“Let’s not think of the parties,” she murmured, though her mouth lifted at the corner. “It’s at the top of our price range, but less than anything the same size.” Lex knew the city better than I did, having lived here the previous summer for an internship.
“Can we get back to you by the end of the day?” she asked Carl.
He nodded and Lex pulled out her phone again to flip through messages as we followed Carl out. “Let’s talk tonight. I’m heading over to the magazine office to find some things for John. He’s filing a motion to dismiss the case. With any luck we’ll be done with this mess within the week.”
“Good luck with that.” I smiled winningly. “I’d better go work on the spring line so they have something worth suing us for.”
Chapter 3
Nate
“We’re so fucked.”
Josh Malone’s familiar blond head appeared in the doorway of my office. He looked both ways down the hall before stepping in.
I rubbed my eyes, which were glazing over from reading the stacks of paper on my desk. It was turning into the longest Monday in history and somehow it was barely two pm. “What?”
“Chris Easterly,” he said, his voice low so anyone passing wouldn’t overhear. “They cut him loose this morning.”
“No shit.” A fist tightened in my gut.
“Shit,” Josh confirmed. He lifted two file boxes off a chair and set them on the floor with a thud. They joined the other dozen already piling up in my office like Tetris cubes. “Chris was billing higher than me. Higher than you. Everyone liked him. Clients, partners. Hell, even Price liked him,” Josh said, referring to the senior partner who, rumor had it, once smiled back in 1988. “Word is he fumbled on a depo last week.” Josh took a seat in the chair, carefully adjusting the cuffs of his dark Armani suit before folding his arms.
Being an associate in a legal practice was thankless. The first year out of law school you billed more hours per week than some of my undergrad classmates had spent awake. On top of it you were expected to be charming and social, work with the other associates but secretly find ways to undercut them. To show you were competitive.
Thank God it wasn’t like that with me and Josh.
“Why did we want to be lawyers again?”
Josh shook his head. “I don’t know, man. You work your ass off, telling yourself ‘one day soon.’ But it never lets up. How many more years of this? And if they’ve started cutting already, who’s next?”
There were six first-year associates, but by the end of the year, half of us would be gone.
“Could be any of us.”
“Yeah right. Any of us but you.” Josh grinned sardonically. “You could show up hungover at noon, puke on your desk, and then leave, and you’d still make it to next year.”
“I’m not immune to anything.” His comment irritated me. A lot of people thought I got special treatment, but Josh wasn’t a lot of people.
“Relax, Nate,” he said, raising his hand. “All I’m saying is your name’s gold.”
I was resisting the temptation to argue when a thought crossed my mind. “Wait. What happens to Easterly’s cases?”
Josh leaned forward and clasped his hands on the edge of my desk. “That, my friend, is the punchline. We get ’em. All of ’em.”
Of course they’d be split amongst the other associates. Like we didn’t already have enough to do.
I scrubbed a hand through my hair, a habit I’d picked up senior year of high school during SAT prep and never shaken. It was amazing I hadn’t made bald spots.
“Fuck me.”
“Sorry, princess, you’re too pretty.” Josh stood and leaned over, looking for the Carmelo Anthony bobblehead I’d kept on my desk since law school for luck. Today he was tucked behind a stack of papers. Josh flicked the doll, modeled after my favorite Knicks player, with his finger, sending it wobbling back and forth. “I bet Melo never had to put up with this shit.” My friend’s smile didn’t reach his eyes before he turned to leave.
I leaned back in my chair, imagining another week of late nights. The Yankees tickets I had for the weekend would have to go too. For the third time this season.
Plus there was the damn copyright case that’d been sprung on me. I didn’t know anything about copyright, but when Bryson had come in the door this week, my father had asked me to take it. And in this office? When my father called, you answered.
But even my dad couldn’t have known about the twist of fate that’d greeted me this morning.
