Kent.”
Suddenly, Shea was livid. Upon reflection, she didn’t know why. A victim story like that sounded exactly like the sort of thing Keenan might try to pull. Only, it was never supposed to come to this. Keenan was supposed to wake up now that he knew she was serious; he was supposed to get over her; he was supposed to listen to his attorney, who should tell him to take his money and run.
“What are you basing this on?” Shea remembered Tasha’s initial claim that something had come in overnight.
“Three things hit all at once: someone tried to hack into the fan email and social media accounts you used for Kent, Keenan wrote you a cryptic letter and my eyes confirmed red flags.”
Tasha’s “eyes” were her own private detectives hired to keep an eye on Keenan. Apart from a hacking attempt on Shea’s personal email they were sure his people were behind, Keenan himself had been squeaky clean. They hadn’t found a shred of evidence that he was hiding assets, a mistress or pulling any other shenanigans that people tended to pull in a divorce. But Tasha had warned her early on they were also monitoring for perfectly legal red flags.
“He’s started seeing a therapist,” Tasha went on. “He’s going twice a week. And not just any therapist—Jonathan Levine, Board Certified psychiatrist notorious for overmedicating and overdiagnosing. I’ve seen his name connected to at least a dozen divorce cases. He’ll substantiate Keenan’s emotional distress claims on paper, and he’ll make it look bad.”
“What else?” Shea grabbed her now-empty glass off of the nightstand and made to leave the room, squinting against bright light from the hallway when she opened the bedroom door.
“He’s taken a leave of absence from his companies. At the end of the workday yesterday, a communication was sent to his employees. The email directly referenced taking time off to handle family matters, which I can only assume means you.”
Shea stopped dead in the hallway.
“This changes the game,” Tasha continued. “Now he’s playing ball. And I’m not gonna lie—the money makes things tricky, Shea. The farther he goes to painting himself as a victim, the more he’ll make you look like a freeloader and a gold-digger. He’ll make himself out to be the hero who gave you prospects when you had none. It’ll be all about how he got you your first job and put you through college and how you’re leaving him only now that he gave you wings to fly on your own.”
“Only, none of that is true.”
“It’s not about the truth—it’s about what the courts will believe. You’re young, you’re beautiful and you’re black. A lot of judges will take one look at you and invent all kinds of stories about who you are and why you married Keenan. Misogyny and prejudice are alive and well.”
“I had prospects,” Shea seethed, not angry with Tasha—angry with the situation. “I stood to inherit a restaurant chain—no, an entire franchise, and a successful one at that. And Keenan didn’t get me my first job in New York. I got myself my first job before I even moved there. And when that fell through, my friend Kendrick helped me get another one. I started working for Keenan much later.”
“Good,” Tasha said approvingly. The scratch of a pen Shea heard in the background told her Tasha was taking notes. “I need more of those kinds of details. And we’ll want any documentation you have to that effect—old tax returns that show W-2s from earlier jobs in New York. We’ll also want depositions from witnesses. Especially the restaurant chain. I’m guessing you stood to inherit from a parent or a grandparent?”
“My father,” Shea mumbled, still upset.
“Do you still stand to receive it?”
Shea shook her head, not that Tasha could see her. “When I told him I didn’t want it, he sold.”
“Any idea of the selling price?” Tasha was still writing.
Shea sighed. “A lot.” When she realized how vague that sounded, she revised her statement to, “Probably low eight figures.”
“Good,” Tasha praised again. “We’ll definitely want his testimony.”
The very notion punched Shea square in the gut. She hadn’t spoken to her father in more than two years and was the very last person who should be asking him for a favor. By his standard, she’d committed the gravest trifecta of daughterly sins: leaving home without his blessing, marrying without his permission, and declining his legacy.
“My dad and I aren’t exactly on good terms.”
“We need your case to be as strong as possible,