10. Cali
CALI
Cool girls don't look at explosions.
They blow things up, and they walk away.
So I don't run for the elevator, even though, now that it's all over, the only thing I want to do is find a nice, dark corner to hyperventilate in until the adrenaline rush dies down.
But I can't do that. There are appearances to keep up.
Instead, I make myself walk. I'm a female entrepreneur, and one of the first things you learn when you set out on your own in that world is that the impression you leave behind when you exit a room matters as much as the one you set when you enter.
I want every single person in this building to see me for what I was at the beginning, middle, and end of this public execution:
A cold-blooded killer.
Therefore, I take my time.
I don't look back at Todd. I don't need to. I already saw everything I needed to see.
I jab the elevator button and wait, toe tapping impatiently. When the doors open, I step inside and turn around to face the floor as the doors slide shut. The last thing I see is the conference room with the frosted serif letters, now emptied out, the screens gone dark.
Then the doors close, and it's just me and my reflection in the brushed steel.
I look at myself. I'm flushed, but not from nerves. My eyes are bright. There's a little smile tugging at the corner of my mouth that I can't seem to put away.
I did it.
I actually did it.
I won.
The elevator starts to descend, but instead of feeling like my stomach is plummeting to the earth along with it, I'm flying, soaring. I can't remember the last time I felt this good.
I stride out once I reach the ground floor with my chin high and keep on soaring across the atrium. I'm almost to the revolving doors, almost to the street, almost to the rest of my life, when—
"Leaving so soon?"
I know the voice before I turn.
It's deep and smooth and a little amused, with the faintest edge of an accent I couldn't place the first time I heard it.
The man from the lounge.
He's leaning against a marble column near the doors.
He looks just like he did on Saturday night.
Dark suit. Eyes that don't quite smile when his mouth does.
That dangerous air, exactly the same as before.
But somehow, buttoned up. Like the full extent of just how dangerous he is remains a secret only he and I know.
For a second, I just gawk at him.
"You," I say at last.
"Me," he agrees.
My brain scrambles to make sense of this.
The last time I saw this man was in a dim bar in Chelsea, days ago, when I told him I was technically married and he told me he was bad in ways I'd never imagined.
And now, here he is, in the lobby of my husband's building, watching me walk out of the worst and best moment of my life.
Which begs the question…
"What are you doing here?"
"I had a meeting." He pushes off the column and takes a step toward me. "A few of them, actually. One of them got interrupted by something far more interesting."
The penny drops.
"You were in the room," I come to understand slowly. "Just now. Upstairs."
He nods. "You didn't see me. It almost hurt my feelings."
My face heats up, though I don't know why. I've got nothing to be embarrassed about. But there's something about knowing he watched the whole thing that makes my skin prickle. In a good way? In a bad way? I'm not so sure yet.
"How much did you see?" I ask.
"All of it," he says with obvious pleasure. "From the smart scale to Santorini."
I purse my lips. "Well," I say, "now, you know I wasn't lying about my husband having a bad year."
"No." His mouth curves. "You undersold it, if anything."
I huff out a laugh before I can stop myself.
"I'd like to buy you a drink," he adds. "If memory serves, I owe you at least one more."
"It's eleven-thirty in the morning," I point out.
"But today is such a special occasion."
"I told you at the bar. I'm done with men. The whole gender can take a long walk off a short bridge." I hike my bag higher on my shoulder. "That includes you."
"I'm not asking you to marry me," he chuckles. "But surely this life event deserves a celebratory toast?"
I open my mouth to say no one more, firmly and permanently.
But the thing is, he's not wrong.
I just pulled off the single most satisfying thing I've ever done, and I'm about to walk out into a sunny Manhattan afternoon completely alone.
There's no one to call. My mom would ask too many questions.
My friends—the real ones, not Paula—don't know any of this is happening yet.
There's no one in my whole life I can sit down with right now and say, I did it, can you believe I did it, and have them understand.
Except, apparently, this man.
He saw it.
He gets it.
And I do, when I really sit with it, want a toast.
I check my watch. It's eleven thirty-four. I don't have to pick up Hayden and Isabella until three. I've got hours to kill and absolutely nothing to fill them with except the long, quiet ride home and the slow, careful work of figuring out what comes next.
