Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Molly
“ G od fucking dammit,” I mumble, rereading the email on my screen for the third time, willing it to somehow say something different. It doesn’t.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Meeting Next Week
Molly,
I hope this email finds you well. I’m looking forward to our meeting next week about the family office restructure we have been discussing. I wanted to let you know in advance of the meeting that, due to the abundance of legal work we anticipate in the coming weeks and months, we are considering taking on a second outside counsel. As such, a representative of the firm Jacobs & Woll will be in attendance as well.
Best regards,
Harvey Randall
I know it’s not actually possible for steam to come out of a person’s ears, but my current anger level makes it feel possible. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, then another one. It does nothing to cool my rage.
I need candy.
Standing quickly, I stalk to my closet and root around in the bottom, but after a minute of searching, I remember I brought all my black licorice home after the first run in with Gabe. I thought I would need emotional support licorice that night, and I was right. But that means I don’t have emotional support licorice now.
Fuck.
I let out a frustrated growl and glance at my clock, wondering if I have time to go buy more before my meeting with Gabe.
My meeting with Gabe. My ex-boyfriend slash love of my life, who I saw just the other day for the first time in ten years. Who now lives in Pittsburgh, where I also live. Who still looks at me like he wants to devour me whole. Who makes me want things I’m not supposed to want. Who is supposed to be walking into this office in exactly two minutes.
My pressing need for candy exists on multiple levels.
“Suck it up, Molly,” I mumble. “Shoulders back, tits out. Straighten that goddamn crown.”
Standing in the center of my office, I close my eyes. Squaring my shoulders and shaking back my hair, I put my hands on my hips in a power pose, tip my head back, and open my mouth in a silent scream. I’m glad I’m wearing my favorite pantsuit in my signature color—pink of course—because I may be annoyed as fuck, but at least I look good. I wish intensely I could do a real, true primal scream, but it’s the middle of the workday and I’m a motherfucking professional.
“You’re gorgeous when you’re frustrated.”
My eyes fly open, and I spin in the direction of the voice.
Its owner is standing in my doorway, leaning against the door jam. He’s wearing a Captain America T-shirt and perfectly worn jeans that hug his muscular thighs. Looks like someone has been hitting the gym over the past decade, and I am not mad about it. The sneakers on his feet are the same exact brand and style he was wearing the last time I saw him. His reading glasses are tucked in the neck of his T-shirt, his brown hair flopping over his forehead in the way that used to make me take leave of my senses, and his clear blue eyes flashing with amusement. He has a coffee cup in one hand and a plastic bag over his arm, and when our eyes meet and a smile spreads over his face, my heart stutters.
Literally. Fucking. Stutters.
It’s possible I am slightly screwed.
Wanting to take back some of the upper hand I lost immediately in the face of all of his gorgeous perfection, I narrow my eyes at him.
“How do you know I’m frustrated?”
“The Superman power pose. That’s your frustration move. At least, it used to be.” He says that last part quietly, pain in his tone as if the idea that something he knew about me not being true anymore is devastating.
The part of me that wants to tell him it’s too late for us, the part that wants to protect myself from any more hurt, gets just a little smaller at his show of vulnerability. I suddenly want to give him this.
“It still is.”
“And is pink still your signature color?”
“Well, obviously,” I scoff, cocking a hip and waving a hand at my outfit.
The grin that spreads across his face could light the room. And that fucking dimple winks at me. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I’m warming to him. And then I warm even more when he walks to me and hands me the cup of coffee and the plastic bag. I take a sip of the coffee. Peppermint mocha. Of course he brought me my favorite.
I don’t have a chance to look in the bag because Gabe leans forward slightly, then seems to change his mind, taking a step back. He looks like he’s arguing with himself for a second before he mutters, “Fuck it,” and he leans forward again, kissing me on the cheek, lingering there briefly before pulling away.
Electricity zaps me from the place where his lips touched my skin, and from the look on his face, he felt it too.
“At least we know that part still works,” he murmurs.
“No shit,” I mutter.
He laughs and inclines his head towards my office couch. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Tell you about what?”
“Whatever it is that had you silent screaming in a power pose in the middle of your office.”
He takes the coffee and plastic bag from me and sets it on the end table next to the couch before clearing space to sit. The couch is covered in a mess of stuff, including a jacket, two sweaters, a pair of heels, a few client files, a copy of the estate tax code, my Kindle, a box of markers, and a sketchbook, but he organizes nothing. He just puts everything right on the floor in the exact position it was in on the couch and holy hell. The move is so reminiscent of the Gabe I used to know that for a second, I wonder if I’ve actually gone back in time ten years.
“You didn’t organize anything.”
He looks up at me and winks. “How would you find anything later if I organized it now?”
I don’t know what to do with this little reminder that, even all these years later, he still knows me better than anyone. It’s a real mindfuck, and I need to take a minute. Except I don’t have a minute because he sits and pats the seat next to him.
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
“Come sit, Rory.”
Without any reason not to, I kick off my heels and sit, tucking one leg up on the couch so I can face him.
