Chapter 8: Monday Morning
Grace's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building in downtown San Diego that had floor-to-ceiling windows and very little furniture.
She kept it deliberately sparse.
She said clutter was how important things got lost.
I arrived at eight forty-five with two boxes and a leather portfolio.
She was already at her desk.
"Set everything on the table," she said.
"Walk me through the timeline.
Start before you met Lucas."
I started seven years before I met Lucas.
With the culinary program I had completed at twenty-two.
With the first kitchen I had worked in for four dollars above minimum wage.
With the sous-chef position I had taken at thirty that had taught me how to run a service floor as well as a prep station.
With the savings account I had opened at thirty-three specifically for the restaurant I had not built yet.
Grace listened without interrupting.
When I reached the point where I described signing the lease on the Lumina space — eight months before Lucas and I became engaged — she held up one hand.
"Do you have the original lease?"
I opened the first box and pulled out a folder.
She took it.
Read the first page.
Set it to her left.
"Business registration?"
Second folder.
"Bank records from the pre-marital capital account?"
Third.
She looked at the pile growing on her left.
"His attorney's argument," she said, "will center on value appreciation.
Lumina was worth approximately three hundred thousand dollars at opening.
It is worth, conservatively, one point four million dollars today.
He will argue that the four hundred percent increase in value occurred during the marriage and is therefore partially marital property."
"I know."
"He will also argue that the stability of the marriage provided you with domestic support that allowed you to focus on building the business.
That without a functioning household, you could not have achieved what you did."
"He traveled forty weeks of the year for his own career," I said.
"He was present for approximately four dinners per month.
I have his travel records if those are useful."
Grace looked at me over the top of her reading glasses.
"You have his travel records."
"I have four years of them.
I kept them because I needed them for tax documentation.
We filed jointly.
His work travel affected our household deductions."
She put the glasses down.
"Camilla," she said.
"I have been a family law attorney for twenty-one years.
My clients almost never have this."
"I built a business," I said.
"I document everything."
She picked up her pen.
"His attorney will schedule a deposition," she said.
"They'll want to go through the accounts in detail and look for any period where Lucas's personal income can be shown to have supported the business — even indirectly.
Even temporarily."
"His income was deposited in a separate personal account.
I never used it for Lumina."
"Can you prove that?"
I opened the second box.
She looked at the folders inside.
"Four years," I said.
"Every month separated."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said: "I need to tell you something that I want you to hear carefully."
I waited.
"His case is not frivolous," she said.
"A good litigator can make a reasonable argument for marital asset appreciation.
A jury or a judge who is sympathetic to the idea of a marriage as a financial partnership could award him something.
Maybe not the full claim he'll ask for.
But something."
"How much?"
"In the worst case scenario," she said, "up to thirty percent of current valuation.
Somewhere between three hundred and four hundred thousand dollars."
The room was very quiet.
"He stole eighty-seven thousand dollars from this business," I said.
"Which is a separate matter.
Which we will pursue criminally.
Which, if successful, will result in restitution and potentially reduce any civil award." She folded her hands.
"But I want you prepared.
He may try to settle.
His attorney may offer to drop the marital asset claim in exchange for a reduced criminal exposure on the fraud."
"He wants me to choose between justice and my restaurant."
"Yes," she said.
"That is exactly what he wants."
I looked out the fourteenth-floor window at the city I had cooked in, saved in, and built in for fifteen years.
"What do you recommend?" I asked.
"I recommend we don't accept any settlement until the criminal filing is further along," she said.
"I recommend we let his attorney see the full weight of the evidence first.
Sometimes, when a litigator sees what the other side actually has, the settlement offer gets considerably more generous."
"And if it doesn't?"
She picked up her pen again.
"Then we go to court," she said.
"And you bring your two boxes.
And every judge in San Diego County knows your name before this is over."
My phone buzzed on the table.
I turned it over.
A text from Gavin.
*She's here.
Beatrice.
At the front door.
May you like
I haven't let her in.
What do you want me to do?*
