Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

One

“You’re the hired gun?” Joe asked.

Sarah made two pistols with her fingers and shot Joe Burke in the gut. 
It felt remarkably satisfying.

She had been looking forward to the look of shock on his face when she
showed up at her first deposition, the one in San Diego, but instead Joe had
the bad judgment to smile.

“Well, welcome to it, Red,” he said.  “Nice to have you along.”

“Red, huh?” said the other lawyer, a man named Paul Chapman.  “You two
know each other?”

“No,” they both answered at once.  Joe shot her an amused glance.

They took their seats around the hotel conference table, Joe and his
client on one side, Sarah and Paul Chapman across from them, the court reporter
at the end of the table between them.

“This ought to be interesting,” Joe said, looking Sarah in the eye.

She had learned that sometimes the best strategy when dealing with other
lawyers was to say nothing at all.  Let her opponents talk and talk, let them
bluster and threaten and boast, until finally they realized they sounded more
idiotic and less effective with each passing moment.  That was when Sarah would
quietly enter back into the conversation with one simple statement—“The judge
won’t see it that way,” or “You can try that, although the jury in my last
trial gave the plaintiff absolutely nothing for the same argument”—then she
would quietly wait again while the lawyer blustered and threatened some more.

In the end, Sarah usually got what she wanted, whether it was a
favorable settlement for her client or a ruling from a judge on a key motion.  Her
opponents had learned over the last five years never to underestimate her.  Not
to be fooled by the package she came in.  The petite, feminine redhead in front
of them could be as lethal at trial as any silver-haired, seasoned litigator or
one of those tough-talking women Sarah used to look up to until she actually
had to try cases against them and saw them for what they were.

What Sarah realized was that nearly everyone in the law business was
insecure.  Some of them tried to cover it with fancy offices and expensive cars
and other proof that they were successful and unafraid.  Others drank.  Some
believed the more they bullied people, the less likely anyone would notice their
own weaknesses.

But Sarah noticed.  She’d been noticing her whole life.  And finally
she reached a point in her own career where she could use that knowledge to
bring her the kind of success she had worked so hard for since high school.

Until one single moment six months ago had brought it all crashing down
around her.  And now she found herself in this cramped conference room, sitting
as calmly and as casually as she could across from the man who had hurt her
almost as much as losing everything six months ago.

But he never needed to see that on her face.  So when Joe spoke
directly to her—“
This ought to be interesting
”—Sarah practiced what
she’d perfected since the last time they saw each other.  She simply gazed at
him in return, saying nothing, keeping her face as neutral as possible.

While Joe made absolutely no effort at all to hide a wicked smile.

***

He’d filled out since she last saw him, Sarah thought.  Not fattened
up—far from it—but become broader in the chest and shoulders, as if he put on
more muscle.  He even looked taller than the six-foot-two she remembered,
although she doubted he kept growing between the ages of twenty-five and
thirty-one.  Maybe he’d just grown into a man, period.  Better late than never.

He wore his dark hair shorter now, clipped closer to his head, and his
face was clean-shaven instead of scruffed up with that constant stubble she had
gotten used to.  He looked good—better than she expected, better than she had
hoped—dressed in his navy suit, striped shirt, and tie.  She wanted to find him
hollow-eyed and haunted, with the look of a man who knew his best years were
already behind him.  Instead he looked fit, strong, and, worst of all, content.

Joe glanced up just then, and Sarah quickly started typing again on her
laptop.  That was all she needed, for him to catch her studying him.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that he looked better, she thought.  They
had all been so unhealthy and malnourished in law school, living off of fast
food, caffeine, and beer.  Sarah kept up with the first two, unfortunately, for
another several years before finally seeing the light, but obviously Joe had
taken good care of himself.  The results were . . . impressive.  She couldn’t
deny it, even if she would never admit it to Burke’s face.

But she was glad she wore her best suit today:  the slim black skirt
and perfectly-tailored jacket, with a white silk shell underneath.  Her hair
had behaved, looking smooth and under control and curling only at the ends the
way she wanted.  Normally it fought her—hard.  She had taken special care with
her makeup, too, giving her eyes more drama than she normally would for a
daytime work event, and making sure the color on her lips would last for
several hours.

It had been a long time since she had a reason to put on her full
lawyer uniform and war paint.  She’d gotten a little too used to spending her
days bare-faced and in workout clothes.  But she was back now, ready to do
battle.  And she knew she looked the part.

Joe wasn’t the only one who had grown up over the past six years, Sarah
thought.  She couldn’t help wondering if he noticed.

