Rumor Mill, page 5
Not in the mood to sleep, I ate dinner quickly and moved to the office where I immersed myself in work. Retro took a lot of time, but I had other business ventures that I was keeping an eye on. I needed to read some reports, respond to some emails, and even check in with suppliers on the other side of the world.
Like a lot of well-established entrepreneurs I knew, I didn’t enjoy my down time. Without Teddy there to distract me, I used the never-ending stream of communications to keep me busy and push the nightmare of Nikki’s lawsuits to the back of my mind.
I nearly hated her, and I didn’t like to use that word. It wasn’t that she was going after me for money, but that she had gotten into Teddy’s head and set up camp. I didn’t want to see my girlfriend going through so much bullshit. It wasn’t fair.
Around two in the morning, I realized that I had better at least try to get some sleep. Otherwise, I was going to be useless the following day. Closing down my laptop, I went back into the guest bedroom. The sheets still smelled like sex, and it was a much better atmosphere for dozing off than my own sterile room.
I didn’t need an alarm in the morning. I woke up exactly at six. Getting in a quick workout, I showered and shaved. Instead of going straight to work and arriving before eight, I took a detour to Teddy’s place.
I brought coffee and scones from a neighborhood bakery and knocked on her door, anticipating a warm welcome. She didn’t disappoint. With a smile on her face, she welcomed me in, giving me a kiss on the lips for my troubles. I almost wished there was more time. We hadn’t made love in her new apartment yet, and I thought that was a problem worth solving.
But her meeting with Nikki was at nine, and there wasn’t any time to get dirty. Teddy went into the kitchen to fetch two plates for us. We sat down on the couch and ate the scones, using the few short moments we had to prepare ourselves for the day.
“I never asked you how Alec was doing,” she said.
“He’s doing well,” I said. “I’ve never seen him so lucid.”
“I’m glad,” she replied.
“He’s been sober for nearly two weeks now,” I continued. “And he seems to have a clarity I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“I’m happy for you,” she said, taking a bite of her scone. “How about your parents?”
“They’re fine,” I answered without really knowing. “I think they’re still stateside.”
“You don’t know?”
“I haven’t talked to them,” I admitted.
“They might appreciate knowing how things are going,” she suggested.
I leaned in to kiss her cheek. After all that my family had done to her, accusing her of being a thief and Alec’s abortive attempt to come on to her, I didn’t expect her to care so much. She was a real catch, and I was lucky to have her.
“What about you?” I asked, tossing the ball back into her court.
“I spent the night with Corey,” she responded.
“How was that?” I asked. “Did you have a campfire?”
Campfires were regular fare at her brother’s house. I had been to two myself and enjoyed them both immensely. Since Corey lived on the outskirts of town, he had a wooded property with three buildings. There was the main house, a barn and a garage. Between them all was a fire pit that the family regularly used to unwind.
I knew that Teddy’s little nieces enjoyed playing in a stream not too far from the house. It was the kind of upbringing that every child should be allowed to have, a carefree life that was so often missing for city dwellers.
We’d taken a walk down to the creek one afternoon not that long ago, and Teddy had shown me several scenic places to sip coffee and watch the water. The kids built dams to stop the flow and caught frogs whenever they could.
“I was thinking it would be nice to have a family,” Teddy mused, bringing me back to the present.
“Really?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
There could be no mistaking her words. Since we were growing closer by the day, a family only meant one thing: marriage. I’d never had an opportunity to settle down since the people I dated weren’t really long-term material. But Teddy was different. I could definitely see a happily-ever-after with her.
“Yeah,” she continued dreamily. “A few children and a happy home. Corey’s really got the whole deal.”
“You will too,” I promised.
Teddy leaned against me, cradling her coffee cup in two hands. “I love you, Brad.”
“I love you too,” I said.
We had just five minutes left to cuddle, and we used it all. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. It was the calm before the storm, and we took shelter in one another. I couldn’t wait to put all of this ugliness behind us so that we could get on with the business of living. The future seemed like a wide open field, full of possibilities.
“I’m going to be late,” she lamented finally, rising up from her seat.
“I’ll drive,” I offered.
“I can drive,” she said, cleaning up the remnants of breakfast.
“Let me help,” I argued. “You shouldn’t be alone.”
She looked down at me from her vantage point, deliberating. Finally she smiled, a thin, tired smile. “Okay.”
I waited while she found her coat and her shoes. Walking out the door together, we found my car in the parking lot. There wasn’t much left to say. I could have hunted for topics of conversation, but it seemed like too much trouble. We passed the drive in a tense silence. I had little advice left to offer her. It was up to the lawyer now.
When the shit had hit the fan a few weeks ago, I’d offered to pay for her legal counsel. But she wouldn’t have it. Her brother had a college roommate who was supposed to be one of the best litigators in the city. I hoped he was. I needed to know that Teddy was in good hands. I didn’t have an opportunity to get together with the man, though I had done my homework.
“Have you heard of an Andrew Burke?” I had asked my own attorney.
