Page 14 of Her Christmas Wish
“What I need next is for you to fill in the details that weren’t in the news. Files. Contracts. Employee statutes. Access to account records...” Her voice faltered as his frown grew from confused to...something more.
He shook his head. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to help. I’m a corporate attorney. A damned good one. This is my area of expertise...”
The man swung a suited arm like a model at a car fair, showing her the expanse of his chest, as he said, “This is far above my pay grade. My assets are frozen.”
He glanced pointedly at the table filled with files, which she’d told him were all from his case. The reading she’d done the night before. Which had included the frozen asset information.
And then looked up at her. Did he think she was some kind of lovesick girl who’d had to glom on to the suitor who’d said he loved her but then rejected her?
Gritting her teeth for a second, she held his gaze. Took a deep breath. “I apologize for my abruptness.” The words came out, feeling...okay. “I’ve purposely stayed away from news of your case,” she admitted then. “But when Scott told me why you’d be staying with him, I spent the evening familiarizing myself with the details.”
“To make sure your brother wasn’t harboring a criminal?”
She shook her head. Frowned. His response had been...personal. “Of course not. Scott’s a stellar attorney. He doesn’t need my expertise. You do.”
There.If he wanted to be personal, she could put it right out there. “Your assets are frozen, your attorney can’t represent you, personally, because he has to represent the corporation, GB Animal Clinics. You’ve been completely exonerated, but your business is permanently shuttered. Your image has taken a huge hit. And at some point, your personal finances are going to start showing some pain.” Other than that last assumption, the rest was textbook.
With a bit of a shrug, accompanied by that nod of his head that she used to love, he said, “I’m aware.”
He hadn’t accepted her help. Or thanked her for the offer, even.
She wasn’t going to beg. Had been recalcitrant about getting involved at all. Just... “With you staying close...and us, our past... I just thought it best if our association was a business one.” She blurted the truth she’d meant to utter to no one.
Because it acknowledged that she had a problem with him joining their small private neighborhood. Even briefly.
Which made it look like she wasn’t completely over him.
Opening her mouth to assert her claim, since she’d opened the door and had to get it slammed shut immediately, her words were cut off when Gray said, “Maybe you should hear the details that aren’t in the news before you solidify your offer.”
She stared. He was accepting her plan? At least preliminarily? Giving them a way to coexist without the past seeping all over them? “That’s fair,” she told him.
And then thought of his initial statement. The expanse of chest that had been revealed as he’d motioned around her office. “And I’m offering to take on the case pro bono,” she told him, quickly continuing. “The firm’s bylaws state that every partner must take on a certain percentage of pro-bono work—part of a give back to the community mandate—and I’m under the gun here to choose a project.”
Project.What the hell? She saw his eyes harden as she said the word.
“I apologize,” she told him with heartfelt sincerity, looking him straight in the eye. “It’s a term used internally to designate all non-money-generating work we do. We have a general project board, and we each have project lists. For instance, the most pressing project on my list right now is to hire a new associate...”
She heard the rambling. Let it attempt to save her.
Or him.
She wasn’t really clear which. Just knew that she’d blundered and had to make it right. Gray grew up in an apartment complex that the city had called the projects. Had been born to a single mother who’d dropped out of high school to have him. And who’d eventually left him with his aging grandmother when she was killed in a car accident.
Sage’s words had faded. Her gaze locked with Gray’s as he nodded. “It’s okay, Sage,” he told her.
And her body flooded with a warm, almost liquid, sensation that felt like an old friend.Sage.First time she’d heard her name in that way that melted her in a long, long time.
“I’m not eighteen and have nothing to prove anymore.” His gaze left hers to fall down toward the files on the coffee table between them. “Not to myself, anyway.”
“And not to a lot of others,” she said, glancing at the top file. “You have a slew of clients—pet owners—who vouch for you. Those testimonies—used in a way that I vet fully, every step of the way, to make certain that there isn’t even a hint of anything that could come back to bite you in a legal sense—can help you to rebuild your image. But first, we need to get a new corporation registered, draw up bylaws and practice procedures, with a solid, legally binding vetting process that allows you to hire and fire at the least infraction—for you, to ease your mind and any mistrust this experience might have caused you to have, but also for your customers. We’ll put out a statement regarding the vetting process for each employee on your staff...”
His smile stopped her. She stared.
He shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “Vetting. Veterinarians...”
Reminded her of a glasses joke she’d heard while representing a firm of ophthalmologists...and she smiled, too. Glad to see that Gray still had his sense of humor.
