Paper Hearts Read online

  Paper Hearts

  By J.V. Speyer

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 J.V. Speyer

  ISBN 9781634868990

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  For Sophia.

  * * * *

  Paper Hearts

  By J.V. Speyer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 1

  Jordan smiled at his client and watched as she signed the papers. He didn’t always view his courtroom victories as successes. Sure, he’d technically gone down as the attorney with the win, but in theory these were two people who’d loved each other once. He couldn’t feel good about their love story coming to an end.

  Every once in a while, though, Jordan got a case that screamed out for annulment. Today was one of those days. He wanted to celebrate the end of this marriage with a big brass band, and maybe a ticker tape parade down Wall Street. “Congratulations, Victoria. You’re safe now. He’s out of your life for good, and because you were smart you took a lump sum for support instead of getting payments over time. He’s got nothing to hold over you now.”

  The atmosphere in Jordan’s office lightened considerably. Victoria smiled, really smiled, for the first time since Jordan met her. The perfect white teeth he saw were implants, of course. Her face was pretty, but it was also reconstructed. The judge had taken one look at photos from the hospital and given her anything she asked for.

  “Thank you, Jordan. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever get away. So many people told me it would be harder than this.”

  “Well, I’ve got to be honest with you. If you get the wrong judge, it can be. Brett’s abuse was well documented and he didn’t bother denying it. He just blamed it on booze.” Jordan sighed and took the papers. One of the paralegals would take it down to the courthouse and file it. “I want you to remember, Victoria, none of this is your fault. I don’t care who told you what, none of it is your fault and it’s not down to you. Okay? He made his choices, you’re not responsible for them. You’ve got a whole new life to look forward to now. Enjoy it, all right?”

  She blinked back tears, but these were tears of joy. Most of Jordan’s clients didn’t have tears of joy when their marriages ended. Even the plaintiffs, the people who initially sought to dissolve their marriages, weren’t usually thrilled about it. Victoria’s case was different, and he had to be glad. “Hopefully the next time we see each other it will just be social.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears, right?” He rose and shook her hand, walking her to the door. Her back was straighter, head held higher, than he’d seen in her before.

  Jordan rarely got to see that in people.

  He doubted he’d get to see it in his next client. He looked out into the reception area and saw a handful of people, all patiently waiting to talk to someone who would help them dissolve their marriages. How had they gotten to such a point? Was love, and commitment, truly a figment of the past? It seemed absurd, but here they were. Almost all of the twenty seats in the reception area were occupied.

  He leaned in to whisper to the receptionist. “Jenny, who’s my next client?”

  Jenny, a former client of the firm, now in her early sixties, smiled up at him. “Oh, there you are. You’re seeing Mr. Mishra next. He’s the gentleman over there.” She indicated a tall, light-skinned South Asian man in the middle of the seating area. Mishra was handsome, and for a second Jordan indulged in a fantasy about a client seeking a divorce because he was gay and looking for a partner in a law firm.

  It was only a fantasy. Mishra might be handsome—beautiful, even—but he was still a client, and Jordan had ethical standards. He made a mental note to spend a little extra time on the rowing machine later to work off that sexual frustration and approached his client.

  “Mr. Mishra? I’m Jordan Stafford, your attorney.”

  Mishra stood up and offered his hand. He had a good, firm handshake and a ready smile. “Pleased to meet you. Please, call me Dinesh. Should we get started?”

  “If you’ll follow me. We can talk in my office.” Jordan started off heading for his office, but he realized after a second that they were a trio and not a pair. He turned around, ready to challenge the interloper, but Dinesh just ducked his head and blushed. “Sorry. This is my brother-in-law—er, soon to be ex brother-in-law, Sam Sheehan. He’s here for moral support. I hope you don’t mind?”

  Jordan smiled and shook hands with Sheehan. He’d never had the brother of the other party in the divorce show up to a meeting before. At least the discussion should be interesting. Sheehan was handsome too, and if Jordan had to be cooped up in his office on a gorgeous August day he might as well be locked up with two hot guys.

  Damn it, he was going to have to double his time on the rower.

  “No problem at all. Right this way.”

  The trio sat down in his office, and Jordan took out a recorder. “I usually record these meetings and go back to take more detailed notes later. That way I can focus more on you and less on trying to write legibly. I hope that’s okay with you?”

  They both agreed, which was good. Jordan was going to have a hard time focusing on anything that wasn’t the two attractive men in front of him—especially Sheehan, who wasn’t wearing a ring, had no tan line for a ring, and therefore couldn’t be a client. Tall and handsome, with soft brown hair just long enough to grab onto and a suit that emphasized just what a great body he had.

  “So why don’t we get started.” Jordan tried to steer his mind away from the brother-in-law. “It helps me to build my case if I know why you’re looking for a divorce, Dinesh. I’m not judging, although I generally don’t work with spousal abusers. In those cases, I usually refer the client to a different attorney.”

