So very strange, because seeking reward is the very crux of my career. It’s what drives me to be the very best attorney I can be for my clients. Because I’m striving for that reward… which is justice… and it is beyond motivating.
I feel like ten times the fool for letting my own fears get in the way of my own drive and determination.
But no more.
I’m taking back what is mine, and Mac Dawson is mine.
There is one more thing that needs to be done though, before I can seek Mac out.
I walk to the receptionist desk and give a curt smile to the regal-looking woman sitting behind it. She peers at me over the rims of tortoiseshell, cat’s-eye glasses.
“I’d like to see Cal Carson,” I tell her firmly.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asks pleasantly.
“No, but buzz him… tell him Matt Connover is here to see him.”
I’m not sure if the woman recognizes my name, or the tone of my voice brooks no nonsense, but she nods and does as I ask. After a few murmured words into the phone, she turns to me and says, “Mr. Carson will be right up.”
I don’t bother sitting on one of the plush leather chairs scattered throughout the lobby, because if I know Cal, and I believe I do, he’ll be up quickly.
“Matt?” I hear from behind me, and turn to see Cal standing there looking at me with worry. “Is Mac alright?”
The concern in his voice is touching… truly. I think he’s going to be a very good friend to Mac in the future, and that makes me grateful. “She’s fine.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I was hoping we could talk,” I tell him as I stick my hands in my pocket, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet.
Cal just stares at me blankly, because I’m sure what I just said was probably as shocking as if I had said, “Cal, I’m a transgendered werewolf that wants to enter the priesthood and I need your help”.
Finally, Cal gives a little shake of his head and nods. “Let’s just go in this conference room right here.” He motions with his hand to a door off the lobby.
I follow him in, noting that his spine is ramrod straight, his shoulders stiff. His brain must be short-circuiting right now, trying to figure out what I want.
When he takes a seat at the end of the long, rectangular table, I take the one to his left and lean back casually. Cal doesn’t relax a bit, putting both forearms on the table and his hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles are white.
I take a moment to study his face… one I’ve looked at hundreds of times over the years, mostly in friendship, lately only in hate. I used to trust him with my life, and that will never be regained. But I think I might have some room to possibly try to understand him.
“Mac told me some details about that night. She urged me to learn the entire truth, and she thinks I need to forgive you.”
Cal’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Do you think you need to forgive me?”
“Yes,” I tell him simply, watching as he jerks in his seat and his jaw drops in disbelief.
And I do.
Need to forgive him, that is.
If I’m going to truly open myself up to Mac, I have got to let it all go. The hate, the bitterness, the regrets. I have no room for it if I’m going to give one-hundred percent to Mac. I have to get rid of it because I don’t want any of it to taint what I have with her.
“You want to forgive me?” he asks, still incredulous.
“I want you to tell me what happened with Marissa,” I tell him with a hard glint in my eye. “Then I want to forgive you.”
Cal takes in a deep breath and lets it out with a stuttering quality of gratefulness. “Okay.”
“I don’t need the details… I just need to know your involvement,” I say quietly.
He nods in understanding. “First, you need to know. I was wrong. It was my fault.”
I hold up a hand and stop him. “I’ve heard that from you already. But I want to know the part where you realized it was wrong.”
Cal hangs his head in shame. “I knew it was wrong from the start… at least, I think a part of me did.”
“But you didn’t initiate it,” I prompt him urgently, because he’s not giving me what I want. He’s still stuck on the liability when I need him to focus on the absolution.
“No,” he says quietly. “Marissa crawled into bed with me. I was passed out, I think… I came to and she was…”
He trails off thankfully because I really, really don’t want the details, and he doesn’t want to say it out loud. “Then what happened?”
“We consummated, Matt. I had sex with her. But just moments after we started… I stopped it. I pushed her off because I had a wave of guilt slap me hard. I knew my friendship with you had already been ruined, but I couldn’t go through with it. I just want you to know, I will never be sorrier for anything I do the rest of my life than I am for what I did to you. I never want to cause that type of pain to another person.”
He doesn’t say anything more, and he really doesn’t need to. Cal stares at me, his shame and remorse obvious. The funny thing is… I always knew he was remorseful. I never doubted that before.
Before, though… I just didn’t care.
Tapping my fingers on the table before me, I give Cal a sardonic smile. “I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately. What I’ve determined is that I’m not the man I have the potential to be… for myself, for Mac. I need to be free from this.”
Cal just nods at me in understanding.
“I forgive you, Cal. I forgive Marissa too, for that matter, but I’ll need to have that conversation with her later.” I stare at him with conviction, so he understands I mean this from the bottom of my soul. “I’m letting it go, and I want you to as well.”
He swallows hard and says, “Thank you, Matt. I don’t deserve it.”
“Sure you do,” I tell him with a short smile. “Doesn’t mean we will ever be friends again… but you deserve forgiveness. Besides, looks like you’re in Mac’s life and I intend to be back in her life, so you and I needed to make amends.”
