Chapter 7
It’s still dark when pain wakes Kara up.
This pain comes with the slow awareness of no longer sleeping, a fast throbbing in her temple. Her skin feels flushed and overheated. Her eyes aren’t even open and she mentally groans; she’s one hundred percent wrecked and it’s all her fault.
The time must be early, as there is no sign of dawn in the sky yet when she opens her eyes blearily. She curses loudly, groaning, her stomach rebelling violently.
Here it is; another reminder of why she keeps a lid on overindulging in alcohol.
It takes a few minutes for Kara to convince herself to get out of bed. Her body feels like a rock, a rock that is in a lot of pain, if that’s at all possible. She stumbles to her kitchen and grabs a glass of milk to protect her stomach as she downs two migraine pills, hoping to drown out of the agony before work.
Grabbing an ice pack from the freezer and a water bottle from the fridge, she grumbles miserably and makes her way back to bed, flopping down despondently with it on her forehead, praying for the medicine to begin taking the edge off.
It’s hard to find rest again, her stomach rebelling violently.
Just keep it down, keep it down for another twenty minutes. After that, it’s all fair game.
A storm starts outside, rain beating against her window. The fan above her bed spins, mixing with the sound, slowly easing her into a state of calm. The pain fades into a dull ache, no longer a knife in her temple.
I shouldn’t have drank like that. I enjoy drinking my feelings away far too much. And the end result is always the same.
I’m never quite perfect enough. I’m always flawed.
Two hours pass and light slowly peeks through the windows. Nothing bright, but enough that the room illuminates. The rain continues on.
A dreary day to pair with a dreary mood.
When it’s time to get ready for the day, Kara moves like a snail in sludge. I feel like a heap of garbage.
Donning a grey, knee length dress with a black blazer, she slips into her black three-inch heels and forgoes her usual eye makeup routine. Can’t quite muster the motivation for that, nor for her contacts. Pulling her dark hair up into a clip, she blearily searches for her glasses and puts them on, the wide black rims framing her face.
Jailbait-esque librarian? It seems so, today.
As an afterthought, Kara decides to change her mind on makeup after looking at her face. She quickly lines the corner of her eyes with eyeliner, just to seem somewhat alive. And to not look like a fourteen-year-old masquerading as a lawyer.
She opts to take her car over to court; the morning rain is bad enough that she already knows it will be hard to catch a cab. She’s already running behind schedule; the weather will only make it worse regardless.
She gets into her dark grey Nissan Altima and heads out, head still full of phantom aches.
Bob and Debra give her a look as she takes her seat beside them in the courtroom. Bob raises his eyebrows, his forehead wrinkling. “Well. I take it you didn’t get around to speaking with the PI yesterday?”
“That obvious?” God, she hopes she doesn’t smell like alcohol, sweating through her pores.
The older man nods his head sagely. “Oh, yeah. Not a good showing, junior. Aren’t you a little old to be going on benders during the work week?”
Seeing her expression fall further, Debra Mills says, “Oh, Bob, leave her alone. She’s young. She’s here, isn’t she?”
Bob backs down, giving their client a grin. “Hey, she’s working on your dime. But, I’m more worried about the impression it gives our boss.” He turns back to looking at Kara. “Just trying to coach you. No judgement.”
“Oh, sure.” Because it had sounded pretty judgy. But, Kara lets it slide off her exterior.
When Derrick arrives, Kara studiously pretends to be going through documents, though her eyes are glancing over the words without focusing on anything. Her stomach is still roiling and she’s busy trying to keep her panic down.
How is she going to fake it through this day?
“Kara?”
She snaps out of it, turning her head to look at Derrick, seated on the other side of their client. “Yes? What did you say?”
His lips purse as he eyes her suspiciously. “Did you get around to getting anything documented with the PI yesterday? We need to start applying to bring in new witnesses if we can crack the NDA situation. You know all new witnesses need to be relayed to the defense before arriving in court.”
