Chapter One
Chanel
“Where the hell were you?” my mother shrieked from down the long hallway. My parents fighting late at night wasn’t a particularly irregular occurrence. It was the only time my father was usually home. Showing up late at night was his norm. And normally, I would put my headphones on, or do my best to cover my ears with my pillow to drown out the noise of their arguments. But this night was different.
Dressed in my brand-new silk pajama dress, I rose out of bed and walked to my door, pushing aside the birthday balloons that I’d begged my mother to allow me to keep in my room. I peeked out into the dark hallway and heard loud yells coming from my parents’ bedroom.
I thought about returning to my bed and letting my parents have it out about my father’s failure to show up to both my school recital and tenth birthday party earlier that evening. I knew eavesdropping wasn’t “polite,” as my mother always said. However, something else was pushing me as I opened the door just enough to squeeze my small body through and tiptoe down the hall. I glanced at my brother Jason’s closed bedroom door as I passed, wondering if their arguing disturbed him as much as they did me. Listening, I didn’t hear any stirring coming from his room. By now, my parents’ voices had quieted, but I could hear them more clearly, now that I was closer.
“You missed her recital and birthday party while you were out with one of your whores!” my mother ranted. Their bedroom door was slightly ajar, and light from their room streamed into the hallway. I made sure to stay out of the light that might cast a shadow and possibly alert them to my presence. I wanted to overhear, uninterrupted. I too wanted to know what I’d done that could make my father miss a recital I’d been excited about for weeks, and my birthday. My mother had gone overboard, since this was my tenth.
“You’ve been on this earth a full decade, princess. We need to celebrate,” she’d said as we shopped for party decorations.
Honestly, I wasn’t interested in having a huge party. A few friends over for cake after my spring recital was all I’d wanted, but my mother insisted. I was more excited about singing the lead role in the recital. I’d practiced for weeks. Told everyone I knew that I was going to be singing. Among other songs, we were doing a rendition of the popular “Spice Up Your Life” by the Spice Girls. I loved singing and wanted everyone I knew to see it. I begged my mother for a month beforehand to ask my father to come.
“She wanted you there! Why couldn’t you do this one thing for your daughter?” my mother pleaded.
“You mean, for you,” My father retorted.
“No, I mean for Chanel! She’s your child too!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I know she’s my damn child!”
“You know what the fuck it means!”
My eyes bulged. My mother never cursed. She said it was improper.
“Watch your damn mouth,” my father countered.
“No, Elliott! Don’t tell me about my mouth. Chanel wanted you there, and you couldn’t pull yourself away from whoring long enough to be there for your child! What type of man does that?!”
“I never wanted her any fucking way!” he roared in response. “You knew I never wanted a second child, but you were under some misguided notion that having another baby would make me love you more. Don’t pull that unfit parent shit on me when you’re the fucking one who only had another child to try and force some happy family that never was!”
My entire body stiffened as his words pierced my heart with all the venom in his voice. I began shaking with sobs that I refused to let out. I clamped both hands over my mouth and slumped against the wall, unable to support my body weight on my two legs. I couldn’t hear anymore. I couldn’t bear the brunt of more vicious words. I needed to flee back to my room where I was free to let my tears fall.
Stumbling a little, I managed to hold onto the wall to guide me back down the hall to my bedroom. Still shaking, I made it back to my room, eased myself through the door, and closed it behind me. I stubbed my toe against the glass ornament that’d been used to anchor the array of balloons. I didn’t even feel the pain, as the throb emanating through my chest hurt more than anything I’d ever felt.
Tossing myself on the bed, I wrapped my pillow around my head, covering my ears to drown out any more of my father’s painful words. It was no use, of course; I’d already overheard the most painful words any child could hear.
He’d never wanted me.
****
It hadn’t been just a dream.
It was a memory.
I realized this as I sat up in bed, panting as the alarm on my phone blared. Blinking, I looked around my bedroom, trying to remember where I was. My breathing normalized and I remembered, that I was now in my room, in the home that I’d bought. I was no longer that ten-year-old girl who’d begged her mother to ask her father to attend her school recital.
Reaching over to my nightstand, I turned my phone off and threw the covers off me. I dragged myself to the bathroom across the hall and almost gasped when I looked in the mirror. Below my eyes remained the huge dark circles that’d been there for three weeks now.
Three weeks since my life turned upside-down.
Three weeks since I’d gotten a decent night’s rest.
