by Verona Vale
“You can’t blame her for wanting to avoid the bad PR. I was the one venting about that.”
“But has she encouraged you to pay out?”
“You’re taking it out of context.”
“I am absolutely not. Has she ever advised you to make a settlement?”
He didn’t like where this was going, and probably still thought I was being paranoid, but he took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
“When?”
He sighed and looked me in the eye again. “Since the beginning, after I told her it could be a PR nightmare.”
“Since then?”
“Every time I’ve hired a new lawyer. But she just wants to keep her job.”
“Even if that’s the case, even if she’s merely self-interested, she’s doing exactly what the opposition wants. Intentional or not, she’s compromising your position. She’s encouraging you to doubt your legal counsel. She’s pushing you to give out money to a legally baseless claim, and in so doing, she is acting in the exact same way as someone who is trying to help them. Why have you been listening to her?”
Victor was fuming now, and not looking at me. “It was never her idea. It was always me trying to think out loud and work through things, and she would ask a question about something I said. And she’d keep asking questions until it felt like I’d been doubting all along and she had just helped me to see how I really felt.” He turned his head toward the sea, the crash of waves hidden by the sand, but the blue horizon visible beyond.
He said, “She wasn’t turning me against my lawyers, she was turning me against myself, and making me feel like it was my own idea. Today was the first time she openly brought herself and her interests into it and actually started the conversation.”
I nodded. “Because she’s desperate. This is her last ditch effort to get you to settle, whether because she’s really afraid you’ll lose or because she’s on their side. The end result is the same—you show them weakness, and they feed on it. Let me ask you something.”
“What now?”
“Now that you know she was fueling your doubts on purpose, for whatever reason, do you still want her around?”
“No.”
“And what do you plan to say to these people who are trying to weasel a fortune out of you without a legal basis for it? These people who potentially were being fed information about your private insecurities from the beginning, and got all of their courage and strength from that alone?”
He looked at his watch. “They’ll be here any second.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say to them?”
He closed his eyes, as if accepting an unpleasant but inevitable truth. It was a moment of growth for him, I could tell. But he was the sort of person to learn from his mistakes, and once the lesson was firmly in hand, he would not repeat his missteps. That much I had known since I first met him.
He opened his eyes and turned away from the sea. “All right, you want me to give them a show of strength? Follow me.”
He strode up the path toward the house, with more power and purpose in his walk than I’d seen since, well, ever, the furnace of anger inside him burning hard under his sleek exterior. I had a feeling I was going to see the best side of him in a moment, the side of him I’d seen that evening on the beach when we’d swum out and back and his energy had been overflowing. The side of him that had gotten him here to the top of all society in the first place.
By the time we reached the meeting room, Andrea had already shown the opposition into the room, and there they sat waiting for us, giddy as ever, expecting to be handed the prize they’d fought for all this time, the prize they saw as a low-hanging fruit from a tree of money that couldn’t protect itself from exploitation.
Victor didn’t sit down, so I followed his lead and stood next to him.
With no introduction or pleasantries, he said. “I called this meeting for one reason, and one reason only—to offer you people a final chance to drop these laughable charges before Judge Wilson throws your worthless case out of court tomorrow.” He smiled then, but not in a nice way. “Now I have to admit, I’m losing a lot by asking you to bow out now, because I’d much rather see the miserable looks on your faces when law and reason boot you to the curb less than twenty-four hours from now. But I believe in mercy, however late in the game it may be. So what do you say? Admit you’ve been wrong from the start right now, or listen to Judge Wilson explain tomorrow just how devoid of sense you’ve been?”
They had been bluffing since the charges were filed, and they saw this speech as another bluff from Sterling. I knew it wasn’t. Nevertheless, the opposing lawyer looked up at Victor completely unfazed.
“It’s not we who are being given the choice,” she said. “Your choice—your last one before this case gets heard and then sent to trial, where we will assuredly win—is to agree to the settlement we’ve discussed, or face the consequences. You can talk down to us and insult us all you like, but it doesn’t change the facts.”