He grins at me. “So are you going to do some groveling?”
“Yup. And you can help me out. Besides, you owe me.”
“That I do… what do you need?”
“I want to run an idea by you first, and then I want you to make a phone call for me.”
***
Cal is handling the favor I asked of him right this very moment by making a call to Mac. I’m standing outside of her office with my ear pressed against her closed door, listening to her entire conversation with him. None of it’s confidential, because he’s doing nothing more than telling her about the conversation I just had with him an hour ago at his office.
I can only hear Mac’s end of the conversation, but I hear excitement, and joy, and wonder in her voice as Cal tells her about our meeting just a bit ago. I can tell the moment that Cal tells her that I’m standing outside of her office door, just as I asked him to, because she has a quick intake of breath and then says, “I’ll talk to you later, Cal.”
My heart is slamming in my chest, waiting for her to open her office door. In just moments, the course of my life will be determined.
In just a moment, I’m saying fuck the risks and reaching for my reward.
The door opens, and I’ll never get tired of looking at this woman. Her eyes are clouded and I don’t know what she’s thinking. She gestures me in and says, “Cal said you forgave him.”
“It needed to be done,” I respond as I watch her sit back down behind her desk.
Turning to me, she cocks an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
I don’t answer her, instead reaching inside my coat pocket and pulling out her letter of resignation she turned in to me two weeks ago. Throwing it on her desk, I watch as she stares at it a moment, and then looks up at me in confusion.
“Open it,” I tell her, nodding back down at the envelope.
She reaches ou
t and picks it up, opening the flap and looking inside. Her eyebrows furrow inward and she turns the envelope upside down, letting the tiny scraps inside flutter out over her desk.
“I don’t accept your resignation,” I tell her firmly, and as evidenced by her letter I just returned to her torn to shreds.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re not quitting. I need you.”
She curls a lip upward and scoffs at me. “You don’t need me. You can put an ad in the paper and have a hundred attorneys lined up in the morning, all with better grades and references than I have.”
“No. You don’t get it,” I tell her softly, I but annunciate very clearly. “I. Need. You.”
Mac’s eyebrows rise high now, as she understands what I’m saying. I take two steps until I’m standing directly in front of her as she looks up at me from her chair.
Dropping to my knees, I watch her eyes go warm, her lips slack. Leaning forward, I don’t say a word but merely wrap my arms around her waist and lay my head in her lap. It’s a move calculated for her to understand how very sorry I am for hurting her, and how very much I need her. I’m literally putting myself in her arms and begging her to let me back in. It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Mac’s arms come up and she puts her hands on my head, stroking her fingers through my hair. I sigh in contentment, because her touch feels so comforting. I decide this is the best thing I’ve ever felt. I’m never moving from this position, and I let Mac pet me as I lay in her embrace.
After what could be forever of basking in her touch, I squeeze her waist before pulling back.
My voice shakes with emotion. “I need you, Mac. I need your smile, your touch, and your wit. I need your tenderness, your brilliance, and your common sense. I need you to be my champion, and I need you to want to come home to me every night. I need all of those things… desperately. I think I might die without them.”
I’m relieved when her eyes fill with hope and yearning, yet she still feels the need to clarify. “You need me?”
“You’re usually not this dense,” I say with a grin.
She’s adorable when she exposes her ear by pushing her hair behind it with her fingers. “It’s just… I’m not sure I heard you correctly. You did say you need me?”
“Yes,” I affirm as I bring my hands up to cup her face. Leaning in, I give the sweetest kiss I’ve ever bestowed. “I need you because I love you. When you love someone the way I love you, the need for that person is unquenchable. It will never go away… it will never abate. My need for you will be forever.”
Her voice cracks with sentiment. “And when did you come to this realization?”
I smile at her with understanding eyes. “I think I’ve always known it. I was just too filled with so many other things that I refused to acknowledge it. But last night… I held you while you slept, and I just laid there… the entire time, realizing how wonderful it felt to have your body next to mine. When it got close to the time I needed to leave so I could get ready for work, I felt like my heart was being fucking pulled out of my chest. That’s the moment I decided to acknowledge it.”
“Why didn’t you just stick around… tell me then?” she asks in curiosity.
“Because I had to let my hatred of Cal go first. And Mac, I mean it with every breath in my body. I did hate him. But the minute I decided to forgive him, I became a different person. A better person.”
Her hand comes out and she slides her fingers along my cheek. Her touch is so soft, so caring, that I can’t help but close my eyes so I can give full attention to the peacefulness coursing through me.
“I’m so proud of you, Matt. You’re really kind of amazing.”
Opening my eyes, I grin at her. “And you love me?”
“What makes you think that?” she teases, leaning in to kiss me.
I take a moment to savor her lips on mine, because this feels like the first time we have ever kissed. There’s a different quality to it, now that I’ve let all of my bitterness go. It’s like everything was muted before, but now I’m seeing everything in vivid display… I’m feeling everything with greater depth.
