Legally Addicted

chapter Thirteen



The gala dinner had raised three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. With the Spencer Trust donation to match, there were enough funds to open the addiction centre for a couple of months.

They had two or three precious months to prove its worth, while Georgia and Caro made applications to all the main social funding agencies to keep it going. But the signs were positive. It was only tentative, but a local health authority had expressed interest in funding the centre for at least a year to pilot the centre’s programmes.

With the information from Caro about the Walsh finances, Georgia had finally been able to elicit statements of previously forgotten Walsh assets, including a uranium mine and an opal business that had in the past generated multimillion dollar profits, from Douglas Walsh’s lawyers. As a result, Georgia had negotiated a settlement for Ruby that ran into seven figures, resulting in a very healthy fee for the firm.

Overall, her life had never been better, but Georgia had never felt worse. It was as if she had lost something as integral as one of her own limbs, and yet, as she kept reminding herself, she had never really had Brad in the first place. Waking up in his apartment a couple of times and going on a Pacific Island minibreak hardly qualified as a full-blown relationship.

It had been almost two months since the break-up and, even with the added complication of running into Brad on a daily basis, she should have been well over him by now, but somehow, forgetting what had happened between them was much harder than she expected. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. In the past, she had peeled men off with barely a backwards glance, whereas the residue of what had occurred with Brad had stuck as if with indelible adhesive.

‘You’ve got a walk-in. Cherie Buckland. She came in asking for Brad, but his secretary says she’s your client now.’

Miriam had swivelled around in her chair to deliver the message. Since Brad had elected to stay on in the partnership, Georgia never did manage to get her office back, and was still working out in the open-plan.

‘She is my client, or was. Brad gave her to me, so I’m not sure if he’ll want her back now.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Miriam asked

‘Tell her I’ll see her, but get Brad in there as well.’

She would rather she didn’t have to sit through an entire meeting with him, but if Brad wanted his client back again, Georgia wasn’t going to meet with Cherie Buckland alone, only to have him later accuse her later of ripping off one of his files.

Georgia reached for the Buckland file and a box of tissues. Client meetings immediately after a break-up often got emotional and she had learned to be ready, but pushing open the frosted glass door into the conference room, Georgia was anything but ready for the scene that greeted her.

Cherie Buckland sat at the conference table. She wore jeans, a long casual slouch top and no make-up, save the remains of a previous application, which looked to be at least twenty-four hours old, now smudged dark under her eyes. Her long hair hung in unwashed ringlets. Six designer suitcases stood in a row against the far wall of the conference room and two small children played with a box of toys the receptionists kept for clients who arrived with kids.

While she had never owned designer luggage, the woman’s circumstances struck her directly in the solar plexus. Homelessness looked the same, no matter what the label on the suitcase was or even if the owner could afford a suitcase in the first place. Presumably this woman ultimately had somewhere she could go, but right now she was without a home, all her possessions piled up in some strange office.

Watching the children play, it was as if Georgia had shrunk down to kid size — her feet dangling into the gutter, her few things beside her, tied up in a supermarket bag — killing time tossing a handful of stones as she and her mother waited for the Dockton Women’s Shelter to open for the night.

The younger child, a little girl with curly dark hair that Georgia assumed might approximate Cherie’s in a happier state of grooming, stood up, her hands on hips.

‘Mummy’s run away.’

‘Shush, Katy.’ Cherie stood up and turned to face her. ‘You must be, Georgia? Brad’s secretary said that you’re my lawyer now.’

‘If that’s okay with you, Mrs Buckland? Brad’s client list is overloaded right now.’

‘Sure, if Brad trusts you, then that’s fine with me.’

The woman’s words were a caber toss ramming into Georgia’s chest.

Trust was the one thing she could be fairly sure Brad wouldn’t bestow on her right now.

‘So you’ve left your husband. Do you have somewhere to go?’

‘Somewhere to go yes — I can stay with my parents’ up the coast. Some way to get there — no. Pete’s frozen all our accounts and cut off the credit cards. I haven’t got a cent. I had to use the last of my cash to pay the taxi to your office when my card got declined. My parents are too elderly to drive now, so I’m stranded.’ Cherie pointed to the suitcases. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Do you have a friend who could help?’

‘Not one I want to know about this. Not yet.’

Georgia had heard a noise behind her, but assuming it was one of the children, carried on speaking to her client. ‘Well, we can petition the family court to force your husband to pay maintenance for you and your children, but in the meantime you need to apply for emergency government income assistance. I can take you down to their offices and help you with the forms.’

