Page 9 of By Invitation Only

I blew out a breath. I hadn’t had enough coffee for the conversation. Instead, I changed the subject. “What does my calendar look like this afternoon?”

“Ava Ashley is coming at one to go over her disso packet.” A disso packet was a dissolution packet of all the documents one files with the court for a divorce. I’d already met with Ava when she hired me to represent her as her attorney for her divorce. She was an actress who had been nominated for a few Emmys, and she was my age. And she wasstunning.

“Great. Let’s take lunch now so we can be back before one.”

I was engrossed in surfing the internet when Lorelei stuck her head in my door and informed me Ava was waiting.

“Perfect.” I stood and made my way down the hall to the reception area. I hated keeping clients waiting. Everyone had somewhere to be, and not particularly in their attorney’s office.

“Ava.” I smiled my greeting. She looked up from her phone, and I waved her over. “Let’s head back.” She smiled, and when we rounded the corner, I asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Wine?” She laughed.

“Bad day?”

“Just nervous.”

I nodded as we approached my office. “No need to be nervous. That’s why you hired me. I’ll make this process as smooth as possible. But I’m sure we can find you somethingafteryou sign all the papers for court. After you,” I gestured for Ava to enter my office. It wasn’t a corner office. It was ten by ten with a glass wall overlooking the skyscrapers of downtown LA in the far distance. The opposite side had a glass wall as well that gave me a view of Lorelei’s desk.

After Ava and I had sat at my mahogany desk, she handed me her packet that consisted of her Schedule of Assets and Debts and Income and Expense Declaration. Lorelei would prepare the Petition, Summons and Proof of Service based on the information I gathered in my consultation with Ava. “Do you have any questions regarding these?”

Ava sighed. “I don’t know…”

Lorelei walked in with two glasses of water. I smiled at her as she set them on my desk then turned to leave.

“Let’s go over your I&E first,” I suggested. “It’s not required to file with the Petition for Dissolution, but I like to have all my ducks in order to get the ball rolling.”

Ava nodded, and I began to skim the form she had written her answers on. When I’d first started working on high profile cases, I was shocked by how much our clients made. It shouldn’t have been a surprise given that they were Hollywood’s A-List, but it was a lot more than I made. Granted, at the time I had only been an attorney for two years. Now I was working my way up, and in the last five years, I’d gotten several raises, but it was still nowhere near the millions Ava indicated she made.

When I got to her monthly expenses, one thing, in particular, stuck out to me. “You spend over thirty-thousand a month on entertainment, gifts, and vacations?” It wasn’t unusual, per se, but we were talking a month, not a year. Usually, the number was half that amount.

Ava chuckled. “I think it might be more.”

My eyes widened. “On entertainment? Maybe we need to count some for another category?”

She shrugged sheepishly. “Well, will the court know what the expenses are for?”

I leaned back in my chair. “Not exactly, but if you’re saying that you spend thirty grand on entertainment, and you’re including eating out as that expense, it needs to be broken up because there’s a place for that.”

Ava shook her head of long blonde hair. “I wouldn’t call it eating out.”

“Is it hookers or something?” I laughed, but I was kind of serious. I’d seen it before.

“Well…” she trailed off. “Not really.”

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the wood surface and crossed my hands in front of my chin. “Whatever you tell me will stay between us. You know that. Attorney/Client confidentiality.”

She sighed and then blurted, “It’s a sex club.”

My eyes widened. I wasn’t expecting that answer. “You spend thirty-thousand on a sex club?”

She took a deep breath. “No, but whatever I tell you must stay between us. It’s highly confidential.”

I nodded my agreement. “Of course.”

“Trent and I are members of a high-end sex club. It meets once a month in Beverly Hills. You have to be a member to attend, or be invited by a member, because it’s highly exclusive. The cost is dependent on which membership you purchase. And I have the highest membership which is twenty-thousand a month.”

I was silent as I soaked in the information. I had so many questions, and none of them had anything to do with Ava’s divorce—or maybe it did. “When we met for your consultation, you said that you were getting divorced for irreconcilable difference. California is a no-fault state, which means cheating can’t be the cause of divorce.”