2. Jane
2
JANE
M issed call from Nikolai
Me: I’m in a meeting. Do you need something?
Nikolai: Call me when you’re done
Me: Is it an emergency? What’s wrong?
Nikolai: I have a job for you
Me: And you can’t tell me what that is over text because…?
Nikolai: Because I want to hear your voice ;)
Ugh. I wish I could say that seeing Nikolai’s name pop up on my phone, whether a phone call or text, has no effect on me whatsoever. But I can’t keep still in my chair anymore, a fresh buzz simmering under my skin.
It could also be chalked up to the fact that this is the most exciting thing that has happened to me in this two-hour meeting from hell. The afternoons already drag on, but being stuck in a conference room with some of the most insufferable men I’ve ever encountered…I’ll take the momentary distraction from Nikolai. Even if I know I need to keep that in check.
My boss, Chester Ford, sucks up every remaining bit of oxygen in the room before regurgitating information back out to all of us associates just to hear himself speak. I swear, if the man was sitting here by himself, he’d still manage to carry on a conversation with an empty chair.
I share a look of boredom with my best friend, and only other woman in the firm, Hallie, from across the table. She stifles a smile at my exasperated expression and pretends to be taking notes. Even Chester’s biggest ass kissers are all starting to lose focus. A few gazes out the window, looking over the bustling streets of Boston, while others snap their heads up every few minutes as if catching themselves dozing off.
“Last order of business,” Chester says, re-energizing the group with the hope of an end in sight to this meeting. “Once again, I’d like for you all to welcome Liam Culle into the fold. I’ve already integrated him in with numerous clients, and he’s going to be a great asset for us moving forward.” He gestures toward the other head of the table where I have purposely been avoiding looking toward this entire meeting.
Liam rises from his seat with an air of superiority that he was given at birth and wears like a second skin. I used to find it attractive. The self-assured way he moved and spoke, like the world was his to mold and play with. Now, I see it for what it is. See him for who he is.
A spoiled, entitled brat who has never had to work for anything because of his family name and the connections his father forged for him. His brown hair is perfectly styled away from his forehead, kept in place by gel that I used to relish the scent of but now makes me want to gag. His blue eyes sparkle with insincerity as he takes in the room and soaks up the welcome’s and happy to have you here’s that are rained upon him like he’s some god and not a twenty-eight-year-old lawyer who barely made it through law school and spent the last couple of years floundering at his previous job until his dad stepped in and got him connected with his old pal, Chester.
He buttons his charcoal gray suit and straightens his cuffs as he looks around the table, eyes purposefully pausing on mine for an extended moment, before he clears his throat. “Thank you all for the kind welcome, and, Chester, happy to be here and representing your firm. I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of this team and I already feel at home with the family you have cultivated.”
Fucking choke me.
“Please let me know if there is anything I can assist anyone with. Chester has already integrated me with a few of our clients, but I’m always happy to help out where I can.”
Only if it benefits him.
“Thank you,” he says, giving everyone that charming smile, before he takes his seat again and leans back in it with a casualness that isn’t befitting of the new guy on the team.
Chester beams like a proud parent. “Liam has already forged great connections with NHL clientele, and hopefully”—he winks at Liam—“bring some more in for us.”
The pen whines as I grip it for dear life. Did I just hear that correctly? Liam is already working face-to-face with our professional athlete clientele in his first couple of weeks here?
I’ve been here for almost three years and that’s a market I haven’t even been able to come close to. Chester’s firm specializes in entertainment law; something I always wanted to practice. Ever since I decided I would go to law school, I always knew this was the route I wanted to take.
My twin brother, Walker, is a successful musician and I saw firsthand the kind of contracts that were slid in front of him and his bandmates. It’s insane the type of shit that people try to hide where excited and impressionable artists wouldn’t notice, and before they know it, they’ve signed their entire careers away. I never wanted to see that happen to my brother, or anyone else for that matter.
So when I got hired here right out of law school, I thought this was going to be it. My golden opportunity. Everything I ever wanted.
That couldn’t be farther from the case.
I’m one of only two women at the entire firm and the both of us are constantly overlooked, talked down to, and left out of the boys’ club that runs this place. Case in point, Liam getting hired and already working with some of our highest clients while Hallie and I still work with our beginner models and amateur athletes.
Now, him getting these opportunities would rub me the wrong way regardless. I’ve paid my dues, I’ve put in my time, and I’m capable of handling higher caliber stakes.
But it definitely doesn’t help matters that Liam also happens to be my ex-boyfriend. And he knew I worked here when he joined the team. I was here for over a year by the time we broke up and we’re still mutuals on social media, so he knows I haven’t left the firm.
