With a pout, Claire produced my phone from her pocket. I glanced at it, feeling my pulse quickening against the collar of my shirt. I had over fifty missed calls from Arya. And some texts too. The minute the face recognition was on, the texts began sliding down chronologically on the screen one by one.
Arya: How could you do this to me?
Arya: You’ve SHATTERED my career. I can’t show my face ever again. And my nonexistent relationship with my mother is over. Not to mention my father (who is dead to me, but it would have been nice to make that choice myself).
Ruined her career? Her relationships? What the hell was she on about?
Arya: What I don’t understand is how you could be so heartless? How you did it on the same night you promised you wouldn’t break my trust.
Arya: I’ll give you that, it was a genius move. You probably had a blast laughing about it in court. Now you can go back to Claire. I know you guys were casual, but man, you deserve each other.
Claire must’ve seen the confusion clouding my face, because I noticed her licking her lips in my periphery, shifting from one foot to the other. “Everything okay?”
“I—” I paused, trying to understand what was happening here, until it clicked. The limo. Claire talking to Darrin. Knowing my whereabouts with Arya. The way she’d pursued me relentlessly.
Press. That was the one thing Arya and I had agreed not to involve. We didn’t want to be seen or caught.
My eyes glided up from my phone. I could feel my gaze turning hard, callous, as I watched Claire’s face. “What have you done?”
“I . . . I . . .” She tried to take a step back, but she was pressed against the wall, with nowhere to go. I’d never thought of myself as someone who could hurt a woman, but in that moment, I knew I could hurt Claire. Not physically, no. But I could fire her. Banish her. Make her a persona non grata in Manhattan’s legal circle.
“Speak.”
Claire dropped her head, shaking it as she covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. I just told a friend of mine who works at the Manhattan Times. That’s it. It slipped.” She cringed. But she wasn’t fooling anyone, and she knew it. I took a step back, knowing full well I wasn’t in control of myself. Arya must be thinking the worst of me right now.
“Leave.” I breathed through my nose, digging my thumb and index finger into my eye sockets.
“To . . . my office?”
“To . . . the fucking hellhole where you came from.” I mimicked her tone derisively, opening my eyes again. “And don’t come back. Ever.”
“We just won a case.”
“You lost all credibility with me the minute you leaked a story about me to a journalist.”
“You can’t do that!” Claire flung her arms in the air. “You can’t make a decision like that without consulting Traurig and Cromwell. You’ve been a partner for all of five minutes.”
“All right.” I smiled cordially. “Let’s go to Cromwell’s office right now and tell him what you did. See how it’s going to fare for you.”
Her face whitened. What the hell had she thought? That I wasn’t going to find out? Claire hugged her arms, looking down at the floor.
“What did you think?” I spit out, curious about the rationale behind this atrocity.
“I thought after the trial was over you were going to dump her. But I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to take any chances. And I certainly didn’t think you’d care all that much. Not to mention . . .” She blew out air, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I simply didn’t think. That’s the thing. That’s what happens when you’re in love. Have you ever been in love, Christian?”
I was about to say no, I hadn’t, and that fact had nothing to do with anything, when I realized . . . I couldn’t say that for sure.
“Good luck seeing yourself out, Miss Lesavoy.”
I brushed past Claire’s shoulder, heading out of the office. I didn’t tell a soul. My PA jumped up, asking where I was heading. She was met with no reply. My first stop was Arya’s office. I buzzed the building’s intercom, getting through to Whitney or Whitley or whatever her name was. The receptionist didn’t answer me verbally. She did push her upper body through the window of her office and pour her lukewarm coffee atop my head before finishing the gesture by slamming her glass window shut.
Though aware that I had become public enemy number one in Arya’s camp, I still thought I could salvage it. If she gave me the time to explain and I told her all about Claire, she’d understand. Arya was a highly pragmatic person with a terrific bullshit meter. She’d know I was telling the truth.