Angela and Carmen snapped to attention.
Lawrence Whittington sat at the head of the table, as was his right as the oldest—seventy—and most senior member of the partnership. With his silvery blond hair, patrician nose, sharp cheekbones, and expensive suits, he always looked like he’d been sent from central casting.
“Angela,” he said sadly, “I know it’s hard to talk about professional matters at a time like this.”
“I understand, Larry,” Angela replied.
He nodded. “Life goes on, and it’s time for us to start partnership evaluations. You know we like to get this done by the first of the year or so.” He flipped open a file, rifled through some pages, and found a spreadsheet. “I think both your chances are excellent at this point. You’ve both been here ten years. Your hours have always been very good and this past year they’ve been outstanding.”
“Thank you,” Angela murmured.
She allowed herself a moment’s pleasure at this praise, which was about all an associate ever got in a firm this size. In return for her handsome—well, borderline obscene—salary, the partners expected her to put her nose to the grindstone, work her ass off, never complain, and only come up for air long enough to troll for new clients.
Angela had never complained or minded, but now she wondered what the seventy-hour weeks had cost her. If she’d been home more, could she have saved her relationship with Ronnie? If she hadn’t canceled so many dates with him at the last minute to work on some case, would he still have hopped into some other woman’s bed? Had focusing on her career doomed her chances of getting married before she turned forty?
“Of course, your performance on the Golden Valley case will be very important,” Larry added.
“I know.”
Angela had been defending the Golden Valley Snack Company against a charge of age discrimination for the last two and a half years and could hardly recall a time when GV hadn’t dominated her professional life. The jury trial was set to begin after the first of the year. If GV lost, it would have to pay damages of up to two million dollars. Worse, if it lost the case, GV would likely reevaluate its relationship with the firm. The unspoken long and short of it was if Angela lost the case and GV consequently fired the firm, Angela would not only not make partner, she’d be out on her butt.
“When is the final pretrial conference?” Larry asked.
“In a month.”
“I’m sure you’ve got everything under control. Let me know if you need any help.” Larry leaned back in his chair and removed his glasses. “Any questions for me?”
Angela cleared her throat. “I do, actually.”
She ignored Carmen’s alarmed warning glare and plowed ahead.
“You know I have my niece now—”
“Yes,” Larry said. “I understand Carmen, here, is representing you for the guardianship.”
“Right. And this is going to be a transition period for Maya, and I—”
Larry made a tutting sound. One tufted white brow lifted slightly, managing to convey exactly the sort of disapproval Angela had feared.
“Angela, you know we encourage family commitments—”
Angela tried not to laugh out loud. Last year, two of the senior partners had divorced their wives for younger women. Larry, here, probably hadn’t been home for dinner in the last thirty years, which might explain why one of his sons was in rehab and the other had an arrest record.
“—but I’m going to be honest with you.” His piercing blue gaze caught hers, pinning her to the chair. “Now is not the time for you to slack off.”
Angela’s heart sank. She couldn’t possibly raise Maya while maintaining the hours she’d worked for the last ten years. It wasn’t possible. How on earth could she eat dinner with Maya, help her with her eventual homework, and tuck her into bed every night when she normally didn’t get home from work until eight thirty or nine?
Yet there was only one thing she could say: “I understand.”
Larry cleared his throat. “May I suggest a nanny...?”
At that, Carolyn’s horrified face flashed before Angela’s eyes, and Angela knew she could never do it. Let a nanny raise her dead sister’s only child while Angela slaved at the office? Never. She’d let Justus have her first.
But it wouldn’t come to that. She’d think of something. She had to.
“I’ll think about it,” she told Larry.
He smiled, clearly relieved that difficult topic had been resolved, never to be discussed again.
“Good. I have another meeting. Thank you, ladies.”
He left.
The door had barely closed behind him when Carmen let Angela have it.
“What the hell are you doing? Career suicide? Why not bring a loaded shotgun to work? You didn’t really expect him to say, ‘Go ahead and take all the family time you need,’ did you? You don’t want to wind up like Michele Avery.”
This cautionary reminder struck new fear in Angela’s heart.
Michele Avery was a name usually spoken only in hushed whispers in dark corners of the hallowed halls here at Grant & Delamere. Her experience had vividly illustrated the firm’s culture:
Move up through the ranks or get the hell out and stop wasting our time.
The unfortunate Ms. Avery, whom Angela vaguely remembered from her early days with the firm, didn’t make partner the year she was eligible—allegedly because her billable hours were low. Even though the partners murmured supportive platitudes and professed their continued faith in her, they very quickly reassigned her biggest cases and began to oversee her work to a degree no self-respecting lawyer with ten years’ experience could tolerate for long. The writing thus on the wall, Ms. Avery resigned within three months. The last anyone heard of her, she’d set up her own practice in a shabby office somewhere on the unfashionable outskirts of downtown, put her name on the public defender’s list for appointments, and been making less than half of what she’d made at the firm.
“Do you have anything even remotely helpful to say?” Angela barked. “Because I’ve got to tell you, you’re batting about zero.”