‘You mean like a benefit? Dear God, you can’t be serious.’

Brad’s smooth confident voice broke in before Georgia could reply. He stepped up beside her and pulled out his phone.

‘That’s one option, Cherie, and the appropriate course of action we would advise for most people, but let’s see what else we can do in the way of practical self-help measures first. I’ll give Pete a call.’

Brad punched in a number and lifted his smart phone to speak. ‘Buckland. This is Brad Spencer. I’m about to check your destitute wife into a homeless shelter. I’ll be approaching both major networks and you can expect a media feeding frenzy when they open the doors to process Cherie’s admission. We’re also talking about a full exposé interview with Cherie about your numerous affairs and the way you’re trying to strongarm her by cutting off financial support. But before we kick off on all of that, Pete, are you sure you don’t want to reconsider your tight fiscal policy when it comes to your family’s upkeep? I’m not sure how important your image is to you, but I promise you, this isn’t going to be a good look.’

There was a pause while Brad listened to Buckland’s response.

‘Well, that sounds more reasonable, how about you get down to my office now with your solicitor and we can hammer out an interim agreement?’

Brad gave Cherie a thumbs up and she returned it with a weak smile.

‘Five thousand. That sounds a bit light to me, but I’ll talk it over with Cherie, and we can firm up a figure when you get here.’

Another hesitation and then Brad spoke again. ‘I think an hour is too long, Pete. Let’s say forty-five minutes. I’m setting the stopwatch now.’

‘Thank you, Brad,’ Cherie said, as he switched off his phone.

Georgia folded her arms, and pursed her lips. How long had he been standing there she wondered, and how much had he heard? Brad had made her look like a wet-around-the-ears junior staff solicitor, and completely out of her league with a wealthy client like Cherie Buckland. She had offered her client a textbook solution when the rules in the world of the rich and famous operated to a syllabus she was clearly still insufficiently familiar with.

‘It will take a day or two for all your credit cards to be reinstated, Cherie. Here take this, to rent a car.’

Brad pulled out his wallet and proffered a handful of hundred dollar bills in Cherie’s direction.

Georgia watched uncomprehending as Brad gave away a fistful of money. It seemed Brad could make ad hoc donations after all, as long as those donations went to the right quarters.

Typical.

The rich looked after their own.

‘I don’t know what to say.’ Tears welled up in Cherie’s eyes.

‘Don’t say anything, Cherie. Just take it to get yourself and your kids to a safe place.’

Brad pressed the notes into Cherie’s hand and she slipped them into her handbag. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this, Cherie, but I will anyway. Don’t go back to him when he tries to win you round, and based on his previous form, I believe that he will.’

‘He won’t. It’s over.’

Cherie had folded her arms over her chest but her voiced sounded a note of uncertainty.

‘You’d know better than me on that, Cherie. But just in case he comes in here all smiles saying it has all just been a misunderstanding and asking you to come home, be ready. Know what you want, okay?’

Forty minutes later Pete Buckland and a female lawyer, who looked like she had put herself through law school with a sideline in runway modelling, stood in the conference room. Buckland rushed at his kids, bending down to hug them, then looked in the direction of his wife and hung his head. He kicked at the carpet with his shoe.

‘Can you all give Cherie and me a moment alone?’ Buckland asked, looking up at them.

‘Cherie, are you okay with this?’ Georgia asked her client.

‘Sure. It will be fine,’ she said, waving off her legal representation.

Outside the conference room, Buckland’s lawyer loitered a discreet distance away from Georgia and Brad as they waited to be reinvited to join their clients.

Brad leaned back against the wall, gently tapping his head back against it a couple of times, releasing a sound of frustration from the back of his throat.

‘She’s going to go back to him, you know that, don’t you, Georgia?’

‘I know. No need to take an office sweepstake on it, it’s almost a certainty.’

Brad pulled himself back off the wall, standing up straight.

‘I hate those things.’

‘You just gave Cherie money.’

‘That was different. She didn’t ask for it.’

‘Like me, you mean,’ Georgia said, unable to keep a note of bitterness out of her voice. She knew it was inflammatory but she couldn’t help it. Brad clearly had one rule for his kind of people and one for the rest.

Brad shook his head.

‘This isn’t the time or the place, Georgia.’

