Page 33 of Escalating Alpha

“I promised I would and told him that they’d all done a good job bringing the case home. I knew how rough it had been—we’d tried multiple times to get someone in where Thomas went and—it had gotten dicey, but she’d pulled off a miracle. The whole team had.”

“And your wife took issue with a woman being praised?” Dain asked him.

Galvin sighed. “I can’t tell you her mental state then, but clearly I missed too many red flags. She asked me if I was going to give an award to the slut who threw herself at me at the party we’d just been at. I told her that Thomas hadn’t been there and was undercover out of the country. She got upset and said to not defend the woman to her.”

“And who was your ex-wife really referring to?”

“An aide to a congressman who got a bit tipsy at the party. Yes, she said something flirty, but she certainly didn’t throw herself at me and she didn’t deserve being called that. My ex-wife was always jealous—I forgave a lot because she did put upwith a lot because of my job. She was basically a married single woman and—”

“I think you need to get out of the mindset of defending the woman just because you took vows, Director Galvin,” Dain cut in. “She wants to take your children away and ruin you. She’s not keeping to her vows. Why are you trying to still be loyal to that?”

“Objection!” the other lawyer yelled.

“Withdrawn,” Dain said, nodding that it was over the line. “Director Galvin, did you clearly state that Seraphine Thomas wasn’t at the party and had never flirted with you?”

“Yes. Repeatedly.”

“And you told her who the woman was that your ex-wife was referring to?”

“Yes.”

They went over several other occasions and instances, my stomach turning at hearing how often I was truly the topic in someone else’s marriage. Dain outlined how often and when Galvin had actually met me before his ex-wife started with her bullshit publicly.

“Making a mistake doesn’t make defamation,” the other attorney started.

“No, but repeatedly making false statements publicly when you’ve been shown proof it’s wrong is,” Galvin said firmly, looking the guy over like he was barking up the wrong tree to play with. “My ex-wife committed libel and slander a lot of times no matter what I said.”

“Cheating husbands lie all of the time, and you were high in the FBI. If you wanted to hide an affair, it wasn’t hard,” he argued before digging into his questions.

They were stupid. He was trying to grab onto smoke, not even getting close to anything solid. But Dain came back as the superhero.

“People absolutely make mistakes,” he said as he nodded off to the side. Someone set up an enlarged picture of me. “That’s a picture of Seraphine Thomas at the time the former Mrs. Galvin says she saw her throw herself at Director Galvin no matter what she was told.” He nodded again. “And that is the picture of the aide who was tipsy and said a flirty comment.”

I spit out my drink.

Others laughed.

Corbin stood and clapped.

Why?

Because the woman was my polar opposite. Like… Polar. Fucking. Opposite.

Black hair to my blonde. Dark eyes to my blue. Petite and delicate to my athletic. Gorgeous deep golden skin to my pale everything. I would guess she or her family were from India, but I wasn’t sure.

“Yes, people are mistaken, but there is a limit to how much is allowed before it’s intentional. Did you ever tell your ex-wife the two women didn’t even look alike, Director Galvin?”

“Yes. Repeatedly. She would always say she knew what she saw and to not correct her because she was right.”

“Did you ever have an affair with Seraphine Thomas?”

“No.”

“Done anything inappropriate with her?”

“No.”

“Ever even touched her or flirted with her?”

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