The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(72)

I want to refuse because I shouldn’t have to defend myself to anyone. But he isn’t wrong—part of my desire to run off and hide behind my anger is just that…because I want to hide. What happened wasn’t all my fault, but it doesn’t make me look great either.

“I was dating a partner there in law school,” I begin. “Kyle. He was based out of the New York office. He told me he was getting divorced—he’d even shown me the separation agreement—and it was all a fucking lie. I didn’t have a clue he was still with her until I found out she was pregnant. I’m not sure he was ever even planning to leave.”

“So what happened?” he asks, his voice neutral, emotionless, giving nothing away. It’s the voice I use with clients I don’t entirely believe.

“They turned the whole thing around on me to protect him. They marched me out of the building like a fucking criminal, and everyone watched. All these goddamn male partners, protecting their own when every one of them knew it was bullshit.”

“Jesus,” Ben whispers, pulling me down beside him and wrapping his arms around me. “No wonder you’re so obsessed with making partner.”

“If I was a man, you wouldn’t call me obsessed,” I reply. “You’d just call me ambitious.”

“Craig’s been there as long as you,” he says. “And I don’t worry he’ll set the building on fire if he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Exactly,” I reply, digging my nails into my palms. “Because Craig has no ambition whatsoever. That’s why he shouldn’t make partner.”

He presses his lips to the top of my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry that happened to you.”

I say nothing. It’s no longer just the male partners at Stadler, protecting their own. It’s the men at my own goddamn firm, discussing this behind my back. Mischaracterizing me and spreading lies whenever it suits them.

I can’t believe that after all this time, I’m still the one paying the price for what Kyle did.





43





When I confronted Kyle about his wife, he continued to lie.

I listened to him spin new stories like the master he was, but I listened from a distance, as if I was watching this take place between two other people. He told me he’d slipped one night, after they split. “I don’t even know that the kid is mine,” he said. “Either way, I’m leaving once the baby comes.”

He told me he’d only found out recently, that he was as horrified by the situation as I was. I didn’t bother asking him about the gender reveal party they’d held months before, or the trip to Florida, or all his stories about her drinking. I already knew exactly who he was: someone who could lie easily, without a shred of guilt.

He’d been building a castle out of a deck of cards, one he had to know would collapse on me eventually. But he just kept building.

“I don’t believe a word out of your mouth,” I said, my voice flattened by shock.

“If you tell anyone,” he replied, “I’ll fucking ruin you.”

They were the last words we ever exchanged.

I spent that night reeling. Torn between shock and rage, torn between fearing the damage he might do to my career and feeling like his wife deserved to know who he was. It was because of my mom that I did the right thing. She’d given up so many years of her life to a man who didn’t deserve her. I couldn’t give her those years back, but maybe I could prevent it happening to someone else.

I messaged Josie from the fake profile I’d created and told her the truth—not that we’d chosen a ring and had been looking at houses, because it seemed like too much—but simply the bare facts, with enough detail that it would be hard to doubt me.

When I went into Stadler the next day, security escorted me into the managing partner’s office, where I learned my employment offer was being rescinded. Kyle told them I’d been stalking him, and was now harassing his wife.

I argued, of course. I told him we’d been dating since the previous September and that I hadn’t known Kyle was still with her.

“If you were dating him, you’d have informed the firm,” he replied, which is when I knew I was screwed: they were either going to fire me for not telling HR about our relationship, or they were going to fire me for stalking. “And one of your colleagues has corroborated Kyle’s story.” He slid a print-out toward me of my text conversation with Meg: It was me joking about joining Equinox to stalk him. Suggesting I might buy an all-red wardrobe after learning it was his favorite color. She’d been just as bad, and had often been worse, but that didn’t matter. She’d selectively shared her texts, and that’s all Stadler wanted—proof, even if taken out of context.

“I’ve been here for three years,” I pled. “You don’t seriously believe all this?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe, Miss Charles,” he said.

Because Kyle was the one making them money, so Kyle was the one they’d protect as long as they could.

He gave me a choice: allow security to escort me out and cease all contact with employees of the firm, or be fired for cause and struggle to ever get hired somewhere else.

I knew I could probably prove my side of things. I could show them my versions of the conversation with Meg, I could get proof of all the calls Kyle had made and text messages he’d sent. But I’d be blowing up any chance of salvaging my own career to do it.