‘No, probably not. But it doesn’t change the fact. I don’t understand you.’

‘I’m not getting into this here. You had your chance to discuss this and you chose to leave, remember.’

A lump formed in Georgia’s throat. It was the first time she and Brad had even come close to discussing what had happened between them, and now that the subject had been broached the feeling was even more raw than she expected. He had refused to support her in something he had to know was important to her. She had opened up to him about her background and he had chosen to ignore that, putting some stupid funding protocol ahead of her, but she said nothing. Brad was right; now, in the middle of refereeing another couple’s relationship difficulties was not the time to get into theirs.

She and Brad spent the next ten minutes in strained silence until the supermodel solicitor finally approached them.

‘Pete just texted me. He and Cherie are ready for us to come in now.’

Back in the conference room, Pete Buckland smiled broadly.

‘It’s all sorted. Cherie and the kids are coming home with me.’

‘And what does she get in return?’ Georgia asked.

‘She’s got my word,’ Buckland responded.

‘That doesn’t seem to have counted for much in the past. I think it’s time Cherie got more surety than just your word.’

‘What are you proposing, Georgia?’ Brad asked, sounding curious.

‘A settlement agreement that starts at the statutory entitlement and rises with any future indiscretions. An insurance policy, if you will, for Cherie, against your word proving unreliable, Mr Buckland.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Buckland’s solicitor said, but Georgia ignored her, turning to Cherie.

‘What do you think, Mrs Buckland?’

Cherie nodded enthusiastically.

‘I think that sounds like a good idea.’

‘That is ridiculous. I’m not signing that. And my solicitor says I don’t have to,’ Buckland whined.

‘And you don’t have to. It’s completely unorthodox and probably unenforceable,’ Buckland’s solicitor said, trying again to bury Georgia’s idea.

Buckland folded his arms.

‘See, I’m not signing it.’

‘Why not, Mr Buckland? If you’re planning on keeping your word and if your lawyer is right and it wouldn’t stand up to judicial scrutiny, why wouldn’t you just sign it anyway to keep your wife happy. Worried you won’t be able to keep your promise after all?’

‘I’m not signing it and that’s that. It’s stupid, that’s all. Cherie knows I love her.’

‘Does she? Really? What part of your recent conduct would give her that idea?’

‘Georgia.’

Brad’s voiced sounded a warning. She had pushed it as far as she could. Bypassing his legal representation, even representation that appeared largely ornamental, in order to harangue Buckland, was unprofessional at best.

But Georgia didn’t have to say anymore. Cherie took over.

‘If you won’t sign it, Pete, then I’m not coming home. This is just going to keep happening, isn’t it?’ Cherie directed the question at her husband. Then she turned to Georgia and Brad. ‘Thank you, both of you, for bringing me to my senses. I want to work out a separation agreement after all, Pete, and five thousand dollars is too light. I want seven.’

‘Seven thousand dollars a month.’ Buckland blanched.

‘A week.’

‘A week?’ Buckland squeaked, looking desperately to his lawyer, who only shrugged.

Georgia made a silent cheer. Cherie had finally found her she-balls and was running with them.

‘You can call your accountant to check if you like, but that’s what the household expenses add up to with the mortgage, the private school fees, and providing the kids with the things they need to keep up with their friends. I don’t care about me, but you created this lifestyle, Pete, and it’s all the kids know now, and if they have to go through a divorce along with us, then I won’t have everything else they know taken away from them as well.’

‘Alright, alright, you win, Cherie, where do I sign?’ Buckland had taken a seat at the conference table and was intently massaging his forehead with his hand.

‘Please, Georgia. You’ve got to eat. Ever since the break-up you’ve been wasting away. If I hadn’t seen how little you’d eaten over the last couple of months I’d have thought you picked up some tropical disease on your trip to Samoa.’

After working through lunch to pull out an on-the-spot-separation agreement, thereby ensuring that Buckland got no time to change his mind before he signed, Georgia was now sitting practically brain-dead, sifting through items in her in-tray looking for something sufficiently lightweight to work on until her mental faculties rebounded.

Miriam plonked a packet of sushi on the desk in front of her and stood with her hands on hips until Georgia relented and opened the container.

‘My not eating has nothing to do with the break-up with Brad.’

‘Uh huh. So this big bad and ugly moping routine, when you’re starting to pick up high-value clients and you’ve finally got that addiction centre thing you’re always going on about, has got nothing to do with you falling for the city’s most eligible bachelor and it not working out.’

