Kate's Vow (Vows) Read Free Page B

football and soccer. He has an Olympic-size pool in the backyard. If he expresses an interest in anything, he’s signed up for lessons. Our housekeeper spends more time driving him around town than she does taking care of the house. He goes to the best private school in all of Los Angeles.”
    “I’m delighted your housekeeper is so dutiful. But frankly, for all the attention you’ve been paying him yourself, I’m surprised you don’t have him in boarding school,” she snapped back, clearly unimpressed by everything that had come before.
    He cringed at that. He actually had considered boarding school at one point during Alicia’s illness, but she had protested vehemently, had made him promise that Davey would never be sent away from home. He regarded this woman—Kate Newton, according to the paper she’d handed him—as if she were some sort of witch for having zeroed in on his single biggest weakness as a parent, his desire to deal with his anguish in his own time, in his own way…alone. And his ardent wish to spare his son from having to cope with one single instant of his own dark depression.
    “I think you’d better go now,” he said with quiet resolve, refusing to give in to his desire to shout at the top of his lungs. There was a tremendous temptation to take out months of pent-up frustration and grief on a woman he’d just met, because she was tearing open all of the raw wounds that time had not yet healed. He gestured toward the door. “You can show yourself out, I’m sure.” He started for the workroom in back.
    “We’re not through,” she retorted, staying right where she was. The low, natural command in her voice halted him in his tracks.
    He turned slowly to face her. “I think we are, Ms. Newton. I’ve heard just about enough of your outlandish accusations. This business about representing a ten-year-old in a divorce proceeding against a parent is garbage. Any court in the country would laugh you out the door.”
    “Sorry. A child in Orlando won in a similar case just last fall. I’m surprised you didn’t read about it. It was in all the papers.” She glanced around, apparently taking in the elaborate, futuristic sketches pinned to the corkboard walls for the first time. “Of course, perhaps you don’t live in the real world with the rest of us.”
    “So that’s it,” he said, finally beginning to get a glimmer of understanding about what had driven this woman to charge into his office like an avenging angel. If it wasn’t money, then it had to be publicity. In the long run, one well-placed story in the Los Angeles paper and picked up by the wire services and networks would equal money in the bank.
    He shook his head in disgust. “God knows how you zeroed in on Davey, but you probably took some innocent remark he made and latched on to it because you knew the case would generate a lot of publicity. Are you that desperate to get your career off the ground?”
    Instead of lashing back with the fury he’d half expected, she simply laughed. To his bewilderment, the amusement seemed genuine. And the sound of that laughter did astonishing things to his pulse rate, stirred it in a way that all that yelling had not.
    “Mister, I don’t need the publicity,” she retorted bluntly. “I get more than my share. That’s how your son chose me. He read about my last case in the paper. As for the validity of the agreement David and I have, you have the retainer he signed. I think under the circumstances it would hold up in court.” She shrugged. “But if that’s not good enough for you, go home and ask him what he wants, ask him why he felt the need to retain a lawyer in the first place. At least, that’s one way to assure that the two of you actually sit down and have a long-overdue conversation.”
    The sarcastic barb hit home, just as she’d obviously intended. Suddenly filled with despair as he realized that this situation wasn’t going to evaporate, that she genuinely believed she