A Case For Trust (26 page)

Marissa fist-pumped the air. ‘Thank
you
! My first case that isn't chasing down late child maintenance payments or arguing with the rental bond authority. I'll write the letter this afternoon and give them fourteen days to respond. And you know what else we're going to ask them? We're going to ask them to show some good faith in the interim and extend your public liability cover while the claim's being determined. That way, you'll be covered to keep going with your business.'

The hope bubble gurgled higher and louder. Still Pippa couldn't quite believe it. ‘Really? Would they do that? I don't have any capital, but I could start doing some small jobs again, cover my expenses in the meantime …'

‘Or you could just sue Matt. I'll write him a letter this afternoon and you'll have money in your account by Friday. If you want to get back on your feet quickly, that's your best option.'

‘For the last time, no. I'm not suing Matt. If you believe my case is legitimate, we try the insurance company first. If they'll reverse their decision to not cover me, I can still keep my business going. I could try to refinance again with another bank.'

‘Pippa, that will still take time. You've still had to sell your home. Don't you want some compensation for that? Besides, the insurance claim
could
drag out for months. I know I said we'll win, but it could still take time. They'll still fight it, probably. You still need money, you still need to live in the meantime. Matt will settle immediately, you know that.'

‘I know. But it was a mistake. He didn't mean to pursue it.'

‘Not in the end, no. But you should be under no illusions about how ruthless Matt can be. He
was
prepared to ruin you.'

‘To protect his family. I know that's morally questionable, but Marissa, you don't know what it's like to
not
have that kind of family devotion, to not feel safe in your family, to not know your family members would do anything, give anything, for you. You've always had that, so you've never had to want it. But for me … I think it's a wonderful quality your brother has.'

‘You love him.'

‘I'm not talking about him as a man, I'm talking about his—'

‘You love him.'

‘Yes. Yes, I do.'

‘Sue him. Because he loves you, too, and after all that's happened, all that he's done, he needs a way to make amends.'

‘That's not the way. That's not what I want.'

‘Then what
do
you want, Philippa? Whatever it is, you only have to ask. He'll give it to you. If it's in his power to give, he'll give it to you. What do you want?'

There was the crux of it. Pippa really didn't know. She'd wanted his love, and he'd told her she had it, and it wasn't enough. She wanted guarantees, and she knew nobody could give her those. Nobody but herself. She was the only guarantee. She could never allow herself to forget that.

‘I don't know what I want. But I know what I
don't
want. I don't want Matt's money. Money's easy.'

‘It's more than just the money, Philippa. If it's revenge you want, don't discount the impact on Matt that a legal suit will have. He risks being disbarred. At the very least he'll face disciplinary action from the law society. He'll lose his position on the law society board, he'll lose the respect of his peers, the confidence of his clients. He'll lose big time, I assure you. So when he tells you to sue him, he's not being flippant, and neither am I.'

Shock that Marissa might think Pippa actually wanted revenge battled with the awareness that Matt's sister was almost …

‘Gleeful. You're not being flippant at all, Marissa, you're practically gleeful.' Gleeful
was
the word, and as soon as she'd said it, she saw Marissa blush, then shrug away her embarrassment.

‘Yes, okay, that's fair. He's my big, know-it-all, always perfect, always winning brother. I would like once, just once, for somebody to put him back on his self-righteous sorry arse. It's a rare thing for Matt to make a mistake, and I for one don't see why we shouldn't have the equally rare pleasure of seeing him pay for it.'

‘Then you'll have to find somebody else to be your flunky. I'm okay now. I'm going to avoid bankruptcy, and if your action with Consolgard is successful, I won't even lose my business. I'm not taking Matt's money just to give you some kind of perverse sibling satisfaction, and I won't have his career, his reputation, his pride destroyed on my account.'

‘Not even for the sisterhood?'

‘Not even for the sisterhood.'

‘What about for a sister?'

‘I don't have a sister.'

‘You don't have a sister
yet
. Matt will ask you to marry him.'

‘No.'

‘Yes. Matt
will
ask you to marry him.'

‘What, out of some sense of misplaced obligation because I haven't sued him?'

‘No, you moron. Out of love. He loves you.'

‘He loves sleeping with me,' Pippa corrected.

‘Is it so ridiculous to think he might have fallen in love with you?'

Pippa stared fiercely, furiously, at the clock over Marissa's head, until the blurred second hand orbited the numbers clearly again. She counted its progress until it reached the twelve before she chanced a look at Matt's sister, confident she had the tears under control.

‘He means too much,' she said. ‘If I begin to imagine he loves me and it turns out he doesn't … I know it sounds overly dramatic, but I really don't think I could go on. I don't want to be that person, clinging for dear life to a man who doesn't want me. If I'm going to end up on my own, I'd rather be that way from the start. I can handle being lonely. I don't think I can handle being left.'