Kara’s stomach sinks with disappointment in herself. She screwed up big and it could cause delays. “I didn’t, Mr. Benson.”
Derrick inhales slowly, keeping an outwardly cool demeanor. He’s a professional; he’s not prone to outbursts. “…and why is that, may I ask?”
Bob shuffles his papers nonsensically, as if trying to disappear from between the two of them. Kara opens her mouth to reply when loud laughter filters in with the opening of the doors behind them.
Then, she hears a familiar voice and her skin prickles instantly.
Kara tries her best to seem unaffected as she hears him enter with Rugby, the two talking in loud, laughing tones some distance behind her as they make their way to their table. Kara’s right hand still has a bright green band-aid on it from the night before and she quickly places it in her lap.
His footsteps are so loud. Is she the only one who can hear them? The confident thud thud thud that seems to echo in her head with every step he takes? It’s worse when he finally passes where she’s sitting; his cologne wafts by her in a wave of warmth and coziness that she loathes.
She doesn’t look to her right, not to where the defense sits. Her mouth is dry and she feels like she’s overheating, like she’s going to suffocate in this room. Derrick is still waiting for her response when Judge Canry arrives, calling the court to order.
Today, the defense announces a split in counsel. Judge Canry simply frowns, grumbling in his senior age. “I can’t say I’m surprised, Mr. Havenwood-Calais. I take it you will be the one representing your good friend, Mr. Brooker?”
Nicholas Havenwood-Calais makes an odd little scoffing noise through his teeth as he looks down at his papers briefly before meeting the Judge’s eyes again. “I’m not sure how that is relevant, Your Honor, but I will be representing Paxton Brooker going forward. Mr. Dotaire has accepted the services of my senior associates.”
Derrick drums his fingers on the table, glowering, as if angry that what he assumed would come to pass did indeed happen. Kara sighs; this leaves them with two defenses to beat.
The proceedings move forward; today, the defense has brought a psychologist. Apparently, they believe they can psychobabble away the rape charge. Kara rubs her forehead, listening to the man in his late sixties telling the jury that it isn’t uncommon for a woman to became ‘ashamed’ of her needs, to try and turn it backwards on a man.
He’s not wrong, but he’s also not entirely right, Kara muses. Of course, there are bad apples out there that cry wolf and ruin it for the true victims. But this isn’t that case and his words leave a sour taste in her mouth. Or, that could be the bile creeping up her throat from all the alcohol consumed the night prior.
Derrick asks her to cross examine the man and on a normal day, this would be fine. But this isn’t a normal day. Today, Kara can barely find the energy to balance on her heels with an outward elegance. Today, Kara feels like trash and she feels a thousand eyes on her as she stands before the expert witness, trying to make him misstep.
She’s not successful, because she doesn’t have her wits about her, feels slow like she’s in quicksand. The man sidesteps everything she asks him smoothly, with a hint of chauvinist attitude in his every word. Kara flushes, irritated at him and herself, which becomes embarrassingly clear to the Judge as well.
To that note, her tone becomes combative. Which is a mistake.
“Miss Hayes, your line of questioning is not conducive to this case. Jury, please ignore the last comment,” Judge Canry says drily. “It was inflammatory in nature.”
Kara cringes in dismay; she screwed that up royally. She turns to look at her boss; the expression on his face is clear as day; she is not impressing Derrick right now.
In fact, he’s probably pissed at her.
Oodles of crap. Sigh.
When the break comes, Kara races off to the restroom, barely making it to the toilet before vomiting. There’s not much in her stomach, but the bile burns on its way up her esophagus. Gasping for air, trying to ignore the pain in her body, she flushes the toilet and spits.
Her body is shaking.
She goes to the sink to wash her hands, then splashes some water on her face, trying to clear her mind. Some of the other women in the room give her odd looks, wondering if she’s ill or judging her as a drunk. Kara scowls; she deserves their censure.
After leaving the safety of the bathroom, Kara retrieves her cell phone from her locker and goes outside to sit on one of the stone seating arrangements, flowers beginning to bloom in the beds of dirt around her.
