"What do you mean you lied?" I stare into his face, just inches away from mine. "The one thing you promised was that you'd never lie to me."
"Not to you, to your grandfather."
"You lied to my grandfather?"
"When I told him I'll get past using your legal services as soon as practicable, and sever all ties." He pauses. "I have no intention of stopping using your legal services. If I can't have you in my bed - which we've established is not a good idea - the least I can do is having you meeting with me and drafting my legal documents."
"You do realize that being with you, and not being with you, is a form of torture. It would be easier if we could just make a clean break."
"Bullshit," Max says.
I narrow my eyes. "That's the second time you've said that to me today."
"Let's just see how it goes."
"How what goes?"
"Our new relationship as professional colleagues. In many ways," he says, face close to mine, "there's nothing more intimate than the relationship between a lawyer and a client."
"This is crazy," I whisper.
"Is it? I think I'm looking forward to working closely with you on the many legal documents my art gallery is going to need. And flirting with you in public when we attend events." He runs his knuckles softly down the side of my face, and I shiver.
"We need to make sure we are photographed together. It's the best way I can protect you."
"The only better way," I hear myself say, "would be to never see each other again."
"That's not an option," Max says. Then he glances down, sees the bracelet dangling just below the sleeve of my jacket. Something changes in his expression and he lifts my hand up by the wrist and presses it to his lips for a moment.
"Hadley."
Then the elevator stops and he steps back as the door opens and several people get in. We all ride together down to the Lobby level. Max gets out last, turning to look at me before the door slides shut again.
"I'll be in touch very soon," Max says.
Then I press the button, the door closes, and I'm on my way back up to the 50th floor.
***
When I get back to the office Martina is waiting for me, her eyes wide. She follows me into my office and closes the door.
"So spill," she says. "I've been dying to talk to you since you called me from the conference room and had me check out that FBI guy. What's going on?"
I let out a long sigh and sit down on my desk chair. Martina sinks into one of the visitor chairs and looks at me expectantly. "Does this have to do with one of your cases? Or is it you know?"
"If by "you know" you mean Max, that would be correct."
"Wow."
I tell her the story about it being the FBI special agent who was following me all along and tried to force me into a car.
"So he said he was just reaching into his jacket for his badge?" she asks, her voice sounding skeptical.
"It's pretty clear to me that he wanted me to think he was going for a gun, even if he wasn't. He wanted to scare me."
"But why?"
I shrug. "Intimidation, I guess. Wanting me to report it back to Max, which is exactly what I did."
"I hate to repeat myself, but why?"
"I don't know. Max is careful. The whole thing about meeting in Las Vegas ostensibly just for high stakes poker is an example. And taking me with him to New York makes it look like a romantic getaway, not another meeting with wiseguys. Maybe they just want him to know he isn't fooling anyone."
"Do you think they actually have anything on him? I'm worried about Gabe."
I consider this. "No, I don't think so, because if they did they wouldn't be bothering with me. Or that whole ruse about asking me to observe what Max is doing and report back to them, which no lawyer is going to do about a client."
"They asked you to do that?"
"Yeah. Supposedly that was the whole reason for the meeting the morning, but it doesn't make sense. I think it's just more intimidation. And trying to upset me by showing up where I work."
"How did Mr. Reese handle it?"
"I hate to admit it, but he was pretty awesome. He really had my back." I grimace. "Oh course, once he got me alone he was, let's just say, not pleased."
"I can imagine. I mean, he warned you off Max, right?"
"Yes. And I told him I had decided not to see Max anymore, and then he finds out - from the FBI, no less - that just a few days later I was flying to New York with Max. A trip I had told my grandfather I was making to see friends."
"Oooh. I'm surprised you're still in one piece."
"Apparently he dislikes the FBI and their tactics almost as much as he dislikes Max and his father." I lean forward and lower my voice. "He actually called Max and had him come here and meet with us."
"That must have been interesting."
I shake my head and am shocked to feel my eyes suddenly fill up.
"Martina, what the hell am I going to do?"
She smiles sympathetically, then reaches across the desk to pat my hand. "I think we'll just have to take it one day at a time."
"I appreciate the solidarity, but I think I'm on my own on this one. Here's what you can help me with, though."
I fill her in on the plans for me to represent the art gallery, and enlist her support in figuring out which lawyers in the firm likely have handled similar transactions in the past, and talking to their legal assistants about documents I can download as examples. Once she's figured out who my best contacts will be, I'll follow up myself and get some advice.
I'm actually looking forward to this a little as a chance to get to know some of the other lawyers in the office better. I need to put some effort into these relationships if I'm serious about making my career here. I can't just exist in a vacuum on my own end of the hall sticking strictly to criminal law cases.
Martina gets back to work, and I try to apply myself to my cases. I have a hearing next week on a new case - my first felony here in the office - representing an office manager who is accused of embezzling about fifty thousand dollars from her employer over a five-year period. It turns out she got addicted to a particularly nasty painkiller - oxycodone - after being seriously injured in a car accident about six months before the embezzlement started.
It's a familiar story. When her doctor no longer agreed to subscribe the pain killers, she started buying oxy on the street, at a price that soon overwhelmed her ability to pay on her salary. After spending all her savings, destroying her marriage, and borrowing as much money as she could from friends and family and still couldn't support her habit, she turned in desperation to "borrowing" money from her employer, telling herself that as soon as she could get past her addiction she'd manage to pay it back before anyone found out.
Ironically, her embezzlement was discovered after she hit rock bottom and entered a treatment program.
I'm hoping I can cut a deal with the state attorney's office to give her another chance, and a reasonable plan for restitution. After borrowing, begging and stealing from family members too many times, she's burned those bridges and is on her own with the exception of one sympathetic cousin who never loaned her money during her addiction, but is paying my legal fee.
She needs a break and is long overdue for one. Working her case reminds me why I got into criminal defense law in the first place - to help people get a second chance, and not let a series of bad decisions ruin the rest of their life.
The case against her is a strong one, but I'm hoping I can get some mileage out of the fact that before the accident, this woman was a model citizen. I blame the doctor who prescribed these drugs in the first place without adequately warning her about the strong possibility of addiction, or offering her a reasonable plan to get off the drug when she began showing clear signs of dependency.
I've just hit "send" on my email to the state attorney's office, when a new email pings my inbox. It's from Max, but it sounds like Malcolm. There's a list of deal points and documents needed and I can picture Malcolm typing it up and sending it to Max, who pretty much just forwarded it to me.
Except for the last line, which invites me to an opening at the art gallery, featuring a new Miami artist. This Saturday. That part is purely Max.
As is the note that I should expect a delivery. He's sending me a dress he would like me to wear.
It's not a date, it's a social event with a client. At least that's what I keep telling myself.
But when I imagine myself on Max's arm at the event, meeting the influential people in Miami who have enough money to pay the steep prices required to have a piece of art from an up-and-coming new artist talented and lucky enough to score a showing at Max's respected gallery, it feels like a date.
I'm looking forward to it with equal parts anticipation and trepidation. Because I'm wondering what's going to happen when the last of the art patrons and photographers and local media leave at the end of the evening, and Max and I are alone.
Will he stick to his resolve? Will I?
Or is this going to be a repeat of last Saturday night, followed by the awkward regrets of Sunday morning?