After lunch, Charlotte left the country club in a daze. What had she just done?
It went against her principles to get ahead using her looks, and although this wasn't technically the same thing, it felt just as wrong. And she wasn't taking into account Floyd's feelings, but she was certain his interest in her had nothing to with matters of the heart.
She drove home to her apartment, and as she was unlocking the door, she heard the phone ringing. She rushed inside and picked it up.
"Finally!" Janet said from the other side. "We... have a situation here at the office. You need to come over."
"It's four-thirty... by the time I get there, it'll be past five," Charlotte said. "What is going on?"
"There's a woman saying she's Logan Hamilton's wife... or soon-to-be ex-wife," Janet said in a low voice. "And that we're representing her husband. Well, she specifically said that you're her husband's lawyer. She's been sitting here for over an hour."
"I'll be there in thirty minutes," Charlotte said and hung up.
She wasn't happy about going back to the office and driving through the rush hour traffic, but this was starting to become interesting. Logan hadn't mentioned anything about a divorce, and she was dying to know what on earth was going on.
---
She got there faster than she had anticipated, and everyone was leaving the building as she went up. In the lobby sat a beautiful woman who had to be around thirty years old, flipping through a magazine. She was well-dressed, with an elegant white dress and matching shoes and purse.
"Mrs. Hamilton, I presume?" Charlotte said.
Janet had her lunchbox, and all her stuff already set out on her desk, ready to leave.
"You must be Charlotte Astor," the woman said, setting the magazine down and standing. "I went to speak to my husband's lawyer today, and he redirected me to you. Said he was no longer representing Logan."
"We started working with him today. I would gladly schedule a talk with you sometime this week after we've gone over a few things with Mr. Hamilton," Charlotte said. More employees filed by, leaving the office.
"No. I need to talk to you right away," Mrs. Hamilton said. Charlotte didn't like the woman's condescending tone, but it would probably be easier and faster to just hear her out.
"Ok. We can meet in my office," Charlotte said, as Janet glared at her. She wouldn't be able to go home until the talk was done, as she needed to close up the office. Usually, if someone had a meeting after hours, they'd take it someplace else.
Charlotte guided Mrs. Hamilton to her office.
"What can I help you with?" Charlotte said, once Mrs. Hamilton had sat down. "As I said, I'm not familiar with the case yet, so my knowledge about things is very limited."
"I need you to tell Logan that I'm not signing his divorce papers and that if he wants to get rid of me, he'll have to triple the amount he offered," Mrs. Hamilton said, ice in her voice. "He can't prove what he alleges I've done, so he'll have to pay up."
"What is it he alleges you've done?" Charlotte said, curious. It wasn't her place to ask- first, she'd have to read the files to get her facts straight- but she wanted to know the woman's version of whatever it was she had supposedly done.
"Hmmph. Some law firm he hired. Although it makes sense." Mrs. Hamilton said, scrutinizing Charlotte. "He's accusing me of cheating on him. It's not true. He just wants to move on to someone younger and prettier. I'm sure of it. Is he banging you? I wouldn't put it past him."
It took all of Charlotte's self-control not to throw the woman out of her office. Or out the window.
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Charlotte said, standing up. "As I said, we only started working with Mr. Hamilton today. And I will not be disrespected by you, or anyone, in my own office. When and if we require you to come back here, you'll be notified. Have a good day."
She gestured towards the door as the woman's mouth pruned up like she had just swallowed a lemon.
"I'm going to take everything from him," she yelled. "He's going to wish he never crossed paths with me."
With that, she strutted out of Charlotte's office. Soon enough, Janet's head popped out from behind the doorframe.
"If it doesn't bother her royal highness Charlotte Astor, I'd like to go home. If you're going to stay here longer, would you mind locking up and leaving the keys at the reception?" she said.
"I'm leaving too," Charlotte said, picking up her purse.
She needed to speak with Logan, but she had thrown away his card and didn't know his number. That was before she had devised her plan, in which working with Logan would actually play in her favor.
When she got to the parking lot, she saw that the Lamborghini was still parked in the garage with Logan's name, so she went back up to the last floor. She knew that the topmost floors were all occupied by the building's owner, and she assumed his office was in the penthouse.
