He seemed to get off on getting under her skin.
Lena glared at my partner. If looks could kill, Jeremy would have been dead a long time ago. “Looking sleazy as always, Jeremy.” She gave him a once over, not even trying to hide her disgust. “Get dressed with the lights off again?” She gave him a chilly smile that was more lethal than polite.
Jeremy looked down at his pressed suit that fit him snuggly. He was a man that liked to show off all that he had. He spent more time at the gym than I did sleeping, and it showed. He preened like a fucking peacock, and I knew it drove Lena nuts. She had very little patience for egotistical assholes. And my partner was the epitome of both.
“Sweetheart, the offer is always open to help me get dressed if you don’t like what I wear.” Jeremy grinned, and I clenched my hand into a fist, ready to deck him if need be.
The two stared each other down for a few seconds, and I started to wonder if there was something else going on between the two than one-sided hostility. But that was ridiculous.
Lena turned away from Jeremy, not bothering to respond to his jibe. She acted as though the other man weren’t even in the room. I noticed with satisfaction how her dismissal took the wind out of his sails. She said to me, “Don’t forget we have dinner at Mom and Dad’s this weekend. You can’t raincheck on them again, or Mom will have a fit.”
“I know, I know. Mom has called me twice since Monday to remind me.” I hadn’t been able to get over to my parents’ for dinner in over a month. My workload was crazy, and I had been working late nights for weeks. But that didn’t matter to my mom. I loved her, but she was the one who had taught Lena everything she knew about being pushy. And having both of them team up against me was akin to going into battle.
“Good.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and shot Jeremy one last look of revulsion before breezing out of my office.
My partner moved aside as she walked by, but I noticed how his eyes followed her. I frowned, not liking what I was seeing. I had made it clear from the moment Lena started working at the firm that my sister was hands-off. It had never been an issue.
“How’s Greta?” I asked Jeremy, pulling his attention away from the now empty doorway.
Jeremy’s face slid into a lecherous grin. “Flexible, my friend. Very, very flexible.”
I laughed. “Are you going to let this one stick around?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Life’s too short to get hung up on one woman. I thought you would have figured that out by now.”
I didn’t bother to say anything. I knew he was referring to Chelsea, but that wasn’t the woman I thought of just then. Chelsea hadn’t broken my heart. Not by a long shot. I was far from hung up on her.
Jeremy dropped a file on my desk. “Anyway, this case seems straightforward. DUI with one prior. Mommy and Daddy only want the best, so they have no issue paying our very high retainer.”
“Ah, the best kind of client,” I deadpanned, opening the file and skimming the arrest record.
Jeremy, our other partner Robert Jenkins, and I had worked our asses off to make our law firm one of the best in the state. Our win record was unparalleled, and because of that, we could charge astronomical fees. It didn’t happen without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, though. I had sacrificed a lot to rise to the top.
Maybe that’s why I hadn’t noticed how bad my marriage was before it exploded spectacularly in my face. I had spent so many years focusing on my career that it was easier to overlook Chelsea’s more noxious qualities. The status quo had been too appealing.
Jeremy, Robert, and I had gone to law school together. We hadn’t been friends exactly. I had been engaged to Chelsea and spent most of my time with her when I wasn’t studying. Jeremy was a certifiable man-whore and an arrogant, rude son-of-a-bitch to boot. And Robert had his face permanently stuck in law books, barely coming up for air. We had nothing in common. Except we were the three best law students in our year.
After graduation, I was taken on as a junior associate at one of the top law firms in Philadelphia. Robert had gone on to the public defender’s office, and Jeremy had gone to work at his uncle’s law office.
By chance, we ran into each other two years later at a law school reunion and had started talking about starting our own firm. Jeremy made the case that it would be better to work for ourselves than lining someone else’s pocket. When my grandfather passed away a year later and left me his office building in downtown Southport, it seemed the stars had aligned for us. Whether it was dumb luck or the result of the staunch determination, we hit pay dirt, tapping into a goldmine of high profile criminal cases that elevated us into the stratosphere.