Chapter 34

Despite the fact that I’ve already met him, I’m struck by how intimidating this man is. He’s tall and wiry, but solid, like a slab of granite weathered by decades of unrelenting storms. Like he’s taken a beating from life and laughed in the face of its torturous machinations.

“Won’t you have a seat?” He gestures to the two chairs opposite his desk, opposite his own throne-like chair. They’re the same uncomfortable chairs that Dominic has in his office. The ones that have their users continually shifting and squirming.

The whole office, in fact, looks to have been decorated with an aesthetic of unease. In sharp contrast to the luminous window and balcony that are walled with glass, the rest of the office is black. The blacks upon greys swallow all natural light. The only pops of colour come from oil paintings of particularly gruesome-looking 18th century battles. Although it’s roomier than most apartments in Vancouver, it feels claustrophobic. Between the dark colours and the swords and revolvers displayed, the walls creep into my peripheries like ghosts breathing down the back of my neck.

I don’t move at his request. If those prequels Grant made me watch have anything to teach me, it’s that you don’t give up the high ground. (Also, that you don’t make prequels of beloved classics movies that are suddenly geared towards children.) There’s no way I’m going to sit in an uncomfortable chair, squirming like a kid in the principal’s office while he looms over me looking like a cartoon villain.

No, I stand and look him in the eye.

I may not be able to date, but I can spar. Given a choice between the two, I’d choose battle any day.

“Can I at least ask your name before you start interrogating me?” I ask sweetly, a favourite tactic of mine. Don’t let them see the teeth until I’m ready to strike.

He smirks.

“Are you trying to make me believe that you didn’t research me before infiltrating my domain?” He walks to the far wall and runs his hand along an antique musket—his finger lingering on the trigger. He’s right. I did. I scraped the bottom of every barrel to find out about Reinhold Cragg, Hart Link Incorporated’s chief lawyer who, as far as I can ascertain, has never seen the inside of a courtroom. “Tell me, have we met before?”

A simple question without a simple answer.

“Have you heard of Felton amp; Nichols?”

Reinhold pauses, his pinky suspended a breath away from the musket. Slowly, he turns, taking off his fedora to unleash the full force of his impossibly light blue eyes on me. The effect is chilling, which just emboldens me to square my shoulders and stare right back with the look my opponent have deemed to be vulture-esque.

Their flattery did nothing to soften my assault against them.

“Are you the little tick that’s been seeking to burrow itself in our side?”

“Tick? Is that what you’ve been calling me?”

“Expecting something stronger?”

Truthfully, I don’t know if I was expecting anything. Being on Hart Link Incorporated’s radar is probably the highest praise I’ve ever received in my life. Getting noticed is the first step in getting under someone’s skin—and getting under someone’s skin is the first step in winning.

“Can we cut to the chase?” I take a couple steps to my right towards the windowed wall. I hope the sun is shining past me, stabbing at his eyes. I want him to associate looking at me with pain.

Reinhold doesn’t even squint.

“In a hurry?”

I suppress a smile. That I most certainly am not. My day is wide open and never ending.

“Can you tell me anything about the DFO reports about the marine life population around your shores?”

He takes a step towards me. I take a step back. The wall of glass is behind me, but he still doesn’t squint. His white-blue eyes stare back at me, unblinking and intense. Even though he’s the very picture of restraint, there’s a distinct rabid dog aura about him.

He takes another step towards me. Every movement about him reminds me that we’re on his turf and he’s completely unleashed. I take another step back towards the windows.

“And why would I volunteer any information to someone who’s looking into us? Or did you not think we’d have systems in place to alert us when the leeches get hungry?” He takes another step towards me. His foot lands silently despite the hard ground. It’s the kind of practiced footfall best suited for hitmen in the dead of the night.

Certainly not for lawyers like me who live for being heard. Being heard is the most important part about arguing. Another crucial step towards winning.

Not that it feels like I’m winning now.

No, right now it feels like I’m being backed towards the windows at the top of a cliff. It feels like I’m staring down a man who has an untraceable black hole in his history where no one knows what he was doing. It feels like I’m staring down Zagreus Hart’s right-hand man, his lawyer who has never seen the inside of a courtroom. It feels like I’m staring down a predator.

So, I stare right back.

“Are you saying that there’s information to be uncovered about your environmental practices?” I counter.

The corner of Reinhold’s mouth twitches. The scar that runs from his lower lip to chin dances for just a second before being buried in its expressionless grave. But I’m not watching his scar.

I’m watching his eyes.

