by Amanda Lance
I stared at my shoes while they mumbled something else between them. With the receptionist talking even louder and the distance between us, it was hard to make out the rest of it. However, given how Gardner was chuckling as he walked away, I got the impression he’d won.
“Great.” Sebastian sighed and looked past me to the receptionist. “Can you believe this?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw her shrug, but she said nothing. I kept silent as well, silently fascinated by the lack of change in his good looks. Vague images of my father’s funeral passed through my head— he had the same look of disenchanted humor as he did then. Only in the rare moments when Dad brought him home for holiday dinners and summer barbecues did I ever see warmth there— or at least I thought I had. I smiled at him now and tried to muster up some confidence.
“Hello.”
Now focused on a stack of mail the receptionist had handed him, Sebastian only acknowledged my presence by handing me his briefcase. I reached for it without hesitation, surprised by the electricity I felt when our fingers overlapped for just the briefest of seconds.
But once again I was on the move, following him like the obedient lap dog I quickly saw myself becoming. One after the other he threw envelopes, discarding them by tossing them over his shoulder as if they were confetti. Was he trying to throw them to me? I struggled to pick them up as they landed on the ground, swearing silently in my head and reminding myself of the paycheck I’d be receiving at the end of the week.
“I—um—excuse me—”
Sebastian ignored me and kept walking, intentionally, it seemed, swerving around people who walked passed and occasionally switching it up by throwing one of the envelopes straight into the air instead of down. By the time we reached the oak door with his name engraved on the plaque, I felt more than relieved. I followed him through the door and instantly decided that whoever had decorated the criminal law halls must have decorated Sebastian’s office, too. His entire office had a steel interior feel to it, dark marble creating a border between the white walls. Like everywhere else, it brought out the shine of the ink-black furniture and the black walnut desk. The only hint of color came from the sunlight outside, and even then, the blackout blinds were only halfway open. I shivered, even though the air conditioning had just come on and the interior temperature was anything but cool.
“Nice office.”
“I know.” His hands were empty now, but mine were more than full. Between his briefcase, envelopes, and a couple of manila envelopes, my arms practically overflowed with his correspondence. Struggling, I went to empty the majority of it on one of the chairs across from his desk, but was stopped with a firm glance and a shake of his head.
“Don’t put that there.”
I gritted my teeth and looked to the glass coffee table. One foot in that direction, though, and his voice rattled me again.
“Not there, either.”
I forced myself to smile yet again. If I unleashed my temper now, all of my efforts would be for nothing.
“Then where should I put it?”
“Beats me.” He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “Most of it is Morgan’s, anyway. I just take it to screw with him.”
“I see.” I pressed my lips together knowingly. Apparently, Sebastian’s compulsion as a prankster had changed as much as his looks.
He smiled for the first time, seating himself in his tall desk chair before spinning around to look away from me.
“Well, can you see I’m due in court in twenty minutes?” he asked. “Do you think you can get me a coffee within five of those minutes? Or is that unseeable in your little future?”
I watched him stare out of his windows at the street. I hadn’t seen him in eight years, hadn’t heard so much as a peep since my father’s funeral, and yet he seemed the same as before. Steady and strong, but dark and damaged all at once. I shifted the weight of the contents in my hands and reminded myself to blink.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“That depends.” Sebastian turned, craning his neck so he could look me up and down. Though his expression remained indifferent, something about it struck me straight to the bone. “Are you eighteen?”
I dropped the pile on his desk. “Twenty-three actually. But I’m—”
“Here to test my caffeine tolerance? My god, you’re a boring girl…” He turned his head back to the window. What his facial features expressed after that, I couldn’t tell.
“Okay, so I’ll drop these at Mr. Morgan’s office—”
“I’m going to have to spell things out for you, aren’t I?” I thought I heard him chuckling but I couldn’t be sure. “I bet I know how you got to the top of your class—”
“Where should I put his mail then? Your office would be the first place he would look.”
“Which is why I don’t hide it here anymore.” Was that anger I heard in his voice? When did that happen? “Jesus fucking Christ, if I have to drag you by the leash to do everything I need you to do, nothing will get done.”
“Okay” I dug my heels into the carpet. “I’m all over it. Do you need anything else?”
Turning again, he smiled at me wryly, his glance intentionally looking me over before resting on my chest. “Oh, so many things” When I blushed, he chuckled warmly. “But for now, a coffee will do.”
Chapter 3
Sebastian
The sun was just starting to make its way past the shades when my alarm went off. Ideally, I should have been up an hour earlier—gotten in a few miles on the treadmill while catching up on all the new ways the stock market was going to disappoint me. But once I was through with that girl from the perfume counter—the best thing I’d picked up from Neiman Marcus in a long time, by the way—and I’d finally convinced her that no, she couldn’t spend the night, I was excruciatingly tired.
Perhaps turning thirty was the cliché everyone said it would be.
