How to Divorce a Billionaire novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Retainer
Hannah walks into a Thackeray Tower pitch and finds the groom from the clerk's office, who hires her to handle 'his divorce'; her own managing partner's name is on the petition calling her the purchased bride.
On Monday morning my managing partner told me to put on my good suit.
He said Thackeray Holdings had asked for me by name.
I had never heard of a client asking for me by name.
I rode the elevator to the fortieth floor of Thackeray Tower.
My file bag hung on my shoulder and my coffee went cold in my hand.
The name on the wall was the same name on the marriage certificate in my mother's kitchen drawer.
I told myself it was a common name.
It was not a common name.
A receptionist walked me down a long glass hall to a corner office.
"Mr. Thackeray is ready for you, Ms. Drexler."
Four people in dark suits sat along the wall of the room.
A man stood at the window with his back to me.
He was tall and his shoulders filled the charcoal jacket.
He turned around.
I had seen that face three years and seven months ago, in a hallway at the Cook County Clerk's office.
He had gray eyes and a scar through his left eyebrow.
He had said, "Do you understand the terms?" and I had said yes, and he had signed his name under mine.
Then he walked out of my life and I walked out with a receipt that said my mother's surgery was paid for.
"Ms. Drexler," Jonas Thackeray said.
His voice was lower than I remembered.
"Mr. Thackeray," I said.
My own voice came out steady, which surprised me.
"Thank you for coming on short notice."
"My partner said you asked for me."
"I did."
He walked to his desk and did not sit.
"I need a divorce lawyer."
One of the dark suits shifted in his chair.
I put my coffee on the corner of the desk before my hand could shake it.
"Then you want the senior family partner," I said. "I do litigation."
"I know what you do."
He opened a folder and slid it toward me.
Inside was my bar admission, my firm bio, and a copy of my last three trial wins.
He had been reading about me.
"I need someone who knows the marriage better than anyone in this building," he said. "Someone who has read the contract."
The four suits stared at the carpet.
"Do these people know who I am?" I asked slowly.
"Everyone in this room signs a confidentiality agreement every January," he said. "Speak freely."
I looked at him.
"You want me to represent you," I said, "against myself."
"I want you to represent me against my uncle."
He put a second folder on top of the first.
The caption read, In re the Marriage of Jonas Thackeray and Hannah Drexler, Petition to Annul.
"Leland Thackeray filed this on Friday," he said.
"He says our marriage was a sham, bought and paid for."
"And that the wife was a hired woman."
"I was," I said.
The word sat in the room.
"You signed a contract," he said. "You did not sell anything."
"Then why am I being named in a petition I've never seen?"
"Because he wants my shares, and the only way to my shares is through you."
He said it quietly.
He did not say sorry.
I picked up the petition and read the first page standing up.
On page two, my hands stopped.
The petitioner's attorney of record was the managing partner of my own firm.
He had sent me here this morning with a smile and a pat on the shoulder.
He had known what the folder said when he told me to wear my good suit.
I read the line a second time.
It called me the purchased bride.
I looked up and every suit in the room was watching my face.
"Does my firm know you hired me?" I asked.
"Not yet."
"Then you've put me on the wrong side of my own employer, in front of four witnesses, before I've said yes."
"Yes," Jonas said.
Not a flicker of apology.
I should have walked out.
I had the bar number, the file bag and the door right in front of me.
Instead I took out a pen and set it on the folder between us.
"My terms," I said.
His mouth moved, barely.
"Name them."
"I bill by the hour at the rate on my firm's schedule, paid to me and not to my firm."
"Done."
"Nobody pays me to leave or to lie, and if your uncle's people offer, I tell you the number."
"Done."
"And in front of your staff I'm your lawyer, nothing else."
His gray eyes held mine.
"Ms. Drexler," he said, "that is all you have ever been to this room."
I felt my own pulse in my throat.
"Then it's a deal," I said.
I signed the retainer standing at his desk.
He signed under me, the same way he had at the clerk's office, and his hand was steady.
Then he said one more thing.
"My uncle has someone outside your building right now," he said. "Do not go home tonight."
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