Our eyes meet, and his are swirling with emotion.
“I want to know everything about you. Everything I missed between then and now. I know that’s a tall order, and a decade is a long time to catch up on, but I’ve got nothing but time. I could tell you I’m here because I need a lawyer, and even though I do, it’s not the whole truth. The truth of it is that I’m here for you. I’m here because without you, I’ve only been living half a life. I’m here because for ten years you’ve been the first thought in my head in the morning and the last one at night. I’m here because even though I broke us, and I don’t deserve a second chance, I would do anything to get one. To prove to you that I’m worthy of it.”
Gabe tangles his fingers with mine. I stare down at our joined hands, not surprised they still fit together perfectly. With his other hand, he tips up my chin so our gazes lock again.
“I’m here because you were the best thing in my life, and I was too young and broken to know how to keep you when everything else was falling apart. I’ve wished for years that I would have done everything differently. Because Rory, there is no one else for me. It’s always, always, always been you.”
I suck in a breath, my heart pounding at his last words. The way they mirror the thought I had so many times in the past ten years. When I went on yet another first date, I knew I would never allow it to turn into a second. When I spent the night with someone and left disappointed and sad. When I looked at my best friends falling in love and knew I had that once and would never find it again. When I wondered, for the millionth time, what my life would look like if things hadn’t happened the way they did.
It’s always been Gabe, too, and that scares the absolute shit out of me. My heart has been shuttered for a long time. Opening it back up again takes a kind of courage I’m not sure I can muster.
Without knowing what else to do, I reach for the false bravado I’ve used so many times to get out of uncomfortable conversations.
“Oh, you know me. There’s always something amazing happening and ten years is a whole boatload of amazing.”
He gives me an understanding look, and I can see he doesn’t buy one single word of my bullshit.
“There’s time for the big stuff, so let’s start small. Tell me why you were frustrated when I walked in. Tell me anything. Just talk to me, Rory, because I fucking missed the sound of your voice.”
I can’t give him everything. Not yet. But I can give him something.
“I missed your voice too.”
He grins at me and reaches behind him to grab the coffee and plastic bag, handing them both over.
“Provisions, for your story.”
I take another sip of coffee and then open the bag to find four boxes of my favorite candy-coated black licorice. My friends think I’m crazy because who likes black licorice, right? The answer is, I do. It’s a controversial favorite candy, but I’ve never been much for conforming.
“Bless you,” I breathe, opening one of the boxes, tossing a couple of pieces of the purple and white candy into my mouth, and holding out the box to Gabe.
He shakes his head, wrinkling his nose, and fuck, it’s so damn adorable.
“I never could learn to like it.”
I grin at him and eat more candy. “It’s an acquired taste. Much like myself.”
He gives me a heated look that has lust shooting straight to my core. “And yet I developed quite the taste for you.”
“Keep it in your pants, dude.”
“When you’re around, Rory baby? Never.”
I need to change the subject before I just straight up maul him on this couch. The mixture of swoony, adorable, sexy Gabe is a recipe for bad decisions.
“It was an email from one of my clients. The reason I was power posing in the middle of my office,” I say at his questioning look.
“Was it bad?”
I make an irritated noise. “Stupid is what it was. The client owns a huge family business in the city, and I helped them set up their family office to manage their wealth, investments, and everything from estate and tax planning to philanthropy and personal household staff. It essentially centralizes the financial management for their entire family. I manage it for them, coordinating all their outside advisors, and I handle the estate and tax planning piece myself. It’s complicated and a ton of work, but I really like it.”
Gabe nods in understanding. “You always did like a challenge.”
“Exactly. And I’m fucking good at it. Like, really, really good. So good that when I left my old firm to start this one, they followed me, and they’re by far my biggest, most complex client.” I eat more candy, my irritation boiling.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is,” I bite out, my voice taking on a bitter edge. “That the client has a nephew who works for a big firm in town. I know the nephew from law school, and he’s a dude-bro asshole named Brad who has been gunning for his uncle’s legal business ever since we opened our firm. Carrying on about how my firm is too small to handle a matter of this caliber, and a business of their size needs a firm with more resources. It definitely has nothing to do with how Brad wants to make partner but is too much of a lazy, whiny-ass baby to prove he’s worth it by going out and getting his own clients.”
“He wants to steal your client, who happens to be his uncle, to show his firm he can bring in business, so they make him partner.”
“Nailed it in one,” I say darkly. “I have a meeting with them next week, and I just got an email telling me without telling me that asshole Brad will be there too. They say it’s because they have too much legal work for just one firm, but that’s not it. It’s Brad running his mouth and his uncle being enough of an old boys’ club member to listen.”
“I fucking hate guys like that.”
I chuckle, thinking of all the articles I’ve read over the last ten years about Gabe’s refusal to play the corporate game, his commitment to gender parity in his companies, and his consistent bucking of Silicon Valley norms.
“Oh, I know. Your dedication to women in STEM and refusal to spend even one single minute on the golf course has been well documented.”
