“It’s Drake, actually,” he says in an amused voice.
I back away, trying to catch my breath and find myself pressed against the wall.
“Surprise,” he says, and then he laughs at the look on my face.
I shimmy away from the wall because I look like an assault victim and attempt to stroll casually to my desk. I collapse into a chair and stare at him glassy eyed.
“What the hell?” I say.
Aside from a different haircut and a few more eye crinkles, he looks exactly the same.
“I looked for you.”
“Did you now?”
“For a year after you left…”
“You must not have looked hard enough,” I quip, though I know it isn’t true. A year after I left Florida, Bernie called to tell me that a gentleman was calling the office inquiring about my current whereabouts. She said he had a British accent.
“I married her Olivia.”
“Who?”
“Leah.”
“I thought you were Johanna Smith’s husband?” My head is spinning.
“Leah’s her middle name, she’s always gone by Leah and she kept her last name. Johanna Leah Smith.”
The word “married” rings in my head repeatedly and I rub my temples at the ugliness of it. Caleb was married. Wedded. Bedded. A family man.
“Caleb,” I choke on his name. “Why are you here? Actually, don’t answer that—just get the f**k out.” I raise my voice and stand up.
“I wanted to see you, to speak to you before you saw me for the first time in front of everyone.”
I sit down again.
“You were the one looking for me? You were trying to find me to take Leah’s case?” He nods.
“No,” I say. “No way—ever. Never. No.”
Maybe she never told him about what I did. He just thinks I picked up and left. He still hasn’t got his memory back!
“Yes,” he says standing. “You’ll do it. She’s guilty and you’re the best liar I know.” Okay, maybe she did tell him.
I snort and look away.
“I have no motivation to win this case for you,” I smirk leaning back in my chair.
“You owe me,” he smiles. “I know you don’t have much of a conscience, but I think after what you put me through, twice, you might want to consider taking the case.”
“I would have told you the truth eventually,” I mumble. That’s if Ariel the pharmaceutical fraud hadn’t blackmailed me, but anyways….
“Would you have Olivia? Or, were you waiting for me to find out for myself when my memory came back?”
I look up at the ceiling and frown.
“Look, I’m not here to discuss the fact that you are lying, manipulative, and heartless.”
Ouch…
“I’m asking for a personal favor. I know how you feel about her. I know what she did but I need you to make sure she doesn’t go to prison.”
“I want her to go to prison.”
Caleb looks at me strangely, his eyes roam over my face then my hands.
“I don’t. She’s my wife. And, I’m asking that you take my feelings into consideration for once.”
It hurts so much to hear him say ‘wife.’ I know it shouldn’t, but it does.
“You can’t guilt me into defending that viper! Besides, Leah would never agree to it,” I shoot back at him, “there is a mutual hate between the two of us, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Leah will do what I tell her to do. I need your assurance that you will do everything in your power to help her.”
I feel a rush of adrenaline. I could take the case and loose on purpose! Yes! But, I know I would never. My days of toying with people’s lives are over. O.V.E.R.
“I can’t,” I am digging my fingernails into my thighs to keep from screaming.
“Yes, you can,” he says, placing both hands on my desk and leaning towards me. “You’re obsessed with your own success—always have been. Take it. Win the case, Olivia. You’ll be rich, famous…and I might even consider forgiving you.”
Forgiveness? I picture myself having dinner at their house; just me, Leah, Caleb and their kids…
I almost laugh out loud.
I glare at him. He’s still the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. Red-head marrying, amnesia getting, bastard!
“I’ll see you in the boardroom at nine o’clock to let you know my decision,” I say, ending the conversation. He gives me a look I can’t decipher and he straightens up to leave.
“Make the right decision, Duchess,” he says before walking out the door.
“Duchess,” I snicker and I throw a stack of sticky notes in his wake.
I take exactly one hour and forty-five minutes to compose myself. The indescribable shock of seeing him after so many years has left me slumped in my chair like a discarded rag doll. I keep seeing the part where he turns around and I splatter coffee out of my nose.
I do breathing exercises. I tranquilize myself with thoughts of happy rainbows and ice cream, but the colors keep turning black and the ice cream melts into a dismal mess. When I have grasped onto some semblance of calm by stabbing a letter opener repeatedly into Leah’s case file, I head over to the boardroom.
“He is hot!” the secretary whispers to me as I pass her desk. I feel my eye twitch.
“Oh, shut up.”
When I walk into the room, I see Leah first. How could I not? She is still surrounded by a halo of red hair. It seems brighter than four years ago, more vibrant. I wish I had listened to Dobson the ra**st, that day in the rain and gone home, than none of this would be happening.