‘Well maybe it has, but there’s nothing I can do about it.’

She glowered up at Miriam, but her assistant made no move to leave her office. Whenever she was stressed, Georgia stopped eating. There had often been a shortage of food when she was growing up, and the worse things were, the less likely there would be enough to eat in the house. It had been a defence mechanism of sorts to stop eating when things were bad, one that was now more detrimental than helpful, but old habits could be hard to break.

‘I’m not leaving until you finish every bite.’

The hard-nosed efficiency that she valued so much in her secretary, the secret weapon who acted as gatekeeper to colleagues and overanxious clients, was now being turned on her, and she had seen Miriam in action enough to know when to give in.

The sushi did look delicious. She squeezed soy sauce and a dab of wasabi on each slice, wolfing down four portions, one after the other.

‘Anyway, maybe I don’t need a man,’ she said, tearing her attention away from the food, realising now that she was hungrier than she thought.

‘You can’t live on work alone. Now that you’ve made partner it’s time to start thinking about your future beyond this place, Georgia.’

If having a man meant experiencing the gut wrenching confusion that Brad Spencer had generated, then she could do without it thank you very much, but now wasn’t the time to pick a fight with Miriam.

‘Alright, alright. I get the message.’

Miriam pointed at the sushi, indicating she should eat another slice.

‘Why don’t you patch things up with Brad, you know, do that thing us lesser mortals do when we make a mistake — apologise?’

‘What makes you think it was my fault?’

‘Because you would have sabotaged it somehow. That’s what you do, Georgia. You push people away.’

‘Well, you’re wrong because it wasn’t my fault. Brad’s got money. The addiction centre needs funding to get off the ground. It’s a worthy cause. All I did was ask for his help. He acted like I’d asked him to advance me a personal loan or something. It was really important to me. No, make that the most important thing, now that I’ve made partner. He knew that, and yet he refused to help. He’s the one with the problem.’

Georgia picked up the disposable wooden chopsticks that came with the sushi, breaking them in half at the small join at the top, not because she needed to use the chopsticks — she had already eaten most of the sushi with her fingers — but because she wanted to hear the satisfying snap as she wrenched the two implements apart.

‘Really, Georgia? Seriously? You fell for a guy and then failed to get something really significant about him, what’s important to him and what makes him tick, and you think that’s not your fault? To love someone you have to “get” them and for whatever reason, Brad doesn’t like being asked for money. You need to ask yourself exactly what is so bad about having money that he doesn’t like being asked for it, and if that reason is less important than your obsession with this addiction centre.’

‘Obsession?’

‘Obsession.’

An explosion of wasabi blowing through her mouth and out her nose was only partially responsible for her cough, as what Miriam was saying registered, and she finally got it.

Scratch that.

She finally got Brad.

If anyone could understand what could possibly be bad about having money it was her.

Brad sat in his office trying to concentrate but the re-runs of Georgia in action with the Bucklands kept playing through his mind. She was good. She had achieved what he never had — she had gotten Cherie to leave that useless husband of hers and find someone she deserved.

He doubted a post-nup with a sliding scale of asset redistribution based on marital fidelity would hold up either, but that hadn’t been the point. Forcing Cherie to face the truth about Pete’s behaviour had been Georgia’s goal and she had succeeded beautifully. She still had some to learn about dealing with celebrity clients, but she showed every sign of picking it up quickly.

He had also arrived in time to see Georgia’s reactions to the pile of suitcases in the corner and Cherie’s situation, stranded at their office. She was glassy eyed and clearly affected by the scene and it brought home to him what she must have been through. But there was no point raking up over old ground. He had given Georgia a choice that night on the roof of his penthouse. Stay and try to work things out or leave permanently. She had been the one to choose the latter. She had run out on him too many times to let her get away with it again.

It was a pity, because what Jeffrey had said after the fundraiser did have a ring of truth. On reflection, he had been able to draw a distinction between Georgia’s request for help for the shelter and every other wheedling plea he had ever gotten from a girlfriend for a new dress, a pair of earrings, or designer shoes.

Georgia hadn’t asked for anything for herself, not once. She had even paid half of that huge restaurant bill at Café Macquarie after she physically baulked at the cost. Without exception, no other woman he had taken out had ever offered to pay for anything.

‘Brad. We need to talk.’

Georgia was standing in the doorway of Brad’s office determined not to leave until she had said what was on her mind — what Miriam had finally made her see.

