Always Right Page 12

  Instead, she gave the address of Kyle’s condo building.

  She’d caught the tail end of the game as she waited in the DC airport. The Rockets were up by one run. They wrapped things up at the top of the ninth, exploding onto the field amid fireworks and congratulations.

  They’d won. Kyle had to forgive her. He had to be ready to kiss and make up, to get back to where they’d been before she’d pinned down the Phillips meeting.

  She checked in at the imposing front desk of the condo building. The doorman remembered her, of course. He called upstairs and announced her, but his voice was grave as he hung up his phone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Mr. Norton is not seeing visitors this evening.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Hand me the phone.”

  “I’m sorry,” the man said again. “I’m afraid I can’t—”

  Amanda cut off her curse. The guy was only doing his job. Instead, she pulled out her cell phone and slammed her finger down on the button to connect her with Kyle. Voicemail. Well, he’d taught her what to do about that, weeks ago, when she hadn’t wanted to let him in to her apartment. She hung up and dialed again. And again.

  As she prepared to punch his number for the fourth time, the phone on the doorman’s desk rang. The man picked it up as if he was handling a live cobra. He nodded once and said, “Very good, sir.” He hung up and glared at Amanda, but he made his voice excruciatingly polite. “You may go up.”

  She recognized the look in the doorman’s eyes as she stepped into the elevator. She’d overstepped her bounds. She’d made him look bad in front of one of his residents, and he resented her for it.

  Well, he’d have to get over it. She was a freaking litigator. She knew how to get what she wanted. That’s why she was here, after all. She was going to make everything work out. She braced herself and stepped off the elevator into the glass and chrome luxury of Kyle’s living room.

  For a heartbeat, she thought everything was all right. The room looked the way it had just three nights before. Raleigh’s skyline glinted out the window. The apartment was neat, clean, perfectly in order. Kyle stood by the kitchen counter, wearing dress pants and a white shirt with the neck stripped open, his tie nowhere to be seen. His hair rippled to his shoulders, tangled like he hadn’t bothered to run a brush through it after he showered. His lips were nearly lost inside the thicket of his beard.

  “Kyle,” she said, saturating his name with warmth. “Congratulations on the win.”

  But even as she said the last word, she saw it. She recognized the danger that had jangled at the back of her mind from the very second she stepped off the elevator. The green glass bottle was sweating, as if the liquid inside was icy cold. She watched Kyle’s fingers close over the bright label as he raised the bottle to his lips, as he swallowed down half the beer.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “This is the way you celebrate?”

  “This is the way I say go to hell.” And he raised the bottle again, gulping down a few more swallows. She watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall, barely visible in the snarl of his beard.

  “You won!”

  “The team won. I didn’t get a fucking hit.”

  He spat out the words like he was sentencing her to the electric chair. She cringed beneath the raw anger in his voice, and she didn’t dare meet the searing fury in his eyes. But she had to say, “No hitting streak lasts forever.”

  “Mine could have gone one more day.” He slammed the empty bottle on the counter, hard enough that she half expected it to collapse into a pile of emerald shards. “One more goddamn day, Amanda. You could have shown up and dropped the fucking glasses. I would have gotten a hit today, and then we would have gone on the road. You wouldn’t have needed to worry about rearranging your calendar ever again.”

  “You can’t blame me for your failure to get a hit! You set yourself up for this! You don’t have any confidence, any faith in yourself. That’s why you took the goddamn steroids in the first place, isn’t it? You didn’t think you had the strength to come back from an injury. You didn’t think you were good enough to play the game without them.”

  “That was ten years ago,” he said. “You don’t know anything about who I was then.”

  “I’m pretty sure you didn’t have your head in the game. Because you don’t have your head in the game now. You focus on sunglasses and crazy made-up rituals when you should be working on how to be a better ballplayer.”

