The Devil You Know, page 21
I’ve never felt quite as apathetic about work as I do on Monday. There are no strawberries at the morning meeting. Fields is civil to me, nothing more, still holding a grudge over Webber.
I meet Walter for lunch to go over the mountain of work he needs FMG to handle. I can rope in a few of the junior associates to help while I’m dealing with Lawson, but he shouldn’t be giving us all this work in the first place.
“I’ve said this before,” I tell him with a smile, “but you really ought to just hire someone in-house. You easily have more than enough work to keep a full-time attorney busy.”
He cuts into his steak and spears a bite with his fork. “You trying to get rid of me?” he asks with a grin.
“Of course not. You’re still my favorite client. I just don’t like to see you wasting your money.”
He points his fork at me. “And that’s why I like you, Gemma. Because you tell me the truth even when it does you a disservice. I want to introduce you to my oldest boy, one of these days.”
I blush, remembering Ben above me, growling, “no more dates” in my ear. “I’m, uh, seeing someone,” I reply. “And even he’d tell you I’m no one you’d want to set up with your son.”
Walter smiles to himself. “Bet you keep him on his toes.”
I laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
More like he keeps me on mine.
On the way back to the office, I read the texts Ben sent during lunch. He’s in the middle of jury selection. I write back, encouraging him to select the juror who came in wearing what she claimed was an invisibility cloak.
Ben: You just love to fuck with people who really want out of jury duty, don’t you?
Me: How dare you? But also, yes.
Ben: I wish you were here.
I’m still smiling over that twenty minutes later, when Sophia Waterhouse walks in.
“I’m glad one of us is happy,” she says, setting a manila folder on my desk. “My husband just cut off my credit cards to keep me from going on vacation. You told me he had to pay for reasonable expenses.”
“He’ll be forced to reimburse you,” I tell her. “Do you not have anything you can use?” I know I warned her about this. I tell every client to get a credit card in her own name because this always happens eventually.
“Yes, but it only has an eighteen-thousand-dollar limit,” she replies. “That won’t begin to cover the trip. I need my platinum card back.”
I still. “I said reasonable expenses, Sophia. Your husband isn’t a millionaire, so the court isn’t going to consider a trip that costs more than eighteen grand reasonable.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the lawyer who believes in women,” she says. “Right now, it feels like you’re on his side.”
I sigh. She isn’t the first client who’s accused me of hating women the minute I tell her what she doesn’t want to hear.
I straighten the files in front of me. “I’m not on his side, obviously, but you can’t draw blood from a stone. A trip that costs more than eighteen grand is a big swing for most people, and even if I get you half his income for the next five years, that’s two hundred grand, before taxes. Which means it’s a big swing for you too.”
“If you get me half?” she asks, clutching her Chloe handbag, as if I plan to take it from her next. “I thought that was a certainty. I can’t raise two kids in LA for less than that.”
“You won’t have them all the time,” I remind her. “And he’ll be paying tuition.”
Her eyes narrow, as if I’ve insulted her somehow. “I want full custody,” she says. “I don’t want his little whore around my kids.”
Evan Waterhouse might not have been the greatest husband, but he seems like a very involved father. I just no longer have it in me to exact revenge on an innocent man for my father’s mistakes. “That isn’t what we discussed. And you would have to prove he’d done something very, very wrong to get that.”
She tilts her head to the side, studying me. “What would be considered very, very wrong?”
“If he was abusive, or violent,” I reply, comfortable in the knowledge that Evan is neither of those things. “If he was an addict and refused treatment. It would have to be pretty extreme.”
“Okay,” she says, taking the manila folder back. “Give me a week.”
I watch in dismay as she walks out of the office. I’ve long wished my mother had been more vindictive, more cutthroat on her own behalf. I’ve long been cutthroat on my clients’ behalf. But right now, it feels very much like I’m on the wrong side.
“I think she’s going to fabricate an accusation,” I tell Ben when he calls that evening. “She said, ‘give me a week’. There was no mention of abuse at all when she first saw me, and I asked. I’m just not sure I want to be a part of this anymore.”
I half expect him to encourage me to fire her. He’s given me the sense on more than one occasion that he thinks family law won’t make me happy.
“It’s not the time to be jettisoning clients,” he warns instead, after a moment’s hesitation. “You need all the hours you can get until Fields has made you partner. Especially when he’s still mad at you for threatening Webber.”
It’s the first time he’s admitted that I’ll be the one to make partner rather than Craig. I wish I had time to gloat but the topic at hand matters more.
“I can’t just keep charging her money if I’m not going to continue with her case.”
“I know. But she hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Just leave it for now. We’ll figure it out when I’m home.”
I smile, even though he can’t see it. I love not being alone in everything anymore. But I especially love that he’s the one in my court. There’s no one I’d rather have here.
“You’re still coming back Friday, right?” I ask, a little embarrassed by how needy the question is. He’s only been gone for a day and it’s already too long.
“Why?” he asks. “Do you miss me?”
“I’m very hungry. There’s been no one here to make sure I eat.”
