Page 2 of The Suit

1. I wonder if Murray can invest in this earplug company.

2. How,for the millionth time, the fuck did I manage to get myself into a room with a woman I swore I’d never be in a room with again?

Oh, yes. My mother. And alcohol. The combination of which left me with my guard down, and after she’d been hounding me about it for over a month, timed her final plea with me to help her friend with her divorce at a very weak moment, when I was otherwise distracted. It was only the next morning I’d found out who the opposing counsel was: Beulah Holmes.

I could see her mouth opening and closing, her scarlet lips framing words I’d attempt to read if I could be bothered. Every so often I raised an eyebrow, giving the pretense I was listening, but it inevitably set her off again. She still wasn’t done, which led me to wonder if…

3. This yelling was all for my benefit, or if she was trying to show off to any of the dozen associates she’d brought with her – and what I assumed was Johnson Maynard’s attempt to intimidate me. Would she be acting like this if other people weren’t in the room?

Who was I kidding? Of course she fucking would.

She’d never lost an opportunity to lord her argument over me at a decibel-breaking pitch.

She yelled at me during Professor Hickory’s criminal law class where we’d started discussing Gideon v Wainwright and the rights to a fair trial, which disintegrated into a full-blown argument about criminal justice reform, and somehow segued into the standard of meals served in the Harkness dining hall on campus.

She was still yelling when I left her to go to my ethics class.

There was also that time when I received an A plus and she got an A minus on our corporate law paper. I can still feel those waves of unadulterated smug happiness washing through me as her finger moved up the paper pinned to the notice board outside the lecture room; because I knew that as soon as she got her grade, her eyes would move instinctively to my name – because I did the same. To give her credit though she didn’t just yell at me; Professor Batten-Soames also got an earful.

The only time she didn’t yell was when I was named President of Harvard Law Review. Then I was treated to a death stare and silence for a blissful twenty-four hours, which was all she lasted before she had to open her mouth again to argue against something else I’d said. I wouldn’t have minded so much if most of the stuff which came out of her mouth wasn’t wrong. But it was. Everything was wrong.

And therefore it was my duty to correct her, or not listen; whichever one I knew would fuck her off the most at that particular point in time.

Yet for some reason I never fathomed, the professors loved her. Like sitting in a treelovedher.Which meant I had to work my ass off just to make sure I got a better grade, because they didn’t love me quite so much – but it wasn’t my fault. The professors just didn’t understand that I could play hard as well as work hard, even if I did occasionally turn up to lectures with sunglasses and Alka Seltzer. Nor did they appreciate my reasoning for experiencing a fully rounded student life. But we couldn’t all be kiss-asses. It didn’t matter though. According to my tally, in the three years we were side by side at Harvard Law, she beat me forty-seven percent. Some people would see that as good as equal, but they were wrong too. I was better, and I would rue the day Beulah Holmes bested that score.

And today marked the start of a new scoring board.

Currently, I was winning. Mostly because I’d beaten my prediction of how quickly it would take her to raise the volume of the room. I couldn’t take all the credit though. As per usual, she’d gotten herself into this situation by greeting me in her usual snide tone, with an opening that went like this:

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in. Nice of you to join us.” She drummed her fingertips on the boardroom table like she’d been waiting for hours and her ass had gone numb from the soft leather chair she was sitting in.

The black gloss painted on her short nails caught the light and twinkled, making her appear far less evil than she actually was.

But I knew better.

She was the devil incarnate.

I ignored the jab. I wasn’t hours late, I was my usual five minutes – the optimal amount of time needed to assert control, according to my father. And he should know; he hadn’t risen to the pinnacle of his career as a trial attorney by giving up control, nor would he have been able to turn the law firm my grandfather started into the world’s largest - and most prestigious - without it.

Not sure why, but after almost a decade apart I’d have expected a greeting which was a little more civil. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and just as unfortunately, she brought out my combative side, because there was rarely one without the other. I scanned the room. I’d predicted she’d turn up with an army of attorneys and I wasn’t wrong, which was why I’d deliberately come on my own, something else I’d learned from my father - always do what’s least expected.

I took a seat, and leaned back in my chair.

“Ms. Holmes, I was under the impression Johnson Maynard was taking his divorce seriously, but he clearly can’t afford a decent team.” I schooled my features into one of deep confusion. “Where did you graduate again? It wasn’t number one, because that was me.”

Her fingertips stopped drumming and as she took a deep breath, I used the opportunity to slip in the ear plugs, just in time.

So, technically, she wouldn’t be yelling if I hadn’t reminded her I was the better lawyer. But in my defense, your honor, she started it.

That had been nearly fifteen minutes ago. I hadn’t counted on this meeting lasting more than ten, but she was on a roll today. Her fingers were now steepled on the desk and I think,thinkshe’d finished yelling at me. She hadn’t moved in maybe thirty seconds. She was back in her chair and glaring at me with an eyebrow as sharp as those razor-pointed stilettos she was wearing. I glanced down again to see them tapping against the edge of the table leg.

Christ, they should be logged as an open-carry weapon.

The associate next to her was shuffling papers and not meeting my eye. Beulah’s mouth still hadn’t moved… and there was the head tilt. She was done, for now.

I was going to risk it.

I uncrossed my legs and sat forward, pointedly pulling out the ear plugs one at a time before slipping them in my pocket – I’d definitely be using those babies again.

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