Chapter Seven
S age had managed to keep Max’s existence from the founding partners at Forbes, Poole, and Russell for almost two weeks.
It played in her favor that none of the managing partners or their teams ventured farther than their offices on the top floor.
But now she sat in the wood-paneled executive suite of Robert Forbes, waiting to face the music.
Robert waved an impatient hand at his personal assistant as she placed cookies on the plate in front of him. “How many times must I tell you, Emilia? The iced cookies are not to touch the plain cookies.”
“I’m so sorry. I forgot,” his assistant said, carefully rearranging the cookies to his specifications.
Robert pursed his lips. “No, that won’t do. Take them away and bring me a new plate and fresh cookies.”
Sage glanced at Nina from human resources, who’d accompanied her to the meeting.
Robert didn’t seem to care that Sage was to meet with a new client in fifteen minutes, something she’d told Emilia when she’d tried rescheduling until later in the day.
But Robert’s assistant had seemed personally affronted that Sage didn’t immediately clear her schedule for the man now taking a delicate sip of his tea with his pinkie raised.
Returning the teacup carefully to the saucer, Robert folded his hands on his chest and peered at Sage over the top of his glasses. Apart from the bifocals, he reminded her of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons .
“As you know, Ms. Rosetti, we at Forbes, Poole, and Russell were deeply saddened to learn of Ms. Espinoza’s passing. We’re also aware of your personal relationship with Ms. Espinoza and are sympathetic to your loss. But as sympathetic as we are, the cat must go.”
Sage had seen no signs of the founding partners’ sadness or sympathy for her loss. She wasn’t surprised or offended by their lack of empathy or understanding, but she didn’t appreciate Robert lying about it to her face.
“Max is a support cat, Mr. Forbes,” she said, repeating what Nina had told her to say, including quoting the clause in her contract that could be massaged to fit the situation.
Robert’s lips folded inward, looking at Nina as if he blamed her for the addition of the clause in the contract.
Nina didn’t bat an eyelash. As intimidating as the man could be—and he was, even at eighty-three—he didn’t intimidate Nina.
Probably because she was his third wife’s daughter and knew where the skeletons were buried.
Nina leaned forward to place a file on Robert’s desk, pushing it toward him with the tip of her finger.
“This is the supporting documentation for Sage’s request that Max, as a working support animal, be allowed to remain with her in her office.
I’ve also included a petition signed by eighty-five percent of the employees at Forbes, Poole, and Russell requesting that Max be allowed to continue in his role as support cat at the firm. ”
Everyone, other than the founding partners, loved Max.
Sage’s colleagues regularly stopped by to pet him and pour out their troubles into his nonjudgmental ears.
They spoiled him with toys and treats. So much so that her office felt more like Max’s space than hers.
Cat climbing shelves now decorated the wall across from her desk, a cat castle sat in a corner, and a cat lounge chair took up the other corner.
If Sage was being honest, she’d admit she found her new office décor almost as annoying as she found her revolving office door.
She didn’t have time to socialize with her colleagues.
Before Max, she knew less than one percent of their names.
In her defense, it was a big firm. Now, not only did she know eighty-five percent of her colleagues’ names, but she also knew their romantic and childhood histories.
Robert flicked through the file before returning it to his desk with a loud thwack .
It was the most animated Sage had seen him in years.
“We’ll allow the cat to remain with the option to revisit the situation three weeks from now,” he said, turning his attention to the plate of fresh cookies Emilia had placed on his desk.
“Great, thank you,” Sage said, coming to her feet.
“I didn’t give you permission to leave, Ms. Rosetti.” He pointed his cookie at the chair she’d just vacated.
She widened her eyes at Nina, indicating the time on her phone with her chin. Nina knew about her meeting. She was a big fan of Sage’s new client, who would no longer be her client if Sage was late for their meeting.
“Mr. Forbes, Sage has a meeting with a rather important client that she can’t be late for.”
