Free The Adultery Club by Tess Stimson

case in Leeds. Such a dangerous absence
that
is turning out to have been—
    “—no choice but to go to Court, then, Nicholas?”
    I jump. “Sorry, Will. Miles away. You were saying?”
    “Will was talking about the Wainwright case in Manchester, Nicholas,” David says helpfully. “I believe he’s correct in saying there’s been no response from the other side to your last offer?”
    “None, unless we had something in this morning that I haven’t seen yet—”
    Sara shakes her head. “I called them first thing. Claire Newbold’s out of the office, but when I spoke to her secretary, she said off the record that Claire thinks our offer’s more than generous, but the wife simply won’t budge.”
    “Damn.” I frown. “I was hoping this wouldn’t have to go to Court. The assets just aren’t there to justify it. Two or three days of wrangling in front of a judge and they’ll both be lucky to end up with the cab fare home.”
    “As long as there’s enough to pay
us,”
Joan interjects sharply.
    The thin toffee silk of Sara’s blouse tautens across her breasts as she leans forward to reach for the file, gray eyes intent. Her nipples jut against the fabric.
Good God, is she even wearing a bra?
    “The husband’s not going to get much change out of thirty thousand if it ends up in Court,” she says, scanning her notes, “and that’s on top of the forty he already owes us. It probably makes economic sense for him to give the wife what she wants and walk away with whatever’s left—”
    I shift uncomfortably in my chair. Christ, my balls ache. “Hasn’t got it. He made his money years ago from a print shop franchise, but lost a lot of it when the stock market plunged, and his business folded about the same time. Apart from the house, his only other serious asset is his pension. He’s fifty-six, what else is he going to do?”
    “What’s the wife asking for?”
    “She wants the house, which has no mortgage and is worth about half a million, give or take, and sixty thousand a year for her and the two youngest kids. He’s earning thirty-three as a tree surgeon and living in a rented bedsit over a chippie. She’s dreaming, but it’s going to bankrupt him to prove it.”
    “Looks like you’re going to Manchester on Monday,” Will says brightly to me.
    “Jesus. That’s all I need the week before Christmas.”
    “Why don’t you take Sara?”
    I start. “What?”
    “Yes, it’s just what she needs, a meaty case to get her pretty little teeth into,” Fisher enthuses. “It’ll be a great learning experience for her, and it already sounds like she’s got an in with the secretary which could be very useful. You never know,” he says, leaning toward me with a wink, “you might even learn something, Nicholas.”
    “But our client can’t afford one lawyer, never mind two—”
    “This’ll be on us. No, Joan,” he says firmly as she opens her mouth to protest, “think of it as an investment in the firm’s future.”
    I pinch the bridge of my nose. Two nights in a hotel a long way from home with a woman I haven’t been able to get out of my mind for four weeks.
    My balls are going to be black by the time I get back.

    My mood is not improved when, having raced to Waterloo to catch the early train home, I discover that the station has been temporarily closed because of flooding. By the time it opens an hour later, I have no hope of making my daughters’ Nativity play on time.
    Tired and frustrated, I slink into the darkened school auditorium at ten minutes to seven, just as the Button Dragon and all the little pterodactyls come onstage for their final bow with the Eight Wise Men and the Cookie Monster. Treading on toes and blocking video recorders, I take my seat next to Mal just moments before the lights come up, and am clapping vigorously when our offspring bound from theschool stage into the audience with the rest of the eclectic cast.
    “Did you see me?” Evie demands.
    “I did. You were