Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
He stops walking and faces me, staring at me for two beats that feel like ten with an audience before he faces the general masses. “Can I get everyone’s attention?” he calls out.
The room silences in seconds and all of the two dozen eyes in the room are on him and now me. “Just a quick greeting to everyone. Call me Cole, just as you call Reese, Reese. I’m not here to intimidate anyone but our opposition. For those of you I might not have met, I look forward to remedying that. Beside me is Lori Havens, Merrick scholarship recipient, and third-year law student. I’m officially her mentor and she will be an extension of me. She will act and ask for things on my behalf. Consider any direction or request she gives you as coming from me. More soon.” He gives them a two-finger wave and turns to start walking, the obvious assumption that I’m to keep pace and I do.
He doesn’t speak and neither do I. There are people on either side of us the entire walk and more walking toward us. I don’t know if what he just did is normal, or if it helps me or hurts me. I only know that I don’t want to be the bimbo who slept her way to the top. That thought drives every step until we head down the hallway to the executive offices and I begin to contemplate that I might end up acting as his secretary. This is actually fine with me if it achieves my goals, but my assumption proves wrong when just shy of the entrance to the executive suite, he stops at an empty office, flips on the light and motions me inside. “Your new office. Make yourself comfortable.”
I turn to face him. “I don’t want special treatment.”
“I don’t give special treatment,” he says, without missing a beat. “I also don’t like my cases within the reach of masses of eyes and ears in their preparation where they might leak. My business is now your business. My cases are now your cases. You will guard them like Fort Knox. Therefore, this office is a resource to do your job. This is also the office I would give any other person I picked for your role. If you don’t want that role—”
“I do. Of course, I do. I just want to know I earned it. I really want to earn it, Cole.”
“And you will,” he says, his voice softening. “If I didn’t believe you would, you wouldn’t be here. No matter how good, bad, or perfectly you fucked me or I fucked you. And as for that conversation in my office—”
“Can we just not go there? Please.”
He opens his mouth to no doubt reject my request, when there is a shout of “Cole!” from the direction of the executive offices.
Cole clamps down on whatever he was going to say and looks right. “Yes, Maria?”
“You have the Houston office manager on the line and it’s urgent.”
“On my way,” he says, returning his attention to me. “We aren’t done with this conversation. As I said to the team, more soon, but sooner for you.” He leaves and it’s as if all the energy in the room is sucked out with him. That’s how powerful his presence is, that’s how much he affects me.
Cole Brooks told me that he would own me, and if I’m not careful, he will.
An hour after Cole leaves me in my new office, I happen to glance up as he passes my door. Happen to look up, I ask myself, or just so hyperaware of the man that I know his every move? I glance at my computer with a news article about one of his cases on the screen. I have an excuse for the hyper-focus. It’s my duty to be obsessed, and I think I really am.
And so, I obsess for a good two hours until Maria appears in my doorway. “Hola, honey. You now have a complete file of every case Cole has ever taken to trial in your new company email.”
“That’s helpful,” I say. “Thank you.”
“He’s making you study, huh?”
“Yes,” I say. “But that’s good. I need to understand his formula for success and what he needs from me.”
She gives me a sly little smile, says nothing, and disappears. I straighten and grimace. I’m not sure what that little smile means, and I’m not sure I want to know. Cole and I have an energy about us that I am not sure is easily missed by someone sharp and smart enough to work directly with Reese Summer.
As if I’ve called upon magic in that moment, Reese steps inside my doorway. “I’m headed to court and wanted to check in before I leave,” he says, perching on the arm of a chair. “How are things?”