8. Ethan
ETHAN
The quarterly review feels like a victory lap I haven't earned.
Richard Holt opens the meeting with numbers.
Case outcomes, billable hours, client retention rates.
Seven senior partners sit around the same walnut table where they eviscerated me six weeks ago, but the energy has shifted.
Patricia Brennan actually smiles when Richard pulls up the media coverage report.
"Page Six ran a profile on you and Ms. Holland last week," she says, scrolling through her tablet. "Favorable. They called you 'surprisingly human.'"
"A rousing endorsement," I say.
"Better than 'morally bankrupt,'" Henry Cho adds. He's grinning, which is new. "The Times piece was even better. They positioned you as someone capable of growth."
Michael Torres leans forward. "Three corporate clients who threatened to leave have confirmed they're staying. Legal Aid Society reached out about potential collaboration on a housing discrimination case."
"When?" I ask.
"Yesterday. They want to meet next week."
Richard sets down his tablet and looks at me across the table. His expression is carefully neutral, but I catch the approval underneath.
"Whatever you're doing," he breathes, "keep doing it."
I nod. I should feel triumphant. This is exactly what I engineered—positive press, a rehabilitated image, the partners backing off. The plan is working precisely as designed.
So why does it feel hollow?
Patricia closes her tablet. "The engagement announcement helped. People love a redemption story, especially when there's romance involved."
The meeting adjourns. Partners file out, already moving on to their next crisis. Richard lingers near the door.
"Walk with me," he says.
We head down the corridor toward his office. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook Madison Avenue, the street below packed with midday traffic. Richard's office is corner placement, twice the size of mine, decorated with a tasteful restraint that screams old money.
He closes the door, gestures to the leather chair across from his desk.
I sit.
"You look tired," he says.
"Long week."
"How's Ms. Holland?"
The question catches me slightly off guard. Richard doesn't usually ask about my personal life, probably because I don't have one worth asking about.
"She's good. Busy with the restaurant."
"I read the Eater review. Glowing."
"She's talented."
Richard studies me over steepled fingers. He's wearing navy today, a Brioni suit that probably cost five thousand dollars. His silver hair is precisely cut, his expression indecipherable.
"You care about her," he says.
I exhale loudly through my nostrils. "I represent her interests."
"That's not what I'm seeing."
I meet his gaze. Richard taught me how to control a room, how to project confidence even when scrambling, how to turn cross-examination into theater. Right now he's using those same skills on me and I don't appreciate it.
"The arrangement is working," I drawl. "That's what matters."
"Is it an arrangement?"
"What else would it be?"
"A relationship."
"It's diplomatic."
"Ethan." His voice softens. "I've known you for eight years. I've watched you win cases other attorneys wouldn't touch. You're brilliant and ruthless and I'm proud of what you've accomplished. But you've also built your entire life around never being vulnerable."
"I'm a defense attorney. Vulnerability is a liability."
"In the courtroom, yes. Outside it, it's called being human."
I stand. "If this is a lecture about work-life balance?—"
"It's not." Richard rises too, moves to the window. "It's an observation. Whatever you started with Ms. Holland, it's changing you. The media sees it. The partners see it. I'm asking you if you see it."
"There's nothing to see. We have an agreement. One year, clearly defined terms, exit strategy included."
"And you're following those terms?"
"To the letter."
He turns from the window. "Then why did you call in a favor with Kenley Renfroe?"
The name lands like a stone. Kenley Renfroe, assistant district attorney, someone I've worked with and against over the past decade. Someone I called four days ago about Derek Wayne.
"How did you know about that?" I ask.
"Because Kenley called me yesterday asking if you're investigating a stalking case pro bono involving a man named Derek Wayne. He wanted to know if the firm is backing you."
"And what did you tell him?"
"That I'd ask you directly." Richard crosses his arms. "So I'm asking. Are you building a criminal case against this man?"
"I'm protecting my client."