  “Listen to you! Now you’re an expert on baseball? What did you do, kick back on the plane this morning and memorize an encyclopedia of statistics? Pass the time with all the numbers you’d ever need to freeze your heart solid.”

  “I wasn’t going to a freaking tea party!” How could he be so ridiculous? How could he be so completely, one hundred percent illogical? “I was working, Kyle. You know, my job? That silly little thing that pays my rent?”

  “Not very well, does it?”

  She sucked in a breath, astonished at how much his snide words hurt. But it wasn’t just the words. It was the fact that they were true. She couldn’t support herself, hadn’t done so with any crisis in the past two months. “I don’t have to justify myself to you. You know damn well what DC meant to me. With Dr. Phillips’ testimony, I can win the case for UPA.”

  “I’m sure you will. I’d expect nothing less from Super Lawyer.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Whatever you want it to, sweetheart. I think it means you’re a cold fish. You’ve never loved anything but facts and figures. You’re terrified to take a chance on anything that requires a real commitment. Actual emotion. Real, honest-to-God feelings.”

  “That’s not fair!” she said. “I’ve worked hard on this case because it’s going to change my career. I’m going to get a bonus, and the firm will recognize my contribution, and every single thing I’ve had to put up with this summer will be worthwhile.”

  “Or you can walk away from it all and just find someone else to whore for.”

  The words were bad enough. But the disdainful look as he scraped her with his eyes made her feel like her skin was turning inside out. “What did you just say?” she gasped.

  “I said you were a whore. Isn’t that what they call it, when a girl has sex for money?”

  “I never—”

  “You cashed my fucking check, Amanda. Wednesday morning, thirty-two thousand. That’s all I’ve been for you—a goddamn ATM. You punched in a few numbers, showed up at a few baseball games, and you skimmed off all the cash you needed.”

  “This has never been about money!”

  He barked out a sound that had nothing to do with laughter. “Liar.”

  She was hyperventilating. The back of her head felt like it was floating away. Her vision was going grey around the edges. “Okay,” she said, trying to sound reasonable. “You’re right. It started out about money. But not after I knew you. Not after we… talked.”

  He snorted.

  She had to go on, had to make him understand. “When I came here on Tuesday, that wasn’t about blackmail. I decided not to use Spring Valley, I told you that. I told you about my mother, about everything I was supposed to keep secret. I had to tell you what was really going on, after everything we’ve shared.”

  “After all the times we’ve fucked,” he said, and his correction turned her stomach.

  He was only saying these things because he was hurting. He’d been playing at the top of his game, accomplishing more than he’d ever done in his career. He was a competitor at heart, pushing for the win, pushing for the World Series. He wanted that, needed that for himself, for his team, for the old owner whose health was fading.

  She knew all that. She knew all the reasons he was striking out at her, all the reasons he was tearing her heart out and ripping it to shreds in front of her.

  But that didn’t keep her tongue still. That didn’t keep her from saying the most hateful thing she could think of. “You’re a child, Kyl
e Norton. A superstitious child. You think that a pair of sunglasses is enough to keep the bogeyman away.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked to the elevator. She punched the button and the door glided open, welcoming her in, inviting her to escape. But she turned back one last time. She looked him over from head to toe, trying not to flinch at the wild tangle of his hair, trying not to remember the good-looking guy who had grinned up at her from the baseball diamond that early August day, trying not to see his clean-shaven face, his close-cropped hair.

  “You’re lying to yourself,” she said. “You refuse to get a haircut. You refuse to shave your beard. You’re disgusting. And when you can’t get your bat on a ball, you blame someone else. Grow up, little boy.”

  She kept her hand from shaking long enough to press the button. And she kept her knees from melting long enough to walk past the doorman, to escape the lobby. She made it two blocks before her sobs tore through her body, forcing her to collapse onto a bus-stop bench before the tears started ripping her in two.

  CHAPTER 8

  “May it please the court,” Amanda said to the judge who presided over the UPA trial.

