I ignore the jab and cut to the chase.
“Why did you take this case, Remi?” I ask him.
“Because this is my city. That flood, some of the images I saw, will haunt me for the rest of my life. It’s been a month and we’re seeing stories of families getting back in the homes. But those are the people with good fucking insurance and savings. And Wilde Law is no different from any other Wilde World enterprise. We serve the Houstonians that a lot of people have forgotten about. Not because we’re bleeding hearts, but because we’re them. The underdogs. My grandfather was the son of Irish immigrants, my mother the daughter of Jamaicans who sailed on the Windrush to the UK. They’ve had to overcome more than you can imagine to get to where they are. And Houston made all of that possible. The people who shop in our stores, the people who eat at our restaurants and buy gas from our stations. So, I took the case because I want to do something good for my people.” His voice brims with passion and I know I made the right decision coming here today.
“Then hire Confidence. She’s the best. That gossip about her is bullshit. You don’t know me well, but if you think I’d let a woman who was less than fucking incredible near my family or me, you’re crazy,” I tell him.
He eyes me with an enigmatic expression and then says, “Where is she?”
“Arkansas. “
“Your girl is in Arkansas? Why?” he asks with an annoying chuckle.
“She lives there,” I say defensively. He raises an I smell BS eyebrow.
“And I fucked up when she was here and she’s not talking to me,” I say and take a big gulp of coffee.
His chuckle turns into a guffaw.
I glower at him.
“Sorry, man,” he says and doesn’t sound sorry at all.
“Interview her. With hurricane season in Houston being an annual event, you’ll never be short of work, and she’ll draw clients for you,” I say.
“And I could get her here for you, so you could try to win her back without going to Arkansas?”
“Yes. And I went to Arkansas. Two weeks ago. She pulled her shotgun out and trained it on me. I didn’t get close enough to talk to her.”
He bursts into raucous laughter and claps his hands together.
“Oh, shit. Does she have a sister?” he asks.
“No,” I say, unamused.
“So, do you want me to tell her you asked me to interview her?”
“No. She won’t take the job if you tell her that. And I don’t want you to hire her unless you think she’s the best person for the job.”
“I’m too addicted to winning to hire losers. If I hire her, it’s because I know she’s going to deliver the best thing possible for the clients. And Barry is a shit. It would be nice to have someone more invested leading the case. So, yeah. I’ll call her. Get her down here. But we’ll have to disclose your relationship to the clients because they should know. “
“She’s not talking to me. Nothing to disclose,” I say.
“If she wants this job, she’ll have to get over that and also talk to and about you in a professional manner. No domestic drama at the office,” he says.
“Let me just tell you. When you meet her, you’ll think she’s the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” I say.
He scoffs.
“You’ll see when you meet her. Just remember that you will have to end my life to get anywhere near her.”
He does that annoying whistle of his. “Damn. It’s like that?” he grimaces in sympathy. “Look, if that’s your girl … you better get in there quick. Nothing more dangerous than a good woman getting taste of the world without the aftertaste of whatever bullshit you made her put up with … if she gets too much of that … she’ll never take you back,” he taunts, but I detect the whiff of experience in his advice.
The idea of her getting over me makes me feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. I can’t let that happen. And yet, what does it say about how I’ve treated her if she prefers her world without me in it? I mean, she’s not exactly a constant bundle of fun, but I can’t imagine life without her. The thought of it makes me howl crazy at the moon.
“If she takes the interview, I’ll let you know. But if you asked me not to say anything, then don’t go telling her yourself. I’m not trying to have her hating me because she thinks I was trying to pull your chain and used her to do it.”
“She’s too smart for that. She knows I would never do anything like that.”
“If you say so, but if that shit hits the fan …”
“It won’t. I won’t let it. I promise.”
He eyes me.
“So, since I have no clue what the feud is about—and my grandfather’s health has failed so badly that he can’t even tell me—I think it’s time we ended it,” he says.
“Just like that?” I ask, but my respect for him doubles. I like how direct he is. And I like that he’s not interested in a grudge for the sake of it.
“Agreed,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re back. That family of yours needs new blood. Your uncle’s a cold motherfucker. I was a kid when you were, so I don’t remember much about your dad’s time, but from what I understand, it was nothing like this.” He shakes his head, and I’m embarrassed that I can’t say more than a noncommittal, “I know. I’ve got a lot to dig out of and no power; at least, not from the company. I’m just a figurehead. But I have money and discretion on how it’s spent,” I say.
“That’s all the power you need. Where are your brothers?” His pivot is unexpected, but I don’t mind. I’ve said everything I came to. Accomplished everything I needed to. So, I give him the rundown.
“Dare is raising hell in LA. Stone is saving lives in Medellin and Beau is probably high, sitting naked in a Mexican dessert playing his guitar to the moon,” I say.
He laughs.
“What about your siblings?” I ask.
“They’re in Houston. Working for Wilde World. Except for Regan. Tyson manages operations for the grocery stores. We’re all grinding. My mother is between here and her place in Montego Bay. We’re good. My grandfather’s still holding on,” he replies. “So, Italy? With your aunt? How was that?”
