“Excuse me?”
“I can’t believe you actually bought that bullshit,” I answered, infuriated by his thirst for gossip.
“What, you’re defending him now?” Stunned, he let out a laugh, thinking this was all a big fucking joke.
“It was a piece of poorly written trash with a pathetic attempt at Photoshop. Do you think that a man who flew back to New York and almost blew a ten million-dollar business deal would do that if he didn’t love her? Do you honestly think that a man who makes millions of dollars a year would be stupid enough to fuck another business associate when he is trying to win back the only girl who holds his heart? It’s people like you that keep these fucking tabloids running. Honestly, Eric, I expected more from you.”
“Nikki, I’m sorry, but...”
“No buts, Eric. Stay out of this. Do not poison her mind, you understand? That girl is hurting right now even though she won’t admit it. All your ‘he’s a jerk and you’ve got Julian’ talk is not what she needs right now.”
I stormed out of his office, furious at his narrow-minded attitude. I took a deep breath as I headed to her office. I didn’t knock; there was no point so I just barged in. She sat there silently typing on her computer. What concerned me was how normal she looked. Her hair was pinned up in a perfect bun, her clothes neatly pressed, her makeup flawless and if you didn’t know Charlie like I knew her, you would think nothing was wrong at all.
She looked up for a brief moment stunned to see me, but was quick to bow her head and continue typing. I knew Charlie and the moment she looked into my eyes it was there staring in my face, the sparkle in her eye that had vanished without a trace.
“So what, you’re not even going to talk to me now?”
“What would you like me to say, Nikki?”
Wow, she was real pissed off to be calling me Nikki.
“Well for starters, Charlotte, a smart woman like yourself cannot possibly believe the trash that was printed in that rag.”
“Drop it. It’s over.”
“Over? It just fucking began, Charlie!”
She stopped typing and adjusted her glasses. The silence was irritating me as I stood there tapping my foot waiting for her response. She turned to face me as if on auto pilot, unable to show any emotion.
“Why do you even care, Nikki? If you take his side then you might as well go fuck him and to hell with you both. That’s probably what you really want. I saw the way you were looking at him, asking him a thousand questions. He’s yours for the taking.”
The words hurt, there was no doubting that. At this moment my rage took over and I had to leave before I said something I would regret. I turned to face her one more time before I headed out the door, gritting my teeth as I was barely able to hold myself together. I was a fucking lawyer and a damn good one. I fought for a living. I argued with judges till I was blue in the face. This was nothing compared to that. But this was my best friend, the one person who I never fought with.
“That man fucking loves you; he’d move heaven and earth for you. Stop being a selfish little bitch and grow up.” Those were my final words before I stormed out of the office.
…
No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get her words out of my head. We never really fought before and the act itself was enough to bring me down. I felt Rocky’s hand press on my shoulders as he gently massaged me.
“Babe. It’ll work out for them. They both just need to get some perspective and Charlie won’t be thinking clearly right now. Just give her space.”
“Do you think I’m wrong for understanding his side? Does that make me a bad friend?”
“You know as well as I do how that stuff is rubbish. Yeah, I read it for laughs but I didn’t actually take it seriously. They will work it out, babe. Please stop stressing. I don’t like seeing you like this.”
The next few days at work Charlie avoided me. According to Becky, our intern, she was busy seeing clients and attending courtroom hearings. The tension in the office was palpable. Eric also avoided me after our blow-out, running scared every time I entered the building, which I was thankful for because I still wanted to slap his face with a double-ended dildo and tell him to harden the fuck up.
It was a typical Friday afternoon and I couldn’t wait for the week to be officially over. Emma and I were reading a brief for an upcoming fraud case when we heard a commotion outside. I asked Emma to take a look but it wasn’t long before she came in pleading with me to come outside.
“Oh for God’s sake, Emma, I’m not interested in office gossip,” I lectured.
“Nikki, seriously, you need to come out here NOW!”
I didn’t care for her disrespectful attitude and made a mental note to reprimand her after I sorted out whatever it was that was kicking off outside and disrupting my urgent deadline. I walked outside and was met with an angry Lex banging on Charlie’s office door. The security guards, the sad pathetic overweight donut-eating bunch of fuckers, could do nothing to hold him back. I motioned for them to leave because I no longer wanted a scene in the office.
“Lex, what the hell do you think you are doing? You can’t come in here and disrupt our office with your personal problems.”
“Where is she? I’ve given her four days and she hasn’t responded to any texts or emails, nor has she been home. Tell me where the fuck she is staying, Nikki!”