Gabe grins at me. “You keeping tabs on me, Rory?”
I scoff, mostly to keep myself from telling him the truth. Which is yes. “I mean, you were hard to avoid. The wiz kid who invented the phone that changed the world.”
“And yet, you don’t have one.”
I shrug. “I’m not much of a tech person,” I say breezily. “Besides, you never made one in pink.”
His look tells me he knows I’m full of shit, but he lets it go.
“So what are you going to do about asshole Brad and the uncle?”
I give Gabe a sly grin. “I’m going to do the thing that women in law have always done when faced with entitled, less qualified, asshole men. I’m going to kick his ass and keep my damn client. And I’m going to do it walking backward in heels.”
“Atta girl.”
I shrug. “It’s the world that RBG built, and we’re just living in it.”
“I’m proud of you, Rory. I swear I mean that in the least patronizing way possible. The life you’ve made…”
He trails off and his eyes get a little glassy. He’s silent for a second before he shakes his head.
“What you’ve built here, the family you’ve made? It’s just really special. That’s all. I wish I could have been here to watch you do it.”
The regret in his tone is a punch to the heart, and I just don’t have it in me to stay aloof. Maybe I never did. He came here for me with his heart in his hands and every instinct screams at me to offer him some reassurance.
“You’re here now.”
The gratitude in his gaze has my own eyes burning, and I change the subject before I end up in a puddle of tears on this couch. I’m not much of a crier, but this man has always been able to make me do things that are out of character.
“So, you said you needed a lawyer?”
He blows out a breath and nods.
“It’s about the sale of my new company.”
“Rory Industries,” I saw wryly.
He smiles. “Yeah. Montgomery Tech is paying me a lot for it. I don’t need the money, obviously.”
He gives me a sheepish look like he’s embarrassed by his billions. He looks so much like the eighteen-year-old boy I fell in love with that I can’t help but grin at him.
“Obviously.”
“So, I want to do something with the proceeds of the sale. I have more money than I could spend in three lifetimes. I’ve already set up trusts for my sisters, and we all have everything we could ever need.”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“I want to set up a foundation dedicated to funding initiatives for women in STEM. I don’t know what they would be or how it would work, but that’s what I want to do. My sister Amelia is one of those women in STEM. I’ve seen how much harder it’s been for her than it ever was for me, how many doors were closed to her at first just because she’s a woman. And I’ve heard the stories of some of the women who came to work for me after they had been treated terribly in other places. I want to change that, and I’m in a unique position to do it.”
I feel a swell of pride that the boy I knew grew up into such a good man. The residual sadness and grief I felt at seeing him again after all this time melts away, and what’s left in its wake is something else. I’m not sure I’m ready to explore exactly what it is yet, but it feels a lot like warmth and the exhumation of a well of feelings I’ve kept buried deep.
“I think that sounds like a great idea.”
“Yeah?” he asks, his voice tinged with relief like he’s been waiting for my opinion.
“Of course. I might not have been a coder, but I was a woman in STEM too. Or don’t you remember?”
His eyes get serious, even as he grins at me. “I remember everything about you.”
I clear my throat to push down the emotion that tries to rise at his words. “Well, it’s a great idea, but you don’t want me. You want Emma. She’s my best friend and a partner here. Her specialty is non-profits. She’s a whiz at setting up foundations and advising the people who run them.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “But I want you.”
“Gabe, it would practically be malpractice for me to help you start your foundation when there’s a brilliant attorney who specializes in that kind of work literally down the hall.”
He sighs dramatically. “Okay, fine, but without the excuse of legal work to get you to talk to me, I’m just going to have to find other ways to see you. So…how about dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Yes, Rory. Dinner. With me. At a restaurant. Let me pick you up and take you out.”
“Like a date?”
He shrugs casually. “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”
“Is that what you would call it?”
“Listen, I’m just calling it dinner, but if you want it to be a date, who am I to argue?”
I drop my head back and laugh. I forgot about the way Gabe could talk his way into or out of anything. “Okay, fine. Take me to dinner.”
The smirk he gives me tells me he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “How’s Saturday? Six?”
“Sure, Saturday at six.”
He grins. “Wear something sexy.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mumble. “Now can I introduce you to Emma?”
“Sure, and it works perfectly because I ordered lunch, and it’ll be here in half an hour.”
“You did what?”
He grins at me. And fuck, this man’s cheerful grins are going to end me.
“I ordered lunch for you and your friends. And, well, me, I guess, since I’m here and I’m not leaving unless you kick me out. You still like tacos, right?”
I will not fall back in love with him on the spot.
I will not fall back in love with him on the spot.
I will not fall back in love with him on the spot.
Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll believe it.
I sigh because I know it’s probably inevitable.
“Yeah, Gabe, I still like tacos.”
He lights up like I just proposed marriage instead of confirming that my favorite food is the same as it has been for my entire life. Then he stands, holding a hand out for me.
“Lead the way.”
I take it and feel the now familiar buzz under my skin. I wonder what the fuck I’m getting myself into—and why I don’t hate it at all.