I pull away and smile at her. “Because you already told me you did.”
Wrapping her arms around my neck, she leans into me. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Say it again,” I demand urgently, because it’s the last thing I need for this to officially become the best day of my life.
She doesn’t make me wait, and it’s even better than I could have imagined. “I love you… so much.”
We kiss again, sweetly, but then her tongue slides into my mouth and desire starts to course through me.
“Let’s take the rest of the day off,” I say as I move my lips over to her ear. “I need to be inside of you.”
She groans and digs her fingers into my shoulders, but shakes her head no. “I can’t. I have to get this stuff finished. You know, today’s my last day and all.”
I laugh at her silliness and kiss her again. “Didn’t you understand me? I’m not accepting your resignation. There’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight. And I sure as hell don’t want you working around Cal unattended. I don’t trust the bastard.”
“Hey!” she chastises me as she punches me lightly in the shoulder. “I thought you forgave him?”
“I did, Mac,” I tell her somberly. “But I don’t like him. We’re not friends.”
She sighs, but not in frustration or anger, but understanding. “No, I don’t suppose you are. You did more than enough by offering forgiveness. But I can’t turn my back on him. I made a deal with him to open up a law firm.”
“Yeah, well… I sort of might have changed his mind after I talked to him today.”
“What did you do?” she asks suspiciously.
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Nothing bad, I swear it. I just sort of offered him a job here, as long as you agreed to stay.”
“What? You asked Cal… your arch nemesis… to come work for you? I thought you said you didn’t trust the bastard.”
“I don’t,” I tell her with a smirk. “What better way to keep tabs on him than having him come to work for me?”
Mac doesn’t fall for it and just looks at me skeptically.
“Fine,” I capitulate with huffiness. “I want you to stay. You’re a brilliant attorney, and you’re going places. I want you on my team. I also want you within reach of me at all times because I love you to fucking death. So, the easiest thing seemed to be for me to get Cal on board. I knew you had committed to him, but if he came here, you’d stay.”
“You’re rotten,” she reprimands me. “And completely selfish.”
I make no apologies. “When it comes to you, you’re damn right I am. But talk to Cal… you both have a decision to make.”
She wraps her arms back around my neck and kisses me. “I’ll talk to Cal, and we’ll see. But for now… let’s get out of here.”
I take her hand and don’t let it go as we navigate the hallways up to the lobby. She squeezes me tightly and when I look down at her, she gives me a smile so full of happiness and love, I know that at this moment, I’m the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.
“Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m never letting you go, you know that, right?”
“I’m counting on it,” she says softly. “And you’ll never regret it. I promise.”
Yup. Luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.
Epilogue
Eight Months Later
Today is the day, and I am so fucking nervous. More nervous than when I got laid for the first time. Or when I took the bar exam. More nervous than my first trial. I’m practically quaking in my shoes because the stakes are higher than I could have ever imagined.
Mac’s office door is open, and I can hear her voice filtering out. She and Cal never did take my offer to come to work for my firm. She said something to the extent of, “I want to do this on my own. I ne
ed to know I can do this on my own without your help.”
Fucking prideful girl, but damn… I respected the hell out of that.
I did, however, convince her and Cal to rent office space from me, promising to contract enough work to them to keep their business just barely hovering out of the red. It gave me what I want… Mac within an arm’s reach of me, and I got to keep my eye on Cal.
Not that I needed to watch him. First, I truly believe that he was beyond remorseful for the way he hurt me and he would never do that again. I just believe it deep down. Still doesn’t mean we will ever be friends again, but for Mac’s sake, I make sure I’m pleasant around him. Most importantly, though, is that I implicitly trust Mac. Her character and integrity are golden, lined with platinum, and sprinkled with diamonds. She would never hurt me. I trust her with my life, but more telling is that I trust her with Gabe’s life.
I step up to her office door and see her sitting casually in her chair, leaning back and tapping a pen against her temple. I’ve come to recognize that little habit as her “focused mode”. She does it when she’s concentrating on something, putting all of her energy into accomplishing her goal. I suppose if she had a pen in her hand while she was blowing me, she’d probably be tapping it against her temple too, because damn… her focus is amazing when she has me balls deep in her mouth.
Mac’s back is to me so I lean against the door casing, hands casually resting in my pockets, and listen to my litigation goddess.
“Listen… I’m not impressed by that offer. It’s twenty-five and not a penny less. If you don’t pay it, I’ll drag your ass through the shit storm that is our legal system for so long, that you’ll be ready to retire before this case is over. And I could care less if I win it. Just drowning you in legal expenses makes me all tingly inside.”
She’s silent for a moment as she listens to whoever is on the other line, but I assume she gets the answer she wants because the tapping pen goes still.
Straightening up in her chair, she tosses the pen on her desk. “Thank you,” she says to the person on the phone, with a triumphant smile in her voice. “And have a nice day.”
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