Redemption: A British Stepbrother Romance (35 page)

N
othing worth having
was ever easy
.

I’d heard people say that many times before, but never thought it applied to me. Most things I wanted in life had come easily to me. If I wanted a woman, ninety-nine times out of a hundred I got them. I blamed the other time on her husband coming home early.

Even becoming a lawyer had been a walk in the park. My college GPA had been good enough to graduate
magna cum laude
, and I’d just shown up for the LSAT and aced it. Law school had provided little in the way of challenge. I went to most of the classes that started after twelve, did some of the readings, nailed the exams, and took my pick of job offers after law school.

Now I had a challenge, and she went by the name of April.

She’d not taken the news of our parents’ marriage too well. It’d had been a weird day. We’d spent an hour in bed together having the best sex of our lives, and then had to sit at the table looking at the newlyweds.

I calmed her down after dinner, but then I gave her space to think things through. I didn’t panic. It had taken us a long time to get back in bed together and it was going to take a lot more than our parents early marriage to knock us off track now.

By the time she left for her flight on Sunday afternoon, we’d already resumed flirting whenever we had a modicum of privacy. I just had to remain patient and not rush things.

My phone was already ringing when I strolled into my office just before lunch. The caller showed up as “Cooper & Cooper,” a name I knew all too well. None of the cases on my plate involved working with or against Cooper & Cooper, so they had no real reason to be calling me.

Intrigue got the better of me and I answered the call on speaker. I recognized the voice immediately.

“Hello Foster,” Zach said on the other end of the phone. He couldn’t even say hello without sounding like the type of cocky bastard I wanted to punch. “How are things?”

“Fine until I heard your voice,” I replied. “What the hell do you want?”

I’d only met Zach twice in person and on those occasions he’d ended up getting punched, falling down the stairs, and collapsing into a table covered in food. You’d think he would have taken the hint and stayed the hell away. Perhaps that’s why this conversation was taking place over the phone.

“I’m just calling about our mutual friend,” Zach said. “I’m concerned about April’s future as an attorney.”

“April is not your friend. I would say you’re more her enemy, but I’m not sure she’s even given you a second thought. You’re nothing to her.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You should see the picture she just sent me. But never mind about that. Like I said, I’m worried about April.”

Picture? What picture?
I was determined not to rise to his bait. That’s exactly what he wanted, and it’s exactly what April wouldn’t want.

“Go on then, give your little speech,” I said, hitting some buttons on my keyboard to make it sound like I was doing something more important. “Hurry up about it though. I’m pretty busy.”

“That’s good to hear. Perhaps you would like to pass along one of your major clients to me. You know, to help reduce your workload.”

“Why on Earth would I do that? My clients want to be served by a reputable and, dare I say it, fucking awesome attorney. That’s what they have with me.”

“You’d be doing it for April,” Zach said.

“Explain.” This little shit just loved hearing himself talk. I’d been on the other end of the phone with attorneys like him before. It helped pad out the bill, but it was boring as hell.

“That was a good little speech you gave the other day at the law school. I didn’t realize you worked for Jacob Oscar’s company?”

“What of it?”

“Did April help you with any of that work?” Zach asked.

I thought back to the panel discussion. I’d definitely mentioned working for Jacob’s company and I’d made it clear that a female summer associate had done some phenomenal work. It had given the law students in the room a confidence boost to know they could jump straight in at the deep end to do great legal writing.

“April helped,” I replied. There didn’t seem much point in denying it, because April was the only summer associate at the firm.

“Thought so,” Zach said, before going quiet.

The silence on the other end of the phone unnerved me somewhat. I’d told him what he wanted to hear, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was the big deal. It wasn’t a secret that I worked for Jacob; our firm’s name was all over the SEC filings his company had submitted over the last few years.

“Is that all you wanted?” I asked. “Like I said, I am rather busy. If you ever become a competent lawyer you might find out what that’s like.”

“She’s fucked up,” Zach said smugly. “April’s fucked up big time and if you don’t give me PorTupe I’m going to take you both down.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, trying to sound calm. I could smell bullshit a mile off, but this wasn’t it. Zach at the very least thought he had something on April, and his confidence had me worried. “Is that all you wanted? I’m actually busy with work for PorTupe right now. Those hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual billings don’t just appear out of nowhere.”

