Page 46 of The Suit

I didn’t know what was happening to me.

A month ago I’d have had no issue doing whatever it took to win this case, or any case. I’d have happily thrown Rafe Latham in front of the courthouse-shaped bus if it meant I’d win; and he would do the same, because that’s what we’d always done. It was part of the unspoken pact of mutual loathing we’d had since our first year of law school, since the paper on Law and Democracy was returned with the exact same score of eighty-nine percent. We’d tied jointly for first place in the class; and a tie would never do.

At that moment, we agreed over the common goal to be number one, and there could only ever beoneNumber One. It was dog eat dog; eat or be eaten.

I fully intended to be the dog eating.

Except…

My palms pressed hard into my temples, massaging away the tell-tale sign of an oncoming headache.

‘I’m beginning to think that maybe you don’t hate me as much as you think you do…’

I did hate him though.

Hated that he could make my body feel alive in a way it never had before. I hated his arrogance; his smug, entitled arrogance that he was the best, and I almost hated even more that it could possibly be true. Andthatwas the reason I’d waited outside his apartment for two hours on Tuesday night, that I didn’t turn and walk away as I watched him walk in, wearing nothing more than basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Hated that I didn’t leave the second I’d seen him leaning against the table, his body on display in all its thickly muscled, tattooed glory, or the second we were done the first-time round; and I hated the reason I’d stayed was down to the one thing he had been right about – it was the best sex I’d ever had.

But mostly I hated that maybe - as I watched the slices of moonlight cut across his back, strong and rippling with thick, taut muscles, and illuminating the leaves of the tree and branches which stretched around from his equally impressive chest - maybe he was right; that I didn’t hate him as much as I thought I did.

Like witnessing a car crash in slow motion, I hadn’t been able to look away from him even when my eyes had become so heavy with sleep, they ached. No matter how much my body begged me to give in to the state of relaxation I hadn’t felt in years, I couldn’t. I’d been hypnotized; watching his breathing soften the hard lines of his jaw, his cheekbones; soften his lips as they pursed with every exhale, watching… watching… watching… until I believed that we weren’t enemies, weren’t long-time rivals in a battle of the wits.

Then the crash impacted and the spell broke.

In that split second it dawned on me that maybe this was part of his strategy,his sleight of hand, that I’d become sodickstractedby him, by his mind-blowing orgasms and what he could do to my body, that it would be too late before I’d realized he’d won.

I’d jumped out of bed and left him, not turning around for one last glimpse of his magnificent body, no matter how much I wanted to.

In my desperation to get away from him, rushing to dress and get out in case I changed my mind, I passed his open laptop; I only managed to forward one email before I realized what I was doing and continued on my sprint for the door.

When the adrenaline wore off, I reasoned that I couldn’t have done any damage with one email, but I could tell Feather I’d tried. Ihadtried. Even when I knew it was wrong, even when I didn’t want to do it.

I had tried.

Except when I looked, in accordance with the laws of utter dumb fucking luck, it turned out to be the only email I needed.

I reached for my laptop, pushing away the heaviness still lingering in my belly, and brought up the email for the hundredth time.

Boss man,

Found Dainty Lady, owned by a corp called Spotty Inc.

Just working through connections to this now. Update you in the a.m.

C

I still hadn’t figured out what Dainty Lady was, but I had no doubt it was one of the hidden assets Duke had been talking about. Either way, with this, it wouldn’t be long before the rest of them were found, like breadcrumbs scattered across crystal blue seas.

I hadn’t shared this email with anyone and I hadn’t yet asked the question; convincing myself that I’d wait to hear what the courts said about the case first. Because maybe it would work in our favor and they’d rule for us anyway, without me needing to break all kinds of laws.

I was not the lawyer I’d set out to become the day I’d enrolled at Harvard.

Which was another thing; when I’d finally told Johnson Maynard about the filing of the restraining order and alerted him to the freezing of all his accounts, his screaming could have been heard upstate; even Jaymie Mills, a junior partner whose office was at the other side of the building, came running to see what was happening.

I didn’t cry though, no matter how much I could feel them welling up. Scalding hot, angry tears; anger at this firm, at Rafe, with my sudden inability to do my job properly and because, for the first time ever, I wanted to lose a case.

New York was making me soft.

The door opened quietly and Blake walked in, placing a juice on the table in front of me before taking a seat opposite. I left it a minute then turned to him, waiting in patient silence for me to tell him what was wrong. He knew I would, just like he knew somethingwaswrong.

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