Page 1 of Staking His Claim

1

Fletcher

Today was the day.

I stared across the conference table at the woman I’d shared a hellish three years with.

She stared back with cold, dead eyes.

I could see the sneer forming long before it made the faintest appearance on her botoxed lips. “I suppose you think you’ve won,” my soon-to-be ex-wife acidly.

I took my time to relax into my seat then shrugged, knowing it would infuriate her. Little did she know that I was far from cool.

The ice she’d accused me of having in my veins was nowhere near temperate. More like boiling point. For the fact that I had to wait this long to be rid of her.

I didn't care about the money she was greedily demanding. Or even the condo I had to give up. The condo I was living in long before I met her.

All I cared about was how quickly I could get through the next two hours. I ignored her and shifted my gaze to her lawyer.

“Are we done here?”

The small, mean bastard grinned as if he had won the battle of the century, not knowing that I was savoring the greater prize.

Hell, I would’ve happily paid twice as much if he could’ve guaranteed me an hour or even half an hour less than I had to wait.

I kept my gaze on him as he slid the documents across the desk, not daring to look to my left.

Whereshesat. My prize.

Attentive as ever, her fingers flew across the tablet, recording everything as I had told her to. Not that I needed her here either.

But then my obsession with Emily Hartley had long ago transcended reason and sanity.

Was it only six months ago she walked into my law firm?

It felt like years. Excruciatingly mind-fucking years when I redoubled my efforts to remove my nearly-ex from my life.

Leaning forward, I snatched the papers and barely glanced at them before I flipped to the last page and hastily scrawled my name on the dotted line.

Shoving it back at the lawyer—and regrettably displaying my first sign of agitation—I looked to my right at Gary Larson, my own lawyer. “Are we done here?” I repeated tersely.

Gary nodded. “Done and dusted. I'll head to the courthouse now to get it filed.”

It was then I heard it.

The soft sigh. The relieved sigh. The sigh that told me that I wasn't the only tension-filled one this side of the table.

I couldn't risk looking at her to check that Emily was just as relieved that this was finally over.

God, I’d stopped myself from crossing the line for so fucking long, I was fed up to the back of my teeth. But hell if I was going to fumble the last stretch.

Surging to my feet, I shook my lawyer's hand. Then without acknowledging anyone else, I strode out of the conference room.

I entered my office and crossed to the liquor cabinet.

Who cared that it was the middle of the afternoon?

I was a managing partner of Knight, Randall and Associates,themost prestigious firm in Chicago. My name was the first on the side of the building and that gave me a hell of a lot of perks.

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