Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) (23 page)

Chapman made no effort to hide his annoyance.  He leaned back in his
chair, arms crossed, and kept shaking his head and smirking at Burke, as if the
two of them agreed Sarah was wasting their time.  Finally Chapman asked, “Are
you two girls going over makeup tips next?  Because Joe and I might as well
grab a beer.”

He was too stupid to listen, Sarah thought.  All the better for her and
her case.

“You said the product caught on fire February thirteenth, right?” she
asked.

Joe’s client nodded.  “I wanted to do an extra good job on my hair that
night.  You know, for Valentine’s the next day.”

Sarah winced.  “I’m so sorry.”

The woman seemed to appreciate a genuine human reaction, as opposed to
Chapman’s robotic, “And then what happened . . . and then what happened . . . ”

Sarah consulted her notes.  “So, assuming you first used the product on
December twenty-sixth, and used it approximately every two days after that, it
sounds like you used it about twenty-five times, total.  Does that sound
right?”

Ms. Harowitz shrugged and looked apologetic.  “I never really counted
it.”

Sarah accidentally glanced at Joe just then and saw him looking back at
her with a curious expression.  She had never gone this in-depth before,
putting a specific number out there, on the record.  So far she’d just been
keeping that information in her notes.

“Thank you, Ms. Harowitz.  That’s all I have.  We appreciate your time
and patience today.”

***

She had already sweated through two miles on the hotel treadmill that evening
when her music cut out to alert her to a text:

The name of a different hotel.  And a room number.

Sarah deleted it and kept on running.

This was the problem with reality, she thought.  Once it started creeping
back in, it tended to crowd out the fantasies altogether.  And reality had been
intruding on her thoughts more and more as the day progressed.

 . . . an intimate personal relationship with the
member . . .

What she and Joe had done was unethical.  There was no other way to
look at it.  No exceptions, no gray area, none.  No, “Oh, but we had a little
wine,” or “It was my birthday,” or “I’m sorry, I was lonely, and opposing
counsel was right there—have you seen him?  That man is
hot
.”  There
wasn’t even an exception for taking up with former lovers rather than starting
something new with someone else.

And that was just the legal side of it.  What about the personal?  Joe
Burke was no friend of hers.  Yes, he was outstanding in bed.  Congratulations,
here’s your medal.  But it didn’t change the fact that he’d once stuck a blade
in her heart and left it there.  The scar tissue may have grown around it, but
Sarah had felt the knife every time she even considered getting in too deep
with another man.  And now if that man was Joe Burke again, run far and run
fast.

Sarah increased the speed on the treadmill.  It was a start.

They would be back on an easier schedule the following week—easier for
Sarah, anyway.  There were more flights between places like Portland and Seattle,
which meant they could fly every night after the depositions, instead of early
in the mornings.

Which meant Sarah would never have a night free.

She picked up the pace and ran flat out for a mile.  The sweat poured
off her as her heart and lungs pumped.  She would feel better in no time, she
thought—exercise was always a great release.

Kind of like sex with Joe
, her lascivious mind answered.

STOP
.  It
was just one night of weakness, she reminded herself.  She could live with
that.  She had made mistakes before—plenty of them, including falling for Burke
in the first place.  The key was not to wallow in them, but instead keep moving
forward.  Move forward and be careful never to repeat that same mistake.

The first step was forgetting the hotel and room number her brain had
automatically memorized.  The second was forgetting how absolutely perfect it
felt to be in Joe’s arms again.  To pick up where they had left off, as if
they’d never been apart.

It was going to be a long night.

***

The Billings airport restaurant didn’t open until five AM.  Sarah was
still a few minutes early.  She waited outside the door, hoping they had
oatmeal.

The terminal was small enough that she knew there would be no hiding
from each other.  Marcela had already passed her with a yawn and the greeting,
“Just one more morning like this, then we can sleep all weekend.”  Chapman
shuffled by without bothering to say anything.  And then she saw Joe.

Damn it, why did he have to look like that? Sarah thought.  Although Joe
in a suit was nothing compared to him in jeans.

Sarah still had his hoodie.  She’d forgotten about it until she unpacked
her workout clothes the day before.  Now it still sat in her bag, waiting for a
convenient and covert time to give it back.  She couldn’t exactly pull it out
of her luggage and hand it to him now.  If either Marcela or Chapman noticed,
they might wonder.

The restaurant door opened behind her and Sarah quickly ducked inside.

But it was too much to think she would escape him.

“Morning,” Joe said, coming in behind her.

“Good morning,” she answered without turning her head.  She
concentrated on the menu, then ordered tea, a banana, and a bagel.

“Sleep all right?” Joe asked her.  “I’ll take a coffee to go,” he told
the server.

“Fine,” Sarah said.  “You?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”

She listened for some tone in his voice, some hint of pouting or anger,
but it didn’t appear to be there.  He was as casual as if they were discussing
the weather.

“Maybe tonight,” Joe said, and then left it at that.  He paid for his coffee
and told her he’d see her later.

While meanwhile Sarah’s heart beat at a staccato.

She sat at one of the tables and concentrated hard on spreading jam over
her bagel.  The bread was stale, but she ate it anyway.  She needed something
to do with her hands and her mouth.

Maybe tonight.

Her body buzzed at the mere suggestion.

See, this was the problem, she thought.  You can’t have just one.  So,
tonight in some hotel room in Boise, Idaho.  Tomorrow, somewhere else.  Was
this really what her life was reduced to?  Sneaking around with Joe in whatever
town they happened to be in, both of them filling up their idle hours with as
much sex as they could fit in before they had to fall asleep and go back to
work the next morning?