Sterling raised his eyebrows. “If you think coming after my money out of no justification but greed is going to earn you any respect from me, you’re mistaken. And as for facts, chew on this one: I’ll see your sorry ass in court.”
He left the room.
After a beat to let that exit sink in, I put a sheet on the table. “I took the liberty of preparing a statement to formally drop the charges. You know where to sign.”
And then I followed Victor and left the opposition empty-handed at the table. Andrea was standing outside the room, but Victor had apparently said nothing to her. Our eyes met, and I smiled with as much sincerity as I could muster, aware that she was likely minutes from the proverbial guillotine.
“Show them out, would you?” I said. I didn’t wait around to see what contempt might spread across her face after that, and felt no sadness at the thought that I might have just seen her for the last time.
~
The rest of the day was spent reworking my statement for the hearing tomorrow, making sure I had every loophole covered, every context accounted for, and a completely watertight argument against any possible basis for their claims. It was remarkable, in retrospect, that they’d managed to make it this far, and I personally thought that without Andrea, they wouldn’t have stood a chance—she might have given them the initial bait of Sterling’s insecurity or someone else might have; I supposed we’d never know which—but without her continued fueling of his doubts, it would have ended long before I came into the picture. I supposed I had her to thank for that, after all I’d learned about myself from this case.
After Andrea had shown out the opposition, Sterling had called her into his office. I didn’t stick around to listen to the gory details, but I knew she wouldn’t be setting foot in Sterling House after this.
When all the paperwork was finished, I found myself glancing at my phone, wondering if somehow things could have worked out with Nick. But that was me making the same mistake as Sterling—doubting myself when all of the evidence pointed in a clear direction. Nick believed our needs were too different, and perhaps his belief made it so. It was a sad end to our second try, what had ended up being a one-night stand without any of the simplicity of being strangers. It would be a painful episode to look back on, and we might not be able to retain our friendship. I sat on the side of the bed and let that thought linger a little. The most I could get out of it was that maybe I could start a new chapter in my life full steam ahead. I didn’t take much comfort in that, as much as I might have wished to.
I expected not to sleep well in the face of such a big day tomorrow, but the flight from the night before caught up with me and I dropped like an olive into a martini and was out.
Ten
The courtroom on the mainland was tense and full of reporters in the back, all of whom would be sorry to leave without the story they were hoping for. I was confident of that. There were a lot of hearings on the agenda today, so the place was crowded, but I knew the reporters
were here for Sterling’s case alone.
Since the court was back on the mainland, I’d had to talk to Sterling this morning about whether he’d need anything more from me after the verdict. We’d kept it businesslike, and he’d said no, but that if we won, I was welcome to return to the resort for as long I’d like to vacation there, and he’d consider it a perk of doing business with him. Because we hadn’t technically won yet, I told him that sounded nice. It was an awkward moment, neither of us acknowledging the obvious elephant in the room. Things had changed between us, but I felt like we had gotten through the rough patch. Maybe, once this was finally settled, we could say whatever it was we wanted to say.
The judge came out, worked through a few minor claims, and then called me and the plaintiff’s counsel forward. One of the reasons Sterling had decided not to come to court in person was to further reinforce the message that this wasn’t worth his time.
I came forward to the microphone. “I represent Mr. Sterling, your honor.”
The judge waited for the plaintiff’s lawyer to join me.
The Asian woman from the meetings came forward. She read off an extremely long statement full of circuitous language and puffery, then listed off a long enumeration of the damages ostensibly done to the plaintiffs, finishing up with some harsh language about the irresponsibility of Sterling’s company. It might have convinced a judge who had no familiarity with contract law, and it might have won over a sympathetic jury who didn’t care to understand the details, but to me it was no better than rattling off a grocery list: they had no ace in the hole. This had been a money-grab they thought they could win, perhaps because they had an inside ally. Legally, they were sunk.
