Page 107 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

“Sustained.”

“Gigi told me she would ruin me if I told anyone what I knew. Look, you don’t have to believe me. I’ve got recordings. I started recording her once she started threatening me.” He slides his phone out of his pocket. “I can play them if you –”

Suddenly, everyone is murmuring at once. The noise swells like cicadas in the summer, reaching the point of a deafening chatter in seconds and dying just as quickly as the judge bangs her gavel.

“Counsel, please approach the bench,” she demands.

Mike is already grinning his fluorescent grin, attempting to smooth this over. I notice, though, that for the first time, Gigi looks panicked. Everything else we’ve presented thus far is hearsay. He said, she said. This is proof.

“Did you know about these recordings?” the judge asks me.

“No,” I say. “But I think we need to –”

“This is inappropriate,” Mike argues. “How do we know that these are real? And if my client didn’t know she was being recorded –”

“Let’s take this to my chambers. We’ll listen there. No reason to turn this courtroom into any more of a circus than it already is.”

We agree. We gather ourselves and our clients and move to the chambers. Behind us, the protestors have gone quiet, and in that moment, as I catch their wide, hopeful eyes watching us go, I feel a pang of remorse.

I want to win this case. I want to be right about the situation between Teddy and Gigi. But I don’t want to think that all of these women – many of whom had suffered and survived absolutely unacceptable treatment by those who claimed to love them, who have been brave enough to share their stories, who use their experience to educate and support others – are about to realize they put their faith in the wrong person. That someone would actually be horrible enough to use them in this way. That someone would actually lie about this. It’s a slap in the face to every person who has ever come forward with their story and had its validity questioned. And it’s this heavy feeling that settles into my stomach as we position ourselves in the upright chairs in the small room. Maybe it’s Gigi’s as well, because I realize now that tears are settling into the lines of her deep frown.

Andre puts his phone on speaker, and the judge gives him the go ahead. It takes everything in me not to reach for Quentin’s hand and squeeze it hard. The room goes so quiet that I’m convinced we’re all holding our breath. He hits play.

I don’t even have to hear the final ruling. I know the outcome the moment I hear her voice on those tapes. In the end, Teddy didn’t have to tell the court that Gigi emotionally, physically, and psychologically abused him for the majority of their marriage, because – over the course of thirty-six hours of recordings – she does, in perfect, damning detail.

28.

Quentin slides his hand over the curve of my hip, spreading his fingers across the soft, smooth fabric. His mouth finds my ear, and I can hear him smile.

“How am I supposed to keep my hands off of you for the next four hours?” he says. “You’re killing me in this dress.”

We’re alone in the elevator, heading up to Victor Freeman’s penthouse apartment along the bluffs of the river for our victory dinner. Of course, they aren’t calling it that. It’s technically a retirement party for Erving Maxwell. But everything about the energy around the firm the past few days has felt victorious.

I hook my arms around his neck and watch the numbers climb. We’ve got at least ten floors before we have to pull apart. I steal slow, sensual kisses. I can’t get enough of how he tastes like us, as if he spent the past hour tangled up with me in bed. It’s subtle but it’s there, the same way I know if I took his shirt off you’d see the imprint of my fingernails in the muscles of his back. We’ve left the evidence all over each other.

“Maybe later I’ll let you take it off of me,” I murmur.

His fingers trace up the strip of skin exposed by the thigh-high slit in my dress. “You know that’s all I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of the night?”

“Good,” I smirk.

We part just in time for the doors to open. The apartment is sprawling and modern, with a long line of windows boasting a view of the river, and a set of open doors leading to the balcony. It’s crowded with smiling people in evening wear. Each of us grabs a glass of champagne from a passing tray and heads our separate ways into the crowd. Just before I lose sight of Quentin, he gives me one of those signature, heart-flipping winks.

Just like the crowd, I buzz with anticipatory energy. I set my sights on some board members I know and smile, accepting congratulations from colleagues as I weave my way towards them. All anyone can talk about is the case, the article, the billboard. The fact that Quentin and I are an absolute dream team. It feels like almost forty-five minutes have passed by the time I finally hit my mark.

“I’m so relieved to know that the firm is going to be in such good hands after Erving’s departure,” Victor’s wife Dania says. “And it’s exciting to have another Maxwell at the helm.”

“We’ll see,” I smile. “The board still has to vote.”

“Oh no. That happened weeks ago,” she says, giving me a confused look. “It was unanimous. Quentin’s taking over as senior partner.”

The noise of the party is suddenly too loud. Clinking glassware, idle chatter, the mood music dancing through the speakers – it all creates a horrifying cacophony that rings in my ears like the aftermath of an explosion.

“Heidi,” Dania says. “Are you okay?”

I recover my smile. “Yes. Yeah, I’m fine. If you’ll excuse me?”

I wander through the crowd in search of Quentin. All night I’ve felt as though I could feel his presence, near in a way that only I would notice, but now he’s nowhere to be found. My heart has dropped into my stomach, heavy like a stone. When I finally spot him, he smiles, oblivious. He motions to the man he’s in the middle of a conversation with and begins introductions.

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