“Sure,” he said quickly. “He’s one of the best.”
That was good enough for me. It had to be. Teddy was too independent to accept help, and knowing that the man had a good reputation was a point in his favor. Still, I would have felt better if I had been allowed to sit in on the meeting. We both agreed that probably wasn’t the best course of action.
I drove Teddy to Burke’s office, but instead of dropping her off on the curb, I insisted on coming in with her. “I want to meet him,” I said.
She gave me a narrow stare that told me I was damned close to overstepping my bounds. But she relented, deciding that it wasn’t worth the effort to fight. I parked on the street and fed the meter with my cell phone. Gone were the times when you had to collect quarters for parking. It was all wireless now, through apps that fed the city government’s coffers.
We walked into the building and were asked to have a seat. I hoped we wouldn’t be kept waiting long and was pleased when Burke arrived moments later. We both stood up, and while Burke’s attention focused on Teddy initially, he quickly moved to acknowledge my presence.
“Brad, I presume,” he said, offering his hand.
I took it and gave it a good shake, pleased by the exact amount of force applied. At least the man knew how to give a good handshake. I knew that their meeting would be starting soon and that I didn’t have a lot of time. I just wanted to introduce myself and get a feel for the man. He made a good impression.
“Take care of her, will you?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he responded without missing a beat.
I gave Teddy a goodbye kiss and watched her walk into the back, wishing I could do more. With a few hours to kill, I decided to go to a coffee shop instead of back to the office. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway, and I wanted to be right around the corner when she got out. It looked like it was going to be a long day for all three of us.
Chapter 8
Theodora
I DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE the lobby. Brad was my rock, and without him, I felt unmoored. The last few days had been torture leading up to this meeting. Now that the moment was upon me, I felt small and unprepared.
I wished I could go backwards in time to the hour I’d spent in Brad’s basement. Having a punching bag would do wonders for my anxiety, but that time had passed. Mr. Burke asked me to come a half hour before the meeting time so that we could go over a few things. He led me to his office where he shared his computer screen.
“It’s all digital now,” he explained. “When the time comes, we’ll print out these documents for you and the plaintiff to take home with you.”
“When the time comes?” I muttered, feeling numb.
“When we reach a decision,” he clarified. “A lot of these are boiler plate.” He scrolled through a whole folder full of file names, showing me things that I thought I should have been able to recognize but didn’t.
“Our objective today is to settle,” Burke said. “We want to see if she’ll agree to drop the charges, or at the very least agree to a payment that will work for everyone involved.”
“I don’t have much money,” I said.
“I understand,” Burke sympathized. “We’ll do our best.”
We went over the documents I had provided. There was the security footage from the lobby of the night in question. Brad had directed the security guards to send it over, and Burke now had a digital copy mixed in with the rest of the case files.
“We have a statement from the security guard who took your phone call,” Burke enumerated. “We have your statement and Brad’s.”
“Is it going to be enough?” I asked.
“I hope so,” Burke answered honestly. “I don’t want to lead you down the primrose path. I’ve seen this kind of thing go both ways.”
That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear, but I supposed it was better to prepare myself for the worst. My stomach clenched inside me, and I felt sick. I imagined I was standing at the edge of a rickety bridge over a towering cliff like so many heroes in the adventure movies. There was a chance that the bridge would support my weight as I made my way to the other side. But there was an equal probability that it would crash, and I would be sent plummeting to the rocky canyon below.
“No matter what happens, this is not a judgment against you,” Burke said, obviously trying to fortify me. “The worst thing that can happen is that the case will proceed. If it does, there are a number of avenues we can take. I think you’ve got a strong argument. Whether she sees that is another story.”
“I shouldn’t have done it,” I whispered.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Burke began, “but I’m going to ask you to refrain from saying anything like that during the meeting. If you don’t think you can contribute, just let me do all the talking. We don’t want them to think that you think you’re guilty.”
I gave him a brave smile, but he wasn’t finished.
“They’re like sharks,” he said. “They can smell fear.”
“Great,” I muttered. All I was feeling was fear.
The intercom buzzed, and he picked up the phone. “Yes?” He paused while his secretary said something, then hung up. “They’re here. We should move to the conference room.”
I picked up my purse, holding it against my chest as if it were a shield. If I was a religious person, I would have said a quick prayer. As it was, I just wished it would all be over, and that I could go back to my whirlwind romance with Brad. Surely fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to separate us when we were just getting comfortable with each other.
Logically, I knew I wasn’t going to jail, but in my heart, I was terrified that would be the end result of the morning’s meeting. I followed Burke down the hall and into a glass-walled conference room. Nikki was there, seated at the head of the table. I hadn’t seen her since that morning on the sidewalk. She looked different.
She was dressed conservatively in a blue pantsuit with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. When we’d worked together, she’d most often wore flirty dresses and her hair down. When she’d invited me to her house, I learned that she owned more than a dozen clubbing dresses, each one sluttier than the last. To see her dressed like a lawyer herself was almost more than I could handle. We were in for a bumpy ride.