“Yeah. Hire someone who can help out a little after school.”
“No way. I can handle it myself. I can leave the office early and work after she goes to bed.” The more Angela thought about it, the more that seemed to be the perfect solution to all her problems. She brightened, the decision made. “How hard could it be?”
“How’d the hearing go, man?”
Justus looked up from the paperwork on his desk to see Brian standing in the doorway of his office. Glancing at his watch he saw it was five thirty—nearly time to wrap it up here, go home and change, and head over to Angela’s to get Maya. He waved Brian inside, putting away the timesheets for now, and Brian sank into the chair opposite him.
“Pretty good. The magistrate said Maya should stay with Angela for now, but I can have overnights. And she ordered a home study. She said Angela and I are in pretty much equal positions.”
Brian, always loyal, scowled as if the magistrate had sent Justus to the gas chamber. “Yeah, but she doesn’t know how involved you’ve been with Maya.”
Justus shrugged. “She’ll find out soon enough.”
Brian propped his elbow on the arm of his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “Is Angela still being reasonable with you?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t see how you think you’re going to get something started with Angela when you’re trying to take Maya away from her. And what about when it’s over? Have you thought of that? You’ll still have to deal with her for the rest of Maya’s life.”
Justus didn’t much care for the idea of things ending between him and Angela. Their affair would most likely run its course and die a natural death when the time came, but he couldn’t quite picture that happening.
He’d wanted her for so long he preferred to focus on having her, not letting her go.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to i
t.”
“Made any progress yet?” Brian asked.
Justus propped his feet on his desk and scowled, reliving his heinous miscalculation of the other night. “No. In fact, I shot myself in the foot the other day. I told her how I felt—”
“And she didn’t throw her panties in your lap?” Brian asked, laughing.
Justus felt the first stirrings of irritation. This was the sort of conversation he and Brian had had dozens—hundreds—of times over the years, but for some reason Brian’s question was deeply offensive when applied to Angela.
Janet and her ilk were one thing, but Angela belonged to another category completely, and he wouldn’t have Brian talking about her like some video vixen.
“A little respect, man,” he said, his voice laced with an edge he rarely used with Brian.
Brian’s brows inched higher. The smirk that followed only provoked Justus further.
“I see,” Brian said smugly.
“No, you don’t.”
Brian just grinned.
Justus abruptly swung his feet down and jumped up, turning away so Brian couldn’t see whatever he thought he saw on Justus’s face. He jerked open the small closet and snatched his black down jacket from its hanger.
“My point is I miscalculated a little and now I have to back off for a while,” he said.
“But you’re not giving up.”
“I never give up.”
“Justus?” interrupted a brisk voice from the doorway. “Can I talk to you?”
Startled, Justus looked around and saw his father.
14
“Good to see you, Mr. Robinson,” said Brian.
“You take care, young man,” Vincent said, clapping him on the back. “Don’t be a stranger.”
While Justus said goodbye to his friend, Vincent sat and surveyed the small but tidy office. Justus’s desk, which looked to be little more than an oak kitchen table, sat in front of a pair of oversized windows. Bookshelves and file cabinets lined one wall. There was a private bathroom off the other side of the room. Nice hardwood floors.
All in all, Justus, or someone, had done a respectable job of fixing the place up—and not just the office, either. The whole club felt warm and welcoming.
Or it would, if Justus would stop glowering at him.
Vincent remembered this old Victorian house from when he was just a kid, so that would make it—what?—at least sixty years old? The facade had recently been painted, the floors refinished, and the rooms remodeled. And Justus must have done all this.
Wow.
One of Justus’s best qualities was his relentless determination when he set his mind to something. When Justus made up his mind, he rarely changed it.
Which was why Vincent knew his mission today was probably futile.
Justus sat behind his desk and studied him the way Bobby Fischer watched an opponent, waiting for the opening gambit. It had always been that way between them. Vincent couldn’t recall a time when they hadn’t been locked in a battle of wills and ready to fight to the death for their respective positions. Whether they were playing chess or discussing where Justus should go to college.
Which, when Vincent thought about it, was a lot of wasted time on both their parts.
He cleared his throat, intending to tell Justus the club looked like a great place and he had obviously worked very hard on it. But what came out was:
“The club is...nice.”
Justus’s eyes narrowed. “Thanks.”
The silence lengthened, with Justus unwilling to make even a token attempt to carry a portion of the conversation. So much for small talk, Vincent thought sourly. His mind veered off to Vincent Jr. The two Vincents could—and did—talk for hours on end. With V.J., the conversation had always flowed like milk and honey in the land of plenty. They’d never had these awkward pauses where the air hummed with tension and barely leashed accusations. He and Vincent Jr. had just...understood. Nothing needed to be said or explained.
But with Justus, every conversation was rife with misunderstanding. More than once Vincent had felt like a deaf man trying to communicate in sign language to his blind son.
And there was no translator in sight.
“I came to talk to you about Maya.”
