“He’s just having a bad streak.”
“You know he wanted to do a competition right?”
“A competition?”
“Yeah, he was at the company for like ten months and he’d lost no cases. He’d gotten nothing but wins, and he wanted to implement a chart of losers and winners.”
“How crass.”
“Yep, and believe me, I wasn’t up to it.”
“Why not?”
“This is not about being winners and losers, Nora. I know when I decided to be a lawyer, I would win some and lose some.”
“That didn’t bother you?”
“Of course it did. I wanted to win every single case I was involved in. The thing is, some cases I should have won, I lost, and other cases I won, I should have lost. I’m an asshole. I know that, but I’m dealing with people’s lives here. Even Richmond. He shouldn’t be getting away scot free, I get that. He couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, and now his wife is after every last cent. Now, his first wife, she got a good chunk of his money, but if you ask me, she deserved it. For years she dealt with his cheating and all of his shit. Gave him a couple of kids, a loving home, and he screwed her over time and time again. The current Mrs. Richmond is a money-grabbing whore. I’ve met her a couple of times, and I would bet neither of them have been faithful.”
“I couldn’t imagine that.”
“What?”
“Marrying someone for money, or not loving them enough to make it work.”
“You believe in love?” he asked.
She sighed, and he chanced a look toward her. “I don’t know what I believe to be honest. I know what I’ve seen, and what I know to be out there. It’s just hard, you know? I want things to be like they are in books. You meet someone, and you hit it off. There’s love, and friendship, and this blissful peace, and scalding attraction. You never have to worry if he or she is looking the other way.”
“It’s an ideal world, right.”
“Yeah, ideal but not the reality.” She leaned up against the window. “So what is your story then?”
“My story?”
“Yeah. I don’t really know what your deal is. You work hard, and I know you played harder. Women were always visiting the office, and you had a different woman every chance you got. Is there a Mrs. Donovan in your past?”
“Nope. Never been married. Don’t want to be either. There was one woman. I thought she was the one. It turned out she wasn’t much in for monogamy either.”
“Do you think if you had found someone who wanted to settle down, you would have?” she asked.
“You’re asking a lot of questions.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Rex kept his gaze on the road as he navigated through it. “Yes, I would have.”
“You’d have settled down.”
“I’d have settled down. No mistresses, no whores. I’d have had the picket fence, the ten bedrooms filled with childish laughter. I would have had a family. Instead I never got that, so I will have to settle at being good at my job, and deflowering my very own PA.”
“I’m not the first PA you’ve deflowered.”
“You’re the first virgin I’ve ever had. My very first deflowering.”
He lived in a penthouse suite, and he parked in the underground parking.
“Do you ever wish it could be different?” she asked.
Rex thought about Nora. He thought about her pregnant with his kid, and coming home to her.
It was then that he realized if he had Nora to come home to, a family and her baking and cooking, he would love going home.
“Yeah, I wish it was different. I wish for a lot of different things.”
He climbed out of the car, heading to the trunk to take out his briefcase and her bag. Together, they walked toward the elevator.
“What about you?” he asked. “Family, love, relationships?”
“I would love to be married. I know, every woman wants to be married. For as long as I could remember I wanted to be a mother and a wife. I love cooking and baking. Speaking of, seeing as we have this arrangement and all, I thought I should tell you that all the times you made me go to the bakery down the road. I really didn’t.”