“It was good. I learned Italian. No pasta eating on a beach, but Positano is beautiful and she was devoted to me and making sure I would be ready to come back. Even though, it turns out, there wasn’t much to come back to.
“Well, make it count, kid. And I’ll call your girl.”
TWIST
CONFIDENCE
“This is incredible,” I say giddily to the very handsome, very charming man walking beside me. “What you described has me salivating. It’s the case of a lifetime. There are so many questions with conflicting federal rulings. This could go to the Supreme Court,” I say and then bite my tongue.
“Yeah, if it doesn’t settle, it has that potential,” Remington agrees.
“I shouldn’t sound so happy at the sound of prolonged litigation, should I?” I ask him sheepishly.
“You wouldn’t be worth the paper that Doctor of Juris Prudence is scrawled on if you weren’t, counselor.” He winks one of his twinkly, wide, lushly-lashed, Milky Way dark eyes at me and I nearly trip over my feet. He smiles as if to say, yeah, I get that all the time. I bet he does. He told me his mother is Jamaican and his father is a second-generation Irish American. Well, Jamaica and Ireland should find a way to merge because their citizens clearly were born to procreate with each other. He is the definition of a heartthrob. He even smells good.
We step out onto the main street of Rivers Wilde, and I can’t believe all of this is happening. “I didn’t expect to be leaving here with a signed contract. I thought we’d have several interviews,” I say.
“Well, I didn’t want to let you leave here without a guarantee that you’d come back. You’re everything these plaintiffs need, and I’m just glad you’re in a position to start so quickly,” he says, like I’m doing him a favor.
The day he called had been a bad day. I’d gotten another letter of rejection from a firm in Nashville, and I was down to no more than a couple of months’ living expenses. I needed a shoulder to cry on, and the only one I wanted was attached to the biggest asshole in the world.
I was on the verge of calling him to yell at him—again—when I got Remington’s email. It was my first interview in months. The first application that had even garnered an email exchange. When they asked me to come to Houston for an in-face interview, I had fallen on my knees in my room and cried grateful tears.
And as mad as I was at Hayes, I couldn’t pretend that all of my relief was due to the chance at this amazing great job. Some of it was that fate intervened to save me from my stubborn pride.
My heart had been blown to smithereens since I left his house that night.
I grieved in silence. I pretended I was okay. I hadn’t been able to tell my mother what happened because I knew that she’d never forgive Hayes.
The thought of that knotted my stomach almost as much as what he did.
I want to forgive him. So badly.
I end every night with a prayer for the grace to let go of my anger. But it eludes me. And as much as I miss him, I can’t forget what he’d said about me.
I’ve spent the last month licking my wounds and clutching my pillow.
Every night it smelled less and less like Hayes.
And the chasm between us grew wider and wider.
Except for in one way, the way we always manage to find each other. And some nights, sleep has come only after I’ve called him, used his voice and my hands to make myself come and told him to fuck off before I hang up in his face. I’m still so hurt by him. Still so angry.
But, I do miss him.
Fiercely.
I just don’t know how to get over “fine to fuck, not enough breeding to bring home.” Every time I think about it, it burns.
“So, what do you think of our cosmopolitan suburban version of small-town America?” Remington asks. I stare back at him and smile, grateful my staring off into the distance looked like me admiring the scene instead of me daydreaming about my boyfriend.
I let my eyes sweep the street and smile.
“It’s incredible,” I say simply and honestly. The enclave of Rivers Wilde, carved out of three square miles in southwest Houston is the kind of place I used to dream about living when I was a kid.
We’re walking across one of a dozen foot bridges that straddle the man-made shallow fountain that cuts a straight line through the community. The left northwest corner is a commercial district. It’s a miniature of downtown Houston. Skyscrapers and shorter commercial buildings make up the ten blocks dedicated to the Wilde World Office Park.
On the other side of the bridge from where we are now, is the town square. It is the very center of the enclave. It’s flanked by two residential communities. On the left is The Ivy. It’s a golf course, country club, and a cluster of luxury condominiums in a cluster of sky-scraping high rises.
On the left, The Oaks is a suburban prototype of single-family homes that range from starter homes to million-dollar mansions.
The Market runs along the southern border of the enclave, parallel from the Wilde office park. It’s one huge indoor food market. There is a green grocers, spice markets, fish mongers, butchers, florist, cheese shops, the bakeries, everything has a kosher or halal options. The long lines that snake out of The Market’s every day are due to the food counter. Over 700 feet of space dedicated to deliciousness highlights why Houston is one of the places where the phrase “melting pot” is not an exaggeration. From Afghanistan to South Africa and everything in between, the world’s best cooks show off their cultural delights. And people line up to devour it. I had tamales today and they might be the most perfect thing I’ve ever eaten. They’re only open for lunch during the week, but all day on the weekends, and I can’t wait to visit.
“Irma’s been here since Rivers Wilde opened its gates. And now she’s a landmark in her own right,” Remington says when I tell him I want to go back. “This is the dream at work. It’s a community that’s designed to encourage interactions between people who might otherwise see each other as foreign or different.”