As opposed to what?
Sarah asked herself.  As opposed to returning to her hotel room alone
every night, eating bad food from room service, reading through documents until
she passed out and woke up to the alarm and rushed off to some airport to do it
all over again?

Chapman had the right idea, getting someone else to do the dirty work. 
Sarah would have much preferred being one of the attorneys back in the office,
sending out discovery requests without ever having to catch a flight and face
another long, tiring day of depositions and being in the same room with Joe for
six or seven hours, then having to walk away from him again.  And again.

A text popped up on her screen.

Feel like takeout tonight?

Why did he have to make it sound so easy?

Sarah turned off her phone.

But then a minute later, turned it back on again.

And sat staring at the text for a long time before turning the phone
off for good.

Twenty-six

It was Thursday, she had to remind herself.  The days strung together
now like reruns of the day before.  Every plane ride felt the same.  All the
hotel conference rooms looked alike.  All the food tasted equally bad. 
Feel
like takeout tonight?
  Of course.  And a whole lot more than that.

Chapman continued with his new style of questioning, firing them off so
rapidly Joe’s client barely had a chance to answer.  Clearly Chapman was
already done with the job.  He had been a bad lawyer at the beginning of their
travels together, but at least Sarah could tell he thought he was good.  Now,
he clearly didn’t care.

“Objection,” Joe said again.  He’d already objected several times that
afternoon, always with the same complaint.  “Please repeat the question slowly
and allow my client sufficient time to answer.”

Chapman scowled and did as he was asked, but in an exaggerated way,
enunciating every word and speaking extra loudly as if Joe’s client, an elegant
woman in her 70s, were both mentally deficient and hard of hearing.

The woman was neither, Sarah noticed, and so far had been extremely
tolerant of Chapman’s boorish behavior.

“My husband and I moved to Boise after our son graduated from high
school,” the woman said in answer to Chapman’s question, and Sarah wanted to
throw something at his fat head when she saw him roll his eyes and pretend to
be bored by what he was hearing.

Then don’t ask!
Sarah wanted to scream at him. 
Stick to the facts of this case!

But Chapman was like so many other lawyers she’d come up against: 
convinced of his brilliance, in love with the sound of his own voice, and
immune to anyone’s helpful suggestion that he pull his head out of his rear end
and actually learn to do the job well.

“Objection,” Joe said again after another pair of rapid questions. 
“Let the record reflect counsel is not allowing my client sufficient time to
answer.”

“Fine!” Chapman said, leaning back.  “Take all day.”  He twirled his
hand at the woman.  “Please, speak.”

Joe’s client looked at him coldly, but then answered him in her
unfailingly dignified manner.

Sarah hid a yawn behind her hand and tried to tune out Chapman’s voice
for a few minutes while she studied Joe’s client instead.

Sarah wondered if she would still be going to so much effort with her
hair when she was seventy-three, like Mrs. Barrett.

Didn’t there finally come a point when people said forget it, take me
or leave me, my hair is a kinky frightful mess and that’s just the way it is?  When
they gave up on makeup, too, and accepted the fact that their eyelashes were
too pale, their nose too wide, their lips too thin, their cheeks not nearly
defined enough?

Although looking at Mrs. Barrett, who had obviously taken great care
with her appearance that morning, wearing not only makeup, but also simple, elegant
jewelry and a colorful scarf to go with her sweater and long skirt, Sarah saw
the appeal of not giving up too soon.  Mrs. Barrett probably enjoyed her own
reflection in the mirror.  And her husband probably enjoyed her, too.

Sarah found her thoughts straying more and more to the personal lives
of the people in that room.  Chapman didn’t wear a wedding ring, which was no
great surprise, since Sarah couldn’t imagine who would have him, but did he
ever date?  Was there anyone who could put up with him for even a single hour?

And she assumed Marcela was single, based on her comment about wishing
someone would look at her the way Joe looked at Sarah—

“Objection,” Joe snapped.  “Paul, if you keep this up, I’m suspending
the rest of the deposition.  Your firm is the one that scheduled all of these
in the first place.  If you didn’t want to hear from my clients in person, you
should have handled it with interrogatories.”

“Wish I had,” Chapman answered.  “Not my problem anymore.  Mrs.
Barrett, please take as much time as you need to answer the question,” he said,
sickly sweet now.  “We have nothing better to do all day long than to listen to
you reminisce about your years in the Navy.”

“Off the record,” Sarah said.  “Paul, if you don’t want to know
someone’s work history, don’t ask.  If you don’t want to know about her
schooling, don’t ask.  But don’t be rude to a woman who has taken time out of
her life to be here and sit through a deposition all afternoon just because
your client’s product blew up and set her hair on fire.”  She could feel her
face getting hot, and knew she needed to maintain control, but she was sick of
this man and his obnoxious behavior.

“Because of your faulty part,” Chapman returned.

“All subject to litigation,” Sarah said.  “But if you don’t stop
abusing these plaintiffs—”

“Then what?” Chapman said.  “You going to file a bar complaint against
me, Henley?  Try to get me sanctioned?  You think anyone’s going to listen to
you, with your history?  Word is you got off lucky.  You should have been
indicted with the rest of them.”

Sarah felt her blood pressure spike.  Her eyes flashed toward the court
reporter to confirm that none of this was being taken down.

“That’s enough,” Joe said calmly.  “We’re taking a break.  And you’re
done with my client now, Chapman.  If you have any more questions, submit them
in writing.  Ms. Henley, I assume you have a few questions?”