Justus stared levelly at him, his hands folded in his lap.
Vincent plowed ahead, knowing Justus would twist and distort whatever he said next, no matter how diplomatically he managed to say it. “I think Angela should raise her.”
“I know,” Justus said, shrugging with complete disinterest.
“Don’t you agree?” Vincent asked delicately.
“No.”
Vincent felt the first flare of his temper but kept his voice low. “I’m not sure I understand why you think you’d be a better choice.”
Justus’s jaw tightened. “I’m not sure it matters what you understand or don’t understand—”
Vincent blinked aside the red haze of anger that began to cloud his vision.
“—but since we’re having this civilized conversation, I’ll explain.” Justus leaned forward, planting his hands on the desk. “I love Maya. I’ve been a damn good uncle to her. I take her everywhere. She’s had more overnights with me than I can count. I’m making a little money and I have a nice apartment with a bedroom for her. V.J. trusted me with her, and he’d expect me to take care of her now.”
Justus’s unwavering gaze glittered with anger, but his voice remained calm.
“Have I answered your question?”
Vincent put his hands on the arms of his chair and levered himself up, working hard to keep from grimacing. The last thing he wanted right now was for Justus to see how weak he’d become.
“I think this is all a novelty for you, son, and when the newness wears off, you’ll realize that raising a small child interferes with work and your sex life.”
Justus didn’t respond.
“And I’d rather not have my granddaughter grow to depend on you, only to be uprooted in a few months when you get tired of her,” Vincent concluded. “So I’ll be throwing my support behind Angela. I’ll testify for her, or help her with a larger apartment or her legal fees. Whatever she needs. But I intend to see her awarded the guardianship over Maya.”
That night, Angela, feeling a little worried, hovered out of sight in the doorway of the guest bedroom and watched Maya play with her massive Barbie doll collection. The girl sat cross-legged on the floor, her back to the door, humming tonelessly to herself. She held a doll in her lap and Angela stared, amazed, as the same stubby little fingers that hadn’t mastered the buttons on Maya’s clothes quickly dressed Barbie with the dexterity of an orthopedic surgeon.
“Hey, sweetie.”
“Hey,” Maya said.
Angela went in. They’d been home from preschool for about an hour—Justus was due any minute to pick Maya up for dinner—and Maya hadn’t said two words the whole time. Angela was at a complete loss, because the silence felt unnatural.
She sat on the floor and picked up the nearest doll, a naked specimen with electrified brown hair. “How was school today?”
“Good.” Maya reached for a tiny pink plastic brush.
“Uncle Justus will be here soon. Are you ready?”
Maya nodded.
“I’ll bet he’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Won’t that be great? Where would you like to eat?”
Halfhearted shrug from Maya.
The doorbell rang.
Justus. Oh, thank God.
Angela’s heart began to pound. She waited for Maya to jump up and race to the door like she always did, but she just sat there, changing Barbie’s clothes.
Extra worried now, Angela hurried to the door, pausing to check her reflection in the hall mirror. She looked okay, she thought critically. Some inner devil had prompted her to dig out her faded jeans, the ones that rode low on her curved hips. She’d also thrown on a new blue long-sleeved T-shirt that clung to her breasts and torso like shrink wrap. Back before
the accident, she’d bought the shirt, tried it on, decided it was too small, and earmarked it for return to the mall. But today, she’d decided she’d keep it. So what if it was a little tight and, when worn with the hip-huggers, let a two-inch sliver of her belly show? She ran on that stupid treadmill every day and faithfully attended Pilates class.
Why not show off a little of her hard work?
And no ponytail tonight. She’d combed her long bangs off to the side so they nearly covered one eye, and left the rest to hang over her shoulders.
Yeah, she thought again. Not too bad.
So Justus thought she wasn’t his type, did he?
Well, they’d just see about that. She still had no intentions of becoming involved with him. She couldn’t take a risk like that, now or ever. Not with Justus. But still, he was attracted to her—hell, he was attracted to anyone with two X chromosomes—and she intended to prove it. And then she’d cram his words back down his stupid throat.
She swung the door open, and there he was, slouching against the doorframe as though the effort of looking this hot and standing upright was all too much for him. He wore a black knit sweater, black leather jacket, and faded jeans.
And, oh, how she wanted to rip those sexy clothes off his body and discover what lay underneath. The want burned through her skin, making her face flush.
“Justus!” She gave him her sweetest, most sisterly smile. “Right on time. Come in.”
Justus’s answering smile faltered. For half a second, as his gaze flickered over her, she could have sworn she saw a glimmer of masculine heat in his eyes, and she thought, Candy from a baby. But then his gaze shot back to her face and he smiled a dispassionate smile that was probably no different than the one he gave the cashier at the grocery store.
“Hey, Duchess.” He brushed by her and headed for the living room. “Maya ready? I’m starving.”
Swallowing her irrational disappointment, she shut the door, followed him, and perched on the edge of the sofa. “Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, sitting on the chair nearest hers.
Risk (It's Complicated Book 2) Page 16
