How to Divorce a Billionaire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Prep

Jonas preps her to testify and the kitchen between them catches fire; she stops the kiss, and a process server delivers a bar complaint from her own firm.

I read all forty-three letters before sunrise.

They were short and plain, and not one of them asked me for anything.

He wrote that he had gone to the clerk's office every year on March 3 and sat in his car outside.

He wrote that my mother's room number was 614.

He wrote that he was sorry I had to sign a paper to save her.

At six I went downstairs with the whole stack in my arms.

Jonas stood in the kitchen in a gray T-shirt, pouring black coffee into two mugs.

I stopped in the doorway because I had never seen his forearms.

"You wrote me forty-three letters," I said, "and mailed none."

"The contract said no contact unless you started it."

"The contract also said the number belonged to your attorney."

"I wrote my number on it myself."

"I thought it was a template."

He put the mug in front of me.

It was black, no sugar, and exactly how I take it.

I stared at the cup.

"How do you know that?"

"Your mother told the nurse on six," he said. "She told me."

I wanted to be furious.

What I felt was something much worse, and I drank the coffee instead.

"We prepare for the hearing," I said.

"We do."

"I'm going to cross you the way Leland's lawyer will."

"I would expect nothing less."

He sat across the island.

I opened a legal pad and made my voice flat and cold.

"Mr. Thackeray, in the spring of 2023, did you pay Hannah Drexler four hundred and twelve thousand dollars?"

"I paid St. Luke's Hospital."

"On her behalf."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I needed a wife that week."

"Why her?"

"She had a reason to say yes."

He said it evenly.

I wrote it down and my pen pressed too hard.

"Did you want her?" I asked, which was not on my list.

The kitchen went very still.

Jonas looked at me for a long moment.

"That's not a question their lawyer would ask."

"Yes, it is."

"Then yes," he said.

My pulse jumped in my wrists.

"Yes to which?"

"Yes, I wanted her."

He turned the mug a quarter turn on the marble.

"I wanted her the day she signed. I wanted her in that hallway."

"I have wanted her for three years and seven months, and done nothing about it."

"She signed a paper to save her mother, and I was the man who made her sign."

I put down my pen.

I could not feel my fingers.

"That's an answer a jury would believe," I said.

"It's the true one."

He stood.

He came around the island slowly.

"Ms. Drexler, I am your client," he said. "Tell me to sit down."

I looked at his mouth.

I looked at the scar through his eyebrow.

I did not tell him to sit down.

He stopped one step away, close enough that I smelled coffee and soap and him.

"Tell me," he said.

"I don't want you to sit down," I said.

His hand came up and cupped my jaw.

His thumb moved across my bottom lip, once, rough and careful.

Then his mouth was on mine.

It was not careful.

He kissed me, and I made a sound I had never made in my life.

I was off the stool and against the island with his hand spread at the small of my back.

His other hand fisted in my hair and tilted my head, and he took the kiss deeper.

I got my hands into the hem of his T-shirt and felt hot skin and hard muscle under my palms.

He growled against my mouth and lifted me onto the counter.

My knees opened around his hips.

I felt him, hard against me through two layers of cloth, and I rocked into it before I could think.

"Hannah," he said into my neck, rough, and it was the first time he had said my name like that.

That was the sound that saved me.

I put both hands flat on his chest.

"You're my client," I said, breathless.

He went still.

"I'm your counsel in a case where I'm also a party," I said.

"If this goes any further, their lawyer burns me with it."

For a long second he did not move.

Then he stepped back and set me down on my feet.

His chest rose and fell, and his eyes were nearly black.

"Understood," he said.

His voice shook.

At that moment the doorbell rang.

The housekeeper's footsteps hurried to the door.

I tugged my blouse straight and picked up my pen.

A man in a gray raincoat walked into the kitchen behind her with a clipboard.

"Hannah Drexler?" he said.

"Yes."

He handed me a thick envelope.

I read the top line while Jonas stood behind me, close and silent.

It was a formal complaint to the Illinois attorney disciplinary board, asking that my license be suspended for conflict of interest.

The complainant was my own law firm.

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