Page 111 of The Rules Of Attraction
The damn meeting was next Friday and I still felt really uncomfortable about it.
Although it infuriated me to no end that my father wouldn’t hear me out, I decided that I’d follow orders and lay my suspicions to rest.
I had to if I wanted a shot at the senior partnership.
I knew my father was trying to teach me to focus and stick to a plan. But, what made me good was instinct.
I always felt that you needed to know when to divert from the plan, and when you had to be flexible and adaptable.
However, those qualities were all bad in his book.
“This case doesn’t feel good to me. I don’t trust Devon. Not one bit, Marc.” I shook my head.
Marc looked concerned. “You never take on a case you feel bad about. And Devon isn’t exactly our favorite person.” He knew Devon and their family. We’d all travelled in the same circles growing up.
“My dad’s on my ass, Marc. He doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say that’s not relevant to the case.”
“You know I’ll always support you. I admit, you have your moments but you’ve never done anything without reason.”
“My dad thinks I’m reckless, and doesn’t want me ruining the good name of Sullivan’s when he retires.” That was it.
Mom came back a few nights ago and we had a long, overdue conversation. She explained the situation the same way Preston had. She said my father was just making sure the company got taken care of. She didn’t like the idea, but she understood my father’s motives.
What neither had said, but was obvious, was that my father’s real worry was in me ruining the firms name.
“So that’s it, you’re suspicious and you’re just going to let that slide?”
“Yeah, I’ll do my job. Nothing more, nothing less.” Basics and process.
“Really?” Marc asked tilting his head to the side.
“I can’t do anything else.”
“Alex, it’s weird that so many investments went bust. It screams suspicious and Sullivan’s have a stake in it if something goes wrong.”
“I know.” I nodded.
Apart from representing someone who could be shady, my father being on the board of directors at Langdon Inc. wouldn’t be good for us as a firm if it was found that Devon was doing something illegal.
“Look at what happened at Ashfords. Everyone got dragged into that whole scandal. The innocent along with the guilty.”
I sighed and nodded remembering when that happened. It was really bad and a lot of trust was lost.
I would hate for anything like that to happen to us. It wouldn’t be the same thing because I knew my father wasn’t into fraud and theft, but what if Devon was.
At Ashfords there was hardly a member of the senior management that hadn’t had some part to play in the whole scam and scandal. That was why it left such a black mark in the whole legal and financial world.
There was more than eighteen months in the space between it all going down but I knew there were some firms who still wouldn’t take on former employees.
“I can’t go digging around, Marc. If there’s nothing to find I’ll just cause more upset and tension.”
“Well, maybe you can’t. But that doesn’t stop me.” Marc smirked.
I straightened up and chuckled. This felt like one of our little schemes we used to pull back in high school and college.
“My father will know I put you up to it.”
“Alex, you know I have my ways. No one has to know anything. Let me check it out. See what I find. If there’s nothing then there’s nothing to find. It may take a while though, so you’ll have to play nice.”