Three full weeks since he walked out on me.
If I wasn’t dreaming about the night of my tenth birthday, I was having even worse nightmares of staring at my bruised and bloodied face from the night I called the police on my ex-fiancé. In that dream, I’d be looking at my marred face in one second, and then peer up into the face of my former client, Anne Marie, as blood gushed from the bullet wound in her forehead. Then there were the nights I dreamt about trying to save her son, Noah, with my hands covered in blood as he begged me to save him.
I inhaled, running my hands down the sides of my face, willing myself to shake off the memories of those nightmares. I stepped into the shower and stood under the warm spray of the water, closing my eyes and going over everything that had happened in the last few weeks. The images of that awful morning came floating back to me. I remembered how Xavier had shoved his phone at me with a picture of my battered face plastered on some gossip rag for the world to see. The article painted me as some vindictive abused woman who used my status as a divorce attorney to turn the great Jacob Wyatt—all-star quarterback for the Houston Saints—into a monster. The manuscripts from Jacob and Michele’s divorce proceedings were released, and the public had been turning on Jacob after it was revealed that he had no problem getting physical with his wife now and then.
The gossip article was a smear campaign against me. For two weeks, my office had been fielding phone calls from the general public calling for my resignation or just trying to harass me. I even had a couple of clients say they wanted a different attorney handling their divorces. I knew much of the hoopla would die down. Jacob Wyatt was revered around this city, so the pushback from fans was normal. Luckily, my bosses at work understood as well and knew I’d done my job as any attorney would. I’d gotten what my client asked for, fair and square.
The issue of who or why someone would personally attack me in order to defend Jacob remained a mystery. I mean, I got it, I was his ex-wife’s attorney, but putting my history out there for the world to see was an especially personal attack. At first, I’d been too heartbroken even to wonder who’d done it. Then the nightmares started, and it was all I could do just to make it through each day. I ignored phone calls or kept conversation to a minimum with most of my friends and family. No one except my best friend, Gabrielle, knew what I’d endured with Ethan, and now everyone knew. She helped keep me sane through this entire ordeal, even fielding phone calls from my father and brother.
“They wouldn’t,” I mumbled out loud, my eyes popping open under the spray of the shower. Who would have the incentive to paint me as the vindictive, man-hating attorney out to make their client look bad? The answer I came up with made sense to my sleep-deprived mind. I dressed quickly before dialing my office and informing my secretary that I would be in late. I needed to make a stop.
****
An hour later, I strolled through the glass doors of The Law Offices of Combs & Combs.
“Good morning, may I h—?” The receptionist’s greeting was short when I held up my hand, waving her off and striding past her. I didn’t even bother to turn and look behind me to see if she followed. I was on a mission, and the man I needed to speak with was at the other end of this hallway. As I approached his door, I could see it was wide open.
“Did you do it?” I questioned through gritted teeth, not bothering to give my father so much as a “hello.” His mahogany head popped up from his desk, and he turned stunned eyes on me. The perplexed look on his face made my anger grow even more.
“Chanel—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Combs, she just…” the receptionist, now at my back, tried to explain. I peered over my shoulder at her, and her mouth immediately clamped shut. She wasn’t the one I was angry at, but she needed to be quiet.
“Thanks, Barbara,” my father began, rising from his chair. “Chanel, please come in. I’ve been trying to get in touch with—”
“Did you do this?!” I asked again, my voice growing louder.
“Do what?”
“You know what,” I seethed, stepping fully into his office. I heard the door shut behind me. I assumed the receptionist closed it but didn’t bother checking. “Did you leak the information for that slanderous article about me?”
The whites of his eyes doubled in size at my accusation. I could almost believe he was shocked at my accusation, but I pressed on.
“Chanel, I would never do anything like that. The fact that you think…” He trailed off.
I almost got the impression he didn’t have anything to do with this, but I was in rare form. The last three weeks had been extremely difficult. The looks and stares from people who thought they knew me. The sympathy in their eyes like I was some victim made me question myself more than I cared to admit. I hated that feeling. Even worse, I had a broken heart to deal with on top of that. Just thinking about the look on Xavier’s face right before he turned his back on me and left made my chest ache.
“I don’t believe you,” I retorted, despite the look of sadness that passed over my father’s face.
He tilted his head in disbelief. “Chanel…”
“Aren’t you always saying ‘take no prisoners’ or ‘show no mercy’ when it comes to winning? Those were your mottos, right? At least, that’s what I’d overhear you telling Jason as you taught him the business. You never actually taught me anything!”
