First Kiss (29 page)

Date: XXXXXXX

From: numbersgeek

To: vshelton@kleinschmidtbelker

Viv, supposedly it's not his fault. The grandmother sold it way back when and he didn't know. (Do you believe this? Not sure, myself.) But it doesn't matter! Our Julia has got it bad: she's STILL WEARING the ring, and says she doesn't care that it's fake. Why? Because HE gave it to her. I give up I'm going home. Can you at least get her to sign a prenup? I'm serious!!!!!!!

Syd

Viv stared in disbelief at the text. Julia was still wearing a fake ring! She logged off and shut her laptop with a snap. This was insane. This Roman guy must be damn good in bed to have her so deluded. He sounded like one hundred percent bad news, and if he was related to Kiki Douglas, whose face had been all over the tabloids lately, then he was a prize schmuck.

Julia needed a prenup, all right. The question was how to convince her of that. People in love and planning a wedding did not want to think about the ugly death of that love and the dissolution of the wedding. You couldn't really blame them.

Viv shuddered at the idea of grabbing Julia and telling her that the fabric, cut and design of her gown didn't matter, because she'd be burning it in a backyard bonfire in less than a year.

"Julia, honey," she saw herself saying, "don't worry that the doves they delivered for the event are both male. You'll be roasting them on the barbecue with veggie kabobs by Christmas." Or

"Sweetie, don't bother freezing the top of that cakeunless you want something heavy and icicle-encrusted with which to brain your husband after he absconds with your trust fund." Or

"Lacy white bridal lingerie imported from France? Don't spend the moneyunless you've got some red or purple dye on hand. You can transform them for your divorce trousseau."

Viv winced. Julia, the poor thing, wouldn't want to listen to any of this. But Vivien had seen the rough side of marriage. She dealt with it every day: the ugly accusations, the dirty little secrets, the infidelity, the asset hiding, the custody squabbleseven the occasional kidnapping of the miserable couple's children by one spouse.

Viv had seen some strange things. She'd attended a Divorce Dirge for a client of hers and downed a dirty martini as a doll of the ex-husband was burned in effigy.

A caterer client had baked a large, penis-shaped chocolate cake for a luncheon, serving a stunned Viv a good chunk of the balls on a china plate. The client had then thanked her in front of everyone for her great work.

And during one case the cheating SOB of a husband had propositioned Viv right in front of her client, his wife!

But Viv's mistrust of marriage went far deeper than her job. Not only were her own parents divorced, but their parents before them. She simply did not believe in marital bliss.

As the Lincoln pulled up in front of Klein, Schmidt and Belker's building, Viv pulled her things together. She got out with an unenthusiastic thanks to Maurice, who gunned the engine and pulled away before she even had the door closed. Then she schlepped inside.

The first face she saw that morning belonged to grumpy old Schmidt, whose yarmulke hung precariously from a bobby pin attached to one of three final strands of combed-over hair. Now, in Schmidt's favor, he'd been married to the same woman for forty-eight years.

But Viv had a suspicion that Mrs. Schmidt hung around more out of inertia and fear of the man's divorce-law expertise than out of any burning passion for him. And she'd long ago decided that Schmidt stayed with her due to a fondness for her chocolate babka cake and light touch with potato lat-kes. He was also far too fond of his money to part with any of it in a divorce.

Schmidt grunted at her and she nodded back as she passed him on her way to her office, navigating the sea of dark mahogany tables, tasteful green plants and leather seating.

Belker, the younger partner, had covered the walls of the firm with his dour, very minor, old-master Flemish paintings, which Viv referred to collectively as the sourpusses. Belky, unlike Schmidt, had been divorced twice and had given each wife a considerable amount of money for his freedom. But since the firm dumped more on him by the truckload, he didn't seem to mind overly much.

Unfortunately Belky had a thing for Viv's assistant Andie, a former client whom she'd hired in an unwise moment of sympathy. She'd negotiated a fabulous settlement for Andie, the bulk of which was her husband's 2.3-million-dollar house. Unfortunately he'd stopped making the insurance payments on it and burned it down with himself inside it.

Andie was terribly sweet and had a way with Viv's usually upset female clients, whom she plied with tea and sympathy and great gossip.

Belker was sitting on the corner of her desk with his scrawny knees apart when Viv appeared, his chest puffed out like a rooster's. "I had the judge in the palm of my hand," he said, eyeing Andie's plump assets in their tight black sweater. Had her purring ."

"Good morning," Viv interrupted him, hardly able to refrain from rolling her eyes.

" 'Morning!" Andie sang.

Belker nodded coolly and removed his vile, skinny buns from their perch. "Ah, Vivien," he said. "I have something to discuss with you."

Ugh . She didn't want to discuss anything with Belky other than a promotion and a raiseor taking some of the six weeks of vacation owed to her by the firm.

"Certainly, Howard," Viv told him, accepting the stack of phone messages Andie handed her.

Belky followed her into her office, picking at the dead skin on his left handcaused by his psoriasis.

She averted her gaze and crossed her arms in front of her, waiting for him to begin, as tiny little flakes of his flesh spiraled toward her carpet. The same carpet she walked on in stocking feet when she worked late.

