28. Daniel

28

DANIEL

M y phone vibrated in my pocket, and I didn’t even bother looking at it. I just reached in and held the power button down until I felt the double vibration in rapid succession indicating it was powering down. Michael and I hovered over the paperwork for our biggest banking client. Their attempts to build a new office building for their corporate office move to West Loop was being held up in zoning and they weren’t happy. As their lawyers, it was our duty to push things like this along, but it was frustrating the hell out of me in particular—especially given it was a Sunday afternoon and I was in the office instead of sitting by my pool sipping lemonade.

“The damn zoning board didn’t approve the application. They said it didn’t arrive by the deadline for this month’s zoning committee.” Michael rifled through a few of the papers scattered on the conference room table and folded the map back to look. He found the application which I’d had Emily file weeks ago. The time stamp on the document, done downstairs with the notary, indicated it was completed on time. I pointed to that time stamp.

“Look…” I shook my head. “Was it Cheryl? Is she the one who told you this? Because I’ve had trouble with her before.” I sank into the chair behind me and rubbed my forehead. “You’ll have to call the board first thing in the morning to iron this out. The papers were faxed in on time.”

Michael stacked the forms up into a single pile and grumbled a bit. I knew Emily had done a fantastic job on these, though he wanted to pin the screw-up on her. I checked her work every single day to ensure it was being done well. She hadn’t made a single mistake, at least not where her work was concerned.

“Well, I think we need to check the fax records, anyway.” He folded the map and stacked it with the other papers, then shoved them all in his briefcase. “Because there is a chance that you signed off on the paperwork, but she never did the faxes.”

“Olivia does the faxes, not Emily,” I snapped, scowling at him. He really had it in for her, and it aggravated me. “I wish you would let up a little.”

Now that we’d been over every file, I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned it back on. Michael locked his briefcase and set it on the floor, but he stood there and shoved his hand in his pocket, staring down at me with distaste. “Dan, you don’t really have room to talk. You thought she was so amazing until she up and filed a lawsuit on you.”

“She didn’t file a lawsuit. Her sister threatened one. Get that part straight. And her work has been impeccable, stellar even. She’s the best assistant I’ve had.” My phone vibrated as notifications of more missed calls came in, though I didn’t check them yet. I was too upset with him.

“Well, come tomorrow morning, we’re letting her go. We have a very straightforward reason—she hasn’t shown up for work in days. You got a half-assed excuse from Olivia about her being sick, and then you got an email stating she’d be out of town.” Michael’s head shook like a bobblehead dog on the dashboard of an old Volkswagen van. I wanted to smack him, but I knew he was right. She had missed quite a lot of work and had no real excuse for the absenteeism.

It didn’t feel right, though, firing her for this. She hadn’t filed a suit, and for all I knew, her sister had only made threats. Emily had been down for weeks, depression, maybe. I’d seen her apartment, the conditions she lived in. She needed this job.

“What if we move her? Make her Grace’s personal assistant instead of mine? I can take a few weeks off work, work from home. Let Emily adjust to somewhere else.” The very fact that I was still pleading for her job should have revealed to him that I had feelings for her. It cut me to my core to think that she’d be on her own in this huge city, fending for herself. It didn’t matter that she’d played me. Love was blind, and I guess so was I.

“I can’t believe you still stand up for her, Dan. She got you to sleep with her and she’s threatening a lawsuit because of that. She hasn’t attempted contact with you for days, right after the suit was threatened, and you still care.” He sighed and shook his head again. “You really are a glutton for punishment.”

“It’s called love, Mike, and if you ever loved someone the way I loved Emily, you’d understand.” I looked down at my phone, needing a distraction. The notifications were from Emily. Two missed calls, zero voicemails. My heart sank. She had tried to call me and I'd ignored it. Michael would tell me to ignore her anyway, but I’d done it inadvertently. If she had called, I’d have answered, and this argument would be about something different.

“Look, I get it. You care about her, which is why Grace and I are going to chip in out of our profit sharing to get her a nice severance package. It should keep her going for six months while she finds a new job. Alright? But you can’t just let someone who threatened to sue continue working here.”

He picked up his case and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for causing such a stir. I just care about you as a friend, and I care about this firm. A lawsuit like that won’t sink us, but the media circus around it just might. I don’t want to see you go through that, or the firm you’ve built. And I also don’t want my reputation tarnished with the fallout either. Neither does Grace. Just let us handle this, and swear to me you won’t make contact with her until she’s terminated.”

I hated it, the way he thought he could handle me—because that’s what he was doing. He wasn’t managing a situation, he was controlling me, micromanaging my actions and reactions to mitigate damage.