While Mr. Burke was my sole representation, Nikki had three men with her. They wore suits that looked expensive, though I had no idea if they were off the rack or not. None of them were smiling.
Burke held the door open for me, forcing me to enter first. I stuck my chin out, doing my best to look like I wasn’t afraid. This whole thing would be over in less than an hour. I just had to keep my breakfast down until then and hope for the best.
Nikki looked up as I entered, and she actually sneered. I thought we would be pretending to be civil, but apparently that wasn’t the case. I gave her a genuine smile, deciding to rise above the pettiness. Taking a seat at the opposite end of the table, I waited for Mr. Burke to join me.
He set his briefcase down, which I assumed was just for show. He’d told me that all the documents were digital, and since this was a preliminary meeting, there wasn’t a need for paperwork.
“Can I get anyone a coffee?” Burke asked.
Nikki’s lawyers didn’t dignify his question with a response. I guessed that civility was out the window, and we were swimming with the sharks just as Mr. Burke had said. Swallowing heavily, I prepared myself for the worst. My stomach lurched, and I forced it to remain calm.
“There’s no need for this meeting,” one of the other lawyers said. “We’re proceeding to court.”
“Thank you for coming in anyway,” Burke responded, still polite even though it was clear that the other side wasn’t. “My client is willing to concede that your client has grounds to be upset.”
“Upset?” the other lawyer squawked. “We’re not talking about girlfriend drama here. Your client deliberately led my client into a criminal conspiracy.”
“Conspiracy is a little heavy-handed,” Burke replied.
“We will show that without the leadership of your client, our client would never have gotten involved,” Nikki’s lawyer said.
“That just isn’t true,” I objected.
They went on, ignoring me. “We’re suing for one million dollars in damages.”
“I don’t have a million dollars!” I cried.
“Control your client,” the other lawyer snapped at Burke.
“Nikki, please,” I tried. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Then you admit to culpability!” one of the other lawyers shouted, rising to his feet.
Andrew Burke put a hand on my knee. I looked over at him, and he shook his head very slightly. “My client admits to nothing,” he said. “We’re simply looking for common ground.”
“There is no common ground,” Nikki’s third lawyer responded. “Our client suffered the loss of employment as well as a mark on her reputation.”
I pressed my mouth shut. I didn’t want to make things worse, but it was hard to listen to the accusations without defending myself. I wasn’t the one who’d ruined Nikki’s reputation. She’d done that all on her own. I might have mentioned that I had suspicions about Brad’s part in the whole severance pay affair, but I didn’t force her to break into the office. It was the other way around. She’d forced me.
“Our client lost her health insurance,” the opposite team continued. “That alone is worth millions.”
“Hardly,” Mr. Burke huffed. “We’re willing to go as high as fifty thousand.”
I stared at him. Where the hell was I going to get fifty thousand dollars? I didn’t have that much money either. A million seemed like a crushing blow, but I didn’t want to bargain down to something that was equally out of reach.
“Fifty thousand wouldn’t even cover the pain and suffering,” Nikki’s lawyer replied. “I’m afraid this meeting is pointless.”
I couldn’t believe how smug Nikki looked. I would never in a million years have had the gall to sue someone when I knew I was responsible. Yet there she was, sitting in the driver’s seat of this train wreck, looking like she’d just won the lottery.
I felt like I was going to be sick. Since there wasn’t any common ground to be found, the meeting didn’t last much longer. Nikki’s lawyers declared their intent to take me to court, and Mr. Burke reluctantly agreed.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t come to a resolution,” he said, still polite even after their insulting rhetoric.
Nikki leaned forward at the very end, capturing my eyes with hers. “I told you I was going to make you pay.”
It didn’t seem fair that I would have to suffer so much for a single mistake. If only I’d had the presence of mind to see through her friendly demeanor way back then. If I had known she would turn on me so completely, I never would have accepted her invitation to go dancing. This whole situation could have been avoided with one evening on the couch instead of in the club. It was the worst thing I had ever been involved in, and it only continued to produce poisoned fruit.
As soon as they left, I felt a rumbling in my stomach that could only mean one thing. I launched myself out of the door, stumbling down the hall until I found the bathroom. Pushing into the ladies’ room, I ran to the first stall and fell to my knees.
The scone I’d eaten for breakfast that morning came up violently. As I was puking, tears began to form, and I alternated between sobbing and heaving until my stomach was empty. Sitting down on the bathroom floor next to the toilet, I hugged myself.
I was scraping the absolute bottom. My fingers shook as I leaned back against the stall divider. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself. One million dollars. That amount would destroy me. I would never get out from under Nikki and her horrible revenge plot. I wasn’t like Brad; I didn’t have billions of dollars in bank accounts to tap into. I had clawed my way back to my own apartment, squirreling away just enough for the first month’s rent and the security deposit. I had taken a pay cut to work at the gallery, and now I would be crippled by the weight of Nikki’s lawsuit.
