Page 30 of The Suit

She was sitting at her desk,even though there was perfectly good couch under the window, where any normal person would be if they were working into the evening. Another pair of those fucking stilettos – dark green this time - had been kicked off and were strewn on the floor to the side. Her face was etched with concentration; her lips moving softly as she read, and a tendril of hair had fallen over her eye while a crease ebbed and flowed on her forehead as she took in the words on the page. Maybe she was human after all.

My boiling blood dropped to a steady simmer; I’d never seen her look so normal. Or quiet. Or still.

But it didn’t last long.

Her breath caught as she glanced up; a sixth sense telling her I was there; in the same way I always knew when she was in the room.

“Latham?”

She tried to pretend she didn’t know why I was now standing in front of her, or that she hadn’t expected me to turn up after she’d returned the restraining order. But I knew her, and she knew me.

Defiance replaced the faux shock she’d displayed seconds ago. Game time.

I shook the restraining order at her. “Beulah, what the fuck is this? What the fuck do you think you’re playing at? This has gone to the judge; you can’t just send it back.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Looks like I did though.”

Four large strides and I was across her office standing in front of her desk, to which she didn’t flinch in the slightest. She was one of the few people who never had, given my size, yet she was the only one who had the temerity to look bored, and it only served to enrage me further.

“You understand what it is? You understand it doesn’t matter what you do? Those accounts are frozen now. It’s over Beulah, it’s in the court’s hands. We’ll get the money.”

Her amber eyes flashed fire then narrowed to tiny slits. “It most certainly isnotover. We’ve given you our offer, so unless you’re here to acceptthat,take your smug face and get the fuck out of my office!”

The simmer in my blood didn’t last long. My fists slammed down on her desk, shaking everything on it and almost knocking over the bottle of water which she reached out to grab just in time.

My voice dropped to barely more than a hiss. “I know there’s money hidden, and I will find it. When I do I’ll have no qualms about taking you down, and this corrupt fucking company with it.”

She still hadn’t flinched; instead she leaned back in her chair and slow clapped. “Well done, Atticus Finch, very impressive. But you do realize there’s no judge here, right? So, save your opening remarks for someone who gives a shit.”

I stepped back trying to batten down whatever was coursing through my veins – a little disbelief, a lot of annoyance, but mostly boiling anger I was standing here when I could be anywhere else, “Jesus, Beulah, what the fuck happened to you to make you such a heartless bitch? I’d have thought that at the very least over the last seven years you would have mellowed a bit into a less vile form of the she-devil you were in college, but you’ve just gotten worse. This isn’t even about doing your job properly or acting in the best interests of your client. You have no conscience. Nothing.”

She stood up and moved round her desk, her anger matching mine. Without her giant heels on I’d forgotten how short she was. Maybe I’d never realized, seeing as her temper more than made up for her height.

She waited by the door, holding it open. “Get. Out.”

She’d known I would come here. She’d known I wouldn’t have let that jab slide, because she would have done the same thing. She was spoiling for a fight, just like the good old days, and I’d fallen for it.

I towered over her, so angry the ability to speak had been robbed from me. It wouldn’t have mattered; there were no words that either of us could have said. Her scowl deepened as she glared at me, her chest heaving from the adrenaline, from the exertion of yelling; of being worked up into a frenzy until she was starved for oxygen. I could almost see her heart pumping through the delicate silk shirt she was wearing, until it became one more contest between us.

Who was going to cave and look away first?

I took a step in.

Her eyes turned to molten lava. Her ruby red lips pursed. Her nostrils flared with every shallow breath. The scent of citrus and myrrh lingered in the air, enhanced by the heat of her body. The tendril of hair fell back over her forehead, but I knew she’d rather die than unclench her fists to brush it away.

Then her lips parted of their own accord, and her pupils flared.

Did you know that scientists have studied the moment in time where you make a decision? That during the space of the split second before your life is about to change forever, you have the ability to weigh up every single option available; your brain working faster than the speed of light to calculate which path you should take, providing you with questions to answer. Providing you with a choice.

Should I cave? Should I walk out the door and never look back? Or should I find out exactly what all that animosity tastes like, what it feels like under my fingertips, whether the delicate stretch of skin over the pulsing vein in her neck was as soft as it looked, whether it would be as burning hot as her temper?

Thing is, do you actually pay attention to any of it? Or do you just feel?

I could blame the whiskey; I could blame Murray and Penn for planting the idea in my head.

Were we always destined to get to this point?

Who the fuck knows?

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