She had information to find.
Chapter Four
“So, I had to do some searching, but I finally found her.” Leah sighed, stabbed a hunk of salmon with her fork. “Theodora Baker. I represented her ex, Julia Bingham, in their divorce.”
“And who got the better settlement?” JoJo Gonzales asked, then took a sip of her iced tea. Her almost-black hair was in a French twist, and she wore her navy blue suit with what she called her power-red silk blouse underneath, as she’d had court that morning.
Leah cocked her head and arched an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“I can’t believe you actually asked her that,” Tilly said, feigning insult. Her short white-blond hair was a little spiky on top but tamer than it often was, and she tucked a bit over an ear.
Nearly twenty years. Was that right? Leah did the math in her head. Holy shit, it is. She’d known Tilly and JoJo since they’d been thrown together in a suite in law school. They’d been lucky enough to hit it off—not all their classmates had—and they’d been a trio of besties ever since. They called each other almost daily and made an honest effort to have lunch, dinner, drinks, or all three at least once a week. It didn’t always happen, but they tried.
Back to the subject at hand, Leah said, “It wasn’t a difficult case, really. Together for eleven years, married for almost seven. My client kept the household running financially while her wife got her business up and running. Once it became a success, my client quit her job to study…ceramics and pottery, I think it was? Met someone, fell in love, asked for a divorce. They fought over the property division—Teddi said she’d been paying all the bills for years and it wasn’t fair.”
“But it was,” JoJo surmised.
“I mean, yeah. But”—she grimaced, stabbed some more salmon—“I did some research, and Teddi had to close up two of her three locations so she could cover the settlement.”
“Ugh, that sucks.” JoJo shook her head.
“Nature of the beast,” was Tilly’s comment. Emotion had no place in law. That’s what she always said. “Who’d she have?”
“Dennison.”
Tandem groans came from both friends.
“No wonder,” Tilly scoffed. Tilly hated Tim Dennison, thought he was a hack who took shortcuts so he could make the most money for the least amount of work. She wasn’t wrong. “Guys like him are the reason there are lawyer jokes.”
“I hate the idea of Teddi being repped by that dick.” Leah shook her head, her appetite dwindling a bit.
“So much for feeling it, huh?” Tilly asked, making air quotes.
“Wait. Feeling what?” JoJo looked from one to the other. “Am I out of the loop? Again?”
“You are,” Tilly said. “Loopless, as usual.”
JoJo snorted. “Listen, loops are hard. Talk to me when you guys have two kids, a mother-in-law moving in, and a husband who has no idea how the dishwasher or the washer and dryer work. Now, fill me in.”
“It seems that not only is this Ms. Baker the only wedding planner in the world for Kelly, but she had some serious chemistry going on with our friend Leah here.”
JoJo’s big brown eyes got even bigger as she did an exaggerated turn of her head toward Leah. “Oh, really?” She drew out the last word comically.
“Well, it’s all shot to hell now, so it doesn’t matter.” Leah tried not to sound as disappointed as she felt. Potential. That’s what she’d allowed herself to feel around Teddi. Possibility. Hadn’t lasted long.
“Yeah, her dropping her coffee on the floor when she heard you were a divorce attorney is a pretty big clue.” Tilly wiped her mouth with her napkin, then gestured to the waiter across the room that they were ready for their check. “Do you think she’d been trying to place you?”
“Maybe my name. We never met in person. Everything was handled outside of court.”
“Fucking Dennison,” Tilly muttered.
“What did you do last night when you figured it out?” JoJo, too, finished her lunch and tucked her napkin alongside her plate.
“I watched Notting Hill.” Leah shrugged like that made perfect sense. Which it did, to her.
“I’m standing here in front of this boy—”
Tilly didn’t get any further before Leah cut her off with an upheld hand. “No. Absolutely not. You do not get to butcher one of my favorite films by getting the lines wrong. Just stop.”
JoJo tsked, shaking her head in dismay. “Oh, Matilda. You’ll never learn.”
“Ms. Joellen Gonzales, would you care to correct Ms. Scarsdale?”
“I would love nothing more, Ms. Scott.” JoJo made a show of turning to face Tilly and cleared her throat. Hand pressed to her heart in a display of the utmost sincerity, she recited, complete with the proper pleading emotion, the actual line from the movie perfectly, even adding in the correct pauses and inflection.
“Bravo,” Leah said, clapping.
“Thank you.” JoJo took a bow from her seat. “Thank you very much.”
“Only one of the best romantic lines of all time, Tilly,” Leah said.
“Agreed.” JoJo nodded.
“Ugh. Sap. That’s all it is.” JoJo and Leah gasped in unison, and Tilly laughed and shook her head. “You two. It’s a good thing I love you both.”
“It is,” Leah said while JoJo nodded.
It was an age-old disagreement the three of them had, and at this point in their friendship, they used it for laughs. Tilly was a horror movie fan. JoJo liked a wide variety of movies. And Leah watched every romance she could get her hands on—she had, ever since she was old enough to know what a romance was. Her library was extensive and included a few classics, several from when she was a kid, and many current films. At first Tilly had made fun of her and JoJo had piled on, but after their friendship deepened they began to understand what those movies were to Leah. When they’d finally begun to understand that, despite having a front row seat to the bitter divorce of her parents, despite her career choice, Leah actually believed in happily ever after, craved her very own with everything in her heart, they eased up on her.
The waiter dropped off the check, which Tilly scooped up almost before Leah’d even registered its arrival. “My turn this week.”
“So what are you going to do?” JoJo asked, her gaze on Leah. “About Kelly?”
Leah shrugged. “She wants Teddi as her wedding planner. She did her due diligence. She met with three others. She says Teddi gets her.”
“Are you worried it’ll be awkward?” JoJo clenched her teeth, made a face.
“All I can do is hope we can maintain a professionalism for Kelly’s sake. You know?”
“Leah did her job. It wasn’t personal.” Tilly. Matter-of-fact.
All Leah could do was nod. Tilly was right. She’d done her job and she’d done it well. But she was pretty sure Teddi Baker didn’t look at it that way.
* * *
While June was still the most popular month for weddings, September and October had moved up the ranks. Hopeless Romantic was busy, something Teddi never took for granted. Any time she felt like complaining that the schedule was too hectic, she made herself remember how hard she’d worked to come back from the verge of bankruptcy, thanks to Julia and her lawyer, Leah Scott.