He'd told Gilbert he'd filed the new will, though he had no intention of ever doing so. The old will would stand, and his friend would thank him when he changed his mind.
The law was supposed to be blind. The people entrusted to dispense and defend it fiercely loyal. Joseph knew he wasn't allowed to judge his clients. He was obligated to be their instrument within the law. He'd done so without fail for almost thirty years.
But he couldn't file that document. He couldn't leave a loyal wife and mother with nothing, just because she'd signed a prenuptial agreement, and reward some silicone-enhanced bubblehead, who'd obviously given Gilbert some kind of drug to get him to change his will.
What an idiot. No decent man would bring such humiliation on his family. If his client hadn't already died, Joseph would have strangled him personally. But he was dead, and no one, save him, Millie and his law clerk, would ever know about the other will.
And maybe a Daytona Beach stripper.
He cast a quick glance around his pristine office. The oxblood-colored leather furniture, the calm landscape paintings, the solid mahogany desk and cabinets, the books, awards and objets d' art. He'd both inherited and earned them. His experience with the law gave him a perspective that escaped most men. He deserved to right a few more wrongs.
Millie's eyes filled with tears. "He said he was leaving me. He was going to marry her."
"He didn't." Thank God. Then Joseph really would have had a mess on his hands. "How are the boys holding up?" he asked in an effort to shift the subject.
Millie clenched her hands in her lap. She glanced nervously around his office. "They're … embarrassed. The kids at school have obviously heard the … rumors. The … circumstances. Of course half the teasing comes with a pleaded introduction to that woman."
Millie had two sons at Georgia Tech and another who had established a thriving family practice in the suburbs. How Joseph would have liked one of his girls to see the doctor's appeal. Of course Angelica had married well, and Vanessa … Well, there was no telling that child anything.
"The scandal will pass," he said to Millie. "Brian has been a wonderful family spokesman. You've done such a great job-"
"Are all men led around by their dicks?" she bit out, jumping to her feet.
Joseph flinched at her tone and crude language. Millie was the epitome of a proper, elegant Southern lady, though he supposed she had a right to her anger.
"No, Millie," he said, rising and moving around the desk toward her. "They're not. Something happened to Gilbert. She drugged him-"
She barked out a laugh. "Right."
"-or he was going through some kind of crisis." He grasped her hands in his. "He would have come to his senses. I'm sure of it. He would have come back on his knees, begging you to forgive him, grateful to have such a beautiful wife."
She glanced down at their joined hands, then back up at him. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Joseph."
He could smell her expensive perfume. He fought against unwanted desire. "You're strong, Millie. You're going to survive this."
She took a deep breath, then turned away. "I guess." She walked across his office and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond her, he could see the Atlanta skyline. An expanse of gray-blue sky set against a collection of vertical steel columns. He knew if he looked down he'd see the familiar hustle and bustle of the city. The whole business made him tired.
Maybe he really was getting old.
"I almost hired a gigolo last night," Millie said quietly.
"You what?"
She turned to look at him over her shoulder. A smile hovered at her lips. "A gigolo. A man you pay to have sex with you."
"Good God, Millie. What are you thinking? Now's not the time-"
"To let my libido do the thinking? You're wrong, Joseph, now's the perfect time."
The sexual tension in the room was palpable. Joseph had been tempted before-what man could say he hadn't?-but he'd never betrayed his wife. A man had a duty to his family, an obligation to loyalty. Despite the strayings of his clients and contemporaries, he had no intention of bringing down scandal on his family or disrespect on himself and his firm.
He had to regain control of this meeting. "I know this has been a nightmare for you, but revenge isn't the answer. You'll regret it later."
"I don't see how."
Great. How would that look? If the stripper did challenge the will, he certainly didn't need the grieving widow holed up in a local hotel with some hired lothario.
"Just go about your normal routine. Wait until we get this will through probate."
"Okay." She sniffed, then flung herself into his arms. "Oh, Joseph, what am I going to do? I'm so miserable!"
With that, his wife walked into his office.
5
LUCAS SWIVELED HIS home-office chair to face the window behind his desk. Towering steel buildings dotted the skyline. Heavy, charcoal clouds hovered behind them. Rain would undoubtedly ruin trips to the lake and pool in the afternoon. Afterward, the humidity wouldn't decrease. It would just produce steam. Summertime in the South.He had projects to work on-a pro bono case he was pursuing for a widow, calls to make regarding the law student he was mentoring-but he didn't move.
Where is she now?
In his mind, he watched her turn, glance at him over her shoulder and smile. He smiled in return. He walked slowly toward her; he stroked her cheek, pushing her hair back behind her ear … .
Though he knew obsessing about Vanessa was a bad idea, he indulged himself anyway. He recalled her enthusiasm for her business, her playful indulgence with the party guests, her rapturous expressions as they made love.
Pick up the phone.
No.
He couldn't logically explain his sudden reluctance to find out who she was. But he trusted his instincts. The fantasy, the mystery of last night still hovered in the air like rolling fog. He didn't want the clouds to clear.
Ridiculous.
Resolving to get to Vanessa later, he shook off the ghosts of trepidation and turned to his computer. With the odd encounter at the party last night between him and "Anthony," the drunk junior executive from Douglas and Alderman, foremost in his mind, he searched Google for the attorneys, starting with Douglas.
What was going on with the ultraconservative firm? Generations of moldy money and community respect could produce scandal, but it was generally quiet. An embezzling charge or two, infidelity occasionally, a trust fund purged for drugs once in a while. Unfortunately, it happened in every community.
From Douglas and Alderman, however, he hadn't heard a whisper of negative gossip. They appeared to staunchly support their clients, discreetly defended them in court when necessary-which was hardly ever-and quietly cashed the checks of the privileged as reward for a job well done.
He couldn't imagine what had convinced a junior partner to babble on about something amiss at the firm that was his livelihood.
It had to be something big. Ya can't have two wills. Ya just can't. Two wills-at least for one person-was definitely not a good thing. For a lawyer or a beneficiary.
In the computer search, unsurprisingly, the Douglas Foundation came up first. It, after all, was the only Douglas enterprise that actually wanted publicity. Of only the respectable kind.
He skimmed through a couple of articles about monetary recipients from the foundation-the United Way, the Cancer Society, the children's hospital among them. All were respectable and expected. He glanced at a few posed publicity photographs lifted from newspapers, featuring the foundation's director, Elise Douglas, who looked vaguely familiar.
He moved on to sites specifically mentioning the firm of Douglas and Alderman. There wasn't much. Their primary objective was, after all, discretion. A lawsuit won here and there that had minor public interest. A client caught in an affair-with-the-secretary scandal, where the firm tried-unsuccessfully-to get their guy custody of his two children.
The firm didn't even have a Web site.
Next, he checked on the other name Anthony had mentioned-Switzer. He found some articles there. Gilbert Switzer was a prominent neurosurgeon, who'd been praised for both his medical skills and generosity, giving often to the art museum. He and his wife, Millicent, were high-society pillars, obviously moving in the same elite circles as the Douglases. There was even a picture of the four of them together at the opening of the new cardiac wing of a downtown hospital.