SEAL'd Perfection The Complete Collection: A Navy SEAL Romance (21 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said, so quietly I could barely hear her.

“Come on,” I wrapped my arm around her waist and after stopping briefly at the end of the bar to settle the tab, I led her out into the night and took her home, biting back the bitter sense that I’d fucked it all up again.

“Ms. Ryan? Mrs. Clayton is ready to see you,” the petite brunette receptionist told me from behind a giant oak desk that dwarfed her further, giving the impression that she was a young girl at bring your kid to work day. I looked up at the sound of my name, and she pointed to the door on her right, which, somewhere in the last two minutes, had swung open.

I stood and gathered my purse and binder of paperwork, flashing a tight smile at the receptionist as I made my way to the door she’d indicated.

“Ms. Ryan! Welcome, welcome,” a frazzled looking bottle blonde greeted as I stepped inside. She didn’t look up from her frantic search through the stack of files on her desk. “Please sit, I’ll be…right…with…” her words carried off as she seemingly located the paper she had been hunting down and set about reading it.

The desk was covered with papers and files, so I sat in one of the worn looking chairs across from her and kept my binder in my lap. “Thank you for seeing me on short notice,” I started. “My ex scheduled this new mediation session on short, well, actually
no
, notice, so…” I stopped speaking—realizing that she wasn’t paying any attention to me as she continued reading whatever was in her hands.

A quick glance at the clock on the wall showed me that I had less than half an hour before I needed to leave to get back to work on time. I’d missed so much work lately that my boss was starting to grumble, and had been forced to schedule the meeting with Priscilla Clayton in between the lunch and dinner rush to avoid getting a lecture. Priscilla was a family court lawyer that was willing to work on a sliding scale to help her clients. A fact that at the time I’d scheduled the meeting had seemed like a Godsend, but now, had me questioning her focus. Judging by the swamp of papers on her desk, it sounded like the policy worked to get her a lot of cases which I was starting to wonder if it was really a good thing.

“Um, Mrs. Clayton?” I asked, keeping the edge of frustration out of my voice.

She started like I’d fired a starting pistol in the air, and a few papers fell from her hands, fluttering to the mountain below. “Yes, yes, let’s begin. Umm…Ms. Ryan. Right, right,” she stumbled over her words, beginning a new dig through the paperwork. She pulled out a thin file, and took out the single page inside. “Okay, here you are. Right…”

I sighed. “My ex husband and I have been divorced for two years, we have joint custody. I get our son, Jax, during the week, and he gets him every weekend as well as two full weeks in the summer for vacation. We split holidays, alternating Christmas and Thanksgiving every year. Two days ago, I woke up to a social worker on my porch with a petition, signed by a judge, stating that I’m an unfit mother, and she removed Jax from my home to go with my ex and his new wife, full time until we can go back to court,” I hurriedly explained to her, firing off the situation in bullet point bits of information.

Priscilla looked stunned into silence, and sank down into her chair in slow motion.
At least she’s looking at me now, instead of her freaking paper pile,
I thought bitterly to myself.

“I need a lawyer who can take on Mitch, that’s my ex, in court and make sure we get back to our originally agreed upon custody arrangement.”

Priscilla tapped a pen against her lips while she pondered my statement as though it were more of a question. My fingers gripped into the edges of the binder in my lap, the sharp plastic biting into my skin. I was about to jump up and leave before she finally started speaking, “Who is your ex’s lawyer?”

“Charles Bingham and Mathias Jeffers.” Two names that raked nails down my spine. They were both partners in the family court sector of a huge Chicago firm that was famous for representing high powered political families, businessmen, and even celebrities. Mitch played golf with one of them, and had once upon a time offered some sage business advice, and in exchange, won their representation.

Priscilla’s mouth formed a silent “oh” and then she went back to the tapping with the pen.

I glanced up at the clock again. “Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, or rush you, but I have to be back to work soon. I know Bingham and Jeffers are tough to beat, but they don’t have a case! I can assure you, I’m a very fit mother, I work full time, go to school, I don’t do drugs, I don’t even have a speeding ticket on my record! They have
nothing
on me to justify this ambush. I just need someone who will go to war for me and get my baby back.”

