“Just thought you’d like the story.”
“I do.”
“But?”
“Well, did it work? What happened with the trees?”
He chuckled. “The trees were dug up and moved to a new location. But don’t ask me where.”
I smiled.
We stood in silence. Our bodies melting into each other. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to break the spell.
“Emily, you will find your way in this town. It takes time being the new fish in an ocean of sharks.”
I sighed. “All my problems aren’t sharks.” I didn’t want to tell him my brother’s cycle had cracked through the protective bubble I created here. I didn’t want to talk about Garrett at all.
Garrett was a pain I carried with me. At times it was so deep, I didn’t think I could breathe. And the guilt I had for leaving him behind crippled me. I didn’t know how to move past it. I didn’t know how to move inside it. It was with me, hovering on the outer edges of my thoughts.
And he was here again in this moment. A moment that should be mine.
Vaughn rotated me toward his chest. I looked at his face in the shadows. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
A new fire started under my skin. It was the way Vaughn looked at me. The anticipation was like a drug.
He threaded his fingers through mine. “Come on, I think I owe you dinner.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything again, but I am starving.” We strolled along the path next to the cherry trees. I would never look at them the same way again. “Thanks for showing me your secret spot.”
“It’s not so secret.”
“You know what I mean.” I stopped him at the bridge. The rotunda rose behind us, illuminated like a jack-o-lantern. “I do need a place. Everything has been frantic and chaotic since I moved. I didn’t know how much I missed the quiet. This kind of quiet.”
I hadn’t meant to turn somber. Maybe it was the heaviness of the monument, or the darkness falling on our shoulders. I was spending the evening with a gorgeous man and yet the weight of the day was still on me. I was letting it sink into my skin and ruin the romance of what Vaughn tried to accomplish.
I looked into his eyes just as his palm caught the softness of my cheek.
“Come here,” he whispered, dragging his lips across mine.
I inhaled deeply. It was what I needed. What I sought.
The perfect way his mouth moved over mine, while his hands tangled in my hair. I couldn’t help the tiny whimper that escaped from my throat. His kisses had quickly become everything. They stopped the loneliness. They stopped the unavoidable feeling of panic and uncertainty. When he kissed me the only thing I felt was the path to escape. The way out of chaos. I sighed lightly as his lips fell on mine, raking over me as if he was trying to memorize the lines of my mouth.
The kiss burned my tongue.
“You make it hard to remember what I’m doing, Emily.”
I nodded. I wanted the kiss to continue. I wanted to forget everything else that had happened today. The only thing worth remembering was this. Vaughn’s mouth devouring me under a dark D.C. sky.
Chapter Five
I needed a strong cup of coffee the next morning at the clinic. Meg brought in two cups and sat one in front of my desk.
“Rough night?” she asked.
I greedily sipped the hot liquid. I didn’t care that she hadn’t bothered to add cream or sugar. My body craved the caffeine. By the time Vaughn had dropped me off at the apartment, it was close to one.
I yawned. “Not rough, but late.”
“Well, drink up because you are double booked today.”
My eyes widened. “Why?”
Meg nodded toward the empty desk adjacent to me. “She’s not coming in today. She called in sick.”
“Addie’s sick? But it’s only the second day.” I hadn’t stopped long enough yesterday to pay any attention to her. If she had a cold or any symptoms, I didn’t notice. We saw one client after another.
Meg shrugged and carried her cup out to the reception area. “I would cancel lunch plans if I were you. You have three waiting outside.”
“Already? Oh shit,” I whispered.
My head was in the wrong place.
“Give me just a minute, Meg. Or maybe five?” I pleaded.
“Sure thing.” She closed the door so I could collect myself.
I scrambled to find my writing tablet. I powered up my laptop and kicked off my Keds under my desk. I slipped into a pair of flats. I had a great plan to unpack a few boxes last night. I wanted to go through my clothes and organize my closet, but instead I walked the city with Vaughn. We talked. We held hands. We kissed under every monument constructed in this town.
It was like some kind of romantic walking tour.
I tried to wipe the plastered look of lust off my face before Meg tapped on the door with my first client.
“This is Mrs. Foley.”
“Thanks, Meg.”
I rose from the desk and skirted around to shake the woman’s hand. I guessed she was in her mid-twenties. She was dressed in a suit and carried a leather messenger bag.
“Have a seat,” I instructed her.
“Thank you.” She planted herself in front of me.
“I’m Emily Charles. Before we get started, I want to explain a few things about how this process works. As you know this is a clinic run by attorneys to help women in the community who may not otherwise be able to seek legal advice.” I said the same speech I had repeated yesterday to the women I saw. “Everything we discuss is confidential.”
She nodded. “I understand. I didn’t know where else to go. I-I need someone who isn’t … isn’t already bought.”
“This is a free service. There are no fees.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“All right. What brings you to the clinic, Mrs. Foley? Tell me.”
