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9
JULIETTE
“You’re in a suspiciously good mood.” Brett smiles at me as I hum to myself while sorting through a stack of reports.
“I am?”You know you are after last night.“Oh, right, I am.” I smile. “I just found out that Delmore wants to talk settlement, and we have a meeting with them today.”
“Ha ha,” Brett says sarcastically. “We both know this meeting is going be a slap in the face. How bad do you think they’re planning to lowball?”
“If I had to guess?” I squint one eye like I’m thinking hard about the question. “I’d say they’re offering less than 100.”
“I’d be surprised if it were even that high. What’s the number we want to target?”
“Well,” I say, placing the files into a box, “in order for each lead plaintiff to get enough to cover not only medical expenses but ongoing treatment, plus the loss of wages after the plaintiffs were fired, and our contingency fee, we’re looking at $350 million.”
Brett whistles. “That’s a lot of cheddar.”
“If they won’t pay, we’ll go to court and cost them even more.” I smile, loading the final box onto the dolly for the paralegal to take to the conference room for our meeting.
“Anything else you want to talk about?” I know he wants to know if anything happened between Alex and me after he left my house the other night, and while I’d love to tell someone the panty-melting comment he left me with last night, I’ve decided to keep that information to myself. I’m also way too embarrassed to ever admit how many times I’ve used the vibrator he gave me.
“Not at all.” I smile before checking the time. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lunch date with my friend Aspen before this meeting.”
“You’re no fun, you know that?” he scoffs before walking out of my office.
I grab my purse and hurry to the elevator to meet Aspen at one of our favorite little bistros down the block.
* * *
“Sorry I’m a little late,”she says, flipping her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder. “I feel like I’ve been in a tornado of stress since I moved.”
“When do we finally get to see this dream apartment?”
“Uh, once I’m finally settled. I still have boxes everywhere.” She almost seems a little dismissive about it, like she doesn’t want us to come by. “Eventually, I promise. Anyway, what’s new with you?”
Aspen is the soft-spoken, shy one of our group. She’s delicate and sweet, like she belongs in a cottage in the countryside feeding mice and singing with birds—not in Manhattan.
“Well, since you couldn’t make it to brunch the other day, you missed out on me spilling all the tea about how Alex is now my built-in babysitter.”
“Oh, that’s right!” she says as she smiles at the waiter who appears at our table. “I’ll take a strawberry lemonade, please.”
“Diet Coke, please.”
“Blaire filled me in when I saw her a few days later, but how are you doing? Have there been any more developments?”
I tell her about the threatening phone call and she gasps, her hand shooting up to cover her mouth. “Oh my goodness, how is Chloe doing with everything?”
“Well, I haven’t really told her much. She knows we had a security system put in, but she hasn’t asked why she’s still seeing Alex around. I’m sure she will soon, and honestly, I’m not sure what to say.”
“Do you think she can’t handle knowing you’ve hired some extra protection since you’re dealing with a high-profile case?”
I shrug. “I’m sure she can, since she’s such a mature 10-year-old, but I don’t want her tohaveto handle it. I want her to just be a normal kid, not worried or overthinking about why we’d possibly need protection. She’s been through so much in life already.” I sigh, feeling my chest tighten again at the thought.
“I can understand that. Whatever you decide to do, I know you’ll handle it perfectly.” She smiles at me, her pink cheeks scrunching up. “You always do.”
The waiter comes back around and we place our orders.
“Thanks. What about you? How have you been? You mentioned you got a promotion a while back, and then I feel like you kind of fell off the face of the earth.”