The reception was enormous, far bigger than the one they had at the law firm. Behind the desk sat a young man with oversized glasses. He had a computer, too.
"What can I help you with, Miss?"
"Hello, I need to speak with Logan," she said.
"I don't believe you have an appointment with him," he said, flipping through a notebook. "You'll have to call to set one up."
"Well, you see, I'm his lawyer," Charlotte said, leaning into the desk. "And unless he wants to get into trouble, it's quite urgent that I talk to him right away."
"Oh. Wasn't that Mr. Weiss?" the man said, eyeing Charlotte suspiciously.
"He hired me this morning."
"Come," said a grave voice from behind the wooded panels that surrounded the reception desk. It was Logan. "Stuart, Miss Charlotte Astor never needs an appointment to see me. Next time, you let her in immediately."
"Yes, sir," the receptionist said, looking like a scared mouse.
Charlotte gave Stuart a quick smile and followed Logan through a sea of very sleek and clean cubicles. She had seen this type of decoration in a magazine, although she couldn't quite remember what it was named.
Logan led her to an office that was just as sleek and bare. Everything was black, white, and pristine.
"What a lovely surprise, Miss Astor. I thought I told you you could have the day off," he said, unbuttoning his suit and taking a seat behind his desk. He leaned back as if he were enjoying a movie and not talking to his new lawyer. "What brings you here so soon? It is presumptuous of me to hope it's because you missed me already?"
Charlotte scowled at him. She was used to guys flirting with her, but he seemed to take even flirting as a joke.
"I had taken the day off, but I was called back into the office because Mrs. Hamilton wanted to talk to me."
He straightened up at the mention of his wife. Charlotte was glad to see it had unsettled him, at least a little.
"That was unfortunate," he said. "And what did Mrs. Hamilton want with you?"
"Well, it appears you've fired your former firm, and we're taking your divorce case. At least that was what she said. I was not aware we were also representing you on a personal level."
"Ah, yes, I might have forgotten to mention that when I spoke to Floyd."
"I don't appreciate not knowing things before I have to deal with them," Charlotte said. "It would have been more professional to let us know about the case. Or to wait before you fired your former lawyer."
"I must extend my deepest apologies," he said, placing a hand on his heart. "I didn't think she'd be contacting you so soon."
"She wanted me to let you know immediately that she is not signing the divorce papers unless the alimony is a larger amount. And that you can't prove she cheated," Charlotte said, eager to get this over with.
"It's that I'm not happy to see you, Miss Astor. But you could have called to tell me that," he said, fiddling with a silver pen that probably cost more than everything Charlotte had on herself at the moment.
"I lost your card," she said.
"Lost it or tossed it?" He grinned at her with that crooked smile of his.
"Is that relevant? The fact is I didn't have it, which is why I came. That is all. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's after hours, and I'd like to go home," she said, standing up. "We can resume this tomorrow."
"I'll meet you in the parking lot at eight," he said, almost dismissively. "I want to show you something."
With that, she left his office, glad to finally be done with this. It had been a very long day, and she really needed to be alone.
Charlotte poured herself a cup of red wine once she had showered and got settled down for the evening. Too many things had happened in the span of a day, and it was overwhelming her.She tried to keep her thoughts from drifting towards Edward, but it was hard. If she could tell him about this, he'd surely be able to give her advice. The thing was, he was the problem now, and she couldn't think of anyone else she could confide in.It sometimes bothered her that she didn't have many friends; she'd lost touch with the girls she went to high school with while she was in law school, and they all formed new cliques and groups by the time she had returned. Most of them were married, had one or two children, and seemed to purposely avoid her whenever they ran into each other in the country club or the grocery store. It had never been easy for her to make fr
They pulled into a long driveway surrounded by trees."What is this place?""The house I built for my mother, but she refused to move here," Logan said, pulling down the windows. The air smelled fresh and clear, of the countryside."Did you have this built after you married her? What is her name, by the way? She never told me," Charlotte said."Julia. It was almost done when we got married."Soon the house came into view, and it was anything but a house. The place was a mansion, possibly bigger than the country club main house in Chateau Ella. It was three stories tall, and it seemed
Charlotte spent the day going over Logan's files and assembled a team of interns to help her sort them out. The papers were all copies that someone had haphazardly tossed into their boxes, and she pitied the poor assistant who had to have done the work.There were mentions of other foreign bank accounts, but those wouldn't go into the divorce agreement, so she filed those separately. It had been a while since she worked on a divorce case, and normally, she'd try to go for a swift and amicable agreement between the two parts. But it made her angry to think that Logan's wife had so much in her favor, and she had tossed it all overboard for someone who wasn't probably half the man Logan was.It surprised her that she had thought of Logan in a positive light because she didn't really like him. He was conceited, too full of himself, and a scoundrel at heart.
