The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(10)

6





The following afternoon, Ben asks me to meet him to discuss Lawson. Fiducia wants to settle, apparently, now that Margaret has switched to our firm.

I feel a weird sort of disappointment. I guess I was just looking forward to the fight.

We’re both working out of the municipal courthouse all afternoon, so he suggests lunch at a restaurant nearby. It would be strange, having lunch with Ben alone, but I’m so distracted by what happened last night I barely notice.

I pick at my salad while he tells me things I already know. He wants to keep opposing counsel from getting too comfortable by behaving as if we’re still going to trial. As I’d fully planned to do.

“We’ll ask for copies of the managers’ files,” Ben says, “as well as Margaret’s.”

“I’ve already written the request,” I tell him dully. “It’s in your inbox.” My fingers encircle my wrist, just beneath the sleeve of my jacket—it’s bruised. And the reminder feels like a sort of condemnation, as if I’ve done the wrong thing, letting Webber get away with it. But am I really supposed to risk my career to right the scales of justice? Can’t I just leave that to someone else?

Ben’s eyes meet mine for a long moment. “You’re quiet today.”

“I’m always quiet.”

“What did you do to your wrist?” he asks, brow furrowed.

“Nothing.” I jerk my hand away while all the blood drains from my face, hating there’s even a hint of emotion in my voice. Why the fuck am I sitting here feeling guilty about last night? Why does this stupid bruise bother me so much? If I’d complained, I’d be made to feel like shit by Webber and every man I work with. So I said nothing, yet I feel like shit about that too.

I guarantee Tim Webber hasn’t given it a second thought.

We walk outside. “I’ve called an Uber,” I tell Ben, looking past the sedan pulling up in front of us. “I can’t walk back in these heels.”

His gaze drifts to my shoes, a light flush grazing his cheekbones. “Maybe you should wear normal shoes like everyone else.”

“Maybe you should attempt to be good at your job instead of—” My words fall away entirely as a familiar face emerges from the sedan.

I’ve only seen Meg Lawrence once in six years, and the last time she pretended not to know who I was. That’s the outcome I’m hoping for, at present. She had her chance to try to make things right, and it’s long since passed.

“Gemma,” she says, blinking in surprise. Dammit.

“Meg,” I reply briskly, unsmiling.

Her gaze darts to Ben, then back to me. “It’s been ages.”

“Not long enough.” I walk past her to our car, which has just pulled up, thank God. I regret making this a thing in front of Ben, but it’s better than having her spill a story for him I’d rather no one knows.

“That wasn’t especially friendly,” he says, sliding in beside me.

“We’re not friends.” I look out the window to avoid the questions I know are coming. No way will he let this go.

“Are you going to tell me what she did, or should I run back over and ask her?”

My stomach tightens. I open my phone. “Go ask her,” I say, as if distracted. “I’ll wait.” I’m banking on the fact that even Ben isn’t that shameless. I hope I’m right.

“Gemma,” he says with a sigh. “Come on.”

“We worked together at Stadler Helms,” I tell him. And she was, once upon a time, my closest friend.

He blinks in surprise. “When were you at Stadler? I thought you came to FMG straight out of law school.”

I cross my legs then tap one dangling heel impatiently. His eyes dart to my foot then away.

“I was a summer associate,” I reply, though summers only represent a fraction of the time I spent there. “If you’re done asking about my personal life, I’d like to review my notes.”

“They didn’t make you an offer?” he asks, and my God I regret I ever told him anything. Because that’s the red flag, isn’t it? No one with my work history at Stadler isn’t made an offer without having done something very wrong.

And no one gets their offer rescinded without having done something even worse.

“I have no idea how you made partner,” I reply, opening my notes, and he gives up at last.

Attacking, as always, is the best defense.

I’ve been using it to keep Ben away now for two years straight.





7





Meg had been an associate at Stadler for a few years by the time Kyle arrived, and I’d been there nearly as long, working part-time during law school. She was technically my boss, but no one would have guessed this based on our conversations, which were mostly about parties, clothes, and boys. Lately they’d been focused on one boy, Kyle Cabrera, though referring to a thirty-five-year-old partner at our law firm as a boy seemed a little ridiculous.

He was only working out of the LA office temporarily. Needless to say, we hoped he’d make it permanent. “He looks more like a Navy SEAL in a good suit than an attorney,” Meg whispered when we first saw him walking down the hall. She was not wrong.

For two weeks, he’d been the sole focus of my group chat with her and another associate. Every tiny bit of info gleaned was collected secretively and mulled over, as if we were members of an underground resistance movement.