“I suggest you start wrapping up that project,” Zach said. “Maybe mention to the board that they may want to seek new counsel. Think up an excuse, or just outright lie.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then April will never even be admitted to the bar. I’ll be in touch.”

I always took calls on speakerphone in case I needed to type or write while on the call, but now I had nothing to slam down in frustration. I picked up the phone and slammed it back down anyway, but it didn’t feel nearly as satisfying.

April knocked on the door. I knew it was her because she always knocked four times in the same unique way. One knock, followed by two quick knocks, finished off by another knock. There wasn’t much she could do that wasn’t adorable.

“Everything okay?” she asked as she walked in. “I heard you slam the phone down.”

“I had a call from Zach,” I said. “He mentioned something about you sending him photos.”

“He called you as well?”

“Yes. Now, what’s this about these photos.”

April laughed, but said something that didn’t sound at all funny. “He demanded that I send him a picture of my breasts, so I sent him one.”

“You did what? Why did you do that?”

What the hell had she been thinking? Did Zach really have something that big on her?

“Calm down. Look, here’s the picture I sent him.”

April handed me her phone and I stared at a picture of what was definitely not her breasts. “These are your knees.”

“Yep. I’m glad
you
know the difference. Zach doesn’t appear to. I take a strange satisfaction from knowing that he’s probably knocking one out to a picture of my knees.”

I forced a laugh, but I didn’t take this matter as lightly as April clearly did. Zach was demanding one of my clients. Not just any old client; my biggest client by far. Some years we billed them a million dollars. They’d be hard to replace.

“Why is he trying to blackmail you?” I asked. “At the networking event he mentioned having dirt on you, but I don’t understand what he means.”

“That makes two of us,” April replied. “I don’t know and I don’t care. He’s just bluffing, but I figured I’d string him along for a bit.”

“Okay, well let me know if he calls again.”

He will. I know he will. Whatever he’s playing at, he’s not yet finished.

“Will do.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you in my office?” I asked. “And why are you fully dressed?”

“I’m fully dressed because your office is freezing as per usual. And I’m here for business, not pleasure.”

“Ugh. Okay, what is it?”

“It’s about PorTupe.”

First Zach, and now April. What was the obsession everyone had with that client? Oh yeah, the massive amount of legal bills they paid every year.

“What about them?”

“I’ve been doing some research online, and it turns out that there are loads of stories of people being discriminated against by PorTupe. People have even lost their jobs because of race or gender.”

“There are also stories online about UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Star Wars prequels actually being good movies. Don’t believe everything you read.”

“You’re a Star Wars fan?”

“I like to think I can handle a lightsaber.”

April smirked, pursing her lips together tightly, and I thought back to how she’d had them clamped around my cock a few days ago. How would I ever get any work done with her across the hall?

“These aren’t just silly stories,” April continued. “There’s a pattern. People make claims, but then drop the suit. In some cases it sounds like there were threats made by the company against the former employees, but other cases just settled. The details are a little thin because there are non-disclosure agreements involved.”

“And if this is true, those NDAs are being broken by talking about the cases online.”

“
That’s
what you think is important here?” April asked incredulously. “A broken NDA?”

“My point is that perhaps people who are breaking a legally binding confidentiality agreement shouldn’t be considered all that trustworthy.”

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” April replied.

“No, where there’s smoke there’s smoke. Smoke is generated by many different chemical reactions, not just fire.”

April groaned through gritted teeth. “You’re impossible sometimes, you know that?”

“What do you want me to do, April? They’re my client. I do the work they ask me to do. And you know what, if they ask me to defend them on a discrimination lawsuit then I’ll do that as well.”

“Don’t expect me to help you,” April replied. “I just can’t do that kind of work.”

“You’ll do the work you’re given.”

April pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. I did my best to look mad and not aroused, but she made it fucking difficult sometimes. She could act like a petulant child, and I still couldn’t be angry with her, not really.

