by Bay, Louise
“Beer,” Douglas said, thumping down a huge jug of foaming alcohol on the table. Another student set down a jug and Christine, who also sat next to me in lectures, put down a tray of glasses.
“Here’s to getting drunk,” a dark-haired girl—Erin or Erica, I thought—said from across the table.
Douglas turned to me and tapped his glass against mine. “Here’s to getting drunk with you.”
I smiled. I’d have to put some distance between us. Before London I would probably have been naked with him before the end of the day, but he held no appeal. Next to Knightley, Douglas seemed like a boy. His eagerness, the way he was unable to disguise what he was thinking, it all seemed so juvenile compared to Alexander’s contained passion.
Such bright images flooded my brain whenever I thought of him. He would have finished his trial by now. He’d be on to the next thing. No doubt the files were already piling up in his office. He may even have expelled Sebastian. Life would have gone back to normal for Alexander, as if I’d never even existed.
But my life would never be the same.
Loving Knightley had enabled me to unbind myself from the shackles I’d worn since college. It had shown me that my feelings for my college boyfriend were nothing in comparison. If Alexander had betrayed me in the way David had, I would never have survived—my view of the world would have been so completely shattered. But he’d never treat me like that. Alexander was a lot of things, and he may have hurt me, but he wasn’t capable of betrayal.
Alexander Knightley had taught me what I was capable of, what I wanted, and who I was.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alexander
I slumped into my chair. I was done.
Sebastian sat and put his head on his desk.
“Go home,” I said.
“I don’t think I’ll make it.” He sounded pathetic. The trial had been exhausting, but it was done. The leftover adrenaline would see him into a cab.
I picked up a note that had been left on my desk from Lance, asking me to pop into his office before I left for the night. I glanced at my watch. It was only three but it felt later. I’d go and see him and head back to the hotel and book a flight.
We wouldn’t get a verdict for days. Maybe longer, and I wasn’t going to hang around for it. I needed to go and find Violet. It had been nearly a week since I’d seen Darcy, and I’d been rehearsing all my arguments carefully, building my case. Now this trial was over, I just needed to find her and start fighting for her. I just didn’t know if I could win her back in a weekend. Any good barrister knows the arguments of his opponents before he hears them. I knew Violet would challenge me. She’d want to know how I could prove to her that I’d be different. How I could guarantee that I wouldn’t hurt her again. So far I had no evidence.
I stood up. “I don’t want you here when I get back,” I said and stalked out to find Lance.
His office was further along the corridor in a quiet spot with a view of the courtyard. He’d been in the same space for the last thirty years, and before that, in the room next door.
I knocked at the half-open door and stepped inside.
“Good to see you, Alex, come in,” he said.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in this office, or any room in chambers other than my room or the clerks’ office. And of course, the admin staff’s room when I went in to drop off one of the gifts I used to buy Violet. I took a deep breath at the thought of her. I had no idea where she was or what she was doing. If she thought of me, she’d know exactly where I’d be and what I’d be working on. It seemed unfair and uneven. I couldn’t even properly imagine her—I’d never seen her on her home territory.
“Take a seat,” Lance said, lifting his chin in the direction of one of the chairs opposite his desk. “This has been a very complicated case—you must be exhausted.”
I nodded and sat, resting my arms on the mahogany arms of the chair. I was also as confident as one could be about the verdict. The arguments had presented well and the judge had seemed sympathetic. But Lance was right—I was shattered. I couldn’t remember ever feeling this tired.
“I hear from Craig that your performance has been outstanding. Lots of people have been talking about how you’re just like your father.”
It didn’t surprise me that Craig had been in to watch me. It was a crucial case in my career and one that could have broken me. It hadn’t. A flash of Violet’s smile appeared in my mind. Maybe it had.
“But I am a little worried about you,” Lance said, his brow furrowed.
Lance had been a constant mentor to me throughout my career, but I couldn’t remember him ever saying he was worried about me.
“Don’t concern yourself. I just need a good night’s rest and a decent bottle of red wine.” I smiled but Lance remained stony faced.
“We were very sad to lose Violet. I’m sure you were too,” he said. He scanned my face as if he were inspecting me, looking for my reaction. Was he trying to gauge how I felt about her leaving?
I drew in a deep breath. “Yes, well, Columbia’s a good school. I’m sure she’ll do well.” I was planning to fly out this weekend to put my case to her—to start my fight for her.
Lance nodded slowly. “I realize I’m speaking out of turn . . .”
I tightened my grip on the arms of the chair. What was he going to say? Was he going to tell me I’d been a fool? I knew that already.
“But I think Violet was good for you. Now, I don’t begin to presume what went on between the two of you, but I do think she was the only woman who ever matched you stroke for stroke. You two are quite different, but Violet is your equal.”
I swallowed. Lance and I rarely discussed anything personal, and I didn’t quite know how to react. “I’ve no doubt that Violet is at the very least my equal.” She was more than I could ever possibly deserve. “But you know how bad I am with women. I put work first like I always have done. And now Violet’s back in New York.”
