Three Sweet Nothings (Blindfold Club 5)
Her posture sagged. It was like my disappointment was physically crushing her. “I . . .”
“I’ve got a client in my office. You need to go.”
Fresh tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Even if they fell, I was too angry to let them get to me. Did she realize how badly she’d fucked this up? I went to the door and tugged it open, not looking at her as she exited.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she lingered in the doorway.
It came out colder than I intended. “Yeah, me, too.”
I escorted Ruby to the elevators, not saying a word. Disappointment churned inside my stomach like bile and blotted everything out. She stepped into the empty car, turned to face me in the lobby, and her expression was haunting. She wore guilt and remorse in equal parts, but I wasn’t going to waver. I crossed my arms over my chest to steel myself.
When the doors began their slow slide shut, panic overtook her, like she worried this would be the last time we’d see each other. Her voice was broken. “Goodbye.”
I said nothing.
The doors closed and the elevator carried her away.
Ruby had rendered a guilty verdict before I’d had a fucking chance to defend myself, and I’d never been so angry in all my life.
Oh, wait. No, I thought bitterly. She’d done this to me before, hadn’t she? What had I expected? I was a fool. I deserved to get brutalized by her a second time. I’d been dumb enough to let it happen.
My feet were blocks of concrete as I walked back to the front desk. The audience of two who’d witnessed Ruby’s outburst was still there. Suzanne’s gaze dropped down to her desktop, but my father’s didn’t waver. It put me under a microscope which he turned up to the highest magnification, until he could see every flaw.
“My office,” he ordered. “Now.” The edge to his words was a crack of whip. Then he turned and instructed Suzanne to ask Mr. Gillespie to reschedule.
As a partner, my father’s office was easily twice the size of mine. It was decorated to be elegant and precise. There weren’t any pictures of family. Not one. I’d overheard him joke once to another attorney at the firm how he did that on purpose. It was easier for his clients to see him as less than human that way. He didn’t have emotions or family obligations to get in the way of his job. They were supposed to believe he was fully dedicated to their case.
It was pure bullshit.
He didn’t have family photos because he didn’t care. He had a newspaper article framed from the first big case he’d argued and won. Money, power, and winning. These were the things that mattered to him.
“What the hell was that?” My father’s voice grated on me. I was too upset about what had happened to give much of a shit about his impending lecture. “We can’t have one of your girlfriends coming here. Jesus, Kyle. I’ve never seen something more unprofessional. Thank the lord no one else saw it.”
Whatever. I turned and gazed out his window. He had a better view of the lake, and I stared at the icy edge of the water where it had frozen to the shore.
“And thank God no one heard it.”
“Yeah, I feel real lucky right now.”
He didn’t notice how flat my voice was, or how dead my expression had to be. All he was worried about was how this could negatively reflect on him. “That cannot happen again. Do you understand? I won’t tolerate it.”
He scolded me just like this when I’d come home with a B on a report card once.
“Okay,” I said.
He halted his movement, looking visibly thrown. He’d expected me to defend myself, or at least plead my case, but I didn’t have the energy.
“Okay?” he repeated, stunned. My single word agreement seemed to take all the wind out of his sails, and now he was adrift, unsure where to go.
“Yeah.”
He lived for the fight, and had no idea how to handle a surrender. “Don’t you care about how that scene made us look?”
“Not really. You don’t care about me, so why should I care about you?”
He scowled. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course I care about you.”
“All right.” The urge to prove my point was too powerful to resist. “Who was that woman out front, and what’s her name?”