Page 5

“What am I going to do with you two?” Fields asks, glancing between us. “You always look like you’re one step from a knife fight.”

“To be fair, Gemma looks like that with everyone,” says Ben with one of his glib smiles.

“Au contraire,” I reply. “I’m thrilled to see you here, as it means you’re not off getting a homeless mother evicted from a shelter somewhere.”

“That was an accident,” he growls.

I smile; his irritation delights me. “Hmm.”

“Anyhow,” sighs Fields, who is now fondly remembering the days when you could just call a mouthy woman a witch and have her drowned, “as I’ve just been discussing with Ben, a gender discrimination suit is being brought against Fiducia, one that may prove lucrative.”

I sit up a little straighter. Fiducia—a well-known investment capital firm that gives lots of lip service to ideas about diversity and acceptance and workplace equality—is big. They would generate press, and that’s what I need. My long-term goal is to exclusively practice family law, but it takes a while to build a name. Walter, my favorite corporate client, is giving me enough work until that happens, but I wouldn’t mind taking the fast track, and a newsworthy discrimination suit would provide it. Plus, if I win, it will be impossible for them to not make me partner afterward.

“Margaret Lawson, the plaintiff, is fifty-four years old and was with Fiducia for well over a decade. She was passed over for promotion nine years in a row and was let go when she complained about it.”

This case is sounding better and better. I will dance on Fields’ desk and let him throw nickels at my feet to get my hands on it. I will fight Ben to the death for the chance, though that implies fighting Ben to the death is a disincentive, which it is not.

“I’d like you and Ben to work on it together,” Arvin concludes, and my spine crumples. “You’ve handled gender discrimination cases before, and Ben’s an expert at negotiating a settlement.”

“Together?”

Ben, Stealer of Clients and Evictor of Homeless Mothers, is no one I want to work with, and I don’t think he’s ever even handled this kind of case, so why the fuck should I take direction from him? He’ll obviously make me do all the work and steal every ounce of credit.

“We’re not being given a choice, slugger,” Ben says with a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his stupidly pretty face. He does not want to work with me any more than I do him. In the two years he’s been here, he hasn’t brought me in on a case even once. “And it might amount to nothing, for all we know. We’ve got to talk to her first.”

He’ll undoubtedly find a way to screw me over, but it looks like I’m not being offered the opportunity to turn it down anyway.

I stumble, shell-shocked, from Fields’ office and take a glance at my feet to assure myself I’m actually wearing the good-luck shoes.

I am. Apparently, their luck just ran out.

It’s well after dark, and I’m only halfway through drafting a custody agreement when Ben arrives at my office door. “Knock knock,” he says.

I raise a brow. “You realize saying knock knock is redundant when you actually knock.”

He leans against the door frame. “I mostly said it to annoy you.”

“You shouldn’t have expended the effort.” I open a new document on my laptop. “You standing there is enough to annoy me.”

He takes the seat on the other side of my desk, though I don’t recall inviting him to sit.

“Gemma…” His voice is gravel wrapped in velvet; a voice made for giving orders you can’t resist.

Reluctantly, I stop to look up at him.

“Can you do this? This case could be a big deal. I need to know you’re going to bring your A game, no matter how much you hate me, or just hate men in general.”

I want to argue that I don’t hate all men, but I don’t think I could swear to it under oath. I hate more men than I don’t, I suppose.

“I always bring my A game. But I’m not telling this woman what she wants to hear, or talking her into a garbage settlement just so you can count it as a win.”

His nostrils flare. “And you think I would?”

I thought I could insult Ben in almost any way, but this, apparently, is his Achilles’ heel. “I’ve seen you in court. As I recall, you justify doing a whole lot simply to say you won.”

“And you go just as far,” he replies, his jaw tight. “The only difference is I’m able to admit it.” His eyes lock unhappily with mine for a moment before he shakes his head and climbs to his feet.

When he walks out, broad shoulders tense, I sense I’ve disappointed him. He’s acted irked by me before, but never disappointed.