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Jason’s eyes narrowed at that, and Zoe took great pleasure in the beads of sweat that broke out across his forehead.
“You’ve heard of Edgarton, haven’t you?” Hunter asked, conversationally. “Not a great place, or a great team, for that matter. I figure the state championship is a few years off. And, of course, that’s where Sarah was from. But I’m sure you know that.’
“Sarah Michaels was a white-trash tramp,” Jason said, harsh and quiet, one ugly slap after another. “From an entire family of born losers. I did her a favor. At least the kind of whoring she did for me, she got paid. She would have done much worse, and for much less, had she stayed in that dump.”
“I bet those were her final thoughts,” Zoe said, her voice a deliberately cool breeze in the tense room, her eyes fixed on the enemy. Almost there. Almost. “Gratitude for all your ‘help.’”
She wondered if Sarah knew, somehow. If she was out there somewhere and could see what Zoe was doing. Sarah, who had been Zoe’s first friend in New York City. Sarah, who had been Zoe’s only friend once everything got so dark. Sarah, who had loved Hunter first, enough to leave him out of this nastiness. She flattered herself that Sarah would have supported this.
Zoe watched Jason breathe, more heavily than before. Then she watched the older man adjust his tie, smooth his hands down his jacket.
Nerves, she thought, with great satisfaction. Jason was betraying himself at last.
“You have ten minutes to decide if you’re retiring or getting kicked out and then outed,” she said into the simmering silence. “And I have to tell you, I don’t care which you choose. I win either way.” She caught Jason’s eye, and held it, and it was almost worth all these years of suffering to see that little spark of uneasiness. Of something a good deal like fear. “I like to win, Jason. You should congratulate yourself. You taught me how.”
Jason stood as still as a statue, and Zoe thought she could almost hear his twisted mind whirl, turning it over and over, looking for an exit strategy, a way to outplay them, a way to come out the winner. Zoe glanced at Hunter, who nodded almost imperceptibly in support, but she felt it bloom inside her, warm and bright like one of his smiles.
“Time’s up,” Hunter drawled after ten long, bitterly quiet minutes dragged by. He straightened and moved toward the door. “I have that meeting.”
For a moment, Jason was silent, and Zoe wondered if she’d misjudged this, if they’d all miscalculated—
“I’ll leave the firm,” Jason gritted out, grudgingly, sourly, hatred heavy in each syllable, and distorting his face. His flat, pale eyes were the stuff of nightmares. But Zoe had been having this same nightmare for years now. She was over it. “But I’ll give the media my own reasons for it.”
“I don’t care what you tell the media,” she told him, not making the slightest attempt to hide her satisfaction. Her triumph. “Just so long as you leave this firm and all your victims behind. Because let’s be clear. Your pimping days are over. You leave this firm and you say goodbye to your little ring. You lose everything except your good name. Just like we all lost everything the day you ‘took an interest’ in us.”
Jason sneered at her, and she knew that face. She knew this man. This nasty little man, who was so vain he believed they’d actually leave him anything. Just wait, she thought.
“I wouldn’t pop the champagne just yet, Zoe,” he said. Murderously. “It will take more than that to best me. I’m adored by this entire city. This country. These little games of yours won’t change that.”
But then, Zoe was counting on that. They all were.
“Time to talk to your partners,” she said, and then she smiled, big and bright and she didn’t care if he saw it, because it was over. It was finally over.
She was free.
* * *
She was free, and that made her foolish. Sentimental and soft.
Or maybe that was Hunter.
That first night, she couldn’t help herself. Jason quit the law firm as they’d told him he must, and she and Hunter had walked out of that loathsome building together, stunned. Victorious. They’d been in a taxi together before she could think better of it, and he’d pulled her into his lap, kissing her again and again, as if she was a marvel.
How could she do anything but fall into the man who had shared this exquisite, hard-won triumph with her? How could she keep herself from enjoying him?
Just this one last time, she told herself as the cab lurched its way south. As Hunter kissed her, deep and slow and long, as if he was content to do nothing else. As if there was nothing else. Just his mouth on hers, the dance of tongues and teeth and longing, his hand at the back of her head and that hard body of his below her, around her.
