Page 107 of It's Always Been You
He takes my elbow and studies my face. “Hey, everything okay?”
“I have literally never been better, but I can’t talk now, Gabe. Gotta go change and see an asshole about a thing.”
Gabe’s eyes flash with a mixture of love and pride that has me standing straighter. With my girls and my guy beside me, I swear I could run through a brick wall right now, Kool-Aid man style. “Is asshole Brad finally getting his?”
I narrow my eyes. “Oh, you better fucking believe he is.”
Gabe leans in and kisses me on the cheek, then steps out of the way.
“Give ‘em hell, baby. Make them regret the day they fucked with Molly Jenkins.”
I tug Gabe in and crash my mouth to his in a quick, hard kiss. “Count on it.”
Chapter Forty-One
Molly
Harvey Randall’s assistant jumps up in her chair as I blaze through his outer office, the door slamming behind me.
“Sorry Molly, he’s in a?—”
“Save it,” I interrupt, holding up a hand. “I know he’s in there with Brad, but if I’m wrong and there’s something going on in there that I don’t want to see, you better stop me now because otherwise I’m going in.”
The anger and determination on my face has her dropping back in her chair and waving me through. Wise decision on her part, but even without her assent, god herself couldn’t keep me out of that office right now.
I fling the door open and stride inside, taking in the scene. Harvey sits at his desk in front of a stack of papers that I’m sure are the partnership documents I hadn’t finished yet, pen poised over the signature line Brad points to as he stands over his uncle.
At the sound of the door hitting the wall behind it, both men jump, heads shooting up in perfect sync, eyes wide. The visual would make me laugh if my blood wasn’t filled with fiery rage.
“Molly dear! What are you doing here?” Harvey asks. “Brad told me you would be unavailable for several more days due to a death in your family.”
Brad looks at me with a smirk, but as soon as he sees my face, the smirk dies, replaced by an expression that looks almost fearful.
Good. He should fear me. This man has fucked with me for the last time.
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Randall. But please, for the love of god, stop calling meMolly dear. You would never call a mandear. It’s patronizing as fuck and I’m tired of it. I’m a grown woman and an accomplished attorney. Call me by my goddamn name.”
Harvey stares at me with a look of disbelief, and my satisfaction is dark and immediate. Surely no one, least of all a woman, has ever spoken to him like this. I’m thrilled to be the first.
He recovers quickly though, leveling me with a look of consternation.
“Now Molly, I’ll call you by your name if you want me to, but there’s no need for vulgarities in the office.”
Since I’ve heard this man and his cronies use plenty ofvulgaritiesboth in the office and outside of it during the time I’ve been representing him, I suspect what he means is that there’s no need for a woman to use vulgarities, and my rage just burns hotter.
“Mr. Randall, with all due respect, I’ll use whatever language I damn well please. Especially when my professional experience and knowledge is consistently being tossed aside in favor of an attorney with less experience and far less knowledge.”
Brad straightens, puffing out his chest like he’s about to drop some truth bombs. “Molly, this really isn’t the time. We’re in the middle of some important business here, so if you wouldn’tmind waiting until we’re done to have your little tantrum, we would appreciate it.”
I level Brad with a look of disdain. “By important business, do you mean pushing your uncle, who happens to be our client, into executing the partnership documents that I told you weren’t ready yet? The same way you convinced him to sign a trust document that wasn’t final?”
Brad scoffs at me, looking down to address his uncle. “I finalized the trust the same way I finalized the partnership documents. Everything is on the up and up, Uncle Harvey. Molly has been too preoccupied with her billionaire fiancé to do her job the way it needs to be done, but luckily, I’ve been here to pick up the slack. Once you sign this paperwork, we can proceed with getting the partnership shares transferred into the trust, and then this part of your estate plan will be complete, and you can rest easy.”
“What trust?” I ask, congratulating myself on keeping my voice almost casual.
Both men stare at me. “What do you mean, what trust?” Brad asks me. “The trust I took care of two weeks ago. I told you about it.”
I barely resist rolling my eyes because honestly, this man either doesn’t listen when I talk to him, or he has the memory of a goldfish. My money’s on the first. I bet his ears don’t even process the sound of a woman’s voice.