She starts texting their PI, asking if he can ramp up finding the connection between the mysterious sums of money and people who had left the club before, signing NDA’s. He discusses the billing by the hours back to her and Kara agrees, because she knows Derrick will approve it for something this crucial.
When she’s done doing what she should have done yesterday, she sits and soaks in the early spring sun that has finally taken over the rain clouds, letting her eyes drift closed in exhaustion. It isn’t quite warm enough outside for no jacket, but the slightly nippy air on her face is welcome. Though her stomach is empty now, she still feels shaky and weak, overheating with dehydration.
She really could sink into the ground right now and never return. What if Derrick kicks her off the case for being so utterly awful?
“So, I guess you really are a lawyer, huh?”
Opening her eyes, Kara finds herself looking into a familiar face. Leaning his hip against one of the high stone walls is the Detective from that night in the hospital. Kara frowns at him, trying to remember his name. He’s wearing a lovely beige colored trench coat that wears well with his wild dark hair, even with the faint scruff along his jawline. A few scarce years older than her, if her estimate is correct.
He takes pity on her, clearly seeing her struggle to remember what he’s called. “I’m Detective Wellis. Remember? We met-”
Interrupting him quickly, Kara replies, “I remember you.” She shifts her mouth into an irritated moue. “You called me a prostitute. Which is why I remember you.”
The man flushes slightly, as if now embarrassed for his assumption. Rubbing the back of his neck, looking only a little less disheveled than the first time Kara met him, Detective Wellis says, “Yeah. Well. I’m sorry I offended you. I was just doing my job.”
He’s got these gentle eyes, a soft brown that seem far too worried about her when they drift to her face. No one has ever been worried about Kara, a fact that she has accepted over the years with a sort of quiet logic. She’d grown up with a mother who was just trying to get by day by day and they were both just trying to survive her father. Only, with him it was like balancing on a bed of nails on uneven ground.
This Detective Wellis doesn’t have the vibe of a bad man, just more of the vibe of a man who has seen far too much terrible. That, and he doesn’t have much time for a razor or a comb. Kara sighs, rubbing her temple absently, trying to alleviate the pain still pulsing there. “Your mother never taught you not to call girls bad names, huh? It shows, Detective Wellis.”
A hint of laughter appears in those deep eyes. “Ray.”
Kara’s sluggish mind hasn’t caught up to the speed of the conversation. No wonder she was garbage in front of the witness. “Huh?”
“You can call me Ray. It’s my name. What I’m called.” He’s lighting a cigarette, still standing a respectable distance from her. What is it with cops and cigarettes?
Kara gives him a weak grin. Do detectives always ask women to call them by their first name? “Only if you stop calling me that ‘Miss Hayes’ crap you kept pulling in the hospital.”
He smiles genuinely now. “A deal it is. Have you been alright, since that night? I meant to check in on you…I mean, we always do that, with uh…”
Kara waits patiently for him to call her a victim, but he must have learned something from his short time with her in the hospital, because he avoids the word.
Detective Ray Wellis continues after a brief stumble. “…with young women who are brought to our attention in the hospital. So. Are you doing fine? Safe?”
Safe is a funny word. Is Kara safe? Probably. But, safe from herself? Likely not. She’s her own worst enemy and her quest for perfection has always led her to the extremes, the pressure of it a heavy weight on her shoulders.
She gestures with her hand weakly. “Yes. All has been fine. And, if I need someone to save me, I know how to reach you.” Kara says it to watch his reaction. The Detective doesn’t disappoint.
He seems distinctly flustered. “You do?”
One of Kara’s eyebrows lifts, despite the persistent pain in her forehead. “Oh, yes. You gave me your card.”
Once again, he rubs the back of his neck, looking away. A nervous-embarrassed gesture if she’s ever seen one.
“Right. I forgot,” he replies, meeting her gaze again with soft eyes.