“I was fired from my job yesterday.” Her eyes were hard and her lips formed a thin line. She didn’t weep, and her voice didn’t crack.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I started taking notes. “I assume you are here because you believe it was a wrongful termination?”
She nodded. “It is. One of my co-worker’s found out I was pregnant and told my boss.”
“And you were let go immediately?” I asked.
“Yes. Immediately.” She pressed her palms into the pleats of her skirt.
“Did you have any prior written warnings, any kind of verbal indication that your job was in jeopardy?”
“No.” She was crisp. “I haven’t even told my husband about the baby.” Her eyes locked on mine.
“Oh.” I placed my pen on the desk and stopped writing. “Did you tell him last night after you were let go?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t.” She spun the solitaire diamond on her left ring finger.
The conversation was becoming delicate. “Mrs. Foley, if you are asking me to provide legal advice and possible representation for you, then I need to know the factors that led to your release. The first would be how someone at work would know about your pregnancy and not your husband.”
She looked me straight in my eye. “Because my boss is the baby’s father.”
“I see.” I took a deep breath. Complicated did not begin to describe the complexity of this case. There were going to be layers I needed to peel back.
“Mrs. Foley, wait just a second.” I walked around behind her and stuck my head out the door. Meg was writing down the name of the women as they walked into the lobby.
“Meg,” I called her toward me.
“What is it?”
“This is going to take a while.”
Her eyes darted with panic. “But we have all these clients and no Addie.”
“I know. I know. But I can’t rush through this. Will you please field these the best you can? Take as much information down for me and then I’ll have a brief prepared at least when I sit down with them.”
�
��We are never leaving today are we?”
“Do they have cots in this place?” I joked.
“Don’t ever say that out loud or someone will order them.”
“I’ll do my best, but you’re right. It’s going to be a long day.”
I closed the office door, thankful I had the office to myself today so I could discuss this case without other clients walking in and out.
I smiled at her. “Ok. Mrs. Foley, let’s get started from the beginning and I’ll see how I can help you get your job back.”
“You can call me Lana,” she said. “It seems strange for you to keep saying ‘Mrs. Foley’.”
I nodded. “All right, Lana.” I resumed taking notes.
“And I never said I wanted my job back.”
“But you want some kind of compensation?”
“Yes. Of course.” Her eyebrows pinched together.
“What is the name of the company?”
“Company?”
“Yes. Where did you work?”
She cleared her throat. “In the Senate.”
I blinked. “As in Congress? The U.S. Senate?”
“That’s right.”
I pressed my elbows into the planes of my desk. I felt my stomach turn as I asked the next question.
“And your boss? Who is it?”
Lana sighed. “Todd Mitcherson.”
“Senator Mitcherson?” My voice cracked.
“I take it you know him.” She stared at me blankly.
“He’s a U.S. senator.” I tried to keep my words steady. Keep the judgment off my lips. Keep it hidden that I knew exactly who he was. The man Preston worked for.
“Yes. He is. And he shouldn’t have fired me.”
“I think I need you to start at the beginning. The very beginning.”
***
There was a weariness that had settled into my shoulders. It ran deep between the tissue, twisting the tendons with snaps of fatigue. They ached from all angles. I lugged my messenger bag over my arm and started down the stairs outside the clinic. If I rushed, I could make the last shuttle back to the Metro.
I didn’t like walking on campus at night by myself, but I held my phone firmly in my hand and trudged forward. It reminded me of all the seminars I’d attended in college. The ones where safety officers would fill an auditorium with girls and tell us how to avoid an unwanted attack. As if there was any other kind. They would tell us to always walk together. Check in with your buddy. If you saw someone suspicious, don’t make eye contact. It was a freshman requirement for all girls to attend, but I didn’t remember any seminars for the guys. Something about how not to attack women. Keep you dicks in your pants and your hands to yourself. I scowled, marching forward. I didn’t want to miss that bus.
Mrs. Foley was the first of twenty women I saw today. Twenty. I used to go an entire week at the private practice without seeing that many clients.
I hustled toward the stop at the corner feeling part super woman and part exhausted.
The driver nodded without smiling as I climbed onboard and took the first seat. I was a little nervous walking through the Metro station at night alone, but I was only one stop away from our neighborhood. Women in the city did this all the time.
I thought about the women today. What they dealt with. The decisions they made they had brought them to my office. The faith they had put in people who let them down. It was overwhelming and infuriating. There weren’t enough of us fighting to help them. Today I had worked with twenty, but if Addie had been there, we would have helped forty. And if one more attorney had been added to the clinic it would have been sixty. There was no stopping the hemorrhage.
My fingers touched the top of the metal bar, hanging from the train’s ceiling and I forgot about the women and remembered my ride with Vaughn last night. I smiled to myself. I liked how he steadied me with his strength.
He had the kind of presence I’d never seen in another man. He was comfortable in his own skin. He was confident in his decisions. That voice. Those eyes. He had me upside down.