One drink won't hurt.
"I have to pick up my kids at three," I say. "So whatever this is, it's done by two-thirty."
"My office is across the street," he says. "I can have you out the door by two."
I narrow my eyes at him. "Your office? That's a pickup line if I've ever heard it."
"It's nicer than a bar," he explains. "And it's private. Besides, I have a very good bottle of something I've been saving for an occasion exactly like this."
Every reasonable bone in my body is telling me to say no. But I'm so tired of being sensible. Being sensible is what made me almost believe Todd when he told me I was crazy.
"One drink," I say. "And if you try anything, I have a predictive-analytics engine and a mean sense of vengeance, and I am not afraid to start a second spreadsheet."
He grins. "I'll keep my hands to myself."
He was honest about at least one thing: His office is close.
But when we're halfway across the street, I stop in my tracks, and my jaw drops.
Because there's a name etched into the marble above the entrance, in big, silver letters.
THE AKOV FIRM.
I blink to be sure, but there's no mistaking it. I've seen those words before. Not on this building, but on a document. A retainer agreement, DocuSign-stamped, sitting in a folder on my laptop marked Receipts.
Todd's lawyer.
The Akov Firm.
I turn around so fast I nearly twist my ankle in my own shoes. "This is your firm."
He's stopped, too, a step behind me. "It is."
"The Akov Firm," I say in disbelief. "You're Todd's lawyer."
It's not guilt I see on his face. More like he expected this and was just waiting for me to get there.
"I am not Todd's lawyer," he corrects. "Not anymore."
"But you were." I'm suddenly trembling with rage. That's strange—when I looked Todd in the eye, all I felt was a calm, cool iciness. But this man has me hot. "You took his case. You're the one he hired to ruin me."
"Yes," he says simply. "He came to my office. He threw a stack of hundreds on my desk and told me he wanted you to get nothing. Not the house. Not the cars. Not the children. Nothing."
"And you said yes," I spit. "You…"
I stop. I have to breathe. People are moving past us on the sidewalk, glancing, walking faster to stay well clear of the crazy woman about to lose her shit in the middle of the city.
I lower my voice and hiss, "I just blew up my whole life upstairs to get away from men like him.
And you're worse. You're the man he hired.
You're the one who was actually going to do it.
And you have the nerve to follow me down here and ask me for a drink? "
"Let me explain," he says.
"There's nothing to explain!"
"I assure you there is." His voice stays level, but there's an edge under it now, the same edge I heard at the bar when he talked about the fool who came into his office. Todd, I'm now realizing, was that fool. "Will you give me thirty seconds?"
I cross my arms. I don't say yes. But I don't walk away, either.
He takes that as permission.
"Your husband came to me through a partner of mine," he says.
"As a favor. I almost didn't take the meeting.
When I did, I expected a simple, if dirty case.
Instead, I got a man who wanted to rip everything from his wife, and his children from their mother, because—" His jaw tightens.
"—because she 'let herself go.' Because she 'stopped trying.
' He said it wasn't 'fair' to him that he couldn't bring a pretty wife to dinner. "
I feel my face go hot. Hearing Todd's words come out of this man's mouth is its own kind of awful.
"I told him all the reasons why what he was asking for was wrong and impossible," he goes on.
"But I think you know the kind of man you married, don't you?
So you won't be surprised when I tell you that his response was to poke the pile of cash and say that my job was to make all those details not matter.
He just wanted the knife in your back and he didn't care how it got there. "
"And you said yes," I repeat.
He shrugs. "If I didn't, he'd walk out my door and into the office of some slick associate three blocks over who'd do it without a second thought.
At least with me, I could ensure that the case went nowhere.
I sat on it. I did nothing. I pocketed his retainer and let it rot.
" He grinds his teeth. "I was going to fire him today.
That's why I was in your husband's building this morning.
I wanted the satisfaction of looking him in the eye and telling him to go to fucking hell. "
I stare at him. I don't know whether to believe a word of this. But he just doesn't seem like the man who'd lie about something so important. Shockingly for a lawyer, he seems ethical.