Kara’s hungover and awful, so she cocks her head to the side to check him out a bit from behind her glasses, pondering his scruffy chin and deciding she’s fine with it. She’d like to dig her fingers in and maybe he’s nice enough to embrace the hurt-
Ray’s gaze lands upon something behind Kara and his lips turn downward, breaking her twisted thought process. Thankfully, because she doesn’t have a healthy track record with men as it is and she doesn’t need an opening to damage someone else.
She’d had a phase in college, going through boys like tissue. Her mother hadn’t been wrong; as soon as someone fell in love with Kara, she ran in the other direction. The emotion, the affection, coming from a male person, was terrifying to her. Wrong. Foreign.
Her father was not capable of love. Literally. It wasn’t an overreaction or a slur to say it.
There’s something wrong with him, you know.
Kara has never known a single healthy relationship. She’s aware that it has shaped her as a person and probably not for the good.
Coming out of her thoughts, Kara turns a bit to see what Ray’s looking at, somehow not surprised when it happens to be a familiar man with a finely tailored suit and a loud laugh. Everyone is taking advantage of the halt in rainfall.
Calais and Rugby are quite the distance away, in their own world, but Kara feels her heart jolt nonetheless. He’d not looked at her the entire time in court today, as if her presence were insignificant to him. As if she really were nothing.
Which, she supposes is the dark truth. She is nothing to him. A nameless face that he never expected to see again, there one moment and forgotten in the next. He’d gotten what he wanted. It hadn’t harmed him; it had been just another Saturday night in his posh fucking life. Not that it really harmed Kara either, but she’s mad about it, upset.
Kara’s palms begin to sweat at the sight of him, her stomach flipping uncomfortably. It’s stupid, really. Isn’t that what you always preferred? Insignificance? The kind of guys who couldn’t see beyond themselves and their needs?
She had told him that she wanted to go back to pretending not to know each other. And, that’s what she got. But it doesn’t seem fair, because every time she sees him, she can feel the ghost of his hand in her hair, gripping her jaw, the smell of him filling her head.
The strange gaps in her memory only make it worse, because she doesn’t remember what his cock feels like on her tongue and it bothers her wondering if when he sees her, he remembers what she looks like forced to her knees in front of him, locked in his unyielding grasp.
She can’t remember if he’d made any noises, during that time. Had she heard him come apart or was he the silent, controlled type? No doubt he was, but she wanted to remember the gaps. She wanted some sort of power, of control over him.
Her inhales become sharp as her mind races over these thoughts.
The detective must see something on her face…or he already suspects something to begin with. “You know, if you have something to tell me, you don’t have to be afraid. No one is going to punish you for speaking up.”
Just as Kara begins to pull her gaze away from the pair of men in the distance, Calais turns his head in her direction and she hopes he doesn’t realize she’s talking with a cop. Kara wishes her hair was decent enough to come out of her hair clip so she could hide behind it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective.” She’s not admitting to anything, because she doesn’t care and she knows a losing battle when she sees one. Why can’t Ray? Obviously, he’s heard something or another about Havenwood-Calais to be looking at him that way.
Ray looks disappointed at her switch from his name. “Hey. I’m not trying to grill you. I’m just…trying to help.”
“Really? It sounds like you are trying to help your case,” Kara says with bitterness.
He raises both hands up in surrender, trying to calm the rising irritation he sees in her dark eyes. “I’ll not bring it up again. But, just know that I’m around if you need help. That’s all. I’m on your side.”
Getting to her feet, Kara mutters under her breath, “No one is on my side.”
As the session for the day comes to a close, Derrick asks Kara to stay back and talk to him.
He’s frowning, the creases beside his eyes deepening. Kara feels something inside of her sink, already feels worse than she did earlier. “How do you think today went, Kara?”