I wasn’t a numbers guy, taking political science for my undergrad when lots of classmates opted for economics. Still, I estimated that the odds of running into her again were about one in a metric shit ton.
But there she’d been. Sitting across from me with the same eyes, same body, same fire. Spitting accusations at me like she was defender of the righteous and I was the villain of the piece.
Poetic justice, Nathan. I could hear my father’s words like he was there, like he knew. Although of course he couldn’t.
None of it mattered. She was just one more defendant. One more thing between me and what I’d always wanted. I would put her out of my mind like every other girl I’d so much as looked at in the last year. And forgetting her, ignoring her, would be just as easy.
So why did you give her the damn card? The silence that followed left me uneasy.
She’d ignore it. That, at least, was comforting.
Chapter 4
Ava
Carl left us his massive TV, two beds, and some other furniture that probably cost more than my college education.
Due to the fact that our old landlord wanted us out and Carl’s was available now, everything was in by mid-afternoon Wednesday. Lex was up to her ears with her day job, working in the ads department of the lifestyle magazine where she’d interned the summer before our last year of college, so I took over the move.
Satisfied with what I’d accomplished in five hours of unpacking and rearranging, I connected Carl’s speakers and cranked my playlist obsession of the week. The eclectic mix of indie dance and mellow rock always put me in the mood to draw. I curled up on the couch with my sketchpad.
Travesty had been a dream of Lex’s and mine since high school. We’d launched the label just two weeks before graduating college this May. Our first season of clothes would hit stores in a month.
I’d been hooked on clothes before I could stand, making outfits for my dolls and Bedazzling everything in reach. My mom and dad thought I’d grow out of it. At least my parents, unlike Lex’s, weren’t holding out for me to run a bank or something.
Moving to New York a month after launch was risky. Sure, we had supporters, Lex’s boss at the magazine and a circle of coworkers who offered advice and connections. “Team T” had seen us through some bumps already. And gotten us into the emerging designer showcase that had landed our Claire skirt on one of America’s hottest asses.
Now with weeks until the fall season and the reality of running an actual business upon us, there seemed to be a lot of promoting, which I did, dealing with problems, which Lex did, and keeping our fingers crossed that people loved the rest of the line. We had enough cash to last us and Travesty through the winter thanks to money Lex had stashed from her job. I’d gotten an award on graduation in recognition of my designs. And we’d borrowed some from our parents, with the promise to pay it back. Someday.
Frustration washed over me, and I shredded what felt like the millionth sheet of paper, throwing it on the pile next to the couch. I was seriously missing my mojo. Since moving, every time I sketched a top or a skirt or a spring dress, it ended up in the garbage. A sleeveless blouse, sheer and airy—too girly. A gray leather mini—too stale. Echoes of last year. Nothing fresh.
I set down what was left of my sketchpad and tucked my pencil in my messy bun. I propped my chin on my crossed arms over the back of the couch, admiring the skyline scattered with endless rows and pockets of perfect buildings. I was still soaking in t
he view when the door creaked behind me.
“You’re wasting our time.”
I jumped guiltily before realizing Lex was on her cell. She took off her shoes, phone cradled between her shoulder and ear. “What? No, they’re expecting shipments in a week.” Lex screwed up her face in a way that meant she was thinking hard, then rolled her eyes at no one in particular. “That’s in the contract.” Her frustration was evident from the tension in her body. “Then what’s a contract even for?” She walked a few steps, then turned and paced back the other way, a habit Lex had picked up from Dylan. “OK, well, please keep me posted? Thanks.”
She hung up and collapsed on the couch next to me.
“Rough day at the office?” I chirped.
“You wouldn’t believe. Our distributor’s pushing back on the deliveries we promised. If we don’t deliver on time, vendors will start pulling out. Not matter how much they want the Claire skirt.” Lex tucked her feet up underneath her and wrapped her arms around her knees.