Those creepy, piercing, unwavering eyes flicker. For the briefest of heartbeats, they twitch towards the painting above the musket he was fondling earlier.

I smother the urge to smile. Everyone has a tell.

I just pray he hasn’t seen mine.

Reinhold takes another, silent step towards me. I back up, now just inches away from the window. A panic rises in my throat even though I know it doesn’t have merit. My survival instincts know that behind me is a plummet to my certain death and in front of me is a man who most definitely knows the exact sound of a snapped neck.

“Everything you need to know about Hart Link Incorporated’s environmental policies is in our Mission Statement, or have you not read that?”

I have. It’s an over-the-top hyperbolic manifesto that overflows with as much bullshit as it does platitudes. It says that the environment is Zagreus Hart’s number one concern. It even says that he will save the world at any cost.

It’s the most ominous optimism I’ve ever read.

Seriously, how can Grant believe his company isn’t evil?

“Are you trying to tell me that a company this successful has thrived on a diet of ethics and morality?” I ask.

“Did I say that?”

I don’t hear his next step. I feel it, though. He’s so close to me that his very nearness pulls me to him, like he’s an undefeatable titan who leaves people to stagger in his wake.

I take another step backwards. Or at least I would if I had another step to give.

Half a step back, I stop. The window is between my shoulder blades and the handle onto the balcony is in my lower back.

In short, I’m trapped.

“Do you seriously believe I’m going to let you get away with this? With what you’re doing to the environment?” I breathe.

Reinhold’s face widens into a mirthless grin. The pantomime of joy is more terrifying than any of his glares.

I, Hailey Cox, bitch of the courtroom and ice queen of the office, feel my knees quake in response to his smile.

Still, I smile right back at him. Even as he leans forward and whispers words that I can scarcely hear over my pounding heart.

“And do you seriously believe you’re going to get away? That I’m going to let you walk out of here after you’ve pushed your nose into Mr. Hart’s business?”

My blood flees my limbs, leaving them cold, dissociated appendages that I’m not sure I can control. His last words aren’t those of a lawyer.

Whatever song and dance we were doing has gone beyond the prelude of courtroom spar. We’re out of the world governed by rules and routine.

We’re in his world—a world where his only goal is to pave a smooth road for Zagreus Hart.

It would appear that I’m at his mercy.

My smile fills with a genuine joy.

“Did I say ‘walk’?”

With that, I fling open the door out onto the balcony and rush outside. This high up, the wind whips at my hair and pecks at my cheeks. My cheeks that are beginning to hurt from how widely I’m smiling at my win.

“What are you doing?” Reinhold asks, pausing on the threshold between his office and his balcony. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”

I bark out a laugh.

It’s the first statement he’s made today—and it’s completely wrong.

In a movement that’s as graceful as the moment deserves, I fling myself over the railing and off the side of the cliff.

As I fall, I watch above until I see Reinhold’s face appear above the railing. His face a smattering of every thought and feeling running through his head. His mouth a wordless ‘o’ as he yells into the void between us.

I shoot him the middle finger as I fall.

Fuck him and his intimidation tactics. What kind of tacky villain feels the need to back a physically inferior opponent against a wall? Really, if you have to use your body to win an argument, you’ve already lost.

If he had any inkling of what kind of lawyer I am, he would have known that every step backwards was part of my own design. It was a step he was taking into my own trap.

And a step I was taking towards Grant.

Even though I didn’t tell Grant what my plan was, I had no doubt that he’d be there to catch me.

After several long seconds of falling, I feel my descent slowed and skewed until I’m drifting horizontally towards his speeding, open arms. Arms that envelop me without question.

Arms that I knew would be there.

“Looks like you’ve done it now,” Grant says as he presses a kiss against the top of my hair.

I look up towards Reinhold. His face is purpling with rage that I can see even from this far away.

“Yeah. I really got to him, didn’t I?”

Grant doesn’t answer. After a moment, I look up at him, only to see him smiling down at me. Unlike Reinhold who’s probably having a heart attack on his balcony, Grant’s smile reaches his eyes. Happiness casts out from him until I feel it in every part of me.

“Not that,” he says with a slight shake of his head. “You’ve finally fallen head over heels for me.”

He doesn’t give me any time to answer.

As an alarm blares out across the island, sending red beams of light in chaotic slices through the sky, Grant kisses me. He kisses me like a fanatic. Like a dying man. Like a desperate man. Like our kiss holds the balm to soothe the world’s hurt.

He kisses me like a man in love.

Which, I guess he is.

No, I know he is.

So, I kiss him right back.