13. Quinn #3
“Technically, her wife got her in an alcove. Max provided moral support. I said some words in what I hope was the correct order.”
Moira stared at me for one beat too long.
I shifted my tote higher. “Please don’t look at me like that. I slept badly and my mascara is hanging on by a thread.”
“You aren’t allowed to minimize this.”
“I’m not minimizing it. I’m accurately sizing.” I glanced toward the hall, where two associates were trying not to look like they were listening. “It’s not like I got them to return the sword. It’s an open door. A very promising open door—but still just a door.”
“After this case, I never want to hear you say door again.”
“Done.”
Moira’s smile broke through, bright and proud, and for a second, the floor under my feet felt less like a treadmill.
Moira had been the first person at the firm to treat me like my brain had arrived with the rest of me.
She noticed when I improved a process and asked what I thought before the partners remembered I could think. Her approval mattered to me.
“You did good,” she said.
My heart gave a small, treacherous squeeze. “Thank you.”
“Seriously, Quinn. This is the work. This. Not getting coffee or running errands. And you’re doing the damn thing.”
I wanted to absorb that like sunlight. Then the copy room printer jammed behind us with a loud, accusatory clunk.
Neither of us moved.
Moira looked at it. “Someone else can suffer.”
“That’s growth.”
“For both of us.”
I almost smiled, then noticed her expression became more businesslike.
“What?” I asked.
“Helena wants to see you.”
My stomach dropped, and it had nothing to do with my need for coffee.
“Helena,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“She said as soon as you got in.”
“What about?” I asked.
Moira shrugged. “I assume the gala.”
“Good gala? Bad gala? Why did you speak without a partner present gala? Why is the dragon client suddenly requesting you specifically gala?”
Moira tilted her head. “Is he?”
“No,” I said too quickly.
Her eyebrows rose.
“I mean, he said I should be at the Friday meeting because I was there last night and Georgiana asked if I would be.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I pointed at her. “Do not start.”
“I have started nothing. I’m a blank slate wearing heels. And you’re stalling.”
I was absolutely stalling.
Helena Wallace wasn’t cruel. She was too efficient for cruelty.
Cruelty required extra time and usually follow-up questions.
Helena could start and end a meeting in seven minutes, leave everyone grateful for the clarity, and still make you realize two hours later that she’d surgically removed your illusions about your career prospects.
She was one of the reasons I wanted to work here. She was also one of the reasons my nervous system treated every summons from her office like a severe weather warning.
I smoothed my blazer. “Did she sound mad?”
“She didn’t sound mad. She sounded focused.” She squeezed my arm, quick and firm. “Listen to me. The whole firm is buzzing because a major client took you to a gala, and now there’s movement on a stalled restitution claim. That is good. Let it be good until someone proves otherwise.”
I nodded.
Let it be good.
A simple instruction. Nearly impossible. My brain preferred to keep a disaster menu laminated and ready for service.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m letting it be good.”
“That’s my girl.” She released me and stepped back. “Go.”
Every step seemed louder than it needed to be as I moved down the gray-carpeted hallway with its glass walls.
Assistants moved briskly between stations, associates stared at screens.
A few people looked up as I passed. One paralegal gave me a small thumbs-up from behind a stack of binders.
Cressler’s office door was closed, but I could hear his voice inside, brisk and irritated, saying “Friday changes the timeline.”
Friday changes the timeline.
My timeline, maybe.
The thought was too large, so I ignored it and focused on the tasks at hand.
Get to Helena’s office. Answer questions. Do not ramble. Do not think about Rafe’s text.
Helena’s assistant, Beatrice, looked up as I approached. She was in her sixties and rumored to know where at least five bodies were buried, metaphorically, but possibly not.
“Ms. Bradley,” she said. “She’s expecting you.”
“Great,” I said, which wasn’t the word my internal organs would have chosen.
Beatrice’s mouth twitched. “You’ll be fine.”
“People keep saying that.”
“They’re not wrong.”
Before I could decide whether that was comfort, the office door opened, and Helena Wallace stood there.
She was in a cream suit this morning, her silver hair twisted into a low knot, one hand wrapped around a mug of tea. She looked composed enough to make the rest of us seem like we had been assembled from spare parts.
“Quinn,” she said. “Come in.”
She’d used my name. Not Intern. Not Ms. Bradley. Quinn.
Palms suddenly sweaty, I stepped inside.
