“I take it he was one of them?”
She’d been certain of that.
And never been more wrong about anything in her life.
“He was planning a career in public law.”
“I take it he didn’t follow through on that.”
“For a couple of years, yes.”
She wasn’t sure quite when her ideals and h
is had grown so far apart. Perhaps because the change had been so gradual…
“I’d taken a job as a defense attorney in a private firm.” And the more self-supporting she’d become, the more critical he’d been.
“Defending criminals?”
“Defending people accused of committing crimes. I always believed my clients were entitled to every protection the system could provide. That was my job, and I took it seriously. I worked hard to ensure that my clients got the best results under the circumstances.”
“Sounds like an overwhelming task.”
“Sometimes. It meant I went to trial a lot more often than most defense attorneys. Fortunately, I won the majority of my cases.”
And the more cases she won, the more prestige and respect she’d gained—and the more her husband drank.
“Eventually I left private practice,” she continued, “and went to the public defender’s office.” She paused. “Everyone’s entitled to the best defense. Not just the wealthy and privileged.”
“I take it your husband didn’t share your philosophy.”
The man was a little too good at reading between the lines.
“Money was more important to him than it was to me.” Giving up on the chocolate she didn’t really want, Valerie set down her cup. Forearms resting across her knees, she stared at her tennis shoes. “I don’t know what happened to him.”
And she didn’t know why she was telling this man anything about it. Her life was her own.
Still, there was such a sense of nurturing about him. Glancing up at Kirk, she couldn’t look away. That quirk in his mouth, the warmth in his eyes—it was as though he was genuinely interested in knowing about her pain. As though he cared. As though he understood something she didn’t think she’d ever understand.
The sensation was unusual. Compelling.
“Once he went to work, the job consumed him.”
“Money has a way of speaking to people.”
“I don’t think it was just the money.” Running her hand through her hair, Valerie shook it out over her shoulders. “At least, that wasn’t his biggest priority.”
“Prestige, then?”
Again she shook her head. “I think it was the winning. The power. He became obsessed. Right didn’t matter. Justice didn’t matter. Not as much as winning the case. It was scary how he’d manipulate the law to benefit his client. At some point beating his opponent seemed to be his prime motivation. He’d strip women and children of everything they had, giving it all to the men who’d left them, and see nothing wrong with that.”
And somehow, in the midst of everything else, alcohol had become his first obsession.
“The more cases he won, the more he’d take on. It got to the point that we hardly ever saw him. He missed every one of the boys’ birthdays. He was either working or traveling with clients or partners in his firm, even on the major holidays. Christmas was about the only time some of the single partners would take off, and he used to insist that he had to party with them. According to him, those social occasions were when most of the real business was done.”
Kirk was still watching her attentively. But he said nothing. She wanted to know what he was thinking.
“I’d talk to him, try to reason with him, even beg, but it was like talking to a wall. He just didn’t get it. He kept saying that his values hadn’t changed. That those values were driving him to do the best job he could.