The Devil You Know (The Devils #3)(75)

Suddenly it seems so petty, my complaints about Ben not inviting me along tonight.

We take the elevator upstairs and walk to the conference room, where the staff is gathered. It’s standing room only and there’s a large cake on the table. I guess someone at the firm was a little more certain than we were the settlement would be a success.

“Let the heroes of the hour in here!” shouts Arvin, from the other end of the room and everyone claps. Once it’s quiet, he continues. “I've got a little announcement to make, and it's been a long time coming. Ben, get up here.”

Ben gives me a quick glance, a worried glance, and then goes to the head of the table.

“Some excellent work was done today,” Fields says, “and we give credit where it’s due.” He pulls down a sign to reveal the new name of the firm: Fields, McGovern, Geiger, and Tate. “Say hello to our first name partner in two decades, who will be leaving next month to head up the San Francisco office with our newest junior partner, Craig Stanley.”

The noise is suddenly deafening, and I’m the only one who isn’t making a sound, who’s standing stiff and stunned, watching as the partners surround Ben.

His gaze finds mine across a sea of people, and I see worry there, but not surprise.

Because he knew this was coming.

Of course, he fucking knew. They wouldn’t be announcing it if he hadn’t agreed. This is why he’s been so weird the past few days. Why he no longer cares about going to HR, why that trip to Fiji doesn’t matter. Because they offered him a big fucking promotion and he knew he was throwing me under the bus to get it. Maybe it was always the plan, he just didn’t know it would happen so soon.

If he’d ripped my heart out of my chest, I doubt it could hurt more than this moment does. Every fucking thing I’ve worked for has just been stolen from me, and he helped make it happen.

I can barely hear over the rush of blood in my ears, my breath coming too fast. My hand clings to the nearest chair, struggling to stay upright.

“I almost forgot!” shouts Arvin over the noise, and my breath holds. “Debbie, start cutting that cake! It’s not going to eat itself.”

I want to throw a fist into the middle of that fucking cake. I want to climb on the table and scream about what an absolute farce this is.

My legs tremble and my jaw aches with the effort it takes to hold it together. People offer me embarrassed smiles, wincing a little as they congratulate me on the case someone else has gotten all the credit for. I catch Terri’s eye and her expression mirrors my own. Shock, anger, disbelief. I push past the crowd, out the door, walking blindly down the hall.

Someone runs out behind me, and I want it to be Ben. I want him to tell me it’s a misunderstanding and that he really thought I was making partner, but I turn to find Terri instead, still looking as shellshocked as I am.

“Gemma,” she gasps, “this is bullshit.”

It is. I cannot believe I just won one of the biggest gender discrimination settlements in the country, and did nearly all the work, and I'm not going to get any fucking credit for it. Ben and FMG will get the credit. Ben—who just screwed over a female colleague—and FMG—which doesn't have even one female partner—are now positioned as champions of women in the workplace.

But the worst part is what Terri doesn’t know: that Ben was in on it. That I’d convinced myself he was everything, but in the end, he was every bit as cutthroat and Machiavellian as Kyle or my father. He made me believe I was being paranoid, thinking the worst of him. That I was damaged—and maybe I am damaged, but if so, then he just made it a thousand times worse. I don’t even care about making partner right now. I just want to make sure I never lay eyes on Ben again.

I turn to Terri, blinking away tears. “That's it,” I tell her softly. “I'm done. I'm out.”

“Gemma, don't do anything rash,” she says. “You were still part of something amazing. You'll be able to write your own ticket anywhere.”

I nod, numbly. I want to have a tantrum, but isn’t that exactly what they will expect of me? And then behind my back they will make jokes about how it must be “that time of the month” and how much it would suck to “be married to that.” No way am I giving them the satisfaction.

I’ll wait until I’m calm to resign, but I can’t stay here in the meantime. I need to be back home with the one person I know I can trust.

I go to my office and grab my laptop and purse. From the elevator I look toward the conference room, where a bunch of men in suits celebrate, alongside a bunch of women who won’t ever make partner.

Six fucking years. And my life hasn’t changed a bit.





46





The first time Ben Tate walked into FMG, my breath caught.

I’d been curious about him, before that first meeting—no one really understood why he’d come to us when he’d already made partner at a more successful firm—but that’s all it was: curiosity, easily satisfied.

And then I saw him—younger than I’d expected, and taller, and lovelier—and he was already looking at me when I entered the room as if I was exactly what he’d been waiting for.

When our eyes locked, his smile was sheepish. A moment later, I was the one sneaking a glance. He caught me; I blushed to my roots. I’d sworn off men like him, but in five minutes’ time, I was already trying to make an exception.