  Of course it wasn’t going to please the court. If the court was sane, it would choose to be outside on a gorgeous fall day like this. The court would rather be lying on a blanket beside a picnic basket, reading a book for fun, staring up and picking out shapes in the clouds.

  But the court was stuck here, just like Amanda was. This was a bench trial; there wasn’t any jury. The entire future of UPA sat in the hands of one judge, one man who was stuck inside, just like all the other lawyers on this crisp autumn day. He had to listen to her opening argument, to her structured explanation of what she was going to prove at trial, why UPA deserved to be reimbursed millions of dollars for the unlawful use of its patents.

  Amanda looked over to the long table where Harvey sat next to the president of UPA. Both men stared at her with intensity, with absolute certainty that she could convey her message, that she could educate the judge about why UPA must win.

  Taking a deep breath, Amanda launched into her summary of the case. She talked. And she talked. And she talked some more.

  She knew that every phrase she uttered was supposed to matter. Every word carried unique meaning. She’d crafted her opening argument with care over the past two weeks. It wasn’t like she had anything else to distract her. She certainly hadn’t been ducking out to Rockets Field any more. And she hadn’t needed to get home to see Kyle after any games. To talk to him, when he was on the road. To open her apartment door, her bedroom door, her heart, in the early hours of the morning.

  She closed her eyes, and she could see Kyle’s fingers tighten around the green glass of his beer bottle. He wasn’t an alcoholic. That wasn’t one of the demons he had to slay. Rather, he’d refrained from drinking as a reminder to himself, as a symbol of the other battles he’d fought and won. Nevertheless, she was devastated that she’d been the one to make him lose control, that his anger and frustration with her had led him to cash in years of sobriety. Amanda swallowed hard in a futile attempt to push down the sour taste at the back of her throat.

  “Ms. Carter?”

  She was startled by the gruff question. Her eyes flew open, and she saw the judge leaning forward in his black leather chair. She realized that she’d trailed off halfway through her explanation of the metabolites of UPA’s drug. She barely resisted the urge to shake her head as she responded to the judge’s query: “Your honor.”

  “Are you all right, Ms. Carter?”

  “Absolutely, your honor.” I was just thinking about the way I ruined a man’s life. I was just thinking about how I ruined my own life. Yeah. Not any excuses she was going to share here.

  “Well,” the judge said. “We’ve been at this for two hours already. Let’s take a brief break and reconvene in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you, your honor,” Amanda responded automatically, even as her mind reeled. She’d been talking for two hours? No wonder her throat felt dry. It was no surprise that her legs trembled, that she longed to collapse into the empty chair at counsel’s table.

  “All rise!” called the bailiff, and everyone else in the courtroom climbed to their feet, honoring the judge as he shuffled off to his chambers through the side door of the courtroom.

  Harvey grabbed Amanda’s elbow as she came back to the table. At first, she thought he was concerned for her well-being, but the tight pinch of his fingers through the sleeve of her suit quickly told her something else was afoot. He glanced over his shoulder at their client. “We’ll just take a quick moment to talk about one of the trial exhibits,” he said, and then he frog-marched her down the aisle and out the courtroom door.

  Once they were huddled in a marble-clad corner, he leaned close. “What the hell are you doing in there?”

  “What?” she asked. “I’m giving my opening argument.”

  “Are you trying to make us all fall asleep?”

  “I’m trying to lay out all the facts of the case!”

  “Well, you’ve got to focus more. Vary your voice. Find things to emphasize. As it is, you’ve practically convinced me our argument has no merit.”

  “That’s not fair!” Amanda pushed her glasses up on her nose. Harvey’s accusation made her furious—probably because his words were true. She’d already admitted to herself that she’d just lost track of the last two hours. She was on automatic pilot, and that wasn’t any way to win a trial, especially not one as complex as UPA’s.

