Page 53 of It's Always Been You
He comes right to me, and I stand and shake his extended hand even as I mentally dick punch him for theMolly dearcomment. “Thank you for coming in on a Sunday.”
“Mr. Randall, good to see you. It was no problem.”
“Please, sit.”
I re-take my seat, and he settles down at the head of the long conference table despite the fact that I’m sitting in the middle. Brad, the suck up asshole, sits right next to his uncle. I have the insane urge to stick my tongue out at him like I’m a six-year-old on the playground.
Harvey steeples his hands together in front of him and nods at me, glancing down at the ring on my finger and back up. “I was so happy to hear the news of your engagement. Gabriel Sullivan, that certainly was a surprise.”
“Thank you very much.” I keep my face neutral and nod, not giving him anything. I wait for his next move, sure I know what’s coming next.
“I hope you’ll bring him by sometime. It would be a pleasure to meet him.”
Bingo.
I hum noncommittally. “Maybe. He’s a very busy man.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure he is. Well, your engagement makes me even happier that I decided to call this meeting. As you know, with the reorganization of the family office, there will be a significant amount of legal work coming up over the next few months.”
I sit up straighter and nod. “Yes, I prepared a list of action items for the reorganization and a proposed timeline, so I’m ready to discuss that at your convenience. I also have an outline for the draft of your new trust and an explanatory memo for the family limited partnership we’re creating that will ultimately fund the trust since that is our first priority.”
“Good, good,” Harvey says, nodding. “If you wouldn’t mind, please share those files with Brad. We discussed it at breakfast, and Brad and his firm are going to be taking point on the big picture items, leaving you more time to focus on our estate planning. I’ve decided that will need a complete overhaul, in addition to the trust and the partnership. I’m sure you’ll be wanting more time to spend with your fiancé as well, so reducing your workload will be good for everyone.”
The audacity.
The absolute fucking audacity of men, I swear to fucking god.
And everyone wonders why women are so goddammed angry all the time.
I take a slow deep breath, so I don’t just explode all over this conference room.
“Mr. Randall, I wasn’t present at breakfast this morning, but if I was, I would have told you that my engagement has absolutely no bearing on my ability to do my job. I am just as capable of managing this entire restructure as I was a week ago, so none of this seems necessary.”
Harvey gives me a patronizing smile, and Brad looks positively gleeful. I want to punch him in his smarmy face. “No need to get upset, Molly dear. You know I think you’re a very smart and capable attorney. I’m just doing what I think is best for everyone and for my company. Now, if you don’t think you can work with Brad, I completely understand. I can find someone else to handle the estate planning.”
Brad turns to his uncle, placid smile on his face. “Uncle Harvey, I’m sure Molly and I will work well together. We’re old law school friends, after all.”
Every instinct in my body is telling me to get up out of my chair and walk out of this conference room. To tell both of these men to fuck right off. But I force myself to stay seated. This is my biggest client, and he knows all of my other biggest clients. Pittsburgh is a big city, but at this level of wealth and prestige, it’s a small town, and the last thing I need is to get the reputation for being the hysterical woman who flew off the handle in the middle of a business meeting with one of the city’s wealthiest and most well-known men.
So, despite feeling like I’m letting down women everywhere by not telling these assholes exactly where to stick it, I give them both a tight nod.
“Excellent,” Harvey says, banging a fist on the table. “Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Nineteen
Gabe
The knock on the front door startles me out of my trance.
I’m sitting in my first-floor office surrounded by computer monitors, studying some code I’ve been working on. I may have stepped down from day-to-day operations of one company and sold the other one, but I’m a tech nerd at heart, and never don’t have some kind of project going on. I’ve always found the zeros and ones of coding soothing. A certainty in a world where there is so much uncertainty. It’s something I can control, when so much of my adult life has felt uncontrollable.
I take off my glasses and toss them on my desk before going to answer the door. When I open it, I’m greeted by four grinning faces. Ben, Asher, Jeremy, and Jordan stand on my front stoop holding beer and takeout bags, looking so pleased with themselves that I can’t help but grin back.
“What are you guys doing here?”
Jordan shoulders his way inside first and the rest of the guys follow. “The girls are all hanging at Jules and Asher’s house, so we decided it was time for a guys’ day.
Ben slaps a hand on my shoulder. “Hope you like baseball.”
