CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ETHAN
BY EIGHT, THE FIRM had gone quiet, the kind of silence that came when everyone barricaded themselves inside their offices and disappeared beneath motions, discovery, and enough caffeine to qualify as a controlled substance.
My office was no different. Drafts were stacked in towers across my desk, filings spread between them, and the whiteboard had become a mess of timelines, names, and arrows looping back on themselves.
Eric was stretched out in the chair across from me, tie loose, pen tapping against his knee. He wasn't working so much as watching me work, which, irritatingly, was sometimes how he worked best.
"Cortez buried us," I muttered, flipping another page. "Every filing is designed to choke time. Does this asshole want us to represent him or to bury us?"
Eric leaned forward. "You want my read? This whole mess isn't about the motions. It's about the people. Those shells we found have too many hands in the same pot. Every time we pull one thread, three more people show up attached to it."
I capped my pen, the click of it echoing in the tense quiet between us. "That's supposed to be helpful?"
"No." Eric’s gaze didn’t waver. "Helpful would be if your wife were here right now instead of me."
My eyes lifted from the file, meeting his. The overhead light caught the faint smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.
"Touched a nerve?" he asked.
"My wife isn't relevant to this conversation." I could feel the muscle in my jaw twitch.
"She's relevant to every conversation you're not having with her."
The pen dropped from my fingers, rolling across the file before clattering to a stop against my keyboard. I stared at Eric, and he stared back, unblinking, the way he did when he knew he'd hit something I'd been deliberately sidestepping.
Things between my wife and I hadn't been the same since I'd told her about Lila.
Not broken—she'd been clear about that, painfully, admirably clear—but changed.
It lived in the small spaces. The way she paused before kissing me goodnight, and the way she'd started sleeping closer to her edge of the bed, the sheets tucked between us like a boundary neither of us had drawn but both of us felt.
She still made dinner. She still laughed at my jokes and pressed her palm flat against my chest when I came home late, feeling my heartbeat the way she always had, as if confirming I was still alive.
But the warmth behind it had thinned, like a veil had been pulled between the woman I'd married and the woman who had to absorb the fact that her husband had been an idiot.
I'd run through the excuses so many times they'd worn smooth: exhaustion, stress, the disorienting shock of her mouth landing on mine without warning. All true. None of them explained why I'd kissed her back.
Eric was still watching me, patient in the way that made him dangerous.
"She's fine," I said. The lie tasted stale even as it left my mouth.
"She's not fine. She's Julia. There's a difference. You two haven't gone this long without checking since the twins were born. You've been wound tighter than a nun's ass since we went and saw Cortez, and you haven't blinked in about forty-five seconds."
I stared at him flatly. "Beautifully phrased."
"Thank you."
"Don’t you think you might be overstepping?"
"I'm your oldest and dearest friend. Overstepping is in my job description."
"You're my PA, Eric"
"In addition too, you mean, and with an extremely flexible scope of employment."
He held my gaze until I broke it, turning back to the disordered spread of paper on my desk. "Julia and I are handling our marriage."
"I know."
"And whatever happened with Lila isn't happening again."
"I know that too."
Now I glanced at him. "Then shut the fuck up."
He grinned, slow and unrepentant
BY THE TIME I LEFT the courthouse the following afternoon, some of the edge I'd been carrying had dulled. Court had gone my way. Everything I'd asked for had been granted. One less case bleeding time from my desk. One less problem competing with Cortez for oxygen.
Eric had disappeared in search of his ninth dose of caffeine, swearing the courthouse machines were a personal affront to both coffee and humanity. The moment Judge Zunbarr's courtroom doors closed behind me, I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through missed messages.
The man treated his courtroom like a sacred temple.
God forbid a screen lit up during proceedings.
I was halfway through my notifications when a familiar scent reached me.
Jasmine. My attention lifted automatically.
Lila approached from the opposite direction with a few manila folders tucked against her chest. Likely the test cases Eric suggested we float her to see if she could be trusted.
I could have crafted a reason to terminate her, but until we knew what exactly this connection with Cortez was and how deep it went, we needed eyes on her and the information she’d accessed.
Her steps wavered the moment she spotted me. She wore a tailored charcoal-gray suit, the wool catching the overhead lights, and today her dark hair spilled free over her shoulders instead of being pinned back.
There it was again—that unwelcome spark of awareness.
My eyes locked onto details I wouldn’t have noticed weeks ago.
I resented it bitterly, torn between the thought that I’d always seen these things and never cared, or that last night had dragged her into my consciousness for the very first time. Either way, it irritated me.
“That was quick,” she said as we met in the hallway, voice smooth and professional.
“His Honor was feeling merciful,” I replied silently, but let my lips tilt into a small grin.
“Lucky for everyone, then.”
No smile answered mine, no spark of flirtation—only the memory of her mouth lingering in my mind. A flicker crossed her face before she pressed her lips into a straight line.
“Mr. Marcelli?” she asked with obvious caution.
“What?”
Her fingers clenched the folders she carried. “I’m sorry.”
I studied her, noting the slight quiver of her brow. “For what?”
She hesitated, and something else unsettled flitted across her expression before vanishing. “All of it. I know you’re happily married and would never in a million years betray your wife.”
I tried to detect some kind of sarcasm in that statement but found none.
Will this affect my employment? I’m willing to sign anything or enter a probationary period,” she continued, voice lowering.
That plea stung more than whatever had just happened in court. I exhaled, trying to steady myself. “I’m not going to undermine your career because of this. But the boundaries have shifted. You understand that?”
She met my gaze. “Yes.”
“Good. Because if my wife ever suspects something—” I let the threat hang between us. “—she’ll bury both of us, and we both know there’s nothing between us.”
“Of course.” She turned and resumed walking. No lingering looks or loaded words. Exactly how it had to remain.
I tucked my phone into my pocket and headed toward my downtown office, my footsteps echoing off the courthouse marble. When I finally burst through the glass doors, Laurel looked up from her desk. “Any messages I need to know about?”
She shuffled a stack of papers. “There was one. I meant to tell you earlier, but yesterday was chaos.”
“Just show me.”
She pushed a folded note across the desk. “Santiago Ruiz had someone drop by.”
My heart thumped. Santiago—Saint seniors adopted son and heir-apparent, a man as comfortable in boardrooms as in back alleys, and a known admirer of my wife that had me wanting to gouge his goddamn eyes out. I took a thick envelope, feeling its weight in my hand and something hard inside.
“When was he here?” I asked.
“About forty minutes ago.”
“Did he say his name?”
“No. Just that you needed to read whatever that is and Ruiz sends his regards.”
“Thanks, Laurel.”
She nodded, and I turned away already opening the envelope. By the time I reached my office door, my shoulders were rigid. If Saint had come to drop something off personally, I knew things were about to take a turn.