The judge listened lethargically, then turned to me. “And what is Mr. Sterling’s response to these charges?”
I read out my own statement, which quoted so many relevant clauses from the contract that even if three-quarters of them had been dubious, the remaining quarter would still have been damning on their own. “Simply put,” I finished, “the plaintiff’s claims are not only devoid of all legal weight, they are in fact completely paradoxical given the contractual specifications I’ve just listed. This is a matter of someone not liking the conditions they’ve already agreed to, and it’s already been a profound waste of public time and funds to hear this case at all.”
The judge nodded. “I rather agree. Case dismissed.”
I smiled. “Thank you, your honor.” I put away my statement and turned to the opposition. “Was Andrea supposed to be your ace in the hole? Judge Wilson certainly wasn’t.”
The woman looked at me. “Doubt is more powerful than you realize. It brings the strong to weakness.”
“I realize exactly how powerful doubt is,” I said. “But it’s not as powerful as me.”
I left the courtroom and called Sterling to tell him the news. He was ecstatic, thanked me profusely, then said, “So are you coming back to the island? I remember I promised you a trip to space as well, though that may be longer in coming. But I hope you’ll take advantage of everything I’ve offered.”
That tone was all I needed to know what he was thinking. “That depends on which room I get to stay in.”
“Any room you want.”
“Really,” I said, with all the double-meaning I could squeeze into it. “Any room?”
“Any at all.”
I grinned. “I’ll be on the next flight.”
~
He met me right at the plane this time, and as soon as I was out the doorway we were in each other’s arms. His big hands were warmer and gentler than ever, and juxtaposed with the clear-headed strength he’d shown yesterday, their softness was all the more powerful. We looked at each other’s faces, smiling, no longer stymied by some undercurrent of stress, instead simply open, happy, free. He leaned in, and his lips on mine were strong, seeking, asking, and I let them take.
“How long are you staying?” he finally said, his mouth on my neck and my ear.
I ran my hands up his solid back and dug myself into him. “I might never leave.”
“How can I get rid of that ‘might’?”
“You’re doing okay so far.”
“I’ll do even better,” he said, and he picked me up so quickly I had to laugh, feeling uprooted and nervous inside and yet completely trusting him. He carried me up toward the house, and I didn’t know quite what to expect inside, but I had a feeling Victor hadn’t even begun to show me all that he was intent to offer. As he climbed the grass, I held onto his shoulders and caught a glimpse of the ocean in the distance under the afternoon sky, its wide blue reaching out beyond forever and hiding within itself so much mystery. Yet down at the beach, the waters rolled in clear, letting the sunlight swing across the sand beneath them, everything bright and visible and certain. Since I first came to the island, things had grown ever clearer, and I let Victor carry me wherever he liked, like he was a wave and I was floating on him.
His bedroom, I’m sure, was the most lavishly ornate thing imaginable, but by that time I had closed my eyes, leaned my head into his chest, and forgotten everything in the world but his strong body around me. My eyes stayed closed as he laid me on the mattress, kissed my neck, and began to undress me. Nothing in the world could have broken the freedom of that moment, of completely letting go of all control and letting him please me. I had told the opposition lawyer that I was powerful, but what I hadn’t said is that power can be exhausting. While Victor’s hands massaged my body and his mouth kissed mine, I gladly let go the baton of control and let him express the hugeness of strength and heart that all along I’d known was in him. I had been strong when he needed to be weak, and now he was returning the favor. I let myself evaporate into his firmness and muscle, his strong fullness, let myself be filled by it, and let myself become that ocean of clarity, that cloudless sky, that endless, beautiful shoreline of waves ever-crashing, ever-receding, ever-merging the landscape of rock and water into one.
The End
About the Author
Verona Vale has been writing fiction for over ten years, and holds a Master of Fine Arts in the craft of fiction. This is her first published novel. You can follow her online at www.veronavale.com.