I knew almost zero about the business side of what we did—it was part of why we made a great team. But I was an expert in best frienddom. “That sucks, Lex. Maybe we can find someone to help out with the distributors.” I glanced at my phone and realized it was dinnertime. “Wanna get food downstairs? I saw a takeout place that looks good.”
“Yes. Definitely.” Lex stood and stretched. “The apartment looks amazing, by the way. You’re a genius, A.”
“It’s a start.” I pitched her ideas for the rest of the floorplan as we left the apartment.
After dinner, which was at a teeny Thai place a block away, Lex tucked herself in her room to phone Dylan. Beat from a long day of moving and unpacking, I lay on my bed and switched on a reality TV show. But I found myself tuning it out when my mind drifted back to Nate’s words on Monday.
“Your design bears an uncanny resemblance to one created by my client.”
I remembered the last time I’d heard that voice, and suddenly it was like surround sound. My skin heated, my body tightened. Words, feelings, sounds. Touches. Tastes.
Maybe if I just …
My nerves tingled, head shooting down my spine.
I growled and slapped the duvet in frustration.
No way was I getting myself off to the guy who was suing us.
The memory dissolved, leaving me hot and unsatisfied. Because two things were clear: one, that night was undoubtedly the most brain-melting sex of my life. And two: Nate Townsend was bad news.
Inspired, I dug my checkbook out of the bag on my dresser and wrote “two hundred fifty thousand dollars” on the top, scribbling “Pretty Boy Townsend” in the To line. No fantasy involved me shelling out more money than I had ever seen in my life.
I pinned it to the bulletin board over my desk between two pictures. One was of me and Lex at a fall fashion show last year, where we’d won an award for our designs. In the photo we were hugging Blake Evans, a designer who’d made connections with LA boutiques for us in the spring. The other picture was of me with my siblings, Kate, Ethan, and Dylan, and my mom and dad, standing in our backyard.
Everyone in those pictures had done something to support Travesty. Believed in us. Gave their time or money to help.
My eyes flicked back to the check.
Nate Townsend was the enemy. By attacking our label, he’d declared war. I refused to spend another second thinking about his eyes, his voice, or any other part of him.
Chapter 5
Ava
“It’s a hard case for them,” John told me and Lex the next day in the same conference room we’d been in three days before. “The law is stacked in our favor. The US doesn’t afford much protection for designers. Bryson’s team will say the motif was original art, but familiar shapes, arguably including chevrons and hearts, are not subject to protection.”
I’d absorbed about three words. “So you’re saying we’re going to win.”
He paused. “There are no guarantees.”
“I don’t understand why Bryson would even do this,” Lex said.
“Publicity. The small chance it isn’t thrown out. They want to get a share of the spotlight.” John leaned back. “Their first chair is Evan Clarke, but my guess is Nathan Townsend’s doing the heavy lifting. He’s just an associate, but given it’s his father’s firm, I don’t see them hanging him out to dry on this.”
“Wait, his dad runs the firm?” I blurted.
Unbelievable. The name on the card should’ve been a clue, but I was so distracted by other things …
I’d been able to put him out of my mind until I’d fallen asleep last night, staring at the check when my willpower was getting dangerously low. But when I fell asleep?
I’d dreamed of blue eyes and dirty propositions.
By the time we finished with John, my head was pounding. An app on my phone suggested a bar six blocks away between John’s office and our apartment. Lex agreed.
“We can’t let this get to us,” she said as we crossed the street. “We make clothes. Nothing Bryson says can change that. Which is why I took your advice the other day about getting help with distribution. I know someone who’d be perfect—just part-time. You should meet her.”
I tried to remember when I’d told her that, but came up blank. “Sure, whatever you want.”
“Good. Because I already texted her the address and she’s on her way.” Typical Lex.
We skirted rush hour traffic and found the place, aptly named The Bar, ten minutes later. The long, thin space was packed wall to wall with young professionals ready to shake off a week at the office.