“I’m not so sure you’re bad with women. More that you’re on unfamiliar territory as far as a woman as special as Violet is concerned. This job is demanding. And it can be a very lonely life—married or single. I’ve been lucky with Flavia. And not because she’s understanding about my hours but because I want to get home to her. She is a sufficient counterweight to the pull of our profession. You need a woman who you yearn to see at the end of the day. If you’ve found that in Violet, you mustn’t let her go.”
I sighed and my shoulders dropped. That’s exactly who Violet was, the only woman who could inspire me to give up Saturday nights at work. Now that she was gone, I wanted more than Saturday nights together, but how would I prove that to her? “I’m planning to fly over this weekend. I need to apologize properly. I messed up.”
“But you’re worried it won’t be enough.”
“I feel like I’m missing the evidence—how do I prove to her that it will be different? I’m going to try.”
He nodded, and his gaze wandered around the room as if he were trying to come up with a solution for me. “Well I might have just the thing for you. One of the reasons I asked you to pop in was because I just had a call from an old friend of mine. You know I have lectured in New York before now?”
I frowned. “I thought you did that at Harvard?” What had that got to do with anything?
“Yes, Harvard and also Columbia. My old chum is the president of Columbia law school, and he needs someone to help him out of a hole. I was hoping you might be the man for the job.”
“What does he need?”
“Someone to take the international law module at Columbia this semester. The person they had lined up has been taken sick at the very last minute.”
I’d expected him to say that his friend wanted some advice. Maybe wanted me to contribute a chapter to a textbook. A teaching post was the very last thing I was expecting Lance to suggest. “Lecture? But I’ve never considered teaching. Why—”
“Maybe not. But you admit you’
re tired. And Violet leaving is upsetting news for all of us, not least for you. This could be a chance to reassess what you want from your life, your career. You can think about your practice, decide whether you need a change in direction.”
I frowned, wondering why he’d think my practice would need a change in direction. “My career? That’s the only thing I am certain of. I’ve spent so long laying the foundation. I think I’m finally on the right track.”
“You mean your father’s track.”
I wanted to be the best at the bar, so of course it made sense that I would follow the footsteps of the best who went before me. Those footsteps just happened to be my father’s.
“The thing is, your father’s legacy is just that—a career left behind, seen with the benefit of hindsight. We can discard the parts that don’t fit into his legend because it’s in the past. But this isn’t his career we’re talking about—it’s yours. Your time. Your life. You need to create something you can be proud of and stop measuring yourself against a man who isn’t here to tell you that there were downsides to leaving the legacy he did, sacrifices he wouldn’t make again.”
I only measured myself against him because he happened to be the best. Not because he was my father. And he’d only ever regaled me with stories of the good times. I’d never heard him say anything negative about the choices he’d made.
“There are sacrifices in whatever choices one makes,” I replied. “I just want to be the best at what I do.” I leaned forward in my chair.
“But what does being the best mean? It has many interpretations. Does it mean earning a lot of money, acquiring a myth to equal Alexander the Great, getting the best cases? Maybe it means having a career that allows you to give back to the generation behind you. Perhaps it means being a loving father, or being well-travelled and experiencing as much of the world as it has to offer? It could be enough to be a dedicated, devoted husband who knows the love of his equal.” He paused, bringing his hands together. “Being successful can mean a lot of things. I know your father felt like he failed you and your brother, but by the time he understood that there was more to life than law, he was too old to know how to do anything else. Too old to tell the people who looked up to him and relied on him that he wanted a change. Don’t let it be too late for you.”
I cleared my throat, beating down the emotion rising in me. I could never imagine my father failing at anything. The man I knew was a conqueror, a winner. He wasn’t regretful.
I wasn’t sure which way was up at the moment. Could my father have wanted more, something different? Had he ever lost anything as precious to him as Violet was to me?
“You don’t need to have the same career he did for you to honor him, for him to be proud of you. I think he’d want more for you.”
I couldn’t speak.
“Watching you over the years,” Lance continued. “I’ve often wondered whether your drive was really a desire to get your father’s attention—no doubt you were starved of it as a child. But actually I wonder if you’re searching for him in these walls, among the paper. You know your father’s office was a similar mess.”
“I remember.” I smiled.
“Maybe working is my way of keeping him close.” My father was all around me while I was in chambers—it felt as if he were still here and I was still eight years old, sitting at his desk, surrounded by paper.
“I think so.” Lance nodded. “Maybe it’s time to let him go and look to your future, not your past.”
We sat there for a few minutes in silence as I thought back to memories of my father in this very building. I wished I’d had more time with him, gotten a chance to share an office with him the way I’d thought I would as a child. But Lance was right, working myself into the ground wasn’t going to bring him back.