“Speaking of work,” I said. “Mom thinks it’s a good idea for you to give a presentation to the firm. Most of your work has been for me, but I won’t be making the decision about whether or not to offer you a job after the summer. You need to impress the partners.”

“Fine, I can do that. As long as I don’t have to give a speech arguing the merits of discriminating against people.”

“I’ve picked out the topic for you. The Delaware Court of Chancery has handed down a big decision on poison pills used to prevent hostile takeovers. I want you to compare it to the current leading authority and talk about what might change with this new precedent. I’ve emailed you all the details.”

“Thanks. Guess I better get going.”

“Oh April,” I called out just as she was about to open the door. She turned to glare at me and I blew her a kiss. When did I become a soppy romantic?

April stared at me for a few seconds, but finally smiled and blew me a kiss in return.

I did feel a little guilty about setting her up with this presentation, but I’d put the wheels in place when she’d dumped all that
pro bono
work on my plate.

April had a sense of humor, but she also embarrassed easily. This might get me in a lot of trouble.

I
’m going
to kill him.

Preparing the presentation had been easy. Both the cases were written by a judge capable of writing in clear English, and even the ‘old’ case was only written ten years ago. There was no archaic language and no difficult concepts to grasp.

It also helped that I’d taken a Corporations class this year, so the law on poison pills was still fresh in my mind. We’d even read an abstract of the old case in class, although my professor hadn’t gone into much detail on it because it involved points of law that were deemed to be beyond the syllabus.

I found the law firm’s template for PowerPoint presentations and put together a basic slide show. The presentation was only twenty minutes plus ten minutes for questions, so I stuck to ten slides with everything in large font.

I took the project seriously, but I didn’t kid myself into believing that any of the partners would really care about what I had to say. They would be listening in to make sure I understood the core concepts and could talk about it without sounding like a nervous schoolgirl. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I was.

Public speaking terrified me. Any kind of presentation had me on edge. I would be nervous if friends asked me to stand up and tell them how my day had been. There was something about having people staring at me that I just couldn’t come to grips with.

I liked to blend in with the crowd. In class, I would purposely avoid the front two rows, and try to find somewhere in the middle hoping that would help me blend in. It didn’t work.

Most of my professors used the ‘socratic method’ of teaching. I’d never heard of it before starting law school, but apparently Socrates had liked to pick on nervous young girls and ask them to explain the ins and outs of the case we read before class.

No matter how well I knew the case, the words wouldn’t come to me when I had to answer a question in front of all my peers. I usually ended up just quoting random sections from the case until the professor got bored and decided to move on to someone else.

The presentation was done with a day to spare, so I’d used the additional time to practice actually speaking it out loud. That was when I realized just how much Foster had screwed me over. This was obviously his way of getting back at me for the whole
pro bono
thing.

The presentation had been set aside for Friday afternoon, so my audience consisted of bored-looking associates, and partners who were all ready to head off to their beach houses in Delaware, or whatever else it was these people did on the weekends.

Foster showed up and sat at the front, because of course he would. This had all been his idea, and he damn well wasn’t going to miss out on all the fun.

I’m going to kill him
.
Slowly
.

I stood at the front of a large conference room while the partners talked to fellow colleagues that they hadn’t seen in weeks, due to the tendency of most partners to lock themselves in their offices.

Most of the associates kept a respectful silence, but each of them had some form of caffeinated beverage in front of them, so the silence was likely as much due to exhaustion as anything else.

Foster coughed loudly, and after a few seconds the remaining conversation died down to a hush and finally there was total silence.

“Good evening, ladies and gentleman,” I began.
God dammit, April. You’re giving a presentation, not hosting the Oscars
. “I mean, good afternoon. I’ll try not to keep you all here for too long today. As you may know, the Delaware Court of Chancery recently released a new decision on poison pills in takeovers. The court’s reasoning in this case contains a few key differences from established case law that I want to draw to your attention.”

I pressed a button on my laptop to change over the next slide which contained my bullet points summary the existing law.

“A lot of the current law on poison pills has been taken from the seminal case of…” I paused catching the smile spreading over Foster’s face. “...the seminal case of Coch Industries.”

