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“If she doesn’t know by now, then I’ll remind her,” he argued.
“Remind her about what? About how you feel for her? Or how you feel for me?” My words broke his stare from the buildings outside. He flinched, immediately reaching for his towel, tucking it behind his neck.
“Just make the call,” he commanded, exiting the room. The tension was suffocating, returning like a wave as I felt him edging closer to who I knew he was all along, someone and something more. He slammed his door, leaving me alone, rattled, and shaking.
Mindlessly, I lifted my cup of tea, chucking it into the trash as some pathetic attempt to relinquish my rage. I hated that Parker wanted this, but I also hated that he was right. This meeting was a chance, as he said, to set an expectation. I could only live in the fantasy that Parker and I were meant to be together for so long, realizing its effect had been stemming much longer than I cared to admit. He needed to know that my decisions were my own, and that they concerned only the people I included them with.
I walked through my room, kicking a splintered piece of wood across the floor, while Alejandro’s suit sat in the corner, perfectly untouched. I pulled out my phone and fell into bed. There were twenty missed calls from Parker’s number, shaming me on the screen with its notifications. I swiped them away, pulling up a new message to make the most uncomfortable request ever.
Parker could ask us to meet, but he couldn’t make me choose who I wanted to be with. He of all people should know that choices come with consequences, a lesson I myself learned from both my college confession and from Claire.Trust a man with your heart, and trust him with your disappointment.
I punched the final words on my phone, my thumb hovering over the send button, until I had the courage to send it through. I texted Alejandro and hoped for the best, knowing already the worst was still to come.
Gemma: Hey rebel, do you have plans in a few weeks?
Chapter4
Parker
“If you ever do that again, you’re fired. I fucking mean it,” I warned, unbuttoning the top notch of my tailored navy suit. I was already on edge, completely annoyed with myself, with this whole fucking situation. I couldn’t believe the way I spoke to Gemma, the total loss of control I had. It was too much, too obvious to how I felt and how desperate I’d become. But how could I contain myself, when the thought of losing the only person I ever cared for was happening in real time? I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to be scolding my own subordinate, taking my anger out on him.
“I barely said anything.” Tommy, my fraternity brother from Columbia, quickly responded. He was good at defending others in court but had little effect in defending himself. The moment his smile wasn’t returned with my own, he pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing he was in trouble.
“You saidenough, and I swear to god, Tommy, if anything from the Brower-Rivers case leaks out, I’ll make you leave New York.”
The ding of the elevator door opened. Tommy followed me out into the windowed lobby of the towering MelBrook Law Firm. People scurried across the luxurious marbled floors, their heels clicking like an orchestrated backdrop to the tune of hard-working elites. They parted in my presence, reserving theirgood morningsfor when my firm expression eased. Everyone nodded, mirroring the nervousness that Tommy portrayed.
“It’s not all my fault! What about your princess? Isn’t she to blame?” He responded, reminding me that it was Mila who coaxed him into divulging about Alex’s case.
I could’ve forgiven him, had he shared some minor detail. But no, he had to give away the single most sensitive aspect of the case itself. I inhaled deeply, sobering my thoughts with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and expensive leather decor.
“She was doing her job. She’s a journalist. She’ll say or do anything to get you to spill.” I finally exhaled. Mila was good at exploiting others’ weaknesses, and when she told me how Tommy confirmed that a girl wasfoundin Alex’s bed at The Pierre Hotel, I nearly shivered at the catastrophic possibilities. “Over six-hundred hours of non-disclosure agreement meetings were spent, resulting in a four-hundred-page document to be sent to witnesses and associates all across New York, and for what?” Tommy struggled to keep up with my pace, already loosening the black tie around his neck. “Because of you?”
“I fucked up.”
“No shit. But why?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.
“It was Mila’s eyes…” he sighed. “She gave methelook. You know… the one where her chin drops, and her eyes go innocently big,” he admitted, stopping at the front of my office door, scratching his chin.
I knew the look he referred to, and more so of its effect. She’d given it to me before, and had my mind not already been hopelessly devoted to Gemma, I might have fallen victim to it myself.
“Did you say her name? Did you tell Mila about Natalie Brower?” I asked cautiously, speaking a name out loud that felt almost illegal in itself, because it was. The girl, the victim, the rolling stone to the previously mentioned nondisclosures.
Tommy pouted, squinting as if I were the sun itself. “Jesus. No, Parker. I’m a fool, not an idiot.” He looked disappointed in me for even asking.
I reached for his shoulder, giving a firm but assuring pat. I may have been more aggravated than he expected, because his childlike frown suddenly made me feel bad. He didn’t know that I was up all night, feeling uncontrollably anxious about what would happen once Gemma got home. Everything was messy, not perfectly safe like it was supposed to be, and in fact, I believe I led her down a more complicated path. No one could even realize how sick I felt, how I was physically ill with the thought that Gemma could have feelings for another man, one who I feared could ruin her life, just as he had for the girl in our case. I wanted to save her from it, but instead I pushed her toward it. What the fuck was I doing?
“Look at me.” I stuck my finger into his chest, jabbing it. “Look at my eyes. Are you looking?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I want you to remember them. Absorb what they look like and describe them to me.”
Tommy contemplated for a moment, guarded only by the whiff of his juniper aftershave.
“Fucking pissed,” he admitted under his breath.
“You’re god damn right. Now if Mila ever gives youthatlook again, I want you to think of me. If you see her eyes, you think of mine. Is that sexy to you?”