The venue’s namesake was chrome and ran the length of the interior. Mirrors lined two walls, reflecting patrons and light and making everything seem bigger. Black chairs and couches provided seating around the outside, while high-tops were scattered in between. It smelled faintly of leather and perfume.
“Jordan said she’ll be a few minutes since she’s coming from across town,” Lex tossed over her shoulder as we wove through the crowd. I’d worn my gray pencil skirt and sheer nude-colored sleeveless blouse pulled together with cobalt open-toed pumps, which made me fit in. I was glad I’d added a chunky yellow statement necklace with flecks of gold that made me stand out.
My eyes roamed the room for any available high-top. I stopped halfway.
“The fuck he’s here,” I muttered darkly, spotting the last person I wanted to see at a table flanked by equally good-looking bookends.
Note to self: do something about karma. Because apparently I blew up an entire planet in my past life.
Lex followed my gaze. “Damn. Is he everywhere? Well, I’m going to keep looking for a table. Find me when you’re done.”
My attention snapped to her. “What? I’m not talking to him!”
“Ava,” she said in her reasonable voice, “you’ve swapped bodily fluids. You have to at least acknowledge him.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Lex. He’s suing us. Fuck good manners!”
“I get it, but given his mission in life right now is to squeeze whatever he can out of us through the courts, you might want to stay on his good side.” She tilted her head. “For the record, A, his good side looks pretty good from here.”
“Traitor.”
Her eyes cut back across the room. “OK, that table’s definitely free. I’m going in.” Lex took off into the crowd.
When I looked back to Nate, his eyes were on me. His friends’ too.
Perfect.
I didn’t try to look enthusiastic as I wound my way over to their table. Nate looked as comfortable as he had Monday, wearing a tailored suit and a “the world is my bitch” expression.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him bluntly when I stopped in front of them.
“Lawyer bar,” he replied evenly.
“What does that even mean?”
Nate lifted his beer to retrieve the coaster underneath and held it up. The logo was black and gray and said The Bar, with a picture of a
judge’s gavel.
Great. Far from him invading my turf, which is what this felt like, I’d somehow walked onto his. Next time I’d tell Google to find me a “great bar that’s at least a thousand miles from Nate Townsend and every other lawyer in New York.”
I’d been so focused on Nate, I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guys with him. When I did, angels sang. Sitting next to my least-favorite mistake was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
He was blond with a rugged jaw and a suit as sleek and tailored as Nate’s. His blue eyes said, “I save puppies in my spare time.”
“Are you lawyers too?” I was talking to both of them but really looking at my future husband.
His mouth lifted at the corner like we’d shared a joke. “Sadly, yes. But we’ll try to make it up to you. I’m Josh. This is Ty.”
I smiled, dazed. “Ava. Nice to meet you.”
“You should join us, Ava,” Ty said. “Nate just won in court today. Another victory to add to the Townsend legacy.”
I cut a glance across the room toward Lex, who’d managed to score a table. “Thanks. But my friend’s waiting.”
“Come on, Nate was just going to give us a play by play of the gore fest,” Ty goaded.
Josh and my imaginary future with him were forgotten as a knot twisted my stomach. My eyes flicked to Nate’s. I was suddenly picturing someone else like us who’d lost everything in a heartbeat. One courtroom, one moment. If Nate had his way, his next celebration with friends would be over how he’d crushed my new business into the ground. I wondered if he could read it all in my face, that cool blue gaze searching mine.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Ty. See, for the last three days your friend Nate has been thinking about all the exotic ways he wants to fuck me. Professionally, of course,” I added when Nate choked on his beer. “But it was nice meeting you both.”
Josh caught up with me a few steps into the crowd. “Hey, Ava. Wait. Sorry about that. I didn’t realize you were Bryson’s case. For what it’s worth, good luck. I’d console or celebrate with you anytime.”
Stripped (Travesty Book 2) Page 3