"Ms. Holland is your fiancée, not your client."
"She's both."
"Ethan, I appreciate the initiative, but there's a line between legal representation and personal vendetta. Which side are you on?"
The question sits in the air between us.
I could lie. Tell him everything is professional, carefully compartmentalized, exactly what we agreed to.
Instead I hear myself say, "He's threatening my fiancée and it's part of our contract that I help her deal with him.
He's been stalking her, harassing her, sending her unprompted gifts as a reminder that he's still watching.
I don't appreciate threats against her."
"He bothers you," he says, raising a brow.
"His actions violate the restraining order."
"That's not what I mean."
I look away, focusing on the street below. A cab nearly clips a cyclist. Someone's honking. The city is moving forward while I stand here trying to explain something I don't fully understand myself.
"She called me when the flowers arrived," I whisper. "Her voice was different. Not scared, exactly, but tired. Like she'd been carrying this weight for so long she'd forgotten what it felt like to set it down."
"And you want to help her set it down."
"That's the arrangement."
"The arrangement. Right." Richard moves back to his desk, sits. "Kenley said you're building a pattern-of-behavior case. Surveillance documentation, witness statements, evidence of ongoing harassment despite the restraining order."
"Derek Wayne is wealthy and connected. A standard order enforcement won't stick. I need something airtight."
"Agreed. But why call Kenley?"
"Because if Derek escalates, I want criminal charges ready to file. Kenley can fast-track prosecution, make sure it doesn't get buried under political favors and family connections."
"That's a good legal strategy."
"Thank you."
"It's also personal."
I don't answer.
Richard leans back in his chair. "I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying be honest about why you're doing it."
"I'm doing it because it's part of the agreement."
"You're doing it because you care about her." His voice is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. "There's no shame in that, Ethan. But there is a risk. If this arrangement is built on clearly defined terms and you're already operating outside them, what happens when those terms expire?"
"We sign divorce papers and move on."
"Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"You sure?"
I meet his eyes. Richard holds my gaze, searching for something. Whatever he finds makes him nod slowly.
"Alright," he says. "Keep me updated on the Wayne case. And Ethan?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't lose yourself trying to save someone else."
I leave his office with Richard's words looping in my head like testimony I can't cross-examine.
Back at my desk, I pull up the file Josiah sent this morning.
Derek Wayne's movement patterns over the past two weeks.
Timestamps, locations, photographs. He's been careful, staying outside the five-hundred-foot boundary but circling close.
Three visits to restaurants within two blocks of Sable.
Two trips past Mia's apartment building between midnight and two AM.
A florist order placed through a proxy account that Josiah traced back to a shell company registered in Delaware.
Exactly what I'd expect from someone who understands how to stay just inside legal boundaries.
The most recent entry is from yesterday. Derek Wayne photographed outside Flavor Fusion during Olivia Blackwood's lunch service. He didn't go inside, just stood on the sidewalk for eleven minutes, then left.
Eleven minutes. Long enough to be noticed. Short enough to claim coincidence.
I save the entire file and make copies of the evidence. Then, I close the laptop and stare at the wall.
Richard's question echoes: Can you do that?
Walk away in a year, sign papers, never speak to Mia again. Return to the life I had before, cases and billable hours and a vast emotional distance with every woman I meet and enamor.
The answer should be simple. Of course I can. I've built a career on compartmentalization, on separating what I do from who I am. One year with Mia Holland changes nothing except my public image and her safety.
Except I keep thinking about her kitchen.
The way she moved through that space like it was an extension of her body, precise and confident, and how she plated that short rib with the same focus I bring to closing arguments.
But I also remember how her voice sounded when she told me Derek sent lilies, tired and brittle and trusting me to do something about it.
I'm operating outside the terms of our agreement, calling prosecutors I don't need to call, building cases more thoroughly than required, thinking about Mia Holland at moments when I should be thinking about literally anything else.
This isn’t what I do or what I’m used to. It’s something else entirely.