“That sounds amazing,” I say and wish I could find a more eloquent response to his words. But I’ve never seen a place like this.
“You’re actually in for a treat. Don, our resident Cajun, and Tommy, who owns the Vietnamese restaurant in the market, come together for a crawfish boil that the entire community turns out for.”
“Crawfish?” I grimace.
“You haven’t lived until you have these. Lemongrass and garlic meet Old Bay and jalapeños for the most delicious crawfish you’ve ever tasted.” He groans dramatically and pats his washboard flat stomach.
“Well, I certainly hope you have a gym here, because it sounds like unless I plan on buying a whole new wardrobe, I’m going to need it,” I laugh.
“Got that, too. Tae Kwon Do school, Barre, a dance school with classes that use everything from the ballet rail to a stripper pole. And if you just want to work out, there’s a regular old sweat-it-out-on-the-treadmill gym, too.”
“So basically, if you live here, you never have to leave?” I ask.
“Not if you didn’t want to. And that’s the point. To make home feel like enough. To create a real sense of community. One that doesn’t exclude anyone who really wants to live here. Our housing runs the gamut, so whether you’re making forty grand a year or 400 thousand, there’s a place in your budget in Rivers Wilde,” he says with the same voice as the guy on the Price is Right.
“I’m taking a tour of a unit tonight, and I’m totally excited. This sounds like my kind of place,” I gush. I know I sound like a fangirl, but I can’t help it. It’s out of a dream.
We walk down the wide, clean-enough-to-eat-off sidewalk. Sapling trees are planted in clusters every thirty feet or so. Baskets of flowers hang from the hooks that are fixed to ten feet of brick wall in between the glass-fronted stores that line the street. There’s a healthy crowd of people strolling. They stop and speak to each other. I watch as two men shake hands and then sit down on a bench outside of the coffee shop, Sweet and Lo’s.
“I had the best lattes I’ve ever had in my life there,” I point it out to Remington.
“Yeah, it’s the best in town. Did you meet Sweet or Lo?”
“Yes. Lo is a hoot and Sweet wasn’t sweet at all. But I love them,” I recall happily.
“Here we are,” he pulls open the door with the words “TWIST” scrawled in bright blue lettering on the glass door.
“So, we’ll see you in the office tomorrow? We have a face to face with opposing counsel, clients will be present,” he says and I find something unsettling in his voice and the way he’s watching me.
“TB!” Cass shouts from behind me and Remi’s eyes widen in confusion.
I say, “Don’t worry. She’s not crazy. That’s what she calls me.” I give him an apologetic smile.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Nickname?” he asks.
“More like an inside joke.” I give him a halfhearted smile. His is more of a grimace.
“Okay,” he says, and starts to back down the street “See you bright and early tomorrow. We’re really glad to have you on board,” he says before he turns and dashes back up the street.
“Was that Remi Wilde? Oh my GOD. Do you know what his nickname is?” Cass asks just as I turn to face her. Her face is flushed and her hair is sticking to her face is sweaty strands.
“Yeah, that was Remi. And what was his nickname?” I ask when she doesn’t offer it up.
“The Legend. His mind, his prowess on the basketball court, between the sheets,” she chortles and waggles her eyebrows and then moves in for a hug.
I pull back. “I don’t really want those v
isuals of my new boss, thanks. And let’s just imagine that, hug, okay?” I eye her sweaty shirt. “Did you run from your office?” I ask her and give her a quick up and down.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she retorts, but desists in her attempt to hug me. “It’s hot as fuck and I had to walk for ten minutes to get here,” she says.
“You look like you’ve been walking for an hour,” I quip and grin at her.
“You just wait until you’ve been standing without shade in the middle of the afternoon in Houston, TX for more than three minutes,” she snaps and pulls at her shirt.
“I’ll make sure to avoid that particular situation. Can’t walk around looking like I work in a sauna,” I tease her one more time and am rewarded with a scowl.
“I’m hungry, let’s get a table.” I pull the brass handle of Twist’s glass-paned double doors open.
“Its like a fancy saloon,” she says as we step inside the restaurant. The cool air-conditioned, dark paneled room does look like something out of a western movie. But instead of sawdust littering the ground, there’s a gleaming mahogany brand with the crowned horse logo of Rivers Wilde on the floor right under the wagon wheel chandelier in the center of the restaurant.
Instead of a bar that runs the length of the wall, there’s a stage in the front of the room, complete with a red velvet curtain behind the wall of bottles. There are no seats in front of the gleaming countertop. It’s just two bartenders, one man and one woman, making drinks and setting them on the bar where waitstaff picks them up. “Shut Up and Drink” is burned into the wood of the bar.
“Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this,” I marvel.
“Hey ladies, welcome to Twist,” a small, dark-haired woman with a hugely pregnant belly approaches us when we step into the main dining room. “Your first time here?” she asks knowingly.
“Yes.” I smile back.
“Yeah, your openmouthed, wide-eyed stare kinda gave it away.” She laughs good-naturedly and then reaches for two menus that sit under a green chalkboard—“open secret” scrawled on it.
The Rivals Page 19