Damn. I wished I could’ve kept the bitterness in my tone to a minimum, but I was unable to control the emotions that bubbled up.
“Chanel, I would never. Not to you,” he insisted.
“I don’t believe you!” I said more vehemently.
“Hey, hey, what the hell is going on?”
I turned to see a worried look on Jason’s face as he entered the room. I rolled my eyes.
“Did you know about this? Were you in on it too?” I shouted at my brother.
“Chanel, what the hell are you talking about? Why are you in here yelling?”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm my erratic nerves. I hadn’t meant to get this irate. I began pacing the length of my father’s office because standing still with both my father and brother looking at me like I’d lost my damn mind was too much to take.
“I came here to ask our father if he had anything to do with that article. And now that you’re standing here, I’m asking you too. Did you know about it? Did you have a hand in it as well?”
“As well?” My father repeated my words. “Chanel, I’ve told you I would never do something like that to you.”
I turned to him sharply. “Yeah, well, you’ve said a lot of things,” I accused. His eyebrows shot up and mouth dropped slightly as my comment obviously hit its intended mark.
“Chanel, that was a low blow.”
“No, Jay, a low blow is waking up to see my personal business strewn on some damn gossip site just because I won a divorce case against a client of your law firm.” I stopped pacing, positioning myself in the middle of my father’s office, where I could see both my father behind his desk and Jason by the door. “Jacob Wyatt is your client, right?”
“You already know the answer to that,” my father answered.
“And you do anything for your clients, especially the big names like him, right?”
“We do, but not this,” he insisted.
I paused, looking at my father’s eyes the color of cedar wood, trying to discern whether he was telling the truth. When I stormed in here minutes ago, I was sure he was behind this. I just knew he was and wanted to see his face as he heard my accusations. But now, I felt differently. I’m not sure if it was the way his eyes were trained on me pleadingly or the fact that Jason was just as adamant. Jay was harder for me to be angry at than my father.
“Then who? Someone who works for you obviously had it out for me.”
A look passed between Jason and my father. They both stood up a little taller, bracing themselves for whatever they were going to reveal.
“Robert.”
I turned to Jason. “What?”
“Robert.” He paused. His eyes that looked so much like our father’s flicked over my head and then back on me. “He was up for a promotion, trying to make partner, and a favorable outcome for Jacob’s divorce would’ve helped his cause. He had you investigated by a private investigator to try and get information. That’s where the photos came from.”
I was floored. A private investigator? I’d been followed around for God knew how long. The thought made my skin crawl and made me furious at Robert Fuller. I began shaking my head.
“I still don’t understand. Why would he have me followed instead of Michele?” Michele Wyatt was Jacob Wyatt’s now ex-wife. It would make more sense for his attorney to have the soon-to-be ex-wife of his client followed than her lawyer.
“He did that as well.”
I turned to my father, who’d revealed that piece of information.
“He had both of you followed, but was able to dig up more dirt on you than on Michele. Once the case was finalized and didn’t go his way, he wanted payback.”
“Payback?” Why the hell would he want payback for me winning a case? We were attorneys; it's what we did, winning and losing cases all the damn time.
“He knew that we wanted you to work here at Combs and Combs, and eventually head up our family law division. He was hoping to get the promotion instead, so he thought it made sense to sabotage you,” Jason explained.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, gritting my teeth. I’d been humiliated over a petty jealous rivalry that I didn’t even know I was a part of. “Where’s Robert now?” I started towards the door, ready to confront Robert Fuller.
“He no longer works for Combs and Combs.”
I paused, turning to my father.
“He quit?” I asked, still distrustful. I heard Jason snort behind me, but kept my gaze focused on my father.
“He was let go,” he answered.
I rubbed my hand over my forehead, trying to gain hold of all the emotions flooding through me. I took another deep breath and blew it out before turning back toward the door.
“Where’re you going?” my father asked.
“To work,” I stated as if it should be obvious.
“Chanel, wait,” he said, and finally came out from behind his desk. “We need to talk about this, and about…” His voice took on a somber note as it trailed off.
I held up my hand, knowing what he was going to say. Ethan. He wanted to talk about my ex-fiancé. Specifically, the information that was in the article. For weeks, I’d avoided calls from Jason and his wife, Tori, and my father and his wife, Marjorie. I made it clear to my office if any of them stopped by, they were to say I was out. I even had the security of my building not to let anyone except Gabby up to my condo.