I threw back the feather-stuffed divan and stretched before moving to rise. My eyes focused and I saw the modicum of mess what’s-her-name and I had left in the bedroom of my 4,240 foot penthouse. There was a broken lampshade and wine spilled on the floor, my torn shirt nearby. More than one used condom stuck to the floor… I sighed and made a mental note to leave an additional tip for the housekeeper. After all, there was rarely a problem money couldn’t solve.
Thinking nothing else of it, I walked over to my cappuccino machine and fixed myself a cup before making my way to the bathroom: the morning routine. Regardless of how tired and annoyed I felt by all of it, there were some aspects of my everyday life that I still abided by, still appreciated.
As critical as some routines were, however, others were inconsequential, the bane of my existence really. There was the mundane chatter with the receptionists, the back and forth in court, and the mandatory staff meetings that Burke’s spokespeople insisted on twice a week. Out of all of it, my morning shower and coffee were the only routines I genuinely enjoyed anymore. A combination of the high pressure and the hot temperature of the water always seemed to ease the hangover, not to mention help soothe my aching muscles from a long workout. Of course, the shampoo and soap I had imported from Europe didn’t hurt, either.
I wiped the steam from the mirrors and assured myself there were no grays in sight, not a muscle sagging. It was positively reassuring how my looks had held up over these last years. Thanks to meticulous work-outs and sunblock use, I still looked like a student, a student who now brought in over $2 million a year in billings.
Once I was satisfied, I decided on one of my Hugo Boss suits—the slim-fit, three-piece dark charcoal— and styled my hair accordingly. In retrospect, perhaps it looked too young, but I liked the youthfulness it afforded me. After a dab of spiced cologne, I headed toward the elevator, another day in a long line of endless weeks.
The doorman handed me my copy of The Tribune, his blustering face red and excited to see me. “Good morning, Mr. Scott. Lovely weather we’re having!” It was a
nother mediocre transaction I had to endure on a regular basis. Regardless, I smiled and began the search for a cab. Adventurous as I considered myself, driving through the city on a Monday morning was something I wasn’t willing to undertake.
***
Roger was already waiting for me in the lobby when I arrived. Wearing another one of those god-awful suits of his, he often reminded me of a clown…a clown my childhood never afforded me. I was even ready to make such a comment when it occurred to me he was on the phone. I should have known. If anyone put the wind in windy city, it was Roger.
“So I should have called if it lasted four or more hours—?”
I rolled my eyes. Roger’s voice echoed in the massive lobby, no doubt another check mark for anyone building a sexual harassment lawsuit. Yet this, too, was such a regular habit most mornings that I doubted Roger even noticed it anymore.
“Emergency room?” he yelled. “That all depends on what the nurses look like.”
“Roger…” I pointed at my watch and gestured upstairs. Even my body language had become habitual.
“Okay, okay.” Whether he was talking to me or his prick of a doctor, Roger promptly hung up. He looked in my direction.
“Rough night?”
“You could say that.” He wiggled each of his eyebrows accordingly and led the way to an empty elevator. “What about you, my boy. Have any fun with ah, what’s her name again?”
“The hell if I know.” I sighed. “I lost it somewhere between the time I picked her up and the appetizer.”
Roger smiled approvingly. “That’s good. Save your memory for when it counts. You know this one time I had a redhead in Portugal whose name I kept forgetting—”
I cut him off just as the elevator opened. “Nicky, is it just me or do you get just a little bit lovelier every week?”
“It’s not just you.” She grinned and batted her eyelashes. “I’m that fabulous.”
Roger leaned over the reception desk, instantly spellbound. Ironically, once again Nicky’s oversized rack had saved me from hearing the details of Roger’s sex life. “Of course you are…”
I waved my hand in front of his face, not surprised that he didn’t even blink. Admittedly, if I was as into redheads as Roger was, I might have been just as hypnotized. After the last set of problems screwing a colleague had brought on me, though, I had developed a strict “no-shitting-where-I-eat” rule. Maybe missing out on the occasional screw in the research library was what had brought on my current state of boredom. Then again, maybe it was just the lack of exciting cases lately. Where was a serial killer when you needed one? A mafia kingpin? A domestic terrorist?
“Is there anything at least a little bit interesting going on today, Nicky?” I asked.
“The Lawrence case starts today. What else? Oh, a few people in accounting are on vacation this week so try to avoid sending anything there if you can help it—”
I nodded and made mental notes. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
“And the summer associates start today. I just sent the last one up.”
Finally, something was interesting enough to startle Roger from his stupor. “Hot damn, I forgot all about that!”
Was my boredom starting to make my mind slip? This type of forgetfulness was a classic move I’d expect from Roger, but I sure as hell knew better. I don’t know what bothered me more: the fact that I’d forgotten about getting sentenced to the mentoring of an intern or the fact that said intern was my old mentor’s daughter.
I had always been one of the greatest, the best really. After getting the highest LSAT scores and winning every mock trial I ever participated in, it wasn’t hard to find work after passing the bar. And, unlike every other first year associate, I didn’t kiss Roger’s ass. I knew when to participate in the harassment of receptionists and how to play nice with the clerks in the mail room—naturally it helped that I had a not-guilty rate of 97%—but that was neither here nor there. My clients liked me. And, for the right price, I’d work for senators or drug dealers, English professors or pornographers.