  Sheehan snorted. “First of all, I wouldn’t be here with him if he was hitting my sister. Second, it wouldn’t get to the point where he’d be leaving Ida. She’d put him into the river.”

  Sheehan looked suave and well off. His accent was pure Jersey, and not the Jersey upper crust either. A million questions sprang to Jordan’s mind, but he choked them back. He wasn’t getting paid to poke and prod at the pretty guy’s background.

  “Fair enough,” he said, and gave a little smile. “But you’d be surprised what some families don’t seem to mind with regards to their daughters, so attorneys here do disclose this policy with every new client. We don’t want any surprises, Mr. Sheehan.”

  Sheehan shook
his head a little, startled. Then he laughed, eyes crinkling just a bit at the sides adorably. “Jeez. I thought my dad was behind me for a second. Please, call me Sam.”

  “Sam.” Something warm flared up inside of Jordan. “Okay then. We just like for everyone to know what to expect, right out of the gate. Dinesh, if you could explain a little bit about your situation.”

  Dinesh’s affability faded a little. Now he just looked sad. “I’ve been friends with Sam here since undergrad. That’s how I met Ida. We weren’t all that close, not until Sam and I shared a place after graduation. Ida came around a lot after that. She even stayed with us for a little while after a breakup, until she got a place of her own. And we hit it off. We fell in love.”

  Sam rolled his expressive green eyes. “Everyone does,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, well, Ida has a lot going for her, okay? She’s creative, she’s talented, and she’s generous. She genuinely wants to help people, and I love that about her. There’s a lot about Ida I still love, Sam. I’m not thrilled about having to do this, you know?”

  Jordan had heard that sentence thousands of times, from thousands of spouses. “Do you think there’s a chance you might reconcile?”

  Sam peered at Jordan more closely. “Isn’t that money out of your pocket? You’re a divorce attorney. You get paid to split people up.”

  Jordan only kept his face neutral because he’d been trained not to react to outbursts. A lawyer couldn’t get away with that kind of thing. “I get paid, Sam, for my time and expertise. The truth is, more than a few of my clients do ultimately reconcile. I’m happy to facilitate that reconciliation, especially if I can do it in such a way that makes both parties feel more secure. That feeling of security and stability makes the union better and stronger. I’m actually a big supporter of marriage, and I love to see things work out for clients.” He folded his hands together on top of his desk.

  “Huh.” Dinesh got a faraway look in his eyes.

  “So, you’re religious.” Sam frowned and sat back in his seat.

  “Not at all. Most organized religion isn’t exactly friendly to the gay community.” Jordan bit the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t usually in the habit of discussing his own life, whether religious or romantic, with clients. Sam was having too much of an effect on him. “I’m not sure Dinesh wants to pay to sit here and talk about my religious views, though.”

  Dinesh chuckled and let his head loll back for a second. “You’d be surprised how relevant they might be. Ida has always been kind of volatile. She gets very caught up in things. Sometimes it’s a cause, or a hobby.”

  “That’s normal.” Jordan nodded. He was dying to know what was driving Dinesh to leave Ida, even though he didn’t want to, with the support of Ida’s brother.

  “For the past year and a half, her big thing has been evangelical Christianity. Now, she has the right to get religion. I’m not disputing that.” Dinesh held up a hand. “But she went from being generous and liberal and open minded, a real live and let live type, to having no time or patience for people who don’t share her beliefs. And I’m just…I can’t live with this.”

  Jordan took a deep breath. “I’ve seen a few clients who’re having this problem. And honestly, most of them work it out. You say she has the right to have her religion, and she’s become intolerant. You’re the one leaving because of her beliefs. Are you sure you don’t want to rethink?”

  Dinesh groaned. “Look. If it was just about her going to church on Sunday, that’s fine. I don’t care. I’m happy enough to have the bed to myself, she’s a blanket hog and I don’t care who knows it. But she demands not only that I go with her, but that I convert.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m not exactly the world’s most devout Hindu, but I am a Hindu. It goes beyond just religion, it’s part of my culture, my background. I’m not going to just throw it off to adopt something I don’t believe in, something I think is toxic to the world, because my wife can’t tolerate anything else.

  “And another thing. She’s demanding I stop associating with anyone she thinks is ‘sinful.’ It’s not enough that she’s cut off my whole family—they’re pagans, you know—or all of our gay friends, all of our feminist friends, all of our Jewish friends. She’s demanding I refuse to work with anyone who’s gay, or Jewish. She wants me to stop working with women who aren’t married. I work in television. Without gay people, Jewish people, and women, there is no television. There’s no entertainment, period. Where does she think the money for our house comes from—her pastor?”

