Did a "smoking gun" in the form of damaging evidence against Peter Cook compel his legal team to accept Thursday's settlement with Christie Brinkley? ET caught up with Cook's lawyer Norman Sheresky outside his hotel after court to find out!

Insisting that his client is "as happy as he can be" with the settlement, Sheresky flatly denied that Cook had anything embarrassing to hide.

"He wasn't scared ever," Sheresky said. "If he was scared, he wouldn't have shown up for the trial. And he did, didn't he? So you can put that to rest forever."

He admitted that Cook did harbor one fear during the court proceedings, though.

"He was afraid that this trial was gonna go on and on and on, and it was getting nasty," Sheresky told us.

The trial may be over, but Michael Mosberg, a fellow attorney on Cook's legal team, half-joked: "There'll be another one. Another day, another trial."

And with his client's personal life on the verge of becoming private again, Sheresky said he's confident that Cook made one lasting impression on the viewing public: "Peter is a great father, that's what came out of this trial."