If I let my father and his legacy fade from the finish line in front of me, what was I left with? What did I really want? I couldn’t bear the thought of not having seen the world before it was too late, to not love and be loved. As much as my career was important to me, I knew that there were other things out there—Violet had showed me that. I just always saw any other desires or goals as something I’d pick up when my race to be the best was over.
One thing was for sure. Being without Violet felt wrong and I had to make it right. There was no way she was going to hang around and wait for me to finish anything, and that meant something had to change. I had to change. I had to show her that I’d learned from her leaving. Not just tell her.
“I think you’re right, Lance.” I was like a supertanker going in one direction, deciding I might want to change course, head for the Med and transform into a yacht. Wasn’t it just impossible?
“Teaching would be an experiment. An opportunity to try something new and decide if you want to change track or just slow down.”
Was it really as easy as Lance made it sound? “It’s a risk,” I said.
“But not going, the risk is you lose Violet. Three months isn’t a great deal of time in the scheme of things. It may be long enough for you to get some perspective. I’m sure we can rearrange things so you don’t have to worry about anything while you’re gone.”
Changing the course of my career would certainly surprise her. I’d expected her to move continents to study in order to stay with me. It had never been a consideration that I would be the one to cross the ocean. It hadn’t even occurred to me. But was it really possible? For three months? “Wouldn’t that devastate my practice? This case will create a real buzz and I—”
He silenced me with a look. “Nothing in relation to your career will be devastated in three months. Teaching is very likely to enhance it. And you might even enjoy it. Columbia is one of the best law schools in America, but they need someone to start immediately.”
I swallowed. Could I just abandon everything I’d built here and go off and become a professor? “What do I know about teaching?”
“You’d have assistants to help you prepare. They like to have guest professors. When I retire, I’d like to do it a little longer. It allows me to remember what it was to be young. And I like to feel as if I’m sharing my knowledge.”
“You think I can just walk away for three months?”
“You’re not walking away from anything. You’re moving towards something. At the very least it would allow some room in your life for conscious thought, to uncouple your father’s myth from your destiny.”
I blew out a puff of air, leaned forward, and rested my head in my hands. Perhaps it would be what I needed. At the moment I was hurtling toward my target at a million miles an hour, but was using so much energy I wasn’t sure I’d survive until the end. I’d already lost Violet along the way—what was next? My sanity?
“You wouldn’t be sitting on a beach doing nothing. You’d make new contacts, and add an impressive post to your CV.”
Whether or not I believed it, I could tell Lance thought this was a tremendous opportunity at the time I needed it most. And I trusted him. He’d been a guide throughout my career and never steered me wrong. Perhaps this was the day I needed to seize. Three months would go by in a blink of an eye and before I knew it, I’d return, reinvigorated and refreshed. I might have even won Violet back.
“Three months. Just seize the day,” I said out loud but to myself. Saying the words was like tipping weight from a sinking raft. Instantly I felt lighter and more energized. It would be a new challenge, something completely different, and it might prove to Violet how much I loved her.
“I think I’m interested. You think the clerks can rearrange things here in chambers?”
He smiled. “The graves are full of indispensable men.”
I nodded. It was arrogant to assume my caseload wouldn’t be easily distributed between other members of chambers. “I could go this weekend even,” I said. I’d planned to fly to New York this weekend anyway. I didn’t want to wait a moment longer than I must to see Violet again, to apologize in person. “This president friend of yours. He just hap
pened to call you? It seems like rather a coincidence.”
“I spoke to him last night,” he said and smiled. It was the perfect lawyer’s response—a careful description of the truth.
“You never know, it might be the best thing to ever have happened to me.”
“Or that might happen while you’re there.”
The longer I was without Violet, the more I realized how much she meant, how foolish I’d been to spend any time at work if I could have spent it with her instead. Lance was right—she was the only woman who could pull my attention away from work, show me there was more to life, and I needed to win her back and then hold on to her. I hoped going to New York and lecturing was the evidence I needed to show her how important she was.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alexander
Lance had been right about coming to New York. I’d known it the moment I’d agreed to come, but as I’d stepped off the plane yesterday a weight had lifted, not from my shoulders but from my very soul. Teaching was something my father had never done. There was nothing to live up to, and I had no caseload to manage, no concern that the work would dry up, no pleadings to draft, no strategy to create. For the first time in my life I was excited about my job—not pleased because something had gone well or relieved I’d got some work in, but genuinely excited.
Campus was quiet as I wandered across the South Lawn Saturday morning. I’d wanted to take a look at the place before I started on Monday.
The place reminded me a little of the Inns of Court. It was relatively peaceful among the bustle of Manhattan. But the buildings were larger—a pastiche of various eras rather than the organic mishmash of Lincoln’s Inn. I enjoyed the difference and took comfort from the similarities.
The law school and the business school were quite separate, but it felt odd to be so close to Violet, yet for her to have no idea I was here. Perhaps my exploration today was really a desire to bump into her. I hadn’t decided how to tell her I was here or even what to say.