"You may not be aware, Vivien, that I've just taken on the divorce case of one Samuel Buckheimer."

"Congratulations," she said, infusing her voice with just the right amount of cordiality.

"Yes, well. Sam owns a couple of large operations both here in New York and in Florida. Greyhound tracks. And he happened to come across your name as a large donor to"

Viv felt her face freezing. "Oh, he did, did he?"

"Yes. He was very pointed in his questioning. Frankly, it was embarrassing."

"Howard. While I feel for your being put in such a position, I must respectfully say that my personal donations or activities outside the firm are a private matter."

"I'd just like you to think about it, Vivien. Okay?"

"He's also being represented by you , not me."

"He's concerned about any of his money adding to er, your bottom line. Since you two are philosophically opposed," said Belky smoothly.

Viv gritted her teeth. "Yes, that we certainly are. I don't think that the torture, starvation and neglect of animals for profit is acceptable. Do you?"

Her boss ignored the question. "Great work on the Alderson case, by the way," he said to soften her up.

"Thank you."

"See you at the meeting later."

"Yes."

Viv glared at his hunched little back as he left her office, trailing more tiny bits of his decayed flesh. This wasn't the first run-in they'd had over work she did outside of Klein, Schmidt and Belker. As far as he was concerned, pro bono activities were a waste of time, unless they were accompanied by the firm's name in huge letters and reported in the media.

She'd learned that it was useless to lobby Klein,

Schmidt for charitable contributions, unless they involved a fat tax write-off and good spin.

Vivien sighed and began to return phone calls, eyeing the towering stack of briefs and files on her cre-denza. Just a little light reading to pass the time She glanced at her watch. She had less than twenty minutes before her first appointment.

She'd resolved a couple of issues with one client and left a message returning another one's call when Andie beeped through. "Miss Sydney Spinelli is on line four."

"Okay, thanks." Viv punched the button. "Syd? I was just going to call you."

"Vivien! How are you? How's your mother?"

"I'm fine. She's fine. You?"

"I'm great, actually." And SydSyd!actually giggled. "I'm still here in Fredericksburg. I've, uh, met someone."

"Well, I hope you're not going to marry the guy after a week," Viv said dryly.

"Not yet," Syd chirped.

Syd never chirped. She, like Viv, had studied the entire time that Viv, Julia and Sydney had spent at boarding school in Massachusetts. Well, she'd played field hockey, too. She'd never gotten into trouble, that was for sure. And she'd never been upbeat and bubbly, like her sister. But today, Sydney's voice could almost be mistaken for Julia's.

"Syd, what is going on down there in Texas? Julia's wearing this fake rock, and she believes this BS story about the grandmother hocking it without anyone's knowledge?"

"Yup. And I can't talk any sense into her. I've been accused of jealousy and meddling. And now that I've met Alex, I especially can't say anything to her, because she throws my own romance into my face. Viv, you're Julia's best friend. You're the Ball-Busting Bitch of Manhattan. The New York Post said so."

Viv glanced at the framed copy of the article that she'd proudly hung on her wall. Her lips twitched at the unflattering photo, which made her look like Dracula's trailer-trash mistress on a bender.

"You have to come down here and reason with her/' said Sydney. "At least get her to sign one of those ironclad prenups of yours. This Roman guy says he's head over heels for Julia, but he's expanding the family vineyard and looking for cash to do itI heard him say it myself. He thinks we're like a blue-collar version of the Hilton sisters: the Marv's Motor Inn heiresses."

"Syd, if she didn't respond well to you talking with her, she won't listen to me, either. I'm not even family."

"She'll listen to you because there's no sibling rivalry involved. And you're so frighteningly businesslike. You just tell her you want to protect her legally.

You say, Here, Julesy, sign on this dotted line and I'll take care of the rest.' "

Andie buzzed through. "Mrs. Bonana is here for your eight thirty."

"Okay, thanks," Viv told her. "Can you put her in one of the small conference rooms?"

"They're all full."

"Oh. All right. Send her in." Viv went back to Sydney. "Look, hon, I'm glad you think I'm frightening, but I doubt that even I can scare Julia into doing something she doesn't want to do. That dent in her chin means, as you very well know, that she's stubborn. And she's also a bona fide romantic. Plus, as usual, I'm up to the eyeballs in work right now, and I'll be lucky if I can get away to be there for the wedding."

Andie brought a dubiously sun-streaked brunette to her office door. Viv nodded and held up a finger.

"Please, Viv. You've got to do something."

"Syd, it sounds as if you might need a prenup soon yourself, doll."

"Oh, no. Alex is completely trustworthy."

Viv groaned. "See what I mean? And you don't think your sister will have the same reaction?"

"No, really, this is different."

How many times had Viv heard that before? "I've got to goI have an appointment."

"Please say you'll think about coming down and talking to her. I can't do anything else. It's all up to you."

"I'll think about it," Viv promised, more to get off the phone than anything else.

"Okay. Thanks."

She hung up the phone and smiled reassuringly at Mrs. Bonana, who looked a little manic and frayed around the edges. "Hi. I'm Vivien Shelton. What can I do for you?"