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Three years had passed since I left college.

Three fucked up years I’d given my life to a man who had promised to be my world. For our entire marriage, my husband, Clayton, did everything he could to sneak around on me.

After holding me back, after convincing me it would be okay to leave college to help take care of my mother, he was now leaving me for a younger model, his secretary, as if that wasn’t cliché enough, while also attempting to renege on the prenuptial agreement that promised me several million dollars for his playboy ways.

Even worse, he’d chosen to file for divorce three short months after my father died. I was already broken to lose him so soon after my mom, and Clayton’s declaration that he was leaving me was like getting kicked in the belly when I was already down.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I’d learned this morning that Clayton had finally hired an attorney to represent him. Much to my surprise - and anger - he’d chosen the biggest bastard of them all, a bastard I’d hoped to never see again for the rest of my life. Tanner Caine.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wrap my head around how Clayton had convinced Tanner to take the case.

While I sat at a table in the front of a large courtroom, I watched Tanner approach with my soon to be ex-husband strutting beside him. My fingernails dug into the wooden armrests of the chair, my teeth grinding together loud enough for my attorney to hear them.

“Don’t even look at him, Luca. Tanner’s not as much of a god as he likes to think. And that slimeball husband of yours is about to learn his Senator daddy can’t make all his problems go away. The prenuptial agreement is invalid. Clayton will pay you for what he’s done.”

Tearing my eyes away from Tanner’s arrogant smirk, an expression that tossed me directly back into a past nightmare, the no-nonsense expression of Marjorie Stoneman filled my vision.

A goddess among divorce lawyers, she’d represented every high profile marital split where assets ranged in the millions and billions. Celebrities, politicians, CEOs, it didn’t matter. If the asshole husband in the cases she worked wanted to keep so much as his dick in the divorce, he quickly learned how to bargain.

“I don’t even know why that jackass is in the courtroom. He handles corporate mergers when he actually deigns to work a file in his office. And never have I seen him take a divorce case.”

Platinum blond hair slipping over her shoulder, Marjorie snuck a glance at the two men as they slipped through the half door leading into the front portion of the courtroom.

Thankfully, Clayton was able to work a deal where media wasn’t allowed in the room, and the only people sitting on the viewing benches were his father’s campaign manager and another man I assumed was part of his father’s team. Clayton’s father was up for re-election in four months. For that reason, I knew he needed to keep these proceedings quick and quiet.

“Marjorie.”

Softly rolling thunder shook the air around us, a deep voice resonating over every cell in my body. The timber of Tanner’s words always had an effect on me. Except where other woman had melted into puddles over their expensive brand name shoes to hear it, I’d been the girl smart enough to run.

Unable to look up from the gouged scar carved into the dark oak respondent’s table, I saw Marjorie turn in my peripheral vision, her hand smoothing down her cream colored skirt to find Tanner watching her closely.

“Mr. Caine. How nice to see you’re still practicing law. I thought being a playboy was more your style. And in an area you have zero practice litigating. Does Mr. Hughes know you’ve never worked a domestic case before?”

I couldn’t decide if Marjorie was brave or stupid. There stood Tanner, the menacing, angry, sharp toothed bear, and she was poking him with a stick as thick and lethal as my pinky finger.

His calm laughter forced a chill down my spine, the cold spreading lower until my legs were overrun with pins and needles.

“Mr. Hughes is well aware of my abilities, Marjorie.” He paused long enough for my gaze to slide his direction, “As is Mrs. Hughes, if I’m not mistaken.”

Asshole.

With his signature smirk, Tanner broke our stare to look at my attorney. “Try not to worry your pretty little head over it.”

My eyes clenched shut and I could feel the indignant heat radiating from Marjorie. Tanner hadn’t been in the room longer than five minutes and already he’d gotten under her skin. But I had to have faith. She was a bulldog skilled in handling men just like Tanner. This wasn’t her first rodeo.

