Private Lives

‘Good strategy. But if this guy Fabio’s as rich as you say, Kim Collier’s not going to walk away lightly.’

Matthew gave an ironic smile.

‘You know Kim?’

‘I’ve been in this business thirty years, watching people like Kim Collier keep their careers afloat. I know her singing career is on the slide. She tried acting too, and that didn’t take off either. So my gut feeling is that a good marriage might be her next career move.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Your problem is you’re thinking too straight.’ He leaned towards his son. ‘Lawyers don’t just use the law to get what they want, you know.’

Matthew frowned.

‘So what exactly are you saying I should do?’

Larry’s expression turned serious.

‘It depends how much you want to win this – and how much Rob wants to keep hold of his son. Kim, Fabio, they’ll have their weak points. Exploit them.’ The glint in his eyes suggested ruthlessness, grubbiness.

Matt knew what sort of strategy his father was suggesting. He had no problem with playing hardball, but dirty tricks had a habit of rebounding and biting you on the backside.

‘There is an eight-year-old child involved in this, Dad. I’m not sure that having his parents’ names dragged through the mud is the best thing for him.’

‘So you want to do the decent thing?’ Larry mocked.

Matt smarted, remembering his mother, weak, near the end. When she had told him what a wonderful, decent son he was, it had been with a sense of pride not just in him, but in the way she had brought him up. And yet to Larry, the word was clearly an insult.

‘Do you want to win this case?’ snapped Larry. ‘Donovan Pierce is a firm of winners. We do whatever it takes.’

‘Under your regime, perhaps.’

‘Well it’s my name still on the letterhead.’

Matt flinched. He’d tried hard not to think too carefully about his father’s motives for handing over the firm, wanting to believe the best of him, not see the worst.

‘So that’s why you gave me the job? To be your stooge?’

‘Is that what you think?’

The jovial mood between them had gone.

‘Something motivated it,’ said Matt, voicing a thought that had troubled him since Larry had first made the offer. ‘It was a pretty strange gesture for someone who hadn’t even bothered with me for the last twenty-five years of my life.’

‘I gave you that firm because you are my son and I wanted you to have it.’

‘And not because you were so guilty about abandoning me and Mum?’ queried Matt defensively. ‘Not because your ego still wanted the Donovan name above the door?’

‘You ungrateful little shit,’ Larry muttered.

They glared at each other, and Matt was instantly reminded how fragile their relationship still was.

‘I’m going,’ said Larry, getting up to leave.

Matt wanted to stop him, but couldn’t find the words to do it.

39

Loralee was standing in the hall looking at herself in the art deco mirror when Larry opened the front door. She was wearing a cherry-red mini-dress he hadn’t seen before, and her hair looked fresh from the hairdresser’s.