needed to get out of here. But we had a lot of work to do to prepare for a custody case.
“Makes a lot of sense,” Roarke muttered under his breath.
“What was that?” I asked, although I’d heard him just fine. I just liked pushing his buttons. That was the most fun about this whole case, really. Getting to irritate Roarke Brentwood.
“Nothing,” he said brightly.
“You don’t want children?” I asked him, unable to get over how much he seemed to love kids.
“I do. I really do,” he admitted. “None of my wives seemed very interested, though.”
“Does that mean you’re still hopeful?” I didn’t know why I kept asking questions. I didn’t care to get to know Roarke Brentwood any better than I already did. I already knew I didn’t like him, and nothing was going to change that, so why did I care?
