Page 69 of The Suit

I gasped in shock before bursting into laughter again at her, at how easy it was to talk to her, talk about my life. Not that I’d ever done it before last night unless I paid for it. Then, like a booming thunderclap in a sky that had been blue and clear seconds before, the seriousness of the situation I’d gotten myself into hit me.

“It is just sex. It has to be. We’re on opposite sides of a case. It’s a conflict of interest. We don’t like each other,” I listed off, not to mention all the other things I didn’t want to think about. “It’ll be over this week. I’ll go back to Chicago and we’ll never see each other again,”

“Is that what you want?”

Even the bubbles in my champagne seemed to lose their effervescence at the thought of not seeing him. “I don’t know what I want any more, the last few weeks have been intense. The case we’re on, seeing each other again, the sex… it’s all come out of nowhere and I haven’t had any space to think about it.”

She nodded, her face filled with empathy. “Yeah, I know what that’s like. It was the same for me when I met Murray, and I worked for him not with him. But these boys, as soon as they know what they want, they go after it and nothing will get in their way.” She picked up the bottle and filled our glasses up. “You need to figure out what you want, or you’ll get steamrolled.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem.” I sighed deeply; the sea air was affecting me like a truth serum, but I wanted, no,neededto relieve myself of the guilt I was carrying, even if just a little and even it was selfish, and with the first and only person I’d met who genuinely seemed to like me for me, though probably wouldn’t for much longer once I told her what I’d done.

“Okay…” She looked at me questioningly.

I tried to think of how I could word this without breaking all kinds of confidentiality agreements, both with the clients and the firm.

“Okay. All that’s ever existed between Rafe and me is competition. When we were at school we would do anything to win, anything to get one up, and then we’d gloat. This one time, the scores for our Governmental Law paper were being posted at seven a.m. Somehow, Rafe got them early, because on my way over to the study building to collect my grade, a plane flew over with our scores tied to a banner on the end, just mine and Rafe’s. He’d beaten me by three percent and paid a guy to fly it over the campus all weekend.”

Her mouth formed the O again, except this time a tiny sliver of amusement had crept in, “Wow.”

“Yeah, and that was just one thing out of hundreds. We were both the same, and sometimes it got nasty. Anyway, you need to appreciate that background because then you can have some kind of understanding to how I felt when I found out I was going up against him, someone I hoped I’d never see again.”

She nodded. “Yes, that must have been a shock.”

“It was, but more than that, I never wanted to take this case. My client… well, my client is difficult and unpleasant to put it mildly. He will do anything to avoid paying his wife a settlement, and my firm encourages it. They don’t exactly support ethical practices if it doesn’t make them money. I wasn’t even entirely aware of the extent of it until a few weeks ago. I’m only told what I need to know.”

I took a breath, sipping on the champagne which given my empty stomach had hit my bloodstream quicker than usual. Perhaps that was why I’d become so uncharacteristically chatty. In the distance I could see a dad on the beach, holding a kite with his little boy as they ran down the beach so it would catch the air; so beautiful and simple.

“What’s this got to do with Rafe?”

A lump formed in my throat, one built from resentment and anger, and I was finding it hard to swallow back down. “I’m up for a big promotion, one I’ve worked my ass off for and was promised. But last week, one of the named partners and my client called me into the office and basically ordered me to spy on Rafe.” I couldn’t stop the hot tears spilling over, nor Kit’s face of horror as she judged me like I was judging me. “Spy on him or lose my job.”

She was silent for almost longer than I could stand, but then she surprised me.

“What did you do?” she whispered, instead of assuming that was the reason I was here crashing their sacred weekend. Espionage.

The tears were flowing full-on now, just as they had done yesterday when Rafe had found me; as if the dam had finally burst after years and years of doing its job, and I couldn’t switch it off.

“Rafe had suspected something was off with my client, and I knew he wouldn’t let it go. We’d already had sex once, and the next time I was with him I went through his email. I didn’t even mean to do it.”

Kit’s mouth had fully dropped open, almost unhinging from her jaw. I didn’t blame her, I would be the same.

“Then what happened? Did you find anything?”

I nodded, my head dropping in the shame I’d become so familiar with.

“What have you done with it?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

It was the question I’d been asking myself, because I knew that Feather would ask first thing Tuesday morning regardless of what Duke McMullins may or may not have told him.

“I don’t know. When my boss asks, I can tell him that I tried but hadn’t gotten anywhere.”

She frowned so deeply that when she looked at me again there were still some creases in her forehead. “Does Rafe know?”

I shook my head, a tear flying to the side as I did. “No.”

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