Page 22 of The Lawyer
“Then fire me.” It's as empty a threat as the one he made to me. We both know it.
We’re in a stalemate.
“I’ll confirm tomorrow and set it up,” he says. “If you cancel on him, you forfeit the pay. He pays if he cancels. Same rules unless you say otherwise.”
He runs over the details while texting on his phone.
“Deal, and Jackson? I meant it. Don’t ever touch me again.”
Chapter Nine
LANDON
Ending the call that Neve hasn’t bothered answering, I follow the waiter as he leads the way through the sub-par restaurant. I’m not entirely sure why I bothered, but she’s an odd arm of this family I need to check in with every now and then.
Ivy eventually looks up at me and smiles, half her body rising to kiss my cheek before we both sit. “That was unexpected,” I remark.
“What? I can’t show affection for my big brother?” I stop the waiter before he disappears, ordering a black coffee.
“You never normally do.” She shuffles her menu around and pretends to read it. “What do you want, Ivy?”
The menu gets slung on the table, her eyes narrowed at me, and she crosses her arms. “Why do you always think that?” Because it’s a fact. “I just wanted to spend some time with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my brother?” I chuckle and keep staring, waiting for the real reason. “Okay, not only that, I wanted to talk aboutSeffiand see how you’re feeling—” I start standing before she finishes, ready to leave. “Landon, come on. We can’t ignore this.”
“I’m not ignoring it.”
“Yes, you are. She’s happy over there, and I don’t see what the problem is.”
A sigh leaves me. Considering the amount of work I have to do today, and the fact that I’ve now discarded some of that to meet her, talking through Persephone’s melodramatic issues is the furthest thing from my mind. “I don’t have time for this, Ivy.”
“Please sit down. Talk to me. I don’t understand any of it. I never have really.”
Another sigh and I sit and watch as the waiter delivers my coffee, then ignore his offer of the house specialities today. Ivy doesn’t. She orders whatever food she wants and sends him on his way as I put sugar in the coffee.
“You really should eat lunch, Landon. It’s beyond me how you ever managed to get so big without food.”
“It’s beyond me how you’ve managed to stay so slim with the amount you eat.”
She chuckles and leans back, getting herself comfortable for the conversation I do not want to have. I pick the coffee up and stare, once again waiting for her to start. I might as well get it out of the way. It at least gives me half an hour to ignore the constant vibrations of emails and calls coming to my phone. Perhaps I can imagine a certain set of legs while I bear this.
“She phoned me yesterday,” she says.
“Did she.” It isn’t a question. Of course, she would have done. They’ve been the closest of all of us, especially considering Ivy tried to mold our sibling into some semblance of respectable when she was younger. “And what did she have to say for herself?”
“Not much other than the obvious. I suppose love does that to people.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“And she was discussing the upcoming ball. She’s a little fucking offended, frankly, that she hasn’t been invited, given that she is a Broderick. A fifty-year celebration of Broderick Media and she’s not allowed to go?”
“She’s made her choice, Ivy. She knew what it would mean.”
I sip at the coffee and then put it down, disgusted by the bland taste on offer. “What the hell made you choose this place?”
“It’s close to my place.”
