Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
It was good to know she could irritate the man. He seemed so very calm, so laid-back.
“Not usually. You’re special. You know they can’t afford counsel and even if they could, they would have to look outside the parish,” she pointed out.
“What exactly do you think I get out of these negotiations? Do you know how many times I’ve had to convince the LaMont brothers that they can’t turn their mechanic shop into an amusement park? I’m not joking. They had an annual park pass and a bunch of used cars they wanted to turn into rides. It comes up at least twice a year. What do I get out of that?”
“Some people get off on the power.” She knew many people like that, including her ex-husband. He’d enjoyed being the heir to his father’s throne, loved having power over every single person in the firm.
A deep chuckle came from Quaid. “Power? You’ve been living in the city for a long time if you think I have a lick of power. I don’t even have it in my home. I serve this town, not the other way around.”
“Then why stay?” She’d understood that Quaid had been raised a prince waiting to take his daddy’s crown, but it wasn’t like the man didn’t have choices.
“Why did you go?” Quaid countered.
“For the same reason everyone leaves. There wasn’t any opportunity for me here.” She’d been thinking a lot about this question lately.
“And I stayed because the only real opportunity I ever had was here.”
“That’s so untrue. You could have gone anywhere. Done anything.”
“From the time I was old enough to understand words, I knew I would follow in my father’s footsteps.”
Oh, the poor little rich boy. “Well, following in my mother’s would have meant a mindless, never-ending job at a plant, so I guess you got the better end of that deal.”
His lips curled down. “Of course I did. I was wealthy so I never had a single problem in my life and everything fell into place for me.”
“I didn’t say that. I was only saying you had a good opportunity here and I didn’t. So I left and you stayed.” She wasn’t surprised he was getting annoyed with her. She annoyed a lot of people. “You still have all your opportunities, and the world has become one giant garbage dump for me.”
He relaxed a bit. “What happened?”
“You don’t know? I shouldn’t be surprised. I guess I’m not interesting enough for anyone in this town to know anything about me.” She’d thought the man would at least ask around to try to find out more about her after they’d faced off in court.
He sat back. “I know you turned in a client and that it cost you your job and your marriage, but I asked my friend not to tell me the whole story. I thought that should come from you. I’ve met your husband a couple of times. I know you probably don’t need to hear this, but you’re better off without him.”
She didn’t feel better off. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not crying over the loss of my great love. I didn’t love Todd, and he didn’t love me. We made sense, and his father wanted him to settle down. He also needed women lawyers to parade around to show he wasn’t a sexist. So I fit the bill and we got married.”
“If you didn’t love him, what did you get out of it?”
This was the part she often felt bad about though she knew it happened all the time. She wasn’t going to lie to him. “Marrying him meant I got the job I wanted and I got a seat at the table I wanted to sit at. I also thought I was getting a partner who wanted to work toward the same goals. That was how I viewed marriage. It was supposed to be a good partnership. The way you’re looking at me, I would suspect the last time you saw Todd he was with a woman who wasn’t me. I knew about that, too. I didn’t care.”
“Didn’t care? So you had an open marriage?”
Her heart constricted a bit, and now she was the one getting annoyed. “Not at all, but I knew who he was when I married him.”
“So it was all your fault?”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Of course not.”
“Then why excuse him? You’re putting the blame on yourself. I find it interesting that you frame your whole marriage as a marriage of convenience.”
“It didn’t turn out to be convenient for me.” The cheating had started fairly early on, but she’d told herself it didn’t matter since they weren’t in love.
So why had she never cheated? Why had she stayed true to a marriage that was basically a sham? Why had she spent years without the consolation of warm arms around her?