After we hang up, I go to my room and clear out two drawers for him. I guess I sort of want him to feel like he belongs here.
On Tuesday, I place an order for a bigger television since Ben hates mine. On Wednesday, I go to my favorite home store and buy décor: throw pillows, a new duvet cover, matching lamps for my nightstand and Ben’s. I replace the plant I killed off months ago—Ben will water it, even if I forget.
On Thursday, the defendant in Ben’s case decides to settle. In theory, this means he can be done with the whole thing on Friday, but there’s snow in the forecast. The mere idea of his flight getting canceled steals my breath. I hadn’t realized, until this moment, just how much I was counting on seeing him.
“Try to get back,” I tell him. “I don’t want to prepare for the depositions all on my own.”
He laughs. “And you’re hungry,” he reminds me.
“I am. I’m extremely hungry.”
I leave work early and drive to Santa Monica because seeing his house makes me feel closer to him, even if he won’t let me inside it. The work trucks are gone. So is the construction permit. I wonder if he’ll finally invite me over. On the way home I buy groceries. He mentioned once that his favorite food is homemade chicken pot pie. I suppose it won’t kill me to try to make him one.
When I wake on Friday, the first thing I do is check the weather in DC. They got three inches of snow, but so far, Ben’s flight is still leaving on time.
I call my mom as soon as I arrive in the office. “I heard about the snow. Are they shoveling?”
“Honey, you worry too much,” she replies, sounding oddly…happy.
“I don’t worry too much, Mom.” I begin to pace the floors of my office. “For God’s sake…how will you even work at the bar if you sprain your wrist again? Or what if it’s something worse?”
“It’s all been taken care of,” she says. “Look.”
She texts me a photo of her parking lot, where not a single thing is shoveled, aside from the path to her car, which has also been cleared of snow.
“They only did yours?” I ask.
“You can’t ask questions about it,” she replies primly, which immediately floods my brain with worst-case scenarios: a creepy apartment manager offering her special favors, an obsessed customer, following her home at night.
“Mom, this is fucked up. Of course, I’m going to ask. Who did this? Is it someone you even know?”
“I know him now,” she says with a quiet laugh. “Your friend Ben did it. You never mentioned how handsome he was.”
“Ben?” I repeat incredulously. “Ben from work?”
“I can’t believe you said he was ‘really old’. I’ve been picturing a middle-aged man for the past two years.”
I exhale, exasperated. “Mom, how the hell did you meet Ben?”
“I heard someone outside this morning, so I went to the window and there he was, shoveling my path, wearing a suit.”
I perch on my desk, legs suddenly weak. “A suit?”
She laughs. “Yes. No one was more shocked than I to discover it was the terrible Ben Tate, of whom I’ve heard so much.”
My eyes fill and I swallow down the lump now firmly lodged in my throat. He drove all the way out to Manassas before he went to settlement. He must have left before it was even light out.
“How?” I whisper. “I mean, he’s staying in a hotel.”
“I have no idea. But he brought a shovel and salt, and he did the whole thing then came in and fixed my towel rack and the shelf. I’ve got to tell you, Gemma…he didn’t seem to dislike you nearly as much as you dislike him. In fact, I’d venture to say he likes you an awful lot.”
I close my eyes. “I don’t dislike him, Mom.”
She laughs again. I’ve never heard her laugh quite so much in one phone call. “Yes, honey, I know. And I’m glad. If you ask me, he’s a keeper. But he swore me to secrecy, so don’t tell him I told you. That boy might be my son-in-law one of these days.”
“He won’t be,” I reply. My voice cracks.
“My sweetest girl,” she says with a sigh. “You think you can see the future, but all you’re really doing is choosing it for yourself in advance. And I wish you’d stop choosing the things that can’t make you happy.”
When we get off the phone, I lock the office door then sit with my face in my hands, trying not to cry.
I love him.
I love him so fucking much it terrifies me.
When Ben’s flight gets in that night, he comes straight to me from the airport, dropping his suitcase in the foyer and wrapping his arms around me, as if it hurt him to stay away. The apartment smells like smoke from the chicken pot pie I accidentally set on fire, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
I don’t tell him I know what he did for my mom. I don’t tell him I’m ready to be official. But I finally admit something that’s been true since the beginning. “I missed you,” I whisper, pressing my head to his chest.
42
Work, in the days leading up to the first depositions, is frantic. In theory, we’re getting ready to go to trial, but our hope is that we can scare Fiducia into settling. It’ll be a lot faster and cheaper for everyone involved.
Ben and I are working out of his office night after night and over the following weekend. It’s stressful but it’s also…fun. I’ve never enjoyed getting ready for a trial, until now. I didn’t even realize it was a possibility.
At the moment, he’s preparing questions for Ryan Venek, a manager who got promoted despite several fights at work. I’m working on the questions for Rick Sandburg, the vice president who charged two of the strip club outings to his corporate card. I yawn and look up to find him watching me.
“What?” I ask.