“Not now,” I said, before turning and quickly exiting. I didn’t get more than three steps down the hallway before I felt a tug on my arm.
“Chanel, hold on,” Jason implored. “We need to fucking talk. You’ve been avoiding this shit for weeks.” The anger was evident in his voice.
“Jason, I need to get to work. We can talk later.”
“Later when? You’ve been ignoring all our calls. X hasn’t spoken to you.”
Dammit. He just had to bring Xavier up, didn’t he?
“Jason, I…”
“Just come to my office,” he stated, pulling me by the elbow.
“Fine,” I agreed.
“Now,” he began as we arrived in his large corner office at the opposite end of the hallway, and closed the door. “You need to explain this, because what I read and saw in that article…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “It’s not making sense.”
I crossed my arms. “What do you want me to explain?”
“Is it true?” he asked, looking me directly in the eye. Jason looked so much like my father that it almost felt like I was speaking to him as well. And I pretty much was, since whatever I told Jason, I knew would get back to my father. The two were that tight; they told each other just about everything.
“Yes.”
His head fell as if he’d been hoping the article was somehow made up, police records falsified and the pictures of my bruised face and body somehow altered or Photoshopped. No. That part of the article was true. So, I decided to focus on what wasn’t true.
“But I’d never let my history impact how I handled a case. Everything revealed about Jacob Wyatt was true, both he and Michele admitted. He owned up to putting his hands on his wife. I was not some bitter attorney seeking revenge against all men.” I needed to make that clear. My brother looked up at me as if I had two heads.
“Nel, I know that,” he responded, using the nickname he used to call me when we were children. “You don’t have to convince me of your professionalism. I always knew you’d make a great attorney.”
That shocked the hell out of me.
“You did?”
“Hell yeah, it’s in your blood.” He cracked a smile. “I remember watching as you used to debate with Ma why you shouldn’t be made to do some chore around the house, or learning to cook instead of joining the debate club.” We both grinned. “But I will say, you shouldn’t be going to clients’ homes and giving out your private cell number to try and rescue them in the dead of night. That wasn’t professional. Not to mention, dangerous as hell.”
I sighed loudly. Jason and I had never spoken about that night at Anne Marie’s. “I know. That was my fault and trust me, my bosses came down hard on me for that after what happened to Anne Marie.”
“As they should’ve. That’s not only a liability waiting to happen; you could’ve gotten killed!”
“I know, all right? It won’t happen again.” Why did I feel like a scolded school child? How had this conversation shifted?
It got quiet. Awkwardly so. I knew Jason’s mind had gone back to that article. He wanted me to reveal more about Ethan and what happened between him and me, but I wasn’t ready to go there. So, I did what I normally do when shit gets too deep. I decided it was time to make my exit.
“Jay, I’ll give Tori a call later this week to come over for dinner or something, all right?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You know this discussion is far from over, right? I mean, I haven’t even brought up Xavier yet, who I’ve barely seen in three weeks since all this happened.”
Again. He just had to mention Xavier. That familiar ache in my chest began whenever I pictured those coffee colored eyes.
“I’m not even going there. I have to get to work.”
“And that’s another discussion we need to have. When are you coming to work for Combs and Combs?”
I sighed. “Are you serious? How can I come and work for Combs and Combs after everything that’s happened in the last few weeks?”
“Why not? Robert’s bitch ass doesn’t work here anymore.”
The venom in my brother’s voice at the mention of Robert surprised me.
I shook my head. “We’ll talk later, Jay.”
He stared at me for a few heartbeats before finally answering. “All right, but like I said, this discussion is not over.”
I didn’t bother responding. I simply allowed Jason to pull me into a hug. He held on for longer than our usual parting hugs. I squeezed him around the waist before he finally withdrew. I gave him a half-smile before turning to leave. Just as my hand touched the doorknob, he stated, “You know he’d never do that to you, right? Dad, I mean.”
I paused, remembering my dream from this morning, then looked over my shoulder. “He wasn’t the same father to me that he was to you, Jay.”
Jason nodded, running his hand over his closely shaved head. “I know, Nel.”
I finally exited my brother’s office. In the hallway, I paused, looking down to my father’s office. A piece of me wanted to go back and speak with my father. To apologize for the way I stormed into his office, but pride is a bitch. Instead, I turned and walked out the main door.