Page 3 of Beautiful Life

“I don’t want anything from him. Your dad knows this—I’ve told him repeatedly. You should know this too, you work for your dad’s firm. I’ve also told Gabby the same thing. Certainly she’s filled you in the way you two talk. Can I just sign and get this over with?”

“Leigh, you don’t have a job,” he reminds me of yet another depressing detail of my ever-depressing life.

“I know. I’ll get one after my arm heals, and well, all the other stuff heals.” I end on a breath because it feels like a knife in my gut every time I think about the baby I’ll never know or get to hold. The baby I wanted so badly, even if it was Preston’s.

Tony’s face softens and his body relaxes.

“Leigh,” he lowers his voice. “You need the money to start a new life for yourself.”

“I don’t want anything from him. I can take care of myself. I’m used to it.”

All of a sudden, his expression changes again and he becomes intense. His gaze sweeps my face, body, my casted arm, finally settling back on my eyes. He pulls in a breath and looks to the ceiling. I hope this is Tony’s exasperated-giving-in-look, but I have a bad feeling about things when he looks back to me.

He asks, but at the same time I sense it’s more of a reminder, “The firm is doing this pro bono?”

“Um, yeah.”

Gabby’s dad was a partner here before he died in a car accident four years ago. Gabby now holds stock in the firm. But not just that, Tony’s dad took one look at me and said he wouldn’t accept a penny even though I tried to set up a payment plan.

In an instant, Tony’s soft-intense-frustrated-exasperated looks disappear into thin air. He looks down at me, smug and cocky-like, tipping the side of his mouth. “I guess that means you don’t have much of a say in how this goes, now then, does it?”

With that, he moves around me with purpose and I hear him open the door to the conference room while barking out to Preston’s attorneys, “Right. Let’s get this done.”

I’m left standing in the Carpino Law Partners posh hallway unable to move. He can’t do that. Can he do that? I turn to move my slowly healing body back to the massive mahogany table and decide it’s time to pay attention.

Tony picks up where he left off before our hallway huddle. “Sign here, Mrs. Briggs.”

My heart begins to beat fast because I don’t know what to do. I’m pretty sure I should have a say in how my own divorce goes, especially when my husband has beat the shit out of me for years and just two weeks ago beat me so badly I lost our baby. I’m still so tired and beat down in every way a person can be, the only thing I have the energy to do is look up at Tony and mutter, “I really don’t—”

But I shut my mouth the minute he levels his eyes on mine. The searing look he’s giving me doesn’t invite another peep. I grudgingly snatch the pen out of his hand and scribble my married name on every paper he shoves in front of me.

“I have to tell you Carpino,” one of Preston’s attorneys’ growls as he starts slamming files back into a briefcase. “I thought more of your firm than this. Your father and uncles are class acts, but you blindsiding us today with this shit is uncalled for. We had a deal before we walked in here. I see the next generation of Carpinos are building a different reputation for this firm. Good to know.” He ends his rant with sarcasm.

But Tony is totally at ease, as if he’s chatting it up with a neighbor over the hedgerow. “My client changed her mind.”

“Yeah, I can see she changed her mind.” The way the attorney says it makes me look up but all I see is Preston pinning me to my big leather chair with the daggers he’s shooting at me through his deep hazel eyes.

What I once found alluring and attractive, I now fear and hate with everything I am. His light brown hair is styled in its usual made-to-look-messy way and his lean tall, but ever so strong frame, is tense and as foreboding as usual. I know first-hand just how strong he is and have become trained to panic when I see him like this. I squeeze my eyes shut to look away. I never want to see him again.

“You have five business days to respond to our offer or we’ll see you in court. By reading the first paragraph of the police reports we all know what a judge will say. I’ll look forward to hearing from you. I hope I don’t have to remind your client of the restraining order my client has against him. He had better not breathe her air or we’re calling the police.” Tony is totally relaxed, leaning back in his big leather chair as if he’s watching a basketball game or something.

With that, the team of assholes storm out of the conference room while muttering profanities.

Frustrated and now pissed, I stand, turn to Tony. “Why did you do that? I told you I don’t want anything from him. He paid off my student loans when we got married so I’m debt free. I plan on selling my BMW after this is all over and buying something more economical, hopefully I’ll have a little something left from that. I don’t care what my last name is. That’s going to be a pain changing my name on everything. I don’t have the energy for anything Tony, especially extra paperwork. And by the way, since when do I not have a choice on how my own divorce is handled just because your firm is doing this pro bono? Your dad advised me, but in the end, he did as I asked.”

Now, I’m the exasperated one and realize at the end of my tirade I wasn’t paying any mind to Tony’s demeanor. He really is a chameleon the way his emotions change so quickly. Now he’s back to intense. It increases when he takes a step closer—as in pretty damn close—but doesn’t touch me.

My eyes go big with the look on his face as he commences to rock my world. “I don’t care if you never touch that money, but you’re going to have it in case you need it. The answer is no, you don’t get a choice in how this goes. Listen closely, Leigh, and pay attention. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make sure you don’t have any reminders of the evil that controlled your life for so long. I’ll tie myself in knots if I have to, but I’m going to make sure that part of your life is a distant memory, if not erased from your fucking head. That man you were married to is no man and you’re not only going to be rid of him, but you’re going to realize you have a beautiful life. I’ve just got to get you to open your eyes to see it. Changing your name is just the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart. Brace. Changes are coming.”

With that, Tony rounds me and stalks out of the conference room. I slowly blink, trying to get my body to respond to what Tony just threw at me. Changes are coming? What in the hell does that mean?

“Shit,” I mutter out loud.

With no other option, I make the same decision I’ve made about everything else the last two weeks. No, it’s the same decision I’ve been making for the last four years. I can’t think about this now. I’ll think about it later. I turn to walk out of the conference room, heading straight for the reception area to find Gabby since she’s my ride. I need to get the hell out of here.

Gabby is leaning at the reception desk talking to her cousin and Tony’s younger sister, Paige, who just started working here as the receptionist. Paige can’t seem to settle on a career and from what Gabby tells me, she always ends up back here.

“Well?” Gabby asks raising her eyebrows at me. “Is it done? Preston and his attorneys stormed out of here looking none too happy, to say the least.”

---