“Yeah, I swear. Okay? I know how this works.” My mouth said the words, but my heart screamed to ignore him. I knew he was right, though. Any court in the world would see my response to Evelyn’s threats against me and the firm as hostile. Even if Emily called me again, I needed to ignore it.

I waited a full twenty minutes after Michael left before making my way downstairs. I didn’t want the uncomfortable conversation to continue in the elevator or on the street while waiting for my driver. I had a hard enough time clearing the notifications and pretending my heart didn’t really want to call Emily and clear this whole thing up. She didn’t know it, but I loved her enough that if money was what she wanted, I’d give it all to her. I just wanted her too, not just a settlement.

I stepped off the elevator and headed out the front door, locking up behind me, and when I turned to walk toward the car, I saw Evelyn standing there. The glare on her face, coupled with the way she stood with arms over her chest, told me she was angry again. At least I knew who she was this time as I walked into the confrontation.

“Mr. Jacobs, I think you remember who I am.” Her nose seemed pointier than it did last week, or maybe I was confusing her with the Wicked Witch from that old movie.

“Yes, I know who you are,” I said, walking past her toward my car. That face had been burned into my conscience. I didn’t think I’d ever forget it or get it out of my nightmares.

“Listen, buddy?—”

“Look, if you’re going to file a lawsuit, just get it over with. Okay?” I spun around, still several strides from the car. I heard the driver’s door shut and knew he’d be opening the door for me.

She scoffed, snarling her lip up like a rabid dog ready to attack. “Tell me, when you hired Emily, did you think about how you’d fuck up her life before you did it? What about when you screwed her in your office? Did you plan to knock her up and then dump her in the ditch when you were done with her?” She gestured with her hands as she spoke, but I wasn’t intimidated. I still clung to the hope that she was speaking out of turn. My heart had to believe that this was not what Emily was like.

“Have you even spoken to her? Has she put you up to this?” I took a few steps forward, but my conscience told me to stop. Acting in an aggressive or threatening manner would only make things worse.

“Didn’t you hear me?” she asked, ignoring my question. “Emily is pregnant. You knocked her up, and now she’s pissed and thinking about getting rid of it.” Evelyn’s nostrils flared as she moved closer to me, clearly not afraid of me.

So many thoughts raced through my mind. “You’re lying.” I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “If she was pregnant, I'd have been the first person she told.” It made sense, the sickness, calling into work, being overly emotional. But she’d have told me.

“I’m not lying. She went home to visit my parents, and my mother took her to an abortion clinic… So you’re right. Maybe she’s not pregnant anymore. But either way, you are going to cough up money to help her. Because she’s refusing to let her family help her, and I for one won’t stand by and watch her fail.”

Her words fell on deaf ears. I turned to my car and tried to stop the rage boiling in my chest. I heard Evelyn following me. The driver grimaced at me and stood aside as I neared, and Evelyn grabbed my arm and tried to get me to turn around. I yanked my arm out of her grasp and whipped around, leaning over her. She wasn’t as short as Emily, but I still towered over her small frame.

“You need to back off. And you need to listen to me carefully. I have enough power and resources to bury you, your sister, your parents, and their business so deep, they’ll never dig out. Do you understand me? And my firm is one of the most powerful in this city, hell, even the country. You’ll find yourself so swamped in litigation, it will cost you everything and I’ll still win.”

I turned and climbed into the car before she could respond. The driver shut the door, and I locked it while he attempted to get Evelyn to step away. She was so angry, even after he climbed in, that she was pounding on the window and screaming slurs at me which I could only just barely hear thanks to the soundproof glass. As angry as she was, I had to believe part or all of her story could be true. If it were my sister and I believed she was being played, I’d be furious too.

But I knew Emily, or at least I thought I did. She’d have told me if she was pregnant. That only made me more confused and frustrated. I was glad I hadn’t answered the phone during that meeting. After that display, I could only imagine how that conversation would have gone if Emily really was going to sue me. And it all would have played out right in front of Michael.

“Are you alright, sir?” the driver asked after rolling down the window that separated us.

“Fine, thank you. I appreciate your taking the lead there at the end.” I felt my phone buzz again, and for a split second, I hoped it was Emily.

“You’re welcome, sir. Just going home now?” he asked, glancing in the mirror.

“Yeah, home…” I pulled my phone out to see a text from Michael reminding me of a meeting first thing in the morning. It was not the message I hoped to receive.

I laid my head on the headrest and closed my eyes, listening to the sound of the window going back up. This was too overwhelming. I wanted to wake up and find it was all just one big nightmare. Except, if that were true, then every single second I’d spent with Emily would have been part of that nightmare, the intimate moments, the love I felt. And how could that be true? How could love be such a cruel and twisted figment of my imagination?