I skirted off the Metro and scampered up the stairs quickly and onto the sidewalk. I liked being above ground and within sight of home.
Where did Vaughn get that confidence? How did he stroll through life, making his own wake?
I pulled my phone from my bag and tapped his number. I was completely sober and impulsive. It almost made me giggle.
I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to thank him for what he showed me last night. For talking. For living in the quiet with me. For everything.
I took the stairs to the third floor while I waited for him to answer. By the time I reached the top level it had gone to voicemail. I felt the frown crinkle on my face when I heard the rehearsed message.
“You’ve reached Vaughn. Leave a message.”
I hung up. I couldn’t think of putting anything together that didn’t sound lame. He also didn’t seem like the kind of man who bothered with voicemail.
I turned the key in the lock and dropped my bag on the floor.
“You’re home!” Greer squealed from the kitchen. She was stirring a pot of canned spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon.
“You’re home.” I looked around for Preston. I didn’t know if I could hide the awkwardness I now felt, knowing his boss was involved in an unplanned pregnancy with my client. I couldn’t discuss it with him or Greer.
“Can you believe a night before nine o’clock? I’m making dinner. Want some?”
I nodded. “Yes, please. I’m so hungry.”
I reached for a plate as she heaped it with noodles and sauce.
“There’s shredded cheese in the fridge.”
I grabbed the bag and dumped a generous amount on my dish. “Deck?” I asked.
“Yes. The lights are already on.”
We walked outside and sat at the small bistro table.
“Wait,” Greer ran inside. “I forgot the wine.” She returned with a bottle of red and two glasses.
“I need that,” I groaned.
“Bad day?” she asked.
“Exhausting day. But I think a good day.” I twirled the pasta on my fork. “Thanks for dinner.”
“No problem. I was starving. We seriously needed to go to the grocery store.”
I was too busy stuffing my mouth to agree.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in two days. What’s going on at the capitol?”
She sighed. “Everything is on hold.”
“What do you mean by everything?” I poured two huge goblets to the top for us.
“The senators on the committee can’t agree on a contract. They are at each other’s throats. No one is budging.”
“What kind of contract is it? Am I allowed to ask that?”
She smiled. “Are you going to sell my secret intelligence information?”
I tilted my head. “To the highest bidder.” I grinned.
“It’s a weapons contract. We’re outsourcing it of course. There are five private companies in the running for it right now. The committee has to choose one before they can push budget numbers forward to the Senate for final approval.”
I nodded. “Wow. Sounds intense.”
“It is.” She took a sip of wine. “And I’ve been working my ass off for them, researching plant locations, how many workers would be involved, what kind of contracts the companies have with other countries. It is endless. I basically have their shoe sizes in a file if someone needed that.”
I laughed. “Could come in handy if you need someone to make…” I looked at her. “What do they make?”
“Air to ground weaponry.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. It’s serious. These are billion-dollar contracts.”
My eyes lifted. “A billion dollars?”
“Many many billions. It’s the kind of money that’s inconceivable.”
She sank into her seat. “Please tell me about all the good you’re doing in the world. I need something inspiring.”
/> “I don’t know how inspiring I am. If I help one person, there are ten more right behind her who need even more. I can’t make a dent here.” I shook my head. “It feels like I’m spinning my wheels in that clinic.”
Greer sat forward. The weariness on her face lifted for a second. “While I’m at the Capitol working on weapons, you are out doing actual good. If you help one woman in that clinic, you’ve done something. Don’t let the numbers depress you.”
“How can they not? It’s hopeless. That’s how I felt when I left the clinic today. Hopeless.”
“Because, you have to believe in paying it forward. At least you used to.” She stared hard into my eyes. “It might not be in the same way, but for every woman you help, she’s going to turn around and pull up another woman behind her. Sometime in her life she’s going to do that.”
I felt guilt in my own cynicism. “You still think that, Pollyanna?”
She nodded. “Somebody has to. Because working with the assholes I work with will shred the humanity right out of you.”
“I need to remember that. Thank you.”
“Sure thing.” She smiled. “This is hard town to live in, but it does so much good. It’s just hard to see sometimes.”
I nodded. “I may not have figured anything else out, but I think I got that point.”
We finished dinner and the entire bottle of wine.
“Did I mention I have to finish my syllabus for class tomorrow?”
“What?” Greer laughed at the empty bottle of wine between us. “You have to work tonight?”
“How terrible would it be to show up without one on the first day?”
She started to clear the table. “Pretty terrible. Let’s clean this up and I’ll help you.”
“No. You’re already exhausted. You don’t have to do that.”
I rinsed my plate in the sink and stuck it in the dishwasher.
“How much do you have finished?” she asked.
I tried to think at what point in the semester I had stopped assigning chapters and cases. “I think I have through fall break. So really I just need to finish off November.”
She smiled. “That’s not too bad.”
“Exactly. I can finish it before bed.”
“You sure? I’m a little rusty, but I can look over some stuff for you. It might be fun to do together.”
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