Graham tended to his customers, picking up on bits and pieces of their conversations. They were traveling north and took a wrong turn, ending up in Cape Harbor. They asked him if he knew of a place to stay. He told them about the Driftwood Inn and volunteered to send a message to the owners to let them know a family would be up after dinner. He retrieved his phone and looked at the group chat again. Someday, he would tell Rennie how he felt. But until then, he’d keep his feelings hidden.
THREE
With Thanksgiving being the next day, the last place Renee wanted to be was in a partners’ meeting, listening to some kiss-ass financial guy tell the staff of lawyers how to do their jobs. The bottom line: there wasn’t a single attorney who went into a case trying to lose, yet the man standing at the front of the conference room, with his pin-striped double-breasted suit neatly pressed and his jacket buttoned, had the gall to inform her and her colleagues how much the firm would earn if they were to come away with victories. She was being harsh but with good reason; she was ready for a minivacation, and she counted down the minutes until the office officially closed for the holiday. Not to mention, she handled divorce, not civil or criminal cases. Her fee was set by the firm and paid for by clients. As much as she wanted to leave at noon, she would wait until the lunch rush in the city died down before driving north to Cape Harbor. Now that Brooklyn and her daughter, Brystol, were so close by, Rennie wanted to spend as much time with them as she could.
Finally, the money guy closed his binder, and Renee did the same, only for the CEO, Lex Davey, to stand, button his suit jacket, and walk to the front of the room. He presented a rundown of cases he would like to see closed by the end of the year, and she had three of them. She thought about each one, mentally questioning if it were possible, and concluded that two could settle out of court, but the third was contentious. She represented an author who separated from her husband over a year ago, and he refused to sign the divorce decree until he was guaranteed a portion of his wife’s royalties, citing he was part of the creative process and had provided content for every book written while dating and throughout the marriage. He was even laying claim to novels written during the separation. Renee tried to get the couple to come to a peaceful resolution, but the husband refused and had since hired his own attorney. Still, she had hoped the four of them could come to an agreement, and when talks broke down, she knew court seemed increasingly likely. A hearing date had yet to be set, but Renee was ready. As far as she was concerned, it was her client who had created the content, put in countless hours of typing, stressed over queries with agents and subsequently acquisition editors, marketed herself on social media and in the public, and worried about sales, all while raising their family and maintaining her health. What had the client’s husband done? Told a few coworkers to read his wife’s book? To Renee, that did not constitute enough to take a percentage of earnings, past or future.
“Ms. Wallace, an update on the Soto case?” Lex Davey owned the firm but was not an attorney. His wife started the company many years ago, and when she passed away, he took over. Now he sat three floors up in an office big enough to be a house, worrying about laws he knew nothing about, courting women, and entertaining politicians.
She sat up straight, opened her binder, and dragged her finger down the color-coded tabs until she reached a red one marked “Soto” and flipped to the section. She knew the case by heart, but for some reason, Lex Davey shook her to the core. Maybe it was the way he leered at her when they made eye contact or how he would make comments regarding her clothing. His words often bordered on harassment but were never enough to fully cross the line. Telling her she wore a nice skirt or saying she looked good in a particularly colored blouse was technically harmless. Words were words, but it was the looks he gave her when he said such things that made her feel uneasy. Thankfully, she only had to converse with him minimally and normally only during meetings. She cleared her throat and gave a recap of how the case had progressed.
“Any chance for a settlement?” Justin Baylor asked, another junior partner who was about five years younger than Renee but surprisingly made partner in his second year with the firm.