"That's convenient," I snarl.
"It's the truth. You can choose to believe it or not." He shrugs again. "But you beat me to it. You did more damage in twenty minutes than I could've done in twenty years. So. There's no case anymore. There's no Todd anymore, not really. The man is a ghost."
I look up at the silver letters again. THE AKOV FIRM. The same name from the worst spreadsheet I've ever built.
What if what he's saying is true?
What if this dark-eyed man is the only ally I have left in the world?
"One drink," I say finally. "And I'm still mad."
"I would expect nothing less."
His office is on a high floor, surrounded by huge panes of glass on two sides, the city spread out below. There's a marble desk, two chairs that look deeply uncomfortable, and a low cabinet built into the wall. He goes to it and pulls out a bottle and two glasses.
I stay standing by the window with my arms crossed.
"So this is where it happened," I say as I survey our surroundings. "Where Todd threw his money on the desk."
"He sat in that chair right there, the one on the left." He nods at the one in question. "I keep them uncomfortable on purpose. It tells me a lot about a man, how he handles being uncomfortable."
"And how did Todd handle it?"
"Badly." He pours two fingers into each glass and brings one to me. "He kept squirming. Trying to look like he owned the place. Men like him always do."
I take the glass but I don't drink. "'Men like him,'" I echo. "You say that like you're not one of them."
He raises an eyebrow.
"Big office," I explain with a sweep of my hand around the room.
"High floor. Expensive suit. A bottle you've been saving for 'the right occasion.
'" I raise the glass and eye him through the whiskey.
"Smooth talk—the worst crime of all. The whole gender can take a walk off a short bridge, like I told you.
But men like you and Todd? You're the front of the line. "
His mouth curves, but his eyes have that dark, careful look again. "Let me remind you what I told you: I'm not Todd."
"No," I agree. "You're cleverer. He came to you to do something cruel, so you took his money and sat on his case because you'd already decided you knew better than everyone what should happen.
Now, you're coaxing me up here so you can play with your food.
" I set my glass down on the cabinet without tasting it.
"That's not the behavior of a man who's done with the game.
That's the behavior of a man who thinks he's about to win it. "
He sets his whiskey down next to mine and leans against his desk, arms folded. He's long and lean, dark and handsome, too perfect in all the ways that I'm just now learning—too late, but hey, that's better than never—I should stay away from. Those eyes gleam like a starless patch of night sky.
"I'm interested in you," he says plainly. "I won't pretend otherwise. I've thought about you since that night at the bar. I watched you take your husband apart this morning and I have never wanted to know a person more."
It's a good line. I'll give him that. Delivered straight and confident, no flinching, those dark eyes right on me.
But I just spent eighteen months married to a man who said nice things to my face and stole my company behind my back. I just spent three weeks teaching myself to trust the data instead of the words. And the data on this man is simple.
He took Todd's case.
That's the only receipt I need.
"Here's the thing," I tell him. "I just got out.
I clawed my way out of a marriage to a smooth, rich, charming man who told me exactly what I wanted to hear—right up until the day I found someone else's hair in my brush.
" I pick my bag up off the floor. "And the very first thing that I find when I walk out is another smooth, rich, charming man waiting by a column to buy me a drink.
Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me twice, it's shame on me.
I'm not stupid, Mr. Akov. No matter what you seem to think. "
"Cali—"
"No." I shake my head and ward him off. "I told you at the bar and I'll tell you again now: I'm done with men.
Especially men like you." I look around the office, the glass, the city, the uncomfortable chairs, all the signs that scream that he and Todd are two peas in a pod.
They're all the same, these men. They hurt and hurt and take and take and the words I'm sorry are utterly fucking alien to them.
"I'm going to go pick up my kids. I'm going to figure out the rest of my life.
And I'm going to do it by myself, because I'm the only person I trust to get it right. "
He doesn't try to stop me. He just stands there with his glass, watching me coolly.
"For the record," he says as I reach the door, "you didn't touch this drink, so I won't put it on your tab. That means I still owe you one."
I don't smile. But it's a near thing.
"Goodbye, Mr. Akov."
"Goodbye, kotyonok."
I leave before either of us get any other bad ideas.