His milky-blue eyes narrowed behind his bifocals. “Are you insinuating that Ms. Rosetti’s meeting with her client is more important than her meeting with me, Nina?”
“Of course not. I—”
“I thought not.” He took another delicate sip from his teacup and wrinkled his nose, calling for Emilia to warm it up.
Placing her phone at thigh level, Sage texted Brenda, letting her know she’d be late, only to discover her client had already arrived, and said client was allergic to cats.
Sage asked Brenda to check if any of the conference rooms were available.
They were all booked. She then asked Brenda to arrange for her to switch offices with one of her colleagues.
“Am I keeping you from something, Ms. Rosetti?”
“Sorry.” She stuffed her phone in the pocket of her blazer. “What can I do for you, Mr. Forbes?”
“Stay out of the news, for one.” This time his pursed-lipped attention was directed at her.
“Our clients choose Forbes, Poole, and Russell because of our high moral and ethical standards, Ms. Rosetti. They also choose us because they know that their affairs will be handled with the utmost care and privacy.”
“Mr. Forbes, my client and I had nothing to do with the media circus her ex-husband orchestrated. He was angry the judge awarded full custody of their son to his wife and supervised visitation until a court-appointed psychologist deems otherwise.” Something Sage doubted would happen anytime soon.
“The same man whom you refused to represent in his divorce proceedings, even when we requested you do so for the good of the firm.”
It had been a risky move. The ink had barely dried on her diploma.
But she’d crossed paths with Chad a time or two, and she refused to represent a misogynistic narcissist. If not for the senior partner who’d hired Sage backing her decision, she probably would have been fired.
The Winthrops were among the elite of Boston’s elite.
“Yes, and I stand by my refusal to represent him in the divorce proceedings against his first wife. Monica is his second wife,” she added in case Robert had misremembered the details of the case.
“I’m aware, just as I’m aware that this is not the first time one of your cases has shined an unflattering spotlight on this firm, Ms. Rosetti. Attention seeking is not a trait we at Forbes, Poole, and Russell approve of in our employees.”
She didn’t understand how winning her cases shined an unflattering light on the firm… unless you counted the fact that one or more of the founding partners typically had a connection to her clients’ high-profile soon-to-be exes.
“Good thing I’m not an attention seeker then.
But Chad Winthrop is, so if you want the firm out of the spotlight, I suggest you call your best friend the congressman and tell him to rein his son in.
” Sage rose from the chair. “And while you’re at it, tell him that if Junior sends me any more threatening emails, I’m going to the police.
” Robert’s upraised voice and Nina’s placating one followed Sage out of the office. She closed the door behind her.
At her desk in the outer office, Emilia swiveled in her chair to face Sage. “I swear, you’re going to give poor Robert a heart attack one of these days. I don’t understand why he lets you speak to him that way.”
“It’s called billable hours.”
The door to Robert’s office opened and Nina walked out while, behind her, Robert yelled from his desk, “Where’s my hot tea, girl? And while you’re at it, bring me more of those iced cookies.”
“What I don’t understand, Emilia, is why you let him speak to you that way.” Robert’s assistant ignored her as she hurried off to do her boss’s bidding.
Sage said to Nina, “You should be writing him up for how he treats her.”
“I have, and I will again. But right now, I want to talk about the emails Chad Winthrop has been sending you. How bad are they? Should I talk to security?”
“They’re no worse than usual. I’m also surmising they’re from Winthrop. He’s smart enough not to give himself away.” Unlike some of the men who’d threatened her in the past. “It’s only been a couple of days since the judgment came down. Let’s give it a few more days.”
“Okay. But I want to see the emails. Have Brenda forward them to me, and I’ll pass them on to security. Like you should have.”
“I have a lot on my plate right now, and they honestly slipped my mind.”
