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I step closer and hand him the cup. “Okay, so what’s the disaster that just hit?”
Finn looks at his two brothers and shrugs. “She is pretty involved in this. She might as well know.”
“Fair enough,” Damien agrees. “It’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. Raven’s started throwing her temper tantrum at Finn.”
“A bit more than a temper tantrum,” says Finn. “She’s already costing us clients.”
“Mostly the rich clients,” Luc adds. “Since those are the ones she knows.”
I take a seat on the chair opposite Finn’s desk. “What’s she doing exactly?”
“Nothing officially,” Damien responds. “It’s all backroom stuff. Talking to someone who talks to someone. She’s asking everyone who likes her not to go to us for help, and complaining to everyone who doesn’t about how dishonest we are.”
“And it’s not like we’re more dishonest than any other law firm!” Finn complains. “Well, not that much more dishonest, at any rate.”
“At least we’re not corporate lawyers,” Luc agrees.
Finn pounds his fist on the table. “Exactly! We should get more credit for that!”
“I mean, we can survive that, can’t we?” I say, hoping the brothers will agree with me. “It’s gotta blow over sometime or another. And in the meantime, we just have to focus on smaller clients, make a show of being honest and trustworthy, and just wait until she forgets about this and the rich clients start coming back. Right?”
Damien looks uneasy. “That’s definitely what we’re gonna try. The question is if we can make it through and keep paying people without our big clients. And also, how we’re gonna look like we’re being honest with the kind of clients who won’t care that one of the richest women in Chicago thinks we’re scammers.”
“Emma’s right,” Finn declares. “We can do this. We can figure it out.”
But that’s not really true, is it. None of it’s as simple as I’m trying to pretend it is. If we’re gonna survive this, we’re gonna need a lot of determination and a good amount of luck too.
Finn looks from one of his brother’s stony faces to the other. “We can figure this out, can’t we?”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Luc mutters.
“We’ll do our best,” says Damien.
“Okay, but what if we did the easy thing?” I ask, suddenly. Immediately, the whole attention of the room is on me. “I mean, if Finn and Raven… Well, she’s offered to not just stop this whole badmouthing thing, but get Finn some quick cash, right? Not to be the devil’s advocate of Devil’s Advocate, but…”
“Absolutely not,” Finn declares. “There’s no way in the world I’m giving into her. And I’m definitely not getting engaged with her! Can you imagine?”
“That is a lot to ask of anyone,” Damien agrees. “Even Finn.”
“Are you refusing to talk to her because of you?” I ask. “Or because of me?”
There’s an uncomfortable silence.
“Maybe we should give the two of you a little bit together to talk things out,” Damien says, finally. Luc agrees.
“We’ll take a moment or two together,” Finn replies. “But we’re still going to beat this. We’ll figure it out.”
“Of course,” says Luc. “That’s what we do.”
With that, the two brothers walk out of the office. It’s just Finn and I, now, and we sit quite for a little bit at first. I pick my drink off the desk and take a sip of it.
Finn breaks the silence, at last.
“Did you know that every time I walk through double doors, she always stops in front of the second one so I can hold that one for her too?”
I laugh. “No, but now I can’t imagine how I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
“Once she also made me take off my coat and put it over a puddle. There was enough sidewalk to walk around the puddle. She just didn’t want to do it.”