Now, I’m not saying he started here just to fuck with me. He’s not that type of asshole. But I don’t think he considered how I might feel about having my cheating ex-boyfriend of almost six years coming to work at the same place.
“And lastly, progress is still being made on our expansion in Los Angeles. I’ve secured a lease on an office and will be moving forward with that location and looking into partners. Further details to come as those details fall into place but wanted to keep you all in the loop. Any questions?”
I scan around the room, silently pleading that no one pipes up with a question to further prolong this staff meeting. Thankfully, everyone seems just as ready to get out of here and there’s a lot of shaking heads and quiet no’s before Chester stands and dismisses us.
I round the table, avoiding Liam’s stare, and walk out of the conference room with Hallie.
“Did you know he’s already working with the NHL roster?” she asks me, keeping her voice low as we pass a line of desks, heading to our own. I don’t know if it was on purpose or by divine intervention, but our desks face each other at the far left of the office. The sun that beams in the morning gets hot, but it’s nice to be tucked away from some of the bigger assholes who sit closer to Chester’s office on the other end.
“Why would I know that?” I say, tucking my laptop tight to my chest. “It’s not like we’ve talked since he started.”
“Seriously?”
I give her a dumbfounded look. “Seriously.”
She brushes a tight curl over her shoulder and lets out a relieved sigh as she sinks into her chair. I don’t have to see it to know she’s kicking her heels off underneath her desk as we speak.
“It’s bullshit,” she says, eyes flicking over to where Liam stands, chatting it up with a few other associates outside of the conference room we just vacated.
“I know.” I slide into my own chair, plugging my laptop into my docking station and pulling up my emails. There’s no use in dwelling on it. Liam is here, and clearly here to stay.
“If you need to talk about it at all…” Hallie trails off, the rest of her offer not needing to be spoken. I shoot her a grateful smile before turning my attention to my computer. We’ve been best friends since being students at Harvard Law. She took a different job out of school, but eventually wound up back in Boston a couple of years ago and got hired here. So she has been around for all of the ups and downs of my relationship with Liam.
Speak of the fucking devil…
“Ladies,” Liam says, striding up to our desks and putting on his most saccharine smile. As if we haven’t seen him passed out drunk with vomit stains on his shirt.
That I had to remove the next morning, might I add.
“It’s like a class reunion around here now,” he says, not picking up on the fuck off vibes both Hallie and I are shooting his way. Or rather he is, and simply doesn’t care.
“I thought those weren’t supposed to happen for a decade after we graduated,” Hallie says, crossing her arms over her chest as she leans back in her chair. “You’re many years too early to the party.”
He smirks at her but doesn’t deign her with a response. Instead, he turns his full attention on me and I hate the way I want to shrink in on myself under his critical gaze. His eyes scan me from head to toe, taking in my baby pink blouse to my black skirt to black pumps that I never take off, unlike Hallie.
As always, his eyes catch on my chest and linger for a moment, heat filling them. He always did like my breasts. That, at least, he never complained about. The one benefit to him being with someone my size.
The rest of my body? My rounded hips and stretch marked stomach and thighs? He always had something to say about them.
But faking a confidence I don’t feel while he assesses me and threatens to undo every bit of growth I’ve tried to do in the years since we’ve broken up, I toss my sheet of jet black hair over my shoulder and meet him head-on. “Did you need something?” I ask, tone bored.
He doesn’t rush the rest of his perusal as he slips his hands in the pockets of his slacks. Slowly, he shakes his head and starts to walk away. “Just wanted to say hi. Thought if anyone was going to welcome me in, it’d be my former classmates.”
Hallie chokes on a sip of coffee and the moment he’s out of earshot, she’s spitting, “Is he serious? Calling you a former classmate? And why in the absolute hell would he think that his ex-girlfriend and ex-girlfriend’s best friend would be welcoming to his sorry ass?”
I clench my teeth, trying to keep a reign on the anger that he just sparked. He did it on purpose, I just know he did. He always loved baiting me into a fight. It used to be fun. We’d get a kick out of each other with it and it kept things interesting between us. Now, I just hate it.
“Can we just pretend like he doesn’t exist?”
Hallie opens her mouth to argue, but must see the exhaustion on my face. “Fine,” she mumbles, turning her own computer back on and getting back to work.
I start sifting through the emails I missed when my phone buzzes on my desk. Nikolai’s name lights up the screen.
Nikolai: How long is this meeting of yours?
I sigh, rocking back in my chair. Always impatient, this one. As much as I love Nikolai, I don’t have the energy to talk on the phone with him right now.
Me: Can you please just send me what you need over text? Some of us have to work.
Nikolai: Are you avoiding me?
Nikolai: Cause I won’t allow that
Nikolai: You should know better than that by now
I do know better than that, Nikolai .
But I wasn’t the one who broke us.
He was.