Page 15 of Take What Hurts

She had almost brought an end to her research right then and there. But after minutes of back-and-forth, she reasoned that she needed to know just how far in the shit she was, going up against a lawyer like her. So she started with Mackenzie’s LinkedIn profile and promptly pulled up the cases Mackenzie had listed in her portfolio. And Elliott started to sweat in earnest. Based on the case summaries, Mackenzie had been given some impossible factual situations and had still managed to eke out results like alimony and large-percentage financial splits that, honestly, Elliott wouldn’t have even had the gall to pursue. On Elliott’s read, the favorability or otherwise of the facts didn’t seem to be a barrier to Mackenzie and, certainly, it didn’t seem to dictate the limits of what she could pursue for her client. No, it appeared that Mackenzie was more than comfortable finding creative ways to make the facts work for her and her client.

If Elliott had thought she was in deep shit based solely on her own deductions, she knew she had almost no chance of going toe-to-toe with her after Mattias’s response to her text message asking him what he knew about Mackenzie. He responded with a GIF of a snarling bulldog. Elliott had rolled her eyes and swallowed hard as unease slithered through her.

Now, as Elliott stared vacantly out the window in her office, a shimmer of excitement raced through her. She had the upper hand. Because Mackenzie might have won some doozies recently, but on Elliott’s read, Anna’s errors had Mackenzie’s other clients beat.

Not only were the text messages between Anna and Matilda revolting, but Elliott also had a hunch that Anna hadn’t been honest with the financial disclosure. Elliott had noticed small amounts of money being paid every now and then into an account ending in a number that wasn’t listed in the disclosure. Her hunch was that, for most of their relationship, Anna had been either sending money to someone else or keeping it for herself. It was circumstantial and she couldn’t prove anything yet, but there was no harm in planting the seed and waiting to see what grew.

When Elliott had raised the account with Matilda, she hadn’t been able to explain it and had simply told Elliott she’d let Anna manage their finances. Elliott had barely withheld a groan of secondhand regret.

She brought her hands to her face and rubbed at her eyes, sighing heavily. She’d need to go in fast, hard, and confident. She steeled herself, snatched up the receiver on the phone, and punched in the number.

TEN

MACKENZIE

Elliott’s office number was calling her. And for the life of her, Mackenzie couldn’t understand why her first thought was to hope Elliott herself would be on the other end of the phone and her second thought was to wonder whether Elliott had enjoyed the vanilla-cream. She huffed out a loud breath, ignoring the tingling that ignited in the lower part of her abdomen at the sight of Elliott’s name on her phone screen, and rushed to close her office door as she brought the phone to her ear.

“Mackenzie Williams.” Firm, formal… professional.

“Mackenzie.”

Her stomach fluttered. Confident, capable, and delivered with the same smoothness that she had thought about more than once since Monday. Which, as a person objectively attracted to Elliott, she liked. As opposing counsel, the delivery planted a seed of dread.

“Thanks for sending the offer through.”

“No problem.” Mackenzie paused, clearing her throat, and prayed that it would resolve the huskiness that had leaked out. “Do you have instructions?”

Elliott paused, and the silence stretched and the seed of dread grew. Quickly.

“I do.” She said it slowly. Carefully. Like she weighed every word just for effect. And Mackenzie didn’t want to hear anything more. “But there’s something adjacent to the offer I’d like to discuss first.”

Mackenzie closed her eyes against the lurch her heart made in her chest, and she straightened her spine. “All right. But I’ll say that I don’t have instructions to discuss anything except your client’s answer on the offer.”

“Understood. My client rejects the offer.”

And bears shit in the woods. “Presumably you have a counteroffer?”

“Not at this stage.”

The back of Mackenzie’s neck prickled, and she tried not to let the unease creep into her tone. “Noted. Then, in the circumstances, where I don’t have instructions to discuss anything else, I think this conversation is⁠—”

“I’m going to stop you right there.”

Mackenzie fell back in her chair and tried to quiet the indignation that rose in her throat while her brain scrambled for a response. It came up with tumbleweeds as Elliott’s low voice wormed its way into her ear.

“Any lawyer worth their money, and presumably you are a lawyer worth their money, would be aware that the offer your client put forward is entirely inequitable on the papers.” She was 100 percent correct, but Mackenzie wasn’t here to praise opposing counsel. Her finger tapped the back of her phone as Elliott plowed on. “A court would never make an order dividing the property that way, so let’s cut the crap.”

Mackenzie’s jaw dropped open, and she made every effort not to acknowledge how her heart began to beat that little bit faster with Elliott’s firm directness. She really needed to get it together, and she made a mental note to text her therapist.

“Have you asked your client for her message thread with her ex-wife?” asked Elliott.

Mackenzie’s brain swirled in her skull at the turn the conversation had taken, and she frowned, trying to calculate the angle Elliott was working. She couldn’t connect the dots. The irritation flickered down the back of her neck, and she went with obstructive. “I don’t really see how that’s relevant.”

“I assure you that it is.”

“Care to explain how?” She was stalling, because why the fuck hadn’t she thought to check what level of exposure might be there? Dumbass.

Because the wheels were starting to turn in her mind—albeit belatedly—and the sick feeling she knew generally preceded a fall was rising in her chest. Her client’s behavior at the settlement conference played in her vision, and heat surged through her limbs at the thought of how that behavior might show up in writing.