Some people might call me an amoral son of a bitch, and maybe that was true. But, at one time, I had considered an alternative profession. I knew the law was always for me. But once-upon-a-time when I was just a student, I actually had a professor who gave a damn about me—who tried to save me from doing exactly what I was doing now.
***
“Mr. Scott!”
It was the fourth time Professor Donovan had called me to his desk—well, not so much called as yelled. Class had only been over for five minutes, but the classroom was almost cleared out. So, with the exception of a few other students and the tasty co-ed I was chatting up, there was no question who he was yelling at. Still, I pretended like I didn’t hear him. It was bad enough I had to listen to his righteous lectures during class hours. It was another thing entirely for him to give me shit after class.
The co-ed looked over her shoulder. No doubt Professor Donovan was giving the back of my head the evil eye. “Um, you better, like, go?”
I shrugged. “No, it’s cool. So, about tomorrow night—”
“Today, Mr. Scott.”
She giggled and bit her bottom lip. “Later.”
I watched her bottom wiggle as she trotted out the door. It was a bittersweet thing to watch her go, but I knew it would be easy to charm my way into her skirt. It was a natural talent of all good lawyers to know what people wanted to hear, and when it came to women, I was getting better and better at knowing the lies they wanted.
“Professor Donovan, you are messing up my goals. Isn’t that the opposite of your job description?”
One of his massive gray eyebrows went straight up in the air. No doubt he wouldn’t have been the first professor to hear I had actual plans for my life. “Your goals, Mr. Scott?”
“Yeah.” I smirked and plopped my stack of books on his desk. “I plan on banging at least half the girls in this class before the end of the term and I’m ridiculously close. Are you trying to mess that up for me?”
Not missing a beat, Professor Donovan began going through a stack of papers, picking up one from the bottom and sliding it in my direction. “I wanted to talk to you about this paper, Sebastian.”
“What?” I shrugged. “You gave me a B.”
He shook his head, disappointed. The expression by itself made me jittery. I didn’t know how to deal with disappointment—at least when I was the one doing the disappointing.
“It’s phoned in, Sebastian. I know you’re capable of better work. I’ve spoken with your other teachers and I’ve heard you speak in class. You’re better than this.”
“This is only law ethics.” I scoffed. “I wouldn’t take this class if it wasn’t a requirement.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t, huh? So you don’t care about the moral codes that built this country in the first place? Solid legal ethics are the foundation for every good attorney.”
“People don’t become attorneys because they care about ethics; they become attorneys to make money.”
“Is that why you think I went from criminal law to teaching, Sebastian? To make money?”
I shrugged. Admittedly, at the time I hadn’t thought about it at all.
“Do you eat, Sebastian?”
“Huh?”
“Come over to my house tonight around seven. You’ll meet why I teach. The world is a screwed up place. We all have a responsibility to make it better, not worse.”
***
I thought about them the entire ride up to the 52nd floor, Roger talking my ear off the whole time. If I was capable of feeling any shame, I might have felt some over the fact that I hadn’t thought about Professor Donovan or his awkward little daughter in years. Though, maybe to my credit, I had tried to block him out—both of them—because they had tried to help me, the only people who had ever done so without asking for anything in return. And there were flecks of moments where it seemed like Donovan’s influence was going to rub off on me. Maybe he had got
ten to me too late? Who knew? Certainly, it would have helped if the cancer hadn’t gotten him, but that was one of many things I didn’t like to think about…
I cringed at the memory of his gawky little daughter crying at his funeral. And even now, she was the only real thing I remembered about that day—courtesy of inexpensive whiskey and even cheaper company. At the time, had wanted to make Violet smile, tease her about her braces or crooked glasses. But my own anger was more important, and I ended up doing nothing.
I wondered if it was misplaced obligation that had made me choose her. I had made the partners so much money, they’d automatically skipped my name during the mentoring season. But when Roger sentenced me to the summer associates program and I saw the name Donovan on the list of applicants, I almost…felt something. Maybe it was because I associated her with the remainder of my youth. I couldn’t be sure.
Now that the time was actually here to deal with her, however, I instantly regretted thinking of her at all. I didn’t want to see that awkward little girl again, and the odds were that I never really did. What had I been thinking? I should have picked the intern who couldn’t speak English, the one who was autistic, or even the “please-and-thank-you” freak from Canada. Jesus, anyone but her.
I knew Roger had to make some show of a punishment for the incident in court last month to appease Burke, but this was just ridiculous. I cursed myself for not taking care of this situation earlier. If I had just sent Woods a nice pair of golf clubs, this entire situation might have been remedied. I shook my head; was it too late? I turned to ask Roger but he was staring at something beyond my shoulder. For a second, I wondered if Nicky and her chest had followed us up here. But as I turned I could see for myself what had him so enthralled.
