Page 12 of Celebrity

“I’m going to wring his neck the next time I see him.”

“It’s been a very active news day.”

“That means you’re leaving something out. Spill it.” I sat on one of the barstools lining the island.

“He credited his visit to your office today as the inspiration for wanting to reconcile with his wife.”

Sure, my husband threatening to sue me to live in our house was going to trigger thoughts of happily ever after.

“And?” I probed.

“He’s now more determined than ever to find you a date. With the help of Kimberly, of course.”

I groaned and then rested my head on the hard granite in front of me.

“Of course. That’s all I need. The woman who called me Clint’s tramp and whore is going to play matchmaker. Someone kill me now.”

“It could be worse.”

“I doubt that. My career as an attorney is tanked. I’ve gone from being the take-no-one’s-shit bulldog litigator to a contestant on a dating game orchestrated by a former client.”

“It’s not as if this is your first high-profile case. You’ve represented at least three politicians and a swarm of TV and movie celebrities. Remember Debbie?”

My neighbor Debbie was my first politically connected client. She’d discovered through a tabloid reporter that she was the secret love child of two senators who were in opposing parties and married to other people.

“Yes, but she and everyone else I’ve represented avoided any and all media whenever possible. Clint caters to them. His ratings depend on them. I’m collateral damage.”

“I think you’re too sensitive.”

“Sarah, this case put the final nail in the coffin of my marriage. Now I’m left to make plans for a future without the one person I’ve always loved.”

“What did you expect? Great sex doesn’t make a stable marriage. Every time things got difficult, instead of working it out, you would ignore the situation and try to fix the problems by having sex for hours on end or go on vacation where you’d fuck as if your life depended on it.”

The one place where Dev and I had no problem communicating was in the bedroom. We could read each other without any difficulties, and getting it on like rabbits was our way of dealing with the frustration of our dueling careers.

The moment I took on Clint as a client and he threw me into the national spotlight, Devin and I couldn’t mask our issues anymore.

I wanted the support I’d given him during his rise through the ranks and eventually to a position as federal judge, and he wanted things to remain the same.

It was when life became too hard for him to handle that we ultimately separated.

“You’re right. Something had to give, and neither of us was going to budge.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Yes. Of course, I do,” I responded without hesitation. He held a piece of my heart that I’d never get back whether we stayed together or not.

“Do you have any hope of fixing things?”

“I never gave up hope.”

“But?”

“But, it has to be different if we are going to salvage our relationship. I refuse to be a secret anymore. This was not how I planned to spend the first years of my marriage. Do you know what it was like to watch Dev get sworn in from the audience instead of by his side like all the other judges’ wives?

“Yes, he’s a politician’s son, but I’m the daughter of a freaking billionaire. I stood up to my father when he disapproved of us. Devin never did that for me. His parents still don’t know we’re married. I moved thousands of miles away from Texas, from my family and a successful, cushy future, to be with him. I deserve better.”

I gasped for a few deep breaths as my temper flared and tears prickled my eyes. “I’m done living for other people. First it was for my father, then it was for Devin. Besides, I’m about to use my fame to catapult me to a new phase of life that Devin will never be able to handle. He’s told me countless times how he wished his father would give up politics.”

---