Chapter One
Max
I glanced at my phone, which I’d just hung up a few minutes ago, and suppressed a groan. Why had I said yes to going back home? Why? My best friend had cornered me right before the most important meeting of my career, and I’d made some panicked, vaguely assenting noises. Agreeing under duress was grounds for invalidating any promise, but I didn’t think Hal would care about the legalese.
Get your head in the game, Max.
I stared at myself in the mirror of my boss’ private bathroom and adjusted my tie, a textured black silk with narrow silver stripes, for the fourth time. It was just the classy touch the suit needed, sober but not stuffy, which was the impression we were shooting for with this client. I shifted the knot the tiniest bit to the right then nodded. Good, it was fine, it was perfect, just like how this meeting was going to go.
Everything else would be perfect as well if I could figure out a way to get out of going back to Edgewood.
Maybe I’d focused so hard on just one thing for the past three weeks—this meeting—that my brain couldn’t comprehend anything else that got thrown at it. Like random requests from my best friend for me to spend Christmas with him and his family in my hometown, rather than them coming to stay with me like they often did. Gah, I hadn’t been back to Edgewood in over a decade. I hadn’t wanted to be there.
I still didn’t want to be there.
“Why didn’t you just say no?” I snarked at myself as I adjusted my tie yet again. Because it was Hal, that was why. When he blindsided me by asking me to come back for Christmas—the girls’ first major holiday since their mom had freaked out and left, and his reason for wanting them to be in familiar, comfortable surroundings instead of my tiny apartment in the city—all I could think to say was, “Yes.”
“Max, you almost ready?” Marcus called from somewhere in the office—probably at his desk. He might as well have been grafted to it for all he moved from it most days.
“Almost!” I replied.
It wasn’t every day I could say that my future literally hung in the balance of what happened next, but today was that day for me. This wasn’t just a potential client meeting. This was one that I had brought in and I was taking the lead on. The billables it would bring our firm had the potential to kick me into another tax bracket and net me a promotion as well if I shared enough of the glory with my mentor. Which, of course, I would—Marcus had shepherded me through the first three years of my career, and he deserved to share the credit once I started bringing in real money. Partner-level money.
If I got this promotion, I would be the first person hired in my year to get to the junior partner level in Staller, Weisz and Coast. If I got this promotion, I would have enough money to move out of my tiny top-floor apartment and live some place that didn’t somehow feel hot and cold at the same time. Some place where I wouldn’t have to put Hal on a fold-out couch and convince the girls they didn’t hear roaches in the walls at night when they visited. If I got this promotion, I would finally be able to take the vacation I’d been planning for what felt like forever—go down to Florida and visit my mom in the Keys then spend a solid week on the beaches of Miami getting a tan and finding a friendly guy to enjoy the evenings with.
Basically, I had to get this promotion, and that started with this meeting going well.
I smoothed my hair back one last time, turned my phone off and tucked it into the pocket specially designed for it inside my jacket—who even knew suits were made with pockets like that? I definitely hadn’t before I got to New York City—and exited the bathroom. Marcus was at his desk like I’d thought, but he was standing, shuffling through the brief I’d typed up last week for probably the fifth time today.
“Are you sure about this initial offer?” he asked with a frown. Marcus had the broadness of a football player well into retirement—wide shoulders, big chest, and a belly that he tamed with an aggressively fitted waistcoat. “It seems a bit low to me. Once you start dealing with players at this level, they care more about paying enough than paying too little.”
“It’s five percent above what they were paying before,” I said, shutting the bathroom door and coming over to the desk. “And there’s a clause for renegotiation after the first year on page fifteen.”
Marcus shrugged and made a meh sound then glanced up at me. “Hey—looking pretty good, Max. Is that one of the suits Clara helped you find?” Clara Staller was Marcus’s wife, a woman with a deep understanding of fashion and an uncanny ability to pick clothes that would make almost anyone look good. She’d cornered me at my first company holiday party and gently let me know that black—straight-up solid black, like the suit I’d been wearing at that very moment—was only for funerals and federal agents, not lawyers with big corporate clients. She’d given me some good tips and the occasional nudge in the right direction, and now I could swim with the sharks without looking like a tasty guppy.
Usually. A lock of my golden-brown hair fell across my face, still unruly after multiple applications of gel. I sighed and pushed it back into place. “Yeah, a few months ago.”
“It’s a good one. Unlike this clause.”
No, no, nope. I wasn’t even going to think about that clause right now or about reworking it. I had too many other things swirling around in my head. Like a trip to Edgewood I was most definitely going to find a way out of.
“The clause is fine,” I said firmly. “It’s standard for an initial presentation, and it’s too late to take it out of the paperwork anyway.”
Marcus stared solemnly at me for a long moment before his square, ruddy face broke into a broad smile. He clapped me on the shoulder. “Way to stick to your guns, son. That’s what I’ve been looking for from you. That’s the attitude you need to win in this business. Be firm, but flexible, and don’t let the client or your co-counsel bully you into making rash decisions.”
“I learned from the best.”
He chuckled. “I’m happy to be sitting in on this meeting, but I don’t honestly think you’re going to need me. You’ve worked really hard on this, and it shows, Max. Trust me when I tell you that the other partners are paying attention to your dedication to this firm. Ever since Peterson left, you’re at the top of their list.”
That was a funny choice in words. Peterson hadn’t left. The twenty-seven-year-old guy had been carried out of here on a stretcher after suffering a heart attack in his office two months ago. His office that was the one next door to mine. He’d almost died while I’d been right next door, too focused on work to even notice.
I mentally shook myself out of it. Now wasn’t the time for that kind of recollection. Or for worrying about unintended promises—no way I was going back home. Now was the time to get my game face on and land my first big client.