The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(33)

I still. Offering legal advice to someone opposing your client is a breach of ethics. She put him in a terrible position. “What did you do?”

He observes me for a moment. It’s a risk, answering this question. I could get him in a lot of trouble if he messed up. “I gave her some advice and the name of an attorney who could help.”

I stare at him, shocked that he’s trusting me with this. I’ve been terrible to him. I’ve been terrible to him about this. “You let everyone think you were hooking up with her all this time to protect her.”

He shrugs, as if it’s meaningless. “And to protect myself. Fields wouldn’t have approved, obviously.”

“That—” I whisper, “was very decent of you.”

His eyes hold mine, and I swear for a moment I see an apology there once more. “I’m capable of it on occasion.”

I give him the smallest nod and look away. Something about this conversation leaves me feeling oddly fragile and defenseless. I hate this feeling. I hate the inclination to trust him.

“I see some guys I know over there,” Ben says, nodding to the right. “Let’s get a drink and I’ll introduce you.”

I follow his gaze and stiffen. A partner from Stadler is among that group he’s indicating. I can still see him as he was on my last day, sitting behind that glass wall, condemning me with his eyes.

“You go ahead,” I say, taking a sharp left. “I’m heading this way.”

I don’t give him a chance to object as I push my way forward, wishing fervently that I hadn’t come. But that’s always the risk, isn’t it? You might run into something from your past, and discover the shame of it all hasn’t improved in six fucking years.

For lack of anyone else to speak to, I find a group of female attorneys I know only vaguely and insert myself into the conversation. They’re older than me, more secure in their fields. None of them were at Stadler, obviously, or I’d have to run from them too.

“How’s the shark pit?” Emily Greenfield asks dryly.

I smile, and it’s a relief to have it come naturally for once. “I think sharks are unfairly maligned.”

“Tell me if you think that in a decade when they haven’t made you partner,” she replies. “I was there, you know, when I was just starting out. My career went nowhere until I left.”

My stomach tightens. I want to think I’m different somehow, but she’s really good at what she does. “Things are changing. I’m not sure any firm can get away with only promoting men these days.”

“FMG will,” she says, and her certainty shakes me a little. Does she know something I don’t? “Come talk to me when you get tired of the boys’ club there.”

I accept the card she hands me with a polite smile, though I have no intention of using it. I’m not interested in giving up on the boys’ club—I want to sit at their table. When they’re holding men to a different standard than they do women, I want to be the one who tells them no.

I walk away, wondering what the hell I’m going to do here for another two hours. From a distance I see Ben smiling his best glib, square-jawed smile at a woman who is probably the next Miss Universe or Vogue cover. He glances around him, his eyes finding mine for half a second before they return to hers. It shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.

I head toward the bar because only a second glass of wine will persuade me to work any harder at this than I am, then find myself talking—reluctantly—to some wannabe rock star. I hear Keeley in my head saying, “give him a chance”, but that’s because he’s exactly what Keeley wants—hot, under-dressed and over-confident. If she were here, the two of them would already be making plans to escape. She’d know of a better party, or he’d suggest a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam, and she’d be saying, “let me just grab my passport.”

“You want to get out of here?” he asks. “A friend of mine is having a thing at this club in West Hollywood.”

That’s when I see Ben, still across the room, but staring at me and Machine Gun Kelly or whoever this guy is, as if he’s about to kick someone’s ass.

“Sorry, I think I’m probably too boring for you,” I tell him. “But you need to meet my friend Keeley.”

I get his number for her and then cut through the crowd again…and discover I’m heading right toward Tim Webber.

I hate what he got away with. I hate even more that he’s looking at me now with that self-satisfied smile, as if he likes what happened. As if he stole something from me that night. We are, perhaps, twenty feet apart. We are in a public space, but my pulse explodes anyway, as if he’s just cornered me in a dark room. He’s closed the distance between us before I can make my escape.

“Fields told me you’d be here,” he says, which I guess explains why Fields honored me with the invite, because no matter how good I am at my job, Fields still thinks my vagina is my best asset. “I was hoping I’d run into you tonight.”

“Funny,” I reply, “I was hoping the opposite.”

I turn, thinking find Ben, and Webber grabs my arm. His expression is mild, but that hand on my arm is just as unyielding as it was the last time he grabbed me. “Let’s go talk somewhere. I think you’d be very interested in what I have to offer.”