Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“No, Faith. You are not.”
She studies me for several beats, then says, “You owe me a story.”
“A story? I thought I owed you an orgasm.”
“I’m pretty sure you owe me three orgasms, but just one story.”
“What story are we talking about?” I ask, and it hits me then that she doesn’t blush when we’re talking sex, and yet, her art, her beauty… These things make her blush. She’s sterilized to sex, not so unlike myself. It’s physical. It’s not emotional.
“Your trial story,” she replies. “The one that made your opposing council on your new case your enemy. You said you had to throw out good evidence because he obtained it illegally, but you still won the case.”
“What interests you about that story?”
“Aside from the fact that I like stories where people beat the odds, how you handled that case seems to me to be a crossroads for you. You chose to go the hard road rather than the easy road, and still you’re a success.”
I narrow my eyes on her, certain this is a masked reference to herself, maybe even to her walking away from blackmail and murder.
“What kind of case was it?” she asks.
“Insider trading,” I say. “We were representing the CEO of a large tech company. I’ll spare you the dirty accusations against him, but he was set up by a competitor. I managed to find someone who not only testified to the setup but had documents and recordings to prove it. But I found her in the eleventh hour, let me tell you.”
“And you and your co-chair became eternal enemies.”
“Considering I went to the board afterward and reported him, yes.”
“After telling him you wouldn’t?”
“The devil is in the details, sweetheart. I didn’t lie to him. I never told him I wouldn’t go to the board. But he lied to me. He told me he’d destroy the illegally obtained evidence, but he kept it until the day of closing. And I already told you. I can’t stand a damn liar, and I damn sure wasn’t giving him another chance to burn me or the firm.”
“And you got him fired,” she assumes.
“That’s the insanity of this story. The board chose to reprimand him instead of fire him.”
She blanches. “After he broke the law?”
“Yes. After he broke the law. They also offered me partner, and at twenty-six, that would have made me the youngest in their history.”
“And you declined.”
“In two flat seconds. If they felt his behavior was appropriate, I damn sure wasn’t signing up for a bigger piece of that liability.”
“And he’s still with them?”
“They gave him my partnership spot, which tells you they’re born of the same cloth.”
“So this case is personal to you,” she adds.
“No case is personal to me,” I say, my own words an unfriendly reminder of the fact that I’ve made her personal. “When you get personal,” I add, a warning to myself as I speak it, “you end up on the bottom with everyone else on top.”
“Yes,” she agrees, and when she says nothing more, again reaching for her ice cream, that one word becomes loaded.
“Yes?” I prod as she removes the lid to her ice cream and jabs her spoon inside.
“Yes,” she says, offering nothing more but my pint of ice cream, which she shoves into my hand. “It’s ready.” And then, before I can press further, she moves on, “Did you leave and open your firm, or did that come later?”
I pull the lid off my pint. “I left and opened my firm. Ten years ago next month.”
She hands me a spoon. “Why San Francisco and not L.A.?”
“I can do everything I can do there in San Francisco, with fewer assholes and less traffic.”
“Yes,” she says. “There are.”
“You’re very agreeable,” I say. “That’s different for you.”
“You haven’t said anything outrageous for me to call you on in at least fifteen minutes. But I’m sure you can remedy that if you try really hard.”
“That’s more like it,” I say, watching as she scoops up ice cream and takes a bite.
“Hmmm,” she sighs. “I love this stuff.” She motions to me with her spoon. “Try yours. I’m dying to know if you like it.”
I reach over and take a bite of hers. “Yes. It’s delicious.”
She smiles and sticks her spoon in my ice cream before taking a bite and then says, “A spoon for a spoon.”
“Like trust for trust?” I ask.
Her mood is instantly somber. “Trust does matter to me, Nick.”
I feel a punch in my chest with those words and my betrayal, but I have to know she’s innocent, and this is about murder. Evidence is everything. “No lies,” I say, hoping like hell mine are the only ones between us. “Tell me something about you.”
She settles back underneath her blanket, the withdrawal in the action easy to read, even before she says, “You already know about me. You researched me.”