Her office had a view of the city, and it was so ordered, no object would dare exist there without purpose. A slim file lay open on her desk. The Virelli matter. I recognized the tab color immediately because I’d made the labels.
Helena closed the door behind me and crossed to her desk. “Sit.”
I sat.
She didn’t.
“I spoke with Mr. Payton this morning,” she said. “He spoke with Mr. Virelli late last night.”
My lungs considered resigning.
Helena watched my face carefully, which made me aware of every facial muscle I possessed.
“Mr. Virelli was very clear,” she continued. “The Friday meeting with Dr. Sorel exists because of your performance at the gala.”
My cheeks heated. “Mrs. Sorel facilitated the introduction. Max helped.”
“Max is the dog?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure he was invaluable.”
“He was wearing a tie.”
For one terrifying second, silence filled the room. Then Helena’s mouth moved at one corner. Not a smile. More like the idea of one had passed through and left a note. “I’ve heard.”
I pressed my lips together.
Helena set her mug down. “You took initiative in a difficult social environment. You identified an alternate path to the decision-maker. You communicated the client’s position in terms the museum’s representatives could hear. And, crucially, you didn’t overstate our legal posture.”
She sat at last, steepling her hands on the desk. “Many young attorneys confuse aggression with advocacy. You didn’t.”
The praise hit so cleanly I had to grip the edge of my notebook, which was unfortunate because I didn’t remember bringing it with me. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Ah. There it was. Weather warning upgraded.
Helena leaned back slightly. “You did very well, but that doesn’t mean you’re free to improvise without guardrails.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
I straightened. “I believe so.”
“This firm has a reputation because we control risk. Clients may be emotional, opposing parties evasive. Partners may decide to hold the beginning stages of a negotiation in a hotel alcove because an intern and a dog created an opening.” Her gaze sharpened.
“But the work remains the work. Chain of command and documentation matters.”
“I understand.”
“You were valuable last night because you were aware of what you didn’t know and didn’t overpromise.”
I sat completely still in my chair.
“Friday will be different,” she said. “It’s a formal meeting with counsel, collections representatives, and a director who has now had time to reconsider whether she offered too much too quickly.”
My stomach clenched. “She might walk it back?”
“She may try to narrow the scope and bring in additional internal objections. She may decide that being moved in the moment is not the same as being convinced by the file.”
I nodded. “What do you need from me?”
She slid a folder across the desk. “I want a clean memo today. No grand argument. Simply the timeline of contact with the museum, summary of last night’s discussion, open issues for Friday, and a separate section identifying possible non-litigation resolutions.”
I took the folder. “Structured return, temporary loan, revised display language, replica or digital access, educational partnership.”
Helena’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not unpleasantly. “Those are the right categories.”
“I can have it to you by three.”
“Have it by two-thirty.”
“Of course.”
“And Quinn?”
This time, she did smile. And it made my brain panic because I’d not prepared for positive reinforcement from a managing partner before breakfast.
“You earned being in the room last night. Now don’t let it make you sloppy.”
I swallowed. “I won’t.”
“I believe you.” She picked up her tea. “That’s why I’m giving you the memo.”
My grip tightened on the folder.
“Thank you,” I said, and this time I meant it with my whole exhausted, undercaffeinated soul.
“You can go.”
I stood.
As I reached the door, Helena spoke again. “And Quinn?”
I turned.
“If anyone asks, Max’s tie was strategically appropriate.”
I stared at her. She returned to her computer, leaving me to absorb the most astonishing sentence of my professional life.
“Yes,” I said carefully. “I’ll make sure he knows.”
I hurried out of her office. Moira was waiting six feet away, pretending to inspect a framed print of abstract blue lines.
I stopped beside her. “Subtle.”
“I was admiring the art.”
“Name one thing about it.”
“It’s blue.”
“Powerful analysis.”
She looked at the folder in my hand. “Well?”
I hugged it to my chest, feeling the weight of it, the opportunity and warning, the whole terrifying shape of being taken seriously.
“I have a memo due at two-thirty,” I said.
Moira grinned. “Look at you.”
“Don’t be proud of me yet. I could still embarrass us both with terrible formatting.”
“You won’t.”
“No,” I said, and for once I let myself believe it for more than half a second. “I won’t.”
The coffee machine made its suffering noise again, and from somewhere down the hall, someone called, “Intern, printer’s jammed.”
Moira and I looked at each other.
“Someone else can suffer,” I said.
Moira’s grin widened. “That’s my girl.”