Ah. The famous question that books no room for dishonesty. There is no sense in even blaming feeling under the weather. That won’t gain her any points with him. Though her insides shrivel, Kara holds his serious gaze. “Not so good, Mr. Benson. I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
“It was disappointing, Kara. I expect better from you. Gale has always spoken highly of you to me.” Sighing, Derrick firms his lips into a straight line. “Let’s do better tomorrow. It’s a shorter day in court; we need to have a goal and be precise. Come back sharp. We have a short reprieve on Thursday; the defense asked for a delay and the judge granted it. Call the Private Investigator when you have the time.”
She nods her understanding. She won’t make the same mistake twice. She let herself get out of control the night before and she paid for it dearly. Kara only hopes her career reputation isn’t eternally damaged by it.
Reputation is everything. That’s what her father always said, anyway.
“I reached out to the PI earlier today. I know he has names already,” Kara replies. “We just might need to get out this weekend and speak with some of them and see if they will get on the stand.”
The named partner of the firm gives her a tired smile that softens his face. “Perfect. Get some rest, Kara. I need you sharp in court, not running half empty. This is not the case to screw around on.”
Kara watches him as he walks out the front, going to hail a cab no doubt. She sighs, trying to not dwell on her failure, on the humiliation of it all. She’d do better. She’d impress Derrick and remind him why he put her on this case in the first place.
She just needed to get the hell out of her own mind. The past has no place in her present.
Even as the energy continues to seep from her body, Kara hoists her tote up to her shoulder and walks down the hall, taking a few turns until arriving at the elevators. Her car is parked in the multi-story parking garage, delving deep underground.
More than anything, she wants to get home and forget about her poor showing today. Not just that, but she doesn’t even want to think about how pathetic she must have looked in front of…that…rich asshole in his fancy suit. The suit that probably costs as much as her rent.
With a sigh, Kara presses the down button, waiting for the elevator to announce its arrival.
When it does, she steps in and presses down, to the very bottom.
Just as the doors nearly shut, a hand slips between them and they open once more, allowing a man to slip inside.
Kara glances at him and exhales as slow as she can. “You’ve got to be joking me. Couldn’t you have waited one minute for the next elevator down?”
Nicholas Havenwood-Calais gives her a wry look, square shoulders taking up far too much space for Kara’s comfort. “You’re more than welcome to get out.”
Giving him her blankest look, Kara says drily, “Yeah. I’m not doing that.”
Not even with the small space quickly filling with the familiar scent of his cologne and whatever mint is on his breath.
The doors move to close and Calais shifts, digging his phone out of his pocket, glancing at something on the screen. “Suit yourself, sweetpea.”
Her growl fills the elevator like a hurricane and the scene that plays out in her mind is not unlike a wildcat leaping up onto him for a well-deserved mauling.
But, Kara refrains from fulfilling her fantasy.
Because she’s not a savage. At least, not completely.
The elevator is unbearably slow, the kind that gives people the willies thinking it might just break down at any moment.
“By the way,” he says with a smooth tone, edged with his familiar rasp, low and curling in his throat. “You look profoundly atrocious today.”
“You know, I really don’t recall asking you,” Kara snaps back, glaring pointedly at the screen that counts down the floors, trying to not flush behind her large glasses. How fucking embarrassing.
Why is this elevator so slow?! Someone service this thing. She needs to get out and away from him.
He sniffs, still not giving her a single glance. He puts his phone away, sliding it back into his dark slacks. “Sometimes we have to hear hard truths. Don’t be undignified about it.”
Kara sputters. Undignified? Oh, she’d loved to show him a few undignified things. She’d love to blast him over the head with her tote. It’s certainly heavy enough to cause some damage. Or she could stab him with one of her high heels, like staking a vampire. Gritting her teeth, Kara sharply averts her face from him, cursing him out under her breath.
The ride finishes in tense silence, Kara feeling angry enough to bend iron. Calais seems completely oblivious to her and her discomfort, which is absurdly annoying. The elevator dings loudly and Kara steps forward quickly, her shoes clicking loudly on the cement as she does so.
She’s not sure if she imagines it or not, but it feels like his eyes are burning into her spine with every step she takes.