Priscilla smiled sadly at me, and even before she said the words, I knew what her answer was. “Ms. Ryan, I appreciate you coming in to see me. I’ve been practicing law for about five years now, and I’ve worked…well, as you can see—” she spread her hands over the cluttered desk, “—a lot of cases. I know my limitations, and what odds I have going into a case. One thing I pride myself on, is being a straight shooter, and I’ll tell you that you can hire me, and I will fight tooth and nail for you, but Bingham and Jeffers are tough. Even without digging into the case, I can tell you, the odds aren’t good.”

It was like all the air had been sucked from the room. I already knew everything she said, it had all been stewing in my mind for three days, but somehow, having it said out loud by someone else, felt like a punch to the stomach.

“I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Ryan. I’m just not at that level,” Priscilla finished. She folded her hands on her desk and waited for me to get it together.

I loosened my fingers from the death grip on the binder that contained everything that had been brought to court the first time around, along with anything else I found pertaining to the records of care Jax received, my financial, school records, and a letter from Hilda that she’d left on the kitchen counter that morning, giving a glowing review of my parenting skills. I took a slow, steadying breath, and stood from my chair. “Thank you for your honesty.”

Priscilla nodded, that same sad expression frozen on her face. It was a look of pure pity, as though my fate had already been decided. A wave of nausea ripped over me and I braced my hand on the chair. “I wish you the best.”

I nodded and turned away slowly, using my hand to guide me out of the office. When I reached the doorway, I stopped short of leaving, a new question coming to mind. I turned back and Priscilla looked up from the file in her hands. “Was there something else, Ms. Ryan?”

“What would you do?” I asked. “If you were me, I mean. What would you do? Who would you hire?”

“Kirk Folger. He’s in Chicago. He’s got a personal vendetta with Jeffers, and word is when those two get in the ring together, sparks fly. I’d say he’s your best bet. He’s a hell of a lawyer, and against Jeffers…he’d be an outright monster.”

* * * *

It took a short phone call to dissolve the small amount of hope that Priscilla had given me. I’d called Kirk Folger’s office to ask about the retainer, and found that he required a twenty thousand dollar retainer, not to mention his astronomical hourly billing rate. I’d hung up the phone, hands shaking, and raced off to work, without giving myself time to fall to pieces again. There was no way I’d be able to get that kind of money together. I couldn’t even afford the retainer fee on my own.

“There you are!” Patrice called when I pushed into the diner. I raced around the counter and threw on my apron. “Harry was here looking for you…”

“Shit.” I squeezed my eyes closed.
If I lost this job…
I couldn’t even let myself imagine the fallout.

“I told him we ran out of ice, and that the machine broke, so you went to get more.”

I released a deep sigh of relief. “Thanks, Patrice. Sorry I’m so late.”

She waved off my apology and followed me into the kitchen where I stashed my purse. “No worries. But girl, I gotta ask, what’s going on with you lately? Is this about tattoo guy?”

I nearly laughed at the question, wishing that Jace was the only issue on my radar. The diner was nearly vacant, so I gave Patrice the quick version of what had happened. I normally wouldn’t share something so personal, but Patrice and I had become friends over the course of working together every day, and I knew she wasn’t a gossip.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” she said when I finished giving her the recap. “What are you gonna do?”

I shook my head and shrugged at the same time. “No idea. Start buying lottery tickets?”

The door bell rang out before she could press for more information. “I’ll go deal with that, you take all the time you need.” She raced out of the kitchen and I took a minute to breathe and adjust my ponytail.

Patrice appeared a few minutes later. “Guess who,” she said, smiling at me. “You want me to take care of him?”

“Do you mind?” I asked. Everything with Jace was on good terms, and when he’d dropped me off at home the night before, things had been fine—if I ignored the urge to rip his shirt off and let him help me forget all of my problems—but I didn’t want to face him, knowing he would ask about the meeting with the lawyer.

Patrice was halfway back out the door again, when she paused and looked back at me, “I’ll take care of this, but once he’s gone you’ve gotta tell me what’s going on there, okay?”

I laughed. “There’s nothing to tell. We’re…
friends
.”

“Right, and Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny come in every Sunday for brunch…” She rolled her eyes and disappeared.