Linda styled Charlotte's hair into beautiful loose curls while Logan was still upstairs getting a haircut. Every once in a while, she could hear the hairdresser's laugh pour down from the upper floor. She didn't understand why Logan had stayed for a haircut; it didn't seem like he needed one, and he surely had an army of hairdressers and stylists at his disposal. She couldn't shake off the feeling that he was still mocking her. Like he was having fun spending the day like a normal person. Or a poor person, if you compared him to Charlotte. "You look beautiful as usual," Linda said, holding up a hand mirror so Charlotte could see the back of her head. "Thank you," Charlotte said and hurried to the front desk to pay. She wanted to scurry out before Logan came down. But there was another woman talking to
"What are you still doing here?" Charlotte said, surprised at finding him sitting there. Logan stood and straightened out his suit. "You will need a ride to your event, Miss Astor. Won't you? I also had someone bring over drinks. Since you weren't specific about the ones you needed, I asked them to bring one I particularly like." He gestured towards the lobby's door, where there were boxes of French champagne that Charlotte knew cost at least a thousand dollars per bottle. They were stacked into a pile by the wall. This was too much. She'd never be able to afford that and pay all the debts and bills she had. "You really don't know how to step down, don't you?" Charlotte said. "I don't want you to drive me, or get things for me."
Logan finally slowed down when it was clear he couldn’t drive too fast through a neighborhood with so many bumps and little or no visibility because of the rain. While Charlotte was glad about it, she was also hoping the rain would stop in the next five minutes. How on earth was she going to carry those boxes of champagne to the house in this rain? She really didn’t want Logan to have to park in the driveway. The living room had enormous windows with views of the driveway and the front lawn. Everyone would see her arrive in this flashy car, and while she didn’t really mind what the guests would say, her mom would be a problem. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t realize that Logan had almost stopped. He kept gesturing with his hands as if asking permission to speak. “You can talk,” Charlotte said loudly,
It was hard for Charlotte to take her eyes away from Edward as he walked around mingling with guests with Mary at his arm. But she didn't want to look desperate trying to catch Floyd's attention, so she didn't go directly towards him, and instead sat in the dining room close to the food, where most of the guests came through from time to time. Her high school classmates greeted her politely yet with a distance that Charlotte knew was because of their very thinly veiled dislike for her. The only reason they were even there was because they also happened to be friends with Edward. Everyone knew everyone in the small, elite, old money Atlantian society. Still, Charlotte was never alone. Some of Edward's pals from high school and a group of people she hardly talked to at the office were all gathered close to her, laughing at her jokes. A lot of them asked about Mary, and Charlotte was happy to talk about her; tonight she had to look like she was the happiest
"Logan, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Floyd stepped out from the crowd and grabbed Logan, ushering him far from Adam. Some guys from the office held Adam up as he started to regain consciousness. Charlotte stared at Logan wide-eyed and didn't know what to do. Of all the outcomes this evening could have had, this one was so far off her expectations that it seemed like the universe was playing a bad joke on her. Everyone would wonder who Logan Hamilton came with and they'd be talking about her for all the wrong reasons. If anything, all she had wanted was to sow doubt into Edward's mind about her relationship with Floyd. Now she'd be the talk of the town, along with Logan. Adam's wellbeing wasn't even on her mind. He was a rude, condescending guy who always made inappropriate comments to the women at the office. In her mind, there was a growing suspicion that something along those lines had happened with Natalya. What surprised her the most had