Adjusting her posture, Marjorie tapped a set of perfectly polished fingernails over the table.

“I’m glad to hear you’ve been forthcoming, especially when up against a woman of my caliber. The case speaks for itself. Mrs. Hughes has been nothing but the perfect wife. Your client, however…”

Her voice trailed off before she grinned and added, “The prenuptial agreement is invalid due to his inability to keep it in his pants. I’m not sure why I’m even wasting my time here today. Have you taken a moment to review the facts of this matter?”

Before Tanner could answer, a bailiff entered the room through a door near the judge’s bench. “All rise. The Ninth Circuit Court is now in session. The Honorable Franklin T. Mast presiding.”

On shaking legs, I stood from my seat, my eyes studiously glued to the top of the judge’s bald head. The last place I wanted to look was in Tanner’s direction, yet I found my eyes dragging right regardless.

Now standing behind the petitioner’s table, he wore a black pinstriped suit with a white shirt and sapphire blue tie. Tapping a pen against the side of his leg, he appeared relaxed in his environment, the king of this courtroom as much as he’d been the king on campus. I knew exactly why Clayton had run to Tanner to handle our case, but what I couldn’t figure out was how much bootlicking Clayton must have done to convince Tanner to agree to it.

We had history, the three of us. A history that began with the mistake of climbing in Tanner’s bed, and ending with my marriage to Clayton. Those two hated each other by the time I left college. Now they were standing side by side in their bid to destroy me.

“Be seated.”

The judge pulled a few papers from the desk in front of him, and I hadn’t yet relaxed into my chair by the time Tanner glanced over at me. In the split second our eyes locked, my heart climbed into my throat, the frantic beats a pulse beneath my chin that were visible from where Tanner was standing. The smug curl to his lips told me as much.

Leaning back, I used Marjorie as a wall between us. I preferred the sight of her platinum hair to the black silk of Tanner’s. Grey eyes peered at me, a plucked brow arching in question. Shaking my head at her unspoken inquiry, I directed my gaze forward, barely able to restrain the urge I had to sink lower in my chair.

“It looks to me we’re here today on the matter of Hughes vs. Hughes, Petitioner’s Motion to Enforce The Prenuptial Agreement due to Extramarital Affair.”

Marjorie’s expression twisted, the red haze to her cheeks telling me something had already gone wrong. Standing from her seat, she cast a sharp glance at Tanner before speaking. “Your Honor, we’re here today on Respondent’s Motion to Compel. I set this hearing myself.”

The judge conferred with his court clerk briefly, but I already knew Marjorie was in for an upsetting surprise. A smug grin tilted the corner of Tanner’s mouth, a sure sign that whatever Marjorie believed would happen today wouldn’t. Light bounced off the top of the judge’s head when he answered her. “I have correspondence here cancelling your hearing, together with a notice of cancellation filed this morning with the Court.”

Eye’s wide, Marjorie went stock still.

“May I approach the bench, Your Honor? I’m not sure what you’re referring to because I am certain I haven’t cancelled my hearing.”

“Both counsel may approach.”

While Marjorie stormed forward to review the documents the judge claimed to have received from her office, Tanner took his time rising from his seat and rounding the corner of his table. As soon as he looked my direction, I knew the game he was playing. With a wink, he told me I’d lost already.

Tanner’s arrogant swagger hadn’t changed since I last saw him. With broad shoulders, a tight waist, and careless black hair that appeared brushed by fingers alone, he approached the bench with the casual ease of a man out for a late afternoon stroll.

Marjorie, on the other hand, was practically in hysterics. For a bulldog attorney accustomed to powerful men, she was already losing the battle against Tanner. A hushed conversation occurred, my attention lost to the dread of my circumstances. There was no way in Hell this would work to my advantage.

The conference ended as Marjorie spun to storm in my direction, the feet of her chair screeching over marble floors from her weight. On a whisper, she told me what I already knew.