In an effort to avoid Jace—and Patrice’s list of invasive questions—I hunkered down in the storage room. “I really should just put a plaque on the door and declare this my office,” I sighed to myself, sitting down on a pile of boxes. I pulled my phone from my pocket, and checked for missed calls from Mitch. I’d called every single day, and hadn’t been allowed to speak to Jax. I’d railed at Mitch, cried, and begged, but none of it had done anything, he’d hung up on me each time, and refused to answer when I called back again. I’d contemplated calling Hannah’s cell phone, but decided that it would be too weird to call the woman burned in my mind as Mitch’s mistress to ask for help.

I was flipping through pictures of Jax, smiling through the tears as his little face flashed before me, memory after memory coming to life in front of me. A soft knock on the door stirred me from my reminiscing.

I pocketed the phone, and stood up from the dusty box. I stepped to the door, brushing off my behind before opening the door. “Sorry, just needed a—” I started, but stopped as I realized Jace was the one on the other side, not Patrice. “Oh, I thought you were…uhm…did you need something?” I asked, bizarrely pointing at the industrial sized ketchup jars, like it was normal for customers to raid the storage room when their condiment cups ran dry.

“Are you okay?” He asked, a strange expression on his face as he followed my gesture. “Why are you hiding in here? I thought we figured our shit out. Friends, remember?”

“I’m not hiding,” I lied. “I was taking a timeout.”

Jace was standing close enough that his body heat warmed through my thin T-shirt. The smell of his aftershave clung to him, and although it was subtle, I couldn’t help but flash back to the way it had smelled on his bare skin, mixed with sweat, and excitement, as we’d tangled together in my bed. I pressed my eyes closed, blocking out the forbidden memory. “Kat, what happened at the meeting?”

Crap, I was hoping he’d forgotten about that.…

“Not so good.” I sighed. “The woman was nice enough, but very clearly overworked and overloaded with other cases. She flat out told me that against my ex’s lawyers, I don’t stand a chance.”

“What?” Jace boomed, his voice carrying down the hall.

“Shh!” I hissed. “Come here,” I said, tugging him by the hand into the room so I could shut the door behind him. Once the door clicked shut, I instantly became aware of just how small the storage room was, or, maybe it was how large Jace was. Either way, the room suddenly felt too close, too intimate to the point where I could hear Jace breathing and the sound of my own heightened pulse.

“Can lawyers even say shit like that?” Jace asked, his irritation evident in his clipped tone.

I shrugged and stepped over a couple boxes in the center of the room that were waiting to be unpacked. I had to find some space between me and Jace’s wall of muscles. “At least she was honest, I guess. Anyways, the lawyer she recommended is crazy good, but also has a pretty crazy price tag. There’s no way I can afford to hire him.”

“So, what, that’s it? You’re just giving up?”

I swiveled around so fast, I caught my foot on the edge of a box and stubbed my toe. “How dare you!” I snarled. “I’m doing everything I can
think
of to get my son back!”

“Yeah, everything except swallow your pride long enough to admit that you need help.” Jace threw back, crossing his arms.

“Fuck you, Jace.” I grit my teeth, locking my jaw.

“You don’t mean that. You can try to push me away all you want, it won’t change a thing, Kat,” Jace said, his voice infuriatingly calm as he stared me down, testing my resolve. “My offer stands, and I think you need to take a good, hard look at your reasons for not taking it.”

“I know why I’m not taking your money Jace, because I don’t even
know
you! You’ve been in town, what? A month or two? We hardly know each other, and I can’t take money from you, especially not the kind of money I’d need to hire this lawyer. He’s got a twenty thousand dollar retainer, Jace! That’s not like borrowing lunch money or something!”

Jace didn’t even flinch. “Say the word, Kat, and I’ll write you a check.”

I gaped at him, speaking no longer an option. The longer I stared at him, the more it sunk in that he was serious. If I asked for it, he’d give me anything I needed.

“I told you the other day, it’s going to be okay. We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.”

“We’re not! Jace, I know you’re trying to be a nice guy, and everything. And I appreciate it, really, I do. But I can’t accept this offer, so please, can we just drop it?”