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“Our divorce was final last week,” I say. “She relinquished her rights.”
“How much did it cost you?” he asks rather than trying to get details about what kind of woman would give up her kids.
“Too much,” I mutter.
“I would’ve been able to get you a better settlement,” he says with full confidence even though he doesn’t know the details.
“I didn’t know you were licensed to practice in Michigan.”
Silence fills the space between us, but he seems more pensive than insulted. I didn’t mean it that way, but I wasn’t joking when I told myself I was leaving Emily and everything about her in the past. We settled everything in Detroit, and I’m moving on. I know there will come a time that the boys will ask, and I still haven’t decided what to say. I’m not the type of guy to trash talk anyone, but I’ll also find it very difficult to find anything nice to say about her. What I do know is I have to make it about Emily and not about the boys. They don’t need to go through life thinking they aren’t worthy of their mother’s love.
“You’re done with her for good?”
I scrape a hand over my head. “Supposed to be. She signed documents that should keep her from speaking to the press, but if I know Emily, she’ll find a work-around. She always found a way to get her name in people’s mouths.”
“If you need to sue her, just let me know. I can get most if not all of your money back.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, but that’s not why I’m here. I need to see how legally binding a verbal agreement is.” I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. “I told Madison Kelly that she could decorate the Graves Estate while she was working as a nanny for the boys. She billed me for it.”
He slow blinks at me. “She did the work and then billed you? It sounds like you owe her money.”
I clench my jaw. This is not the news I wanted to hear.
“We didn’t have anything in writing,” I argue.
“Are you willing to go before a judge and lie, saying that you didn’t agree to it?”
I curl my lip in irritation. “Of course not.”
“I’m an asshole, Chase, but if you owe her money, then you should pay it. Did she neglect her nanny duties to do this? We could argue that she did this job while on the clock for the other job and could consider some of it paid already.”
I shake my head. “She always did the house stuff on her own time.”
“Sounds like she did everything right.”
I know for a damn fact that isn’t the case.
“Now, I’m not one to read much into gossip, but I did see the article written where she ran her mouth about the time you two spent together. You didn’t happen to have an NDA, did you?”
I don’t know why I clamp my mouth shut instead of telling him that I did have her sign one. I know I have legal standing to go after her. I could sue her for so much that her grandchildren would still be paying me.
I’m more annoyed at her audacity than actually wanting to ruin her. My dad would probably disown me. Hell, he’s more likely to put up a custody fight for the kids than Emily was.
“No NDA,” I lie.
“That’s a shame,” he says. “I was gonna say that we could go after her for defamation of character.”
“Everything she said was complimentary.”
“But was it true?”
I huff a laugh. “I’m not going into detail about my sex life with you.”
“It’s all protected under attorney-client privilege.”
“Until Grams reads it.”
“She’d never discuss cases in public,” he says, the uptick in his tone betraying his defensiveness.