“Can we go away when this is done? On an actual vacation. Not just a weekend somewhere.”
“I’m gonna have a ton of work to catch—” I begin, and then I see how much he wants me to just say, “yes”, how much he wants me to just be in this thing with both feet. I bite the inside of my cheek. “Where would we go?”
His face settles into the kind of relieved smile you get at the end of a race you’ve spent ages training for. “Fiji. An overwater villa. Clothing optional.”
I had something like that on my Pinterest travel page once upon a time. I think of all the things I once pinned: the trips I wanted to take, the books I wanted to read, the home I wanted to build. It’s a revelation, discovering I still want those things badly, that they’re not something I’ve entirely left behind. Maybe future Gemma isn’t an impossibility. Maybe, in a small way, she’s already here.
“We can’t have sex the entire time,” I warn, as if I would ever complain if that was the case.
He leans across the table and presses his lips to my forehead. “You can bring as many books as you want.”
Three nights before the depositions begin, I stay at the office while Ben has dinner with Fields. He was tense when he left, but wouldn’t tell me why.
I’m yawning, waiting for him. When my eyes can’t stop falling closed, I text.
Me: I’ll meet you at the apartment.
Ben: I’m exhausted. Have to be in early tomorrow, so I think I’ll just head home.
Exhaustion has never stopped him from staying at my place before. I want to suggest I can come to him. To say, “since I know for a fact your house is done”, but I don’t. I don’t say a word. Is this progress, the way I’m trying not to jump to conclusions? Or am I silencing a warning voice I should be listening to, just like I did before?
The next morning, his face is strained when I walk into his office. He looks like he’s barely slept.
“How was last night?” I ask.
He rubs the back of his neck. “It was fine. Just a little difference of opinion.”
I raise a brow, meaning, “tell me what happened.”
He raises one back, meaning, “you know I can’t do that.”
I come around to his side of the desk. The door is open so I can’t touch him, but I’m drawn toward him like a magnet anyway. “I was thinking,” I venture tentatively, “that if we’re going away together for a real vacation, then we probably need to go to HR.”
I expect him to be pleased—he was the first one to mention it, after all—but a shadow comes over his face, a wariness flickering in his eyes.
“Sure,” he says, sounding anything but. “Let’s just wait until the Lawson case is done.”
It would take us ten minutes at most to go to HR and get the paperwork signed. Two days ago, he was talking about a week away in Fiji, and now it’s like he doesn’t even want to be in the same room with me.
I’d like to be the version of me that no longer jumps to conclusions, who doesn’t assume the worst, but I’m struggling right now. It feels like whatever was discussed with Fields has changed everything.
I take a deep breath. “Is something wrong?” I hate how weak, how vulnerable, it makes me feel, needing to ask.
His teeth sink into his lower lip before he shakes his head. “Just tired. Between this case and the class-action, I’m beat.”
We work late and return to my apartment. He falls asleep while I’m brushing my teeth, but when I wake in the middle of the night, he’s pulling me close, and there’s a tension in his grip that suggests he’s been up for a while.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, rolling to face him.
“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I pull him on top of me. I know if I ask, he’ll tell me he’s fine, though he’s clearly not, and all I can do for him now is this.
He moves inside me, slowly and silently, coming with a single sharp gasp, his mouth buried in my neck, and for a moment it feels like we’re okay again.
He collapses beside me—his head on my pillow, his palm curving over my hip.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk?” I whisper. “I can tell something’s bothering you.”
He moves to his own pillow and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling.
“What happened at Stadler?” he finally asks.
I stiffen. I’d expected him to ask about Stadler again, but not like this. And not like he already knows. “Who told you about that?”
“Fields said something last night. That you stalked someone there.”
My stomach drops. It hurts so much to hear him bring this up to me, to know that same fucking story is still circulating. I sit up with the sheet held to my chest. “And you believed him?”
He rolls toward me. “Of course not. That’s why I’m asking you what happened.”
“If that was true,” I reply, throwing the covers off and swinging my legs to the floor, “you wouldn’t even have to ask.”
He grabs my hand. “Don’t fucking run off, and don’t act like you’re mad just so you don’t have to tell me the truth. I know you didn’t stalk anyone. I just need the real story.”
I want to refuse because I shouldn’t have to defend myself to anyone. But he isn’t wrong—part of my desire to run off and hide behind my anger is just that…because I want to hide. What happened wasn’t all my fault, but it doesn’t make me look great either.
“I was dating a partner there in law school,” I begin. “Kyle. He was based out of the New York office. He told me he was getting divorced—he’d even shown me the separation agreement—and it was all a fucking lie. I didn’t have a clue he was still with her until I found out she was pregnant. I’m not sure he was ever even planning to leave.”
“So what happened?” he asks, his voice neutral, emotionless, giving nothing away. It’s the voice I use with clients I don’t entirely believe.
“They turned the whole thing around on me to protect him. They marched me out of the building like a fucking criminal, and everyone watched. All these goddamn male partners, protecting their own when every one of them knew it was bullshit.”