‘There’s a problem with the Buckland agreement? I thought that was all squared away.’

Brad was surprised. He had thought Georgia had that done and dusted.

‘It was. It’s not that. It’s about us. I’m sorry to do this at work, but I don’t know when else I’d get to see you.’

Brad, who had been leaning against his desk reviewing a file note, put the document down and folded his arms.

‘I think we’ve said all we need to.’

‘You might have, but I haven’t, and I’m not leaving this office until I’ve said what I’ve come to say.’

She walked a few paces into his office, but didn’t sit down, her hands clasped in front of her, her blue eyes blazing.

He nodded.

‘Okay, I’m listening.’

‘Until now I didn’t really get you. I didn’t understand that you need to be accepted for who you are and not be judged on your background, or used for it to gain some material advantage, just as much as someone like me who grew up in poverty needs to be judged on what they’ve achieved for themselves and not their humble beginnings.

‘Go on.’

Brad kept up a stony expression, trying to keep the cautious optimism that was beginning to rise up in check. But at least they were talking, and Georgia had been the one to initiate it.

‘When I asked you for the funding for the addiction centre, I know it made you doubt whether I could see past the wealth to your true worth, and made you wonder if that’s all I was ever interested in.’

‘So you’re saying the fact I had money meant nothing to you. It was a fortunate co-incidence?’

‘No. In the beginning I didn’t think I could care about you. I didn’t think I could care about anyone, and so to start with it was partly about the money, that, and pissing Caro off, but then I got to know you and my feelings changed. I started to…’

‘Started to what?’

‘Started to… I’m sorry I…’

‘No you don’t. You can’t always bolt when the emotions get too big.’

Georgia took a couple of steps back, but Brad stepped in closing the gap, taking her by the arm, gently, very gently, so that if she had wanted she could have thrown him off with one movement. But she didn’t try to push him away.

Brad was right about that, and so was Miriam. She ran. That’s what she did. It had started with running from Jake, a necessity for self-preservation, but then she had run from any guy who got too close. But not this time. She stopped and looked up at Brad again.

She met his eyes.

‘I started to care about you, okay. Even though I could barely admit it to myself most of the time, I started to care about you a lot. I started to think about a word that starts with L that I can’t say, and I was worried that you might say it to me.’

‘And that scared you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I had started to care for you too, you know, Georgia. That’s why I reacted, possibly overreacted, when you asked me to fund the centre. I thought I’d misjudged you.’

‘But the thing is you didn’t misjudge me, Brad, you were right. A big part of it was about the money for the addiction centre; not all of it, but I just wanted to make a difference for people growing up like me, and for people like my mother, so much that I didn’t stop to think about how you would feel about being asked for the money.’

‘You said some of it. What about the part that wasn’t about the money?’

‘It was about you. I started to — ’

‘Fall in love with me?’

He finished her sentence for her, doubtful Georgia would be able to say the word, even though it seemed to be written all over her face.

‘I didn’t say that. I said, I started to think about you in terms of a word that starts with L.’

Brad chuckled.

‘Alright, I’ll play along with you, Georgia. When was the last time you ever thought about this word starting with L that you can’t say in relation to any other person?’

‘Never. You’re the first.’

‘So what do we do now?’

‘Can we take it as read?’ she asked, looking up at him through her lashes.

He laughed.

‘Spoken like a true lawyer. So I can take it as read that we love each other, is that it?’

‘Yes. Take that as read,’ she said, still carefully avoiding saying the actual word, he noticed.

‘That’s all I’m going to get, isn’t it?’

‘For the moment. One day I might be able to say it. But I do know that if I ever do, you would be the only one I’d say it to.’

When Brad took her in her arms she did her best to let her lips do the talking in a way that would make him understand just how much he meant to her, even if she couldn’t articulate the four-letter word that terrified her more than anything.

As Georgia kissed him, Brad opened his eyes to steal a look. The way she clung to him and the urgency of her kiss told him everything he needed to know.

He pushed past her and locked the door to the office, flicking down the blinds.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Gathering evidence.’

‘Of what?’

‘Whether my conference table will hold up as well as the one in the shelter boardroom.’

She laughed, letting him walk her backwards until the tabletop pressed into the back of her thighs.

‘Now, where were we, Ms Murray? Ah yes. I remember, tabletop durability testing,’ he said, lowering her down on to the polished wood.