Claire and Nicholas After Divorce novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Drake

Nicholas and his mother arrive at midnight to drag Claire home, and instead she hands him divorce papers.

The car took me to the Drake, and Audrey was waiting at the top of the stairs in the lobby.

She wore a black suit and her red bob was perfect, though it was nine at night.

"You look terrible," she said. "Good. That means you finally did it."

She put her arm through mine and walked me to the elevator.

Her suite was on the eleventh floor, and a tray of tea and sandwiches sat waiting.

I ate two sandwiches standing up.

Audrey laid a folder on the table.

"The papers are drafted. Uncontested. You take nothing from him."

"I don't want the house."

"I know. Sign here and here."

I signed with the hotel pen, and my hand did not shake.

Then I put my face in my hands for a little while.

Audrey poured the tea and let me.

At midnight someone pounded on the door.

"Claire!" Nicholas shouted. "Open this door!"

Audrey raised one eyebrow.

"The family plan," I said. "He tracked my phone."

I opened the door myself.

Nicholas stood there with his tie pulled loose and his mother beside him in her good coat.

"Come home," he said. "You've made your point."

"I haven't made a point."

"You humiliated me in front of my dean!"

"You humiliated yourself. I only read it out."

He pushed past me into the suite and stopped when he saw Audrey.

"Who are you?"

"A friend," Audrey said. "Sit or stand, it's all the same to me."

Judith stayed in the doorway with her chin up.

"I knew it," she said. "A suite at the Drake on your first night out. Who is paying for this, Claire?"

"I am."

"With what?" she said. "You have a laptop and a freelance contract. My son took you out of a rented room with a hot plate."

"I did not have a hot plate."

"You had nothing," Judith said. "He gave you a name and a home. Say sorry to him."

I walked to the table and picked up the folder.

"The papers are signed on my side."

I held them out.

Nicholas did not take them.

"I'm not signing that."

"Read the terms."

He read the first page, and then he read it again.

"No contact except through lawyers," he said. "You're serious."

"I didn't ask for money. I didn't ask for the house. I asked for you to leave me alone."

"A judge will see you left a faithful husband over one text."

"One text," I said. "And four months of them."

Judith stepped forward.

"Girls like you always do this. You find a good man and you wait for the first crack. You get a lawyer and you take half."

"I'm taking nothing."

"Nobody takes nothing."

Nicholas finally lifted his eyes from the page.

"You're doing this to punish me. You'll be back in a week. You have no one, Claire."

"I have a few people."

Audrey lifted her teacup an inch.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

He took it out to silence it and then he did not silence it.

I watched his face change.

"It's from the dean," he said.

"What does it say?"

He read it aloud in a flat voice.

"Please come to my office Thursday at nine. Bring your studio rosters and expect a formal review. The attached messages were forwarded to me tonight."

He looked up.

"You sent him the messages."

"In the elevator," I said. "He was already holding your phone. I thought he'd want the rest."

"Those are private!"

"They were private when you were sending them."

Judith made a small choking noise.

"My son has spent eleven years earning that tenure."

"Then he should have kept his hands off the student who wrote 'poor thing.'"

I said it quietly.

Nicholas took a step toward me, and Audrey stood up.

She was five foot four, and she stepped between us anyway.

"That's close enough," she said.

"Who are you to tell me anything?"

"The person whose phone is already open to the hotel's security desk."

He backed off.

His hands were opening and closing.

"You can't afford a lawyer," he said. "You can't afford this room. You can't afford one month without me."

I opened the door wider.

"Take your mother home, Nicholas."

"I'm not signing."

"Then my lawyers will make you."

Judith's pearls rattled as she swung around.

"Come on, darling. She's gone mad. We'll find you a real lawyer in the morning."

They walked to the elevator.

Nicholas looked back once.

He wanted me to cry, or call him back.

I closed the door.

Audrey locked it, and then she held up her phone so I could see the screen.

"Your father's office called twice while they were shouting."

"It's midnight."

"His assistant said it was urgent."

She turned the phone around again.

"Gerald knows you're back," she said.

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