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Is it just me or is his voice an octave lower? At least a half octave, isn’t it?
I take a sip of my coffee just to stop myself from saying something.
“Yours?” he asks belatedly.
He stops at the same time I do. We’re attending the same meeting then. David opens the door for me, gesturing with one hand.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “It was nice.”
“What was?” he asks, brow furrowing. His face is a bit redder. I wonder if he’s warm. The conference room is significantly warmer inside than the hallway, after all.
“My weekend.”
His expression clears, and he nods.
A part of me—a big part, a part that’s screaming and stomping her feet right now—wants me to linger. Make any excuse to stay in his presence.
I ignore it. That part of me is the wild part that lets me get all dolled up and have sex with a stranger in the first place. That’sthe part that sounds more like my best friend Alice’s voice than my own. I really, really need it to pipe down right now.
I sit between Josh and Amber, the other lawyer who started at the same time as me. We’re not the only women in the office, but we are two of a much smaller percentage than the men, and that, coupled with our same starting date, has made us fast friends.
Josh seems like a nice enough guy, but he’s more panicked about being a father soon than he is about handing over his pro bono cases, so the jury’s still out on whether we’ll end up friends before he’s out for six months. He reminds me of my brother a bit, with how frazzled he was when he first started dating a woman with kids. The idea of being even justmaybea stepdad had him in a frenzy for months. It makes me endeared to Josh, even if I shouldn’t really be.
“What was that?” Amber asks, eyes flickering between me and David.
I honestly could throw up on her. “What was what?”
If someone finds out about us, they’ll think that I slept my way into this job. If they think that, my reputation will be over.
She cranes her neck to look at him, and I slap her knee. She laughs softly under her breath, gathering her hair in a low knot at the base of her neck. “Sorry!” she says. “I just thought maybe he told you why we’re all here!”
“Donovan never saysanythingtoanyone,” Josh interjects, leaning towards us. I move my coffee off the table and we scrunch together. “His assistant Piper knows what’s going on but ever since he became the Final Donovan, he’s been mysterious as all hell.”
“Final Donovan?” I ask.
Amber rolls her eyes. “Come on, you know the lore.”
I honestly don’t know anything about the man.Clearly.“Let’s pretend I don’t.”
“Donovan was just one of the Donovans,” Josh says, as if that sentence makes sense. “He was the son part.”
I think I’m following.
“Right,” Amber agrees. “It was his grandpa’s firm, I think, and his dad and uncle joined, and then he started on when his grandpa died.”
Huh. “Where’re the others now?”
Josh leans in really close. “Dead.”
I gasp. Like, an honest to godgasp.Amber and Josh nod.
“It was a few years ago now,” Amber whispers.
“It was very sad,” Josh adds.
“Wow,” I murmur. I sneak a glance at David. He looks… well, not young. But certainly not old enough to be the last surviving patriarch in his family.
Amber leans in even closer. “Last I heard, he hasn’t driven since.”