As they walked out of Robert’s reception area—which was bigger than Sage’s and Nina’s offices combined—they heard Emilia pick up the ringing phone. “One moment please, Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop returning your call, sir. Should I put him through?”
Nina gave her a smug smile. “You see, he does take my warnings seriously.” She nudged Sage. “And you need to take these threats seriously. I know you’ve had more than your fair share of hate mail over the years, and nothing has ever come of it, but all it takes is one time.”
And that one time came quicker than Sage could have imagined.
After a productive two-hour meeting with her new client in her colleague’s office, Sage walked back to her own office.
She frowned down the hall at Brenda and Renata. The two women looked frazzled as they knocked on office doors. “What’s going on?”
Ignoring her question, they poked their heads in the respective offices, asking if the occupants had seen Max.
Sage wasn’t alarmed. It wasn’t unusual for Max to disappear for an hour or two. If one of her colleagues was having a stressful day, they’d commandeer the cat. Sage glanced at her watch. “Try Roland in personal injury. His client’s condition has improved.”
“I did,” Brenda said, fast-walking to the next door. “We’ve almost finished checking all the offices on this floor.”
When both women received negative responses at the last of the offices on the floor, they headed for the bank of elevators. “Maybe Bill took him up to the roof,” Sage suggested. The rooftop gardens had become Max’s personal playground.
Bill, who was trying to quit smoking, credited petting Max with helping him deal with the cravings. To hear some of her colleagues talk, you’d think Max was the Dalai Lama of cats.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Jake was FaceTiming her. They talked every day, mostly to ensure that he wasn’t having Zoom calls with her team. No one seemed to think Sage was cat-mommy material. Annoyingly, they were probably right.
She knew she should have left Max with him at the farm as Jake had initially suggested.
She felt petty about her decision to take him with her, petty and selfish, but she couldn’t bring herself to return Max to Jake.
Not yet at least. Jake brought out the worst in her.
She’d been just as petty when he’d offered to take care of everything.
She’d reacted like she didn’t trust him not to steal away in the night with the proceeds from their joint inheritance.
In her defense, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
The guy didn’t have a job or a steady income. And come on, he had a criminal history.
She’d also been hungover, sleep-deprived, and still reeling from Alice’s death.
She still was, but work helped. She could pretend Alice was walking the trails on the farm without a care in the world.
She debated whether to take Jake’s call.
Yesterday, he’d been making noises about them planning Alice’s memorial service.
Sage didn’t want to. She wouldn’t be able to pretend Alice was still here if they did.
Her phone stopped buzzing, and she was relieved Jake had given up.
But then her cell pinged with an incoming text.
She glanced at the screen. Crap. Jake was here, in the building, with the paperwork she had to sign.
She’d been positive he’d said Friday. She glanced at her phone and groaned. It was Friday.
She shot off a text—I’ll meet you down there—and walked toward the elevators while calling Brenda. “Please tell me you’ve found Max,” she said as soon as her assistant picked up.
“No, and he’s not on the roof with Bill. He said Max wasn’t in the office when he went on his break.”
“Dammit.”
“I know. I’m beginning to worry he got out of the building too.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Isn’t that why you said dammit ?”
“No. I said it because Jake is here, and he’ll want to see Max, and if I’ve lost him, he’ll know I’m a horrible cat mother and take him back to the farm, and then I’ll be all—”
Another text came in, presumably from Jake, cutting off her emotional diatribe.
Had she really been going to confess to Brenda how lonely she’d be without Max for company?
How pathetic was that? The cat hated her, and she didn’t care, as long as she wasn’t by herself.
Something was seriously wrong with her. She loved living on her own with no one to answer to.
She glanced at the screen as she went to press the Down button for the elevator, sucking in a panicked breath just as the doors slid open and Jake walked out.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t want to tell him, but she had to. There was no way she could keep this from him. She turned her phone, showing him the photo of a tattooed arm holding Alice’s beloved cat against a muscular chest. “Max has been catnapped.”