My slide had shown the case as
In re Coch Ind. Shareholder Litigation
, but there was no getting around the fact that everyone in the legal profession just referred to the case as ‘Coch,’ or ‘Coch Ind.’

There was no getting around the unfortunate pronunciation of the word ‘Coch.’ I made a point of saying the case name a lot at the beginning, hoping people would get used to hearing me say “Coch” again and again. Most of the attorneys in the room were well versed in the case, so they didn’t react, but I did notice a few snickers from some of the attorneys working in non-corporate practice areas.

This was the easy bit. The next case was the real killer.

I turned on to the next slide and described how the Coch case had been used by courts in the last few years, and then flipped over the slide detailing the key points from the new case.

“Just last month, the Delaware SC released its judgment in the case of
In re Kunt, Inc. Shareholder Litigation
.”

Foster snickered loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, and he set off a few of the other attorneys as well. The partners didn’t join in the laughing, and they had the decency to look vaguely embarrassed for me.

“The… the Kunt case will change the way we look at poison pills for companies without a diverse group of shareholders.”

Instead of getting used to it, every time I said… the name of the case, the laughs grew louder and louder until I just gave up and started referring to it as ‘the new case.’

The meeting room which, like the rest of the office, was usually too cold for comfort, now felt hot and suffocating. My blouse clung to the sweat pooling on my back, but I resisted the urge to stop and take off my cardigan. At least the cardigan covered the sweat patches.

The twenty minute presentation only lasted fifteen minutes, because I went through the rest of the material in a desperate panic. I’d be surprised if anyone could understand much of what I was saying, let alone follow the legal reasoning involved.

“Any questions?” I asked, adopting a tone of voice that I think made it very clear I didn’t want any questions. My audience picked up on the hint.

All of them except one.

“Yes Foster. You have a question?”
Of course he has a fucking question.

“I remember reading Coch in law school,” Foster said. “It was a tricky case to get my head round, but from what I’ve heard, Kunt is really hard to understand. Do you agree that there are lots of complexities involved in understanding Kunt?”

I’m going to kill him
.
Slowly
and painfully
.

“Yes,” I snarled. “It’s a complicated case.”

“But if you use Kunt correctly, you stand a good chance of getting a satisfactory outcome in your case?”

“I guess it depends which party you are,” I replied. “I know some attorneys who think they understand the case, but actually they don’t have a clue.”

A few of the associates laughed, but Foster kept a straight face.

“If that’s all--” I began.

“I have another question,” Foster said. “If you were just getting started with corporate law, where would you recommend people start? Coch Ind. or Kunt?”

Foster spoke quickly and to my paranoid ears he managed to make “Ind. or” sound a lot like “in your.”

I’m going to kill him
.
Slowly
,
painfully, and with a smile on my face.

“Coch,” I replied, as I quickly shut my laptop and stormed out of the room.

He’s going to pay for that. I headed straight back to my desk and opened up the motion that we’d prepared in Doris’ case. We were still a long way from getting anywhere with finding her son, but we had to get the ball rolling.

It would take years, and I almost certainly wouldn’t still be at the firm to see the end of it, but that was the way most things worked in the legal world. You had to wait years to see the results of your hard work. Presumably the wait was worth it in the end, but Doris might be dead by then.

Foster had asked for a draft of the motion ready for his final review over the weekend. Despite the huge fuss he’d made about not wanting to do
pro bono
work, he’d actually written most of the motion himself and I’d only chipped in on the statement of facts and some of the procedural sections.

The last thing I’d been working on was getting proper case citations in the document to conform to the court’s standards. That sort of work always got dumped on the junior attorneys or summer associates, because we still had the citation rules fresh in our minds from law school.

Apart from a few more nuanced citations, I had basically finished the project and could send it over to Foster with only about thirty minutes more work.

Screw that.

If Foster liked rude case names, then that’s exactly what he was going to get—a motion full of rude case names. He sucked at doing citations, so now he’d have to spend the entire weekend in the office with his Bluebook fixing it all. Served him right.

My mind might not be as filthy as Foster’s, but I still knew enough dirty terms to litter the twelve pages with enough profanity and sexual innuendo to make a porn star blush.

Revenge was sweet.