“Queensbro!” Santino responded. “I want to make a meeting with Vanessa and that cute lawyer you’re thirsting after.”
Oscar chuckled. “Calm down, it’s not like that. I mean she is a peach and juicy asfuck, but you know I can’t get involved with opposing counsel while a case is ongoing. The senior partners would have my ass. Anyway, what’s up? What’s the meeting for? You’re not thinking of actually giving up and signing, are you?” He sounded almost hopeful. “I don’t mind you paying for my mom’s Benz,chamaco, but this has gone on longer than most divorces I’ve handled.”
“Tell them I am.”
“What do you mean,tellthem you are? You ending this siege once and for all, or is this a Trojan horse to get under her skin?”
“Trojan horse,” Santino confirmed. “Tell them I’ll sign, but I want to see more financial info first. She might have gotten a raise.” In fact, he knew she had. His sister-in-law Dani had mentioned it. She and Vanessa had somehow become friends.
“You’re not gonna make me ask for alimony again, are you? Lil’ Mama just about went upside my head the last time I proposed that. She was so mad,” Oscar said with a low laugh.
Santino grinned, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Not again, no. Vanessa was ready to stab me, too. Just say I’ll sign if I get a minute alone with her to talk. It really is important.”
“Alright, I’ll set it up. Anything else?”
“That’s it. Thanks, man.”
Santino hung up, staring at the light-dappled leafy green trees across the street in the late afternoon sunshine. It brought to mind the way the same pattern played across Vanessa’s face when she first opened her eyes in the morning and smiled athim. He switched out the study guide for his sketchbook, opened it, and fell into drawing.
Within the hour, Oscar called back. “The meeting’s on. Friday at three.”
“I’ll be there.”
5
COULD'VE BEEN
VANESSA
Deep breath in, deep breath out. You got this. It’ll be over soon. Quick and painless.
Bracing herself with the usual mantra, Vanessa hesitated outside the conference room at Upton, Garcia & Vega, Family Law, on the forty-fifth floor of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper. She pushed open the heavy plate glass door and went in. Two of the three occupants sitting around the large, gleaming black table turned when she entered, her lawyer Genesis Vega, and Santino’s attorney, Oscar Sanchez.
The third stayed seated, staring straight ahead through the window with a beam of sunlight slanting across his face. Santino Antonio D’Alessio Donahue, descendant of an Italian duke, trust fund baby, and firefighter, her soon-to-be ex-husband. The blond, blue-eyed bastard who annoyed the fuck out of her by day but still managed to haunt her dreams every night.
Ignoring him and the way her whole body pulsed at the sight of him, Vanessa sauntered coolly into the room, knowing full wellSantino hated waiting on her. He’d always complained about her slowness, remarking how she managed to be on time for everyone and everything but him.
Vanessa laid her bag daintily on an empty seat and slid onto the thick leather cushion of the swivel chair next to Genesis, who greeted her with a quick smile. Despite knowing they should keep some professional distance while the suit was ongoing, Vanessa really liked Genesis. She was bright, bubbly, yet utterly vicious when it came to representing her mostly female clients in divorce and custody matters — sort of like a cute, golden-brown doll wielding a six-inch knife.
Genny had confided over drinks one night that she’d become a divorce lawyer because she hated seeing women getting left with zero and struggling after a divorce like her own mother had when her dad checked out on the marriage. “Cut those bitches and take their last dime,” was more or less her professional motto. Her zeal had earned her a partnership at her firm at the tender age of thirty-five.
“Whassup, homeguurrrl? How is you?” Vanessa whispered, pretending she wasn’t shaky at all, sitting across a table from her ex.
“Whassup, homeguurrrl? How isyou?” Genesis responded.
The bad English was a private joke. Genesis was from the Lower East Side, aka “Loisaida,” and Vanessa from Wakefield in the Bronx. Code switching was still very much a thing they’d each had to perfect when in law school, and now with upper-crust colleagues and clients.
Across the table, the handsome lawyer was unabashedly eye-fucking Genesis with his whiskey colored eyes. As usual, Genesis was pretending not to notice his attention but was doing a fair amount of hair-flipping with her dark bobbed locks.
Amused by this display, it was still the silent person in the room who pulled Vanessa’s attention like a beacon with his longbody in a casual slouch. Santino’s silver blue eyes were fixed on the bank of windows lining the conference room behind her. It was gorgeously sunny outside, but all that could be seen from this vantage point was another gray building across the street. Suddenly, those eyes pierced hers, zipping sharply down her body before resting on her face.
“Good morning, Mrs. Donahue,” Oscar said pleasantly, smoothing his hand over his short, shiny black hair.
“Watson. It’s Vanessa Watson,” she reminded him archly.
Santino’s face pinched ever-so-slightly, then smoothed out. Instead of the usual sullen expression he wore at these negotiations and court hearings, or the seething rage on bad days, today his stare was intent, determined.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” Genesis said with a smile at Oscar. She opened a yellow legal pad, which lay next to her phone, and a manila folder. Then she flipped open the folder and quickly perused a document before offering it to him. “Okay. Today is it. Our signing day. But first, these are Ms. Watson’s latest and final set of financials that you requested a few days ago.”
