Matt's Dilemma

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

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TENSION FILLED THE conference room, yet Matt didn’t appear affected. He leaned back in his chair, his ankle over his knee, his papers forgotten on the table. Matt never needed to refresh his memory. Files represented props for him, and he used them to intimidate. He never checked them, either in a conference room or in court.

Matt's client sat on his left at the table. In his thirties, Paul Willow looked too stylish, and Matt didn’t like him. However, Joshua, Matt's partner, had accepted the Willow case. When Joshua suddenly married and went on an extended honeymoon, the Willow divorce had fallen in Matt’s hands.

Something didn’t seem quite right with that Paul Willow, but his divorce case didn’t present any difficulty for Matt. The facts didn’t leave any loophole for the opposing counsel.

“So, let’s recap here,” he addressed to the opposing lawyer, Fred Rhoades. “Mrs. Willow signed a prenup before marriage. It is a straightforward document. We all agree with that. If she cheated, she’d get nothing. We have four men willing to testify that they slept with her on several occasions. They might not be outstanding citizens, but their bad reputations will make our case stronger. Plus, Mr. Willow is willing to pay for a DNA test to prove Mrs. Willow’s son is not his,” he said very matter-of-factly and stopped to gauge their expressions.

The lawyer seemed annoyed and started cleaning his glasses. Her client, Nora Willow, soon to be Nora Barnes, had paled, and the shadows under her eyes swallowed almost half her face.

Matt didn’t feel any pity for her. He couldn’t stand cheaters and gold diggers, and according to the file he had on the table, that woman was both.

Interesting though, although she had paled and her fingers were shaking, she didn’t flinch under his stern eyes. She returned his look squarely as if she didn’t feel any remorse or shame.

“Now, we can go to court. We can’t lose. Everything is cut and dry. Of course, by the end of the proceedings, we’ll have your reputation in tatters, Mrs. Willow, and your son will find out the truth about his mother,” he told her directly, his scorn evident, both in his voice and eyes.

“I’ll sign the agreement,” she said to Matt in a calm tone of voice.

Matt had never seen such a composed woman in a divorce case as the woman before him. She didn’t react verbally to anything. She didn’t attack or tried to push the guilt on her ex-husband’s shoulders. The only sign that Mrs. Willow felt anything was the shaking of her fingers.

“It’s not like I’d have wanted a cent of his money anyway,” she continued. “And Paul's contribution to the house was indeed much higher than mine. So, of course, I couldn’t demand that I receive the house. However, I should ask for the money I invested in it,” she pointed out, and Matt decided to pay more attention to her.

He didn't believe that Nora would give up the money if she thought that she had the right to get it. Matt's eyes narrowed, and he tried to use his mental abilities to read her, but he didn’t succeed, and that puzzled him. His mental-reading powers hadn’t entirely matured, but usually, he could see something in people's minds.

“What I want, though, and this is not negotiable,” Nora warned Matt in a steely voice, “is that he signs a document to surrender any parental rights. Paul has stated that my son isn’t his, so he must sign the papers,” she concluded, and the inflections of her voice warned Matt that she wouldn’t budge on that score.

Matt lifted his left eyebrow, pensively. The woman had a lot of guts for a woman painted as a s**t. She kept surprising him, and he didn’t like it.

He turned slightly to his client with an inquiring look. The man only shrugged.

“I don’t care about parenting the brat. You can prepare the documents, can’t you?” Paul Willow asked Matt.

Matt nodded briefly and stood up. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. May I hope you won’t start fighting while I’m gone?” he asked.

The woman’s behavior wasn’t natural. Nora didn’t chide, accused, or pleaded, and Matt feared that she would explode while he was away.

Nora just nodded. Entirely indifferent in her future ex-husband or the lawyer, who sat next to her, Nora picked up her mobile phone off the table and began reading text messages or emails. Matt shook his head slowly. That woman befuddled him.

Then he left the room to ask his paralegal to prepare the documents and bring them to the conference room.

He didn’t dare to stay away for long. His instincts told him that something was wrong, and he wanted to avoid any ugly events.

He returned to the conference room, and silence greeted him. Only his client was drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Fred Rhoades was checking an agenda, and Nora was standing near the window, admiring the square at the back of the building.

She turned her head when he returned, but when he told them the documents would be ready soon, she preferred to remain near the window.

The following fifteen minutes felt like hours. Matt tried to make small talk with his fellow lawyer, but Rhoades’s monosyllabic answers annoyed him.

His client started texting back and forth with someone and seemed to have the time of his life. His soon to be ex-wife didn’t leave the window until his paralegal had come with the papers.

Then, she approached the table, took her reading glasses out of her handbag, and after she read the documents carefully, dignified, she signed them.

When she finished, she collected her things silently, ready to leave.

“Mrs. Willow,” Matt stopped her, but when he saw the mocking glitter in her eyes, he corrected himself, “I apologize, I wanted to say Ms. Barnes. My paralegal brought these papers to you. You have info about how to change your name and everything. As Mr. Willow renounced his parental rights, you can also change your son’s name, if you want to,” he specified.

“Do I have to?” she asked, and for the first time, she sounded fearful.

“No, you don’t have to,” Matt answered softly.

“Thank you,” Nora said and stretched her hand to him.

Matt shook her hand briefly. Her skin was freezing cold, but that didn’t bother him. The brief electrical shock did. He had his eyes focused on her face, and the surprise in her eyes told him she felt it as well.

Matt stepped back, bowed his head, and started gathering the files. The door clicked behind her, but he didn’t even turn.