“Are you sure?” I pushed.
She sighed, pushing herself away from her desk and rising. She turned to face me. “Now that you’ve mentioned it, how long have I been working for you?”
“Eight years, give or take.”
“I understand that you’re busy being the Great Levi Black and all, but you would think for my years of dedication at the very least you could—”
Walking over to her desk, I pulled open the bottom drawer, reached all the way into the back of it and placed the pretty blue box on her desk.
I grinned, “Go on?”
“You’re a horrible young man,” she laughed as she lifted the lid and examined the contents of the box.
Her eyes lit up and a smile broke out across her face as she removed the tickets to her favorite performance of Swan Lake.
“You also have a dinner for two at Chateau La Rue, for anytime you want.”
“Levi—” she replied.
“Happy Birthday Betty.”
“Thank you.”
Nodding, I turned back to the other woman in my life. She stood at the window that overlooked all of Boston.
“Enjoying the view?”
“You just had to go and do something sweet,” she whispered, even though I saw the corners of her mouth turn up. I stepped behind her. “What do you need, Mr. Black?”
“You,” I casually replied, “but since that isn’t on the table right now, I’ll have to settle with this.” I handed her the case file.
She stepped away from me, and I reached for my guitar before taking a seat in my chair.
“I don’t understand.”
“Tell me how you would lead this case,” I replied, strumming the strings on the neck of my guitar.
“You’re kidding?”
“Figuratively of course. I like you, but I’m not willing to leave a woman’s future in your hands just yet. You kept your name on the board, which means you’re still the head of the pack. The deal is, if you do that, I’ll personally train you, and this is a training exercise. Now how would you run the case?”
“I would need to read—”
“You’ve been looking over the case for the last two months. If you still need to read anything, then you’re dreaming if you think you can be a lawyer.”
She glared, throwing the file onto my desk and crossed her arms.
“I wouldn’t waste a jury’s time trying to make Mrs. Nash look good, because it would be an insult to their intelligence. I would come right out and say it; Mrs. Nash hated her husband. Right off the bat, they might hate Mrs. Nash, but they will trust me because I’m the only one not blowing hot air.”
“Okay, what next?” I kicked my feet up, tightening the strings before I began playing again.
“Next, I would make it clear that Mrs. Nash was not the only person that hated him. When his daughter takes the stand, I would ask her how it felt to be cut off from the family fortune—”
“Guilty.”
“What?”
“I said ‘guilty’ because if that’s how you’re going to present this case, that’s what the jury will decide.”