  “The world’s not fair,” Harvey said. His expression was grim. The tight lines beside his eyes made her realize he was questioning her commitment, her ability to bring home this win. Harvey might have been her mentor for the last seven years, but even he wasn’t sure she could get the job done.

  “I can do this,” she said quietly.

  “I know you can. If I had any doubt, I never would have let you get this far. But get your head in the game, Amanda. You know as well as I do that first impressions can make or break your case.”

  Head in the game. She’d used the exact same phrase when she’d been fighting with Kyle.

  No. She wasn’t going to think about Kyle now. She couldn’t. Her career was on the line, and she had to buckle down, give this case everything she had to give.

  “I’ve got this, Harvey.”

  He nodded, and he turned back to the courtroom. But for the first time in her professional life, Amanda began to wonder if she did have the skills to complete the job.

  She couldn’t afford to listen to those evil whispers. Instead, she clamped down on all her stray emotions. She told herself to focus on the logic and order of her argument. She made herself forget about feelings, about all the messy details of her personal life. And she marched back into the courtroom, determined to win her case.

  ~~~

  Kyle stood in the outfield, looking up at the scoreboard.

  So, this is what it felt like, playing in the World Series. This is what he’d worked for, all those years of Little League, of high school ball, playing in college, working his way up through the minors.

  Sure, there were lots of great players who never got a chance at a ring. A guy could make it into the Hall of Fame without ever having won the Series. But that wasn’t the way he wanted his career to go. He wanted to be able to say he’d done it all. He’d played his best. He’d brought victory to his teammates, honor to his team’s owner.

  He wanted to feel something.

  Maybe he would care more if his hitting streak had continued. If Amanda was in the stands.

  Well, he had to get his head out of his ass. Amanda wasn’t going to be in the stands, not now and not ever again. If he was planning on mooning around like a lovesick kid, he might as well hang up his cleats right now.

  This game wasn’t about Amanda. It wasn’t about the shitty things he’d said to her, the crappy things she’d thrown back in his face. The World Series wasn’t about a goddamn pair of sunglasses or
a dinner at Artie’s or all the feelings he thought had grown between them.

  He took a deep breath. This was his job. And he was going to do it as well as he could—because that’s what he owed himself. That’s what he owed his team.

  He was still telling himself that when he dropped an easy pop fly from LA’s eighth place hitter, a move that cost the Rockets an out. And he was repeating his little mantra when he got fanned at the plate. And he was chewing on the words, bitter as burnt coffee, when he joined the team in the clubhouse after they lost their first game in the best-of-seven series.

  ~~~

  Get it together, Carter.

  Amanda stood by the long table, staring at the notepad that held her notes for her closing argument. After a week, she felt like she’d been born in this courtroom. She’d lived out her entire life inside its mahogany-paneled walls. She’d stood by this table forever, offering up evidence, structuring arguments.

  Over the course of the trial, she’d made some good points. Dr. Phillips’ testimony had gone over well; she could see that the judge was swayed by everything the expert witness had said. Amanda’s charts had illustrated her points; her timelines had made it clear just what UPA had invented and how long they should have had exclusive protection under the law.

  It was all clear, like the bones of a skeleton. She’d laid out the structure of her argument and guided the court from A to B to C.

  But she knew that wasn’t enough. She needed the judge to understand why it mattered. She needed him to see why he should care.

  Oh, it would be great if she could tell him, “Decide in my favor because my entire fiscal world depends on winning this trial.” She needed to win so she could pay her rent, so she could pay her mother’s mortgage. She needed the case to go in UPA’s favor because Hunter needed to continue his treatment. She needed a victory because her mother needed to rehab her back, needed care from the best therapists money could buy.

  Not that the judge cared about any of that.

  The door at the far end of the courtroom opened, and everyone stood out of respect for the returning judge. Amanda shuffled her notes, tapping them into neat, controlled order. She collected her thoughts, rehearsing the specific facts she needed to pound home.