***

“I think I have something for you,” Sarah’s friend Mickey said when he
called her the week before.  “Get off the couch and come down here this
afternoon.”

“I’m not on the couch,” she said, panting into the phone.

“Then get off of whoever you’re doing right now and get down here,” Mickey
said before hanging up.

Sarah ended the call and her music kicked back on.  She had both ear
buds in and had already run two miles on the treadmill.  Now Neko Case sang to
her while she sweated through the next quarter mile.  She already had her
lineup of music to carry her through the last three miles, but glancing at the
clock, she knew she had to cut it short or she’d never get the weight-lifting
in, too.  As much as she hated short-changing any workout—and what a laugh that
was, considering how she felt about exercise as little as a year ago—she knew
she needed the time to go home and shower and change and make herself look like
a lawyer again.  A working lawyer.  An employed one.  God, she hoped so.

Whatever the job was, she’d take it.  If Mickey really had come through
for her, she owed him something big.  Just not the thing he pretended he wanted.

Sarah slowed to a walk, then hit the stop button a few minutes later. 
She signaled her trainer, Angie, who had her own ear buds in as she worked
through a weight-lifting session of her own.  Sarah’s time didn’t start for
another half hour, but she hoped Angie wouldn’t mind taking her early.  This
could be it.  This could be Sarah’s salvation.

Even, as she found out a few hours later, with Joe Burke on the other
side.

***

“It’s just a contract job,” Mickey’s boss, Calvin, told her.  “We
decided to bring in someone from the outside instead of using manpower from in
here.”

Mickey handed Sarah an expandable file that was expanded to its full
capacity.  “Here are the pleadings so far.  It’ll probably take you the weekend
to read through them.”

“Are you saying I have the job?” Sarah asked both him and Calvin.

“Mickey says you’re a killer,” Calvin answered, rising to his feet and
signaling the interview was over.  “Check in with HR and they’ll get all your
paperwork.”

“We haven’t discussed the pay yet,” Sarah said, and even though Mickey
gave her a look that said,
Not now
, Sarah persisted.  She was doing this
for the money, not for the prestige.  Especially since there was absolutely no
prestige in being the traveling lawyer who would take depositions all around
the country for the next five months or so while the real attorneys on the case
would sit comfortably in their plush Los Angeles offices waiting for her to
report back in.

Calvin mentioned a number, and Sarah shook her head.  As desperate as
she was for the job, she guessed Mickey’s firm needed her, too.  It was hard to
find a lawyer with her experience and reputation—or at least her former
reputation—who would be willing to fly to four or five different cities each
week and sit through hours of testimony about how the firm’s client had ruined
the plaintiffs’ lives.

And if Sarah could actually make something of the case, she thought,
come up with some defense none of the other attorneys had considered, maybe
this would be her ticket to a full-time job.

But she held all that in check as she haggled over her price.  It
amused her how no one sat down again—the three of them stood clustered in front
of Calvin’s door, just where they’d been when he rose to see her out.  Sitting
down, accepting a lower elevation than the others, might signal a loss of status. 
Sarah always liked to notice the different methods her fellow attorneys used to
try to hold on to their power.

Finally they reached a deal.  If the job really was going to last only
five months, Sarah knew she would need every single penny of that salary to dig
herself out of the debts she’d incurred since April.  She might even be able to
rebuild some of her savings, to protect against the next dry spell if this job
didn’t turn into something more permanent.

But she couldn’t think that far ahead.  She had work now, and that was
what she needed.

She offered her hand first to Calvin, then to Mickey.

“She’s a killer, all right,” Calvin said to Mickey.

Mickey held Sarah’s hand a little too long.  “Told you.”

Sarah gave her former law school classmate a wry look and a raised
eyebrow until Mickey chuckled and released his grasp.

“Sorry to hear about that whole mess,” Calvin said in parting.

Sarah nodded.  “Unfortunate,” was all she said.

The worst experience of my life
, was what she thought.

***

The first series of depositions would begin in San Diego, then continue
to Pasadena, San Jose, and Fresno.  But Sarah knew this first one would set the
tone for all the others.

Set the tone between her and Joe.

Unfortunately, two full hours passed before she got to ask a single
question.

Paul Chapman was one of those lawyers who didn’t understand the crux of
a case.  He had his standard deposition questions—ones he’d probably learned in
his first year as a lawyer, twenty or however many years ago—and Sarah assumed
he never deviated from them since, no matter how irrelevant they were to the
particular case before him.