  Jordan grimaced. “That’s a different animal altogether. Most religious people, even most evangelicals, don’t take it to that extreme. This is sounding less like mainstream Christianity, if an extreme version, and more like a cult.”

  Sam gave a grim smile. “Oh, you have no idea. Remember how he told you she stayed with us?” Jordan nodded. “Yeah, I supported her after that breakup. Now she’s decided to completely shun me, because I’m gay and I won’t go through her pastor’s little conversion therapy monstrosity. Fun times.”

  Jordan shuddered. “Okay then. I’d like to say she’s dealing with some serious mental health issues, but that doesn’t make it something you should have to live with. Either of you.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s dig into the financials and see what we can do. I don’t suppose you did a prenup?”

  “As a matter of fact, they did.” Sam grinned, a nasty little grin when Dinesh looked away. “It was at Ida’s insistence, actually. She wanted to make sure they were both protected. At the time, she was worried about all the pretty young things in television. She didn’t realize there aren’t a lot of pretty young things in production, not at his level.” He elbowed Dinesh, who gave a wan smile.

  “She was worried about her own assets too,” Dinesh pointed out. “She didn’t exactly come into the marriage broke.”

  “All right.” Jordan breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll need to see the prenup and then we’ll start the process.” He stood up and shook hands with Dinesh, and then Sam.

  He escorted them to the elevator, something he didn’t do for most of his clients. He wanted to make sure they got their money’s worth, given that they hadn’t been here a full hour. Dinesh’s phone rang before the elevator arrived, and he stepped down the hall to take the call. Jordan found himself alone with Sam.

  Sam, the hot, gay brother-in-law.

  Sam grinned down at Jordan. “I don’t suppose you’d want to get together for a drink maybe later on this week? I’m free on Thursday evening, if you’re around.”

  Jordan gave silent thanks to the professors who’d taught him to keep his cool at all times. They’d almost certainly been thinking of screaming clients and hostile judges, but a lawyer who couldn’t adapt wasn’t going to go anywhere. He pulled a card out of his pocket and wrote his cell number on the back. “I’d love to. Text me where and when.”

  Dinesh returned, and the friends headed out. Jordan returned to his office, all but floating on clouds.

  Later that evening, after he typed up his notes and created a file for the Mishra divorce, he brought the file into the storage room to put it away. When he did, his eye fell on the bins full of holiday decorations. He catalogued them all—Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day. He loved them all, but none of them held the place in his heart that Valentine’s Day had.

  The Mishra story bothered him, on a deep level. They’d met, apparently had children according to Jordan’s notes, and in general had a downright Hollywood love story. If they now had to go their separate ways, what hope was there for Jordan to have a love story of his own? Maybe it was time to get rid of the paper hearts, not just for the season but for good.

  * * * *

  Sam put his feet up on the desk and rubbed at his face. “Tell me again why, exactly, we hired this jerk?”

  Dinesh flung the paper script up into the air. “Mike Coker is a legacy with a long-term contract. We can’t get rid of him until next season. The last time a show r
unner tried to kill him off, his psychotic fans mailed ten thousand pounds of blue feathers to the studio. They knew she was allergic and they mailed them to her anyway. They sent them to her home address. They sent them to her child’s day care. And the network fired her, because she ‘didn’t manage it appropriately.’”

  Sam tamped down the rage inside of him. “That was before I took over. Was the guy we’ve got running the show now involved? Dobbins?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” Dinesh raised an eyebrow. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but Sam’s phone buzzed with an alarm.

  “Crap. I’ve got to go. I have a date. Fire the current show runner. Ratings have been spiraling since he took over anyway. See if we can get the previous lady back. We’ll sit down with her and the writers to find a way to make sure that we meet the absolute minimum requirements of his contract and not one more second of screen time. If we can meet his contract without putting his face on screen, we’ll do it, because I remember him encouraging that crap. If this jerk Coker complains or pushes back in any way, tell him I’ll go public with those pictures of him puking on sorority girls at the bar in Minnesota.” He stood up and grabbed his jacket.

  Dinesh grinned, happy in spite of the dark circles under his eyes. “A date, huh? Is it with that rock star I saw you canoodling with two weeks ago?”

  “Huh?” Sam had to think about it. “Oh, him. No, he was way too much of a drama magnet. Nice enough guy, don’t get me wrong, but the drama just…follows him. We went out for dinner and a girl threw herself at the limo. Broke her leg. Her mom tried to sue, which was a total joke, but still. I just don’t have time or patience for that stuff, you know?” He tugged at his collar. “I’m meeting up with Jordan.”

  “Jordan.” Dinesh closed his eyes, like he was going through some kind of internal contacts list. “Wait, the only Jordan you know is my divorce lawyer.”

  Sam knew he should be ashamed, but he refused. “And have you seen him? He’s everything I want in a guy, right? He’s handsome, he looks good in a suit, he has a job that almost never involves people throwing themselves at his car.”