November 2011. Brett Madigan has it all : a double first at Oxford leading to an enviable career as a barrister in a leading chambers specialising in divorce and matrimonial finance in central London, a wife, three children and a large country home in swanky Hampshire.
After another successful trial, he meets fellow barrister Darya Ross on the train journey home, a tall, glamorous and attractive freelance child protection specialist.
The sizzlingly hot chemistry they create with each other on the journey and beyond will be a tonic for them, but poison for others.
Can he use his sophisticated brain to manipulate two highly intelligent women without being caught out?
Brett is married to Lucy, a former solicitor turned primary school teacher.
His sex life is the only aspect that lacks fulfilment.
But he sees an opportunity to change that when he meets an attractive, glamorous and mysterious fellow barrister on a journey home from London one night.
Accustomed to getting his own way and dominating all whom he encountered, has he bitten off more than he can chew this time?
Lucy Madigan is married to Brett, and enjoys all the material trappings associated with her status as the wife of an extremely successful divorce barrister.
A large country home, all three children in fee-paying private school and expensive renovation projects to keep her occupied.
A former divorce solicitor herself, she changes career to become a primary school teacher in the local state school.
Finding her husband physically repulsive after she discovers his affair with another woman years earlier, she finds herself attracted to a much-younger sparky with an unconventional background.
But does she have the confidence to throw caution to the wind?Can Brett and Lucy save their union by resisting temptations elsewhere?Darya Ross is a thirty something, half-Russian, half-Scottish barrister specialising in child protection law.
Enjoying the high life in ever higher-heeled shoes, she has been perennially single, (notwithstanding a few champagne-fuelled flings), since her long-term boyfriend left her in 2009, having dragged her out of her comfort zone in the city to a remote part of the New Forest with the intention of starting a family.
Now alone in a country cottage, she lives a nomadic lifestyle travelling up and down the country for work.
Bored with her career, she occupies her spare time with rugby, delectable shoes and shopping.
Despite her aura of independence and self-sufficiency, she secretly yearns for a replacement for Nathan.
A chance encounter on the train may prove to be instrumental in changing her life, but is she being deceived?
The first instalment of the 'Family Division' series, 'Court of Contempt' introduces the two main protagonists, Brett Madigan and Darya Ross, as they first encounter each other on a train journey home to Hampshire.
Both barristers, but living very different lives, they find themselves attracted to each other for very different reasons.
Brett is physically attracted to Darya and wants to reignite a non-existent sex life with a clandestine affair.
Darya sees Brett as a potential boyfriend. But he is already keeping secrets from her. Can she follow her own instincts and not be swayed by her influential coterie of friends?
