She’d hoped the teacher-like snap in her voice would bring him rushing back to reality and click his usual well-meaning façade into place. The discussion provided his estranged wife with the cover she needed to sneak away and make a dash for the elevators behind his back.

Darren didn’t blink as he faced Jessa down. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

“I haven’t done anything yet.” The judge had handled all the talking during the hearing, but Jessa understood that she’d be the target. In part, that was her job as the guardian ad litem. She’d been appointed by the court to represent the best interests of Curtis Bartholomew, the five-year-old being pulled apart by his parents’ very ugly divorce.

Her firm, a boutique family law practice that produced a string of judges to the Montgomery County Circuit Court and the Maryland Court of Appeals, agreed to GAL appointments as a service to the court. She’d been assigned to the Bartholomew divorce, and to Curtis, and she really wished she was back in her office, doing just about anything else right now.

“She has custody,” he said. She, presumably, being Ellie Bartholomew, his wife.

“Your wife has temporary physical custody. You have visitation.” Something his attorney should be explaining to him, not her. Jessa stretched up on tiptoes and looked around for the overpriced, business-and-not-really-divorce-attorney good old boy who represented Darren.

“No overnight visits.” Darren shook his head. “I’m limited on how much I can see my own son.”

“I know that’s upsetting.” Jessa tried to signal for Darren’s attorney, a reinforcement to explain to Darren that physically removing his wife from the house and throwing a duffel bag at her in front of Curtis and his friends had started the custody case off in a very bad way. The judge had not been impressed with Darren’s in-court not-really apology for his behavior, which was why they were all in this mess. “But it’s just until the psychologist, Dr. Downing, finishes her custody evaluation and—”

“She isn’t smart enough to make Curtis’s lunch.” Darren’s soft, nonthreatening tone was back, but it didn’t match the heat behind his words.

Jessa assumed he again referred to his wife’s perceived failings. But maybe he meant Dr. Downing. Maybe all women. Who knew? But that summed up his entire custody argument—the woman he’d married was too incompetent, stupid, ill-equipped, to even see their son, let alone have custody.

Darren was an all-or-nothing guy who’d already made it clear that his family’s influence and money should mean everything when it came to who was best able to parent Curtis. He could give Curtis things. Vacations. Private school.