“I don’t know what is going on here, Luca, but I can promise you I did not cancel our motion today. The judge is allowing Tanner’s motion to be heard, but he’ll withhold judgment until I have a chance to find out how this scheduling snafu happened.”

There was no point in telling her how it happened. Anybody who knew the Inferno would easily guess that their resident hacker, Taylor Marks, had his hands all over this.

The urge to lay my head on the table was too much. I closed my eyes instead, tears stinging the rims that I refused to shed. Marjorie continued whispering, but her voice was an inaudible hum, the judge’s voice accompanying hers when he gave Tanner permission to proceed with Clayton’s bid to enforce the terms of the prenup.

None of the words made sense to me, everything mashing together into an incomprehensible stew of white noise punctuated by the beat of my broken heart.

“...Petitioner would like to call a witness.” My eyes snapped open. A witness? To what? Damn it. I should have been paying attention.

Marjorie leaned my direction, her hissed whisper that of a cracking whip. “Is there something you need to tell me, Luca?”

“I don’t know what’s going on.” The whispered admission was hard to choke out, my stomach rolling over the painful boulder my breakfast had become.

Bile crept up my throat, sweat beading at my temples.

Marjorie scoffed. “Did you or did you not have an affair with the man currently approaching the witness stand?”

“What?”

My head snapped up, eyes focusing on a middle aged man I’d never seen in my life. With thinning, brown hair and a ruddy complexion, the man walked with an unsteady gait, his large belly folding over the waistband of his cheap black linen slacks.

I had no idea who the man was, but I had no doubt Tanner had convinced him to lie and claim I cheated on my husband. My stomach threatened to heave, the acidic taste of bile now coating my tongue. That son of a bitch.

THAT SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!

“I’m going to be sick.”

Taking my cue, Marjorie shot to her feet. “Your Honor, my client feels quite ill and needs to use the restroom. May we take a short recess before the witness’ testimony begins?”

Obviously put out by the interruption, the judge’s expression softened to look at me. Breathing out, he waved his hand at the witness. “Return to the viewing gallery, Mr. Hillcox. Court will take a fifteen minute recess.”

I couldn’t wait another second. Dashing from my chair, I cleared out of the courtroom to run down the hall and burst into the bathroom. I’d barely reached a stall before my stomach gave, bacon and eggs coming up with the acidic tinge of disaster.

Tears streamed down my cheeks and my hands shook over the seat of the toilet. After three painful heaves, the sudden illness had passed, the muscles of my stomach locked from the violence of vomiting. Behind me, the bathroom door creaked open, the sharp click of Marjorie’s heels marching in my direction.

Her knuckles rapped on the stall door. “Are you going to be okay?” Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “Yes. I just need a few minutes to clean up.”

Silence settled for a brief moment, then: “Tell me you didn’t have an affair, Luca. That’s all I need to know.”

More tears escaped my eyes, burning their way down my cheeks to drip from my jaw. “I didn’t have an affair. I have no idea who that man is. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

“Perfect. That’s all I need to hear. I’m going down the hall to make a few phone calls. Take your time cleaning up and I’ll see you in the courtroom.”

The sound of her retreating steps was followed by the creak of the door. Silence filled the bathroom for several minutes while I gathered myself together. Normally, I would have fought tooth and nail against an accusation as false as an affair. If anybody cheated, it was Clayton. Yet, with Tanner mixed into this, I knew any battle I fought would be a losing one.

When the door creaked again and footsteps entered, I pushed myself to my feet to clean up and leave. I wasn’t in a rush to return to court and hear the lies they would level against me. But not showing up at all would only make things worse.

After exiting the stall, I turned a corner and stopped dead in my tracks to see Tanner leaning casually against a wall, his hands tucked into his pockets and his mouth quirked in lazy amusement.

“Long time no see, Luca.”

The deep tenor of his voice shook me to the core.

“Are you ready to make a deal?”