Justice For Juniper (Tatienne Richard) novel Chapter 93

Request Part I

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Juniper reached for Beni’s hand once the mediator left the room to go talk to Kyst and his lawyer, Mr. Whittaker.

“Man, she’s pissed.” Beni snorted when the door closed with a quiet click.

“Really? I couldn’t tell. She seems very impartial.”

“She was writing in her notepad, and I swear she was putting so much pressure on the paper with her pen, if you flipped her pad to the last page you could make out what she was writing.” Beni lifted Juniper’s fingers to his lips and kissed them. “You did really well, Sunshine.”

“I don’t feel like I did. I let my emotions get the best of me.”

“You were with the guy for fifteen years and he fucked you over,” Beni exclaimed as he reached his hand out to tilt her chin towards him. “He hurt you, Juniper. He destroyed everything you believed in, without a second thought and he did it all in one day. You are entitled to be angry and hurt and to lash out. The fact he pushed for mediation instead of giving you what you actually deserve after his unfaithfulness. If he cared for you, if he actually loved you, Juniper, he would recognize how badly he hurt you and do everything he could to make it right. All you’ve asked for, Juniper, is for him to respect you need space, to give you this divorce and to stop harassing you. Instead, he’s screaming, whining, and crying, exactly as you pointed out, like he is the victim. He’s not. You are. You are entitled to your tears.

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He threw his marriage away.”

“I guess.”

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“There is no guessing. I’m right,” he laughed when she wrinkled her nose up at him.

“Beni,” she rested her head on his shoulder as he draped his arm around hers and hugged her to his side, “I hate this. I’m not an angry person by nature.”

“You have your third therapy session this week, right? Does it help?”

“It is helping to get me to focus on healing but it’s hard to feel like this. She told me at my last session that when things are starting to feel too much, focus on what is good, even if it’s a simple thought. I’ve been trying to do what she said.”

“What makes it better?” Beni asked as he played with her hair smile?” over her shoulder. “Tell me what has been making you

“You, Phineas, Adil. The way you make me feel secure and safe,” she gave him a smile, “and wanted.”

“You are wanted, Sunshine. What else?”

“Suki’s laugh, especially when it’s quiet and it comes from nowhere. Buttons when he climbs up Phineas‘ pantlegs and digs his claws in. It’s like he knows Phineas is the tallest tree in the place and needs to climb it. My mom’s peanut butter sandwiches. My mom.” She felt Beni’s fingers sliding through

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her hair, “this.”

“This what?”

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“I know there more than a friendship between us, Beni, but this support and friendship from you, makes it better.”

“You will always have my support.”

“I know and it’s what makes all of this easier to contend with.”

They looked up as the mediator walked back into the room. “Mr. Kennedy has agreed to all you’ve asked for with the condition you meet with him for one discussion alone.”

“No.”

The firm comment from Beni made Susan Laurent lift an eyebrow and Juniper look to Beni with amusement.

“It will end this now.”

“Or it could end her.” Beni said seriously. “He slapped a woman in a parking lot of a busy coffee shop for spilling coffee on him. His behavior over the last several weeks with my client has been erratic, stalkerish and frightening. There is a log in the file I gave you which will be presented to court once we get there because I’d rather go there than leave her alone with him, which documents in three weeks there has been over a thousand phone calls to the company switchboard looking for her all from him. He accosted her outside a nightclub. You saw his violent reaction when he slammed his hands and lunged out of his seat 3/5

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earlier. Our words in the mediation room were not a threat, Ms. Laurent. She has been seriously considering a restraining order, Do you really think I would encourage her to sit with him alone without support and without someone who could protect her if he decides if he can’t have her, nobody will?”

“We’re in a protected building, Mr. Rojas.”

“You and I both know, hands can be weapons, Ms. Laurent. What if he strangles her to death?” Beni leaned back in his seat, folded his hands over his abdomen, and stared hard at the

mediator.

Juniper watched the shift in his position, and she almost laughed as she recalled a conversation where he’d told her he was shy as a kid and used to pretend he was Phineas to get through. This pose, this power shift in his body, reminded her so much of Phineas that it was uncanny. Her lips twitched at him and yet he was solely focused on the woman standing at the door, his eyes daring her to make another asinine statement.

“We can watch through the glass. Mrs. Kennedy,”

“Stop calling me that!” Juniper snapped at her and watched the other woman’s features display a discomfort. “I am not Mrs. Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy was a loving, dutiful, doted on wife of a man who played her like a fucking fiddle for fifteen years. I asked you to call me Juniper because Mrs. Kennedy no longer exists. Now, I understand you’re only doing your job. I get you need to be impartial. I get this situation is less than ideal, however, I asked you for one thing when we sat down and it was to call me Juniper.”

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“I apologize.” The woman nodded respectfully, “as I was saying, you can be watched through the glass by Mr. Rojas, Mr. Whittaker and one of the guards of this building. It would secure your safety and hopefully at the end of the meeting for which we’ll set a timer on the table, you would leave here with your signed agreement.”

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