Sonia emerges from the bathroom and, while toweling her hair, says, “Chase, that shower is awesome, and I am so ready for—” She stops dead in her tracks and stares at me sitting on the bed. “What?” she says. “You look like you’re ready for a fight. Do I have mascara running down my cheeks or something?”
Her levity grates on my nerves and ¬I avert my eyes.
“Oh great,” she says. “For the first time ever, you’re not horny. Just two more minutes in the shower with all those wonderful jets of warm water and I wouldn’t care.” She holds up a finger. “You know what? I’ll be right back”
When she reaches the bathroom door, she stops and faces me again. “Well, that didn’t work the way it was supposed to. The sight of this gorgeous ass walking away from you was supposed to spur you into action. What happened to the Chase who should have been coming after me to drag me to his bed and ravish me?”
“Sorry.”
Sonia cocks her head to one side and her shoulders sag. She walks to the bed and sits beside me. “Tell me.”
Taking a minute, I analyze every syllable of my phone conversation with Gordon. The more I process it, the more fear creeps up my spine.
“I may need your help with something, Sonia” I say. “I was being evasive with you earlier.”
“About—?”
“Idaho. It’s my project. Everything I have is committed to the NIERE deal.”
She places a gentle hand on my thigh and says, “You know, I’m not at all surprised. It’s always had something of your boldness about it from the moment it was announced.”
“I did everything right. The science, the numbers, the politicians, every environmental group and labor union. Everything was lined up perfectly. It was as solid a deal as any I’ve ever done.”
“Only now,” she says, “somehow, it isn’t.”
Clenching my fists, I say, “Yes. And I have absolutely no idea how anything could have gone wrong.”
We lock eyes for a quiet moment, then I say, “I need you, Sonia. Legally, I mean. I want you on retainer.”
Her hand slides from my thigh and her face is flushed as she turns her head to look away from me. Folding her hands in her lap, she says in a voice that is quiet yet firm, “You haven’t the slightest clue what you’re asking, Chase.”
“Of course, I do,” I say. “You’re the best corporate attorney out there. I’ve got others but none that I’ve ever trusted with all the details of any deal. But now I need to lay it all out in detail with someone I trust completely. And that’s you. Only you.
“And thus, my point is proven.” she says with a bitter edge in her tone. “You completely miss the point. I have never had a legal client that was also an escort client nor have I had an escort client that was a legal client and I don’t see any reason why I should start now. I can recommend any number of lawyers every bit as qualified as I am to help you. Every one of them would kill to have you as a client. Let me make you a list.”
“But they are not you, Sonia,” I protest. “It takes years to earn the kind of trust I have in you. I know with every fiber of my being that you are the only attorney I could bring up to speed fast enough to make a difference. It has to be you or no one.”
“I think you’re wrong about that, Chase. It sounds to me like you’re panicking. You can’t make sound decisions while in that place.”
“You may be right,” I say, “but I can’t take the chance. My instincts tell me something is coming at me so big that I’ll need every edge I can get to fight it off. I’m asking you because I honestly feel you’re the only one for the job. I need you, Sonia. You and only you. Will you do it?”
Her voice flat, she says, “Go take a shower. I’ll get dressed and we’ll discuss this out by the fireplace.”
Feeling as if something has suddenly become unhinged, detached within me, I only manage to say, “I bought you some new outfits and had them hung in the usual place.”
As I rise from the side of the bed, Sonia keeps her eyes averted from me and says a soft and polite, “Thank you.” As I close the bathroom door, I see she still hasn’t changed position.
When I reenter the playroom after my shower, I see Sonia has laid out for me a pair of underwear, a pair of sharply creased wool slacks and a crisp pin stripe button down cotton shirt. The loafers lying on the floor next to the bed have no socks with them. From experience, she knows this is about as formal as I get at The Fort.
When I walk into the living area, I see that Sonia is in a dark skirted suit with a blouse that has only the top button undone so there is no hint of the breasts she had so comfortably left exposed to me just a short time before. She hasn’t started the gas fire but, nonetheless, stands before the grate as if staring into flames. Her nose and eyes are red, and she is holding a tissue in her hand. I feel my heart crumbling within me, but my resolve does not waiver.
It’s been said that business is war.
A take-no-prisoners type of war.
I’ve always tried to walk a microscopically thin line where only my enemies are destroyed and never any of my friends are sacrificed. But now I fear I’ve crossed that line and lost something of more worth than I ever knew until now.
Sometimes, business is a just a mean little bitch.
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