‘Wow.
Wow
. Is
that
what it is? I thought your issue with Matt was you didn't want him controlling you, like your father controlled your mother.'

‘There was that, yes. Early on, that's what I thought. But Matt's nothing like my father. I see that now.'

‘Well, he's nothing like your mother, either. He wouldn't leave you, Pip.'

‘You can't know that for sure.'

‘No, I guess I can't. But he's an honourable man, and he's not trivial. He doesn't play games. He does love you, I can see it. Give him a chance, Philippa. Trust him.'

‘I can't. I don't think I know how.'

‘Then what are you going to do?'

‘I'm going to pack up my house and start again.'

‘This is so stupid. You could be together. You could be happy.'

‘I don't think I believe in happy.'

‘You don't believe in
happy
? Jesus, Philippa, then what do you believe in?'

It took Pippa a minute or two before she found an answer. ‘I believe in myself.'

I believe in myself.

***

It had been a long week. He'd finalised the negotiations that would see Consolgard leave his family's law firm after nearly sixty years, and while there was still the potential for the insurance giant to pursue claims against his firm down the track, Matt was confident he'd done all he could to protect his partners and secure employment for his staff. It could have been worse. Not much, but some.

He'd shaken hands with Consolgard's managing director, a man the same vintage as Matt's father and who had always treated Matt with a kind of paternal indulgence.

‘The end of an era, Matty. I'm sorry to see it. Your father would be sorry, too.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘A damned fool thing.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Well, it's done now. I can't say I understand it, and I think you've made a big mistake. One of several, by the looks of things, so perhaps it's for the best. Your father was a fool about women, too.'

Matt stiffened. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Oh, Ed never actually lost a client over it, but there were times I swear he was so distracted by Eleanor and her goings-on, it was a damned near miracle he didn't destroy the firm. Your man Simon told one of my people: this whole debacle's because of a woman you've got messed up with. They're never worth it, Matty, trust me on that one.'

‘I've resigned your account over a point of principle, John. The fact that the client in question happens to be a woman is incidental.'

The elder man slapped the younger heartily on the back. ‘You just keep telling yourself that, son. All I can say is, she must be one helluva woman to be worth breaking up your client list. I hope she rewards you appropriately. Make sure our files are transferred by the end of the week, hmm?'

Matt wanted to argue, wanted to deny the barely veiled sexual conjecture, wanted to point out that his action wouldn't reap him any rewards of that nature at all. Philippa
was
a helluva woman, for all the fat lot of good it did him. He'd resigned the account because it was the right thing to do, knowing it would make no difference at all to her decision to split with him. She'd likely never even hear of it. It irked, and badly, that his attempt to redress a legal wrong was being interpreted by his peers as a strategic error driven by his cock.

He wasn't sure John had even made the connection between Marissa's legal aid claim that Consolgard had that day agreed to settle, and the conflict in law Matt had raised in justifying his decision to resign the account. No doubt his competitors were shaking their heads in delighted bewilderment over an action that, when you looked at it from a business perspective, made no sense at all. Even his partners had protested, his fine words about ethics and principles and honour and the spirit of the law shouted down below their insistence that if you'd made an error of interpretation, you defended it anyway or risked exposing the error.

He'd overruled them in the end, using the weight of his family's history of ownership of the firm, but he had no doubt there were bridges he'd burned he might never mend. And with the Consolgard contingent now gone and his colleagues barely speaking to him, he shut his office door behind him and sank into the leather couch that overlooked the city.

There had to be some good come out of it all. He wasn't convinced Consolgard's new lawyers would be prepared to give their client the right advice, the advice he'd tried to give and had had rejected, but he'd written comprehensive notes about the legal risks of continuing with their current application policies. It was up to them now. And at least, in the meantime, Marissa had had a win. She'd texted him while he was in the middle of the Consolgard discussions: they were considering Philippa's claim and would cover her business in the meantime.

It was great news. He could picture her face when she received it, could see in his mind's eye the flush of relief that would start somewhere in line with her ears and suffuse cheeks and nose and forehead. He could see the crinkles appearing at the corners of her eyes, the distinctive ‘thank you' smile she wore that was at once sincere and effusive and restrained, as if she couldn't believe her luck, as if she didn't deserve the gift she'd just received.

It wasn't enough. It was never enough, imagining. He'd spent the past week with Philippa's face, Philippa's voice, Philippa's touch always in his head, desperate to hang onto her, desperate to hang onto the memory of her because he knew when she said she didn't want to see him any more, she'd meant it.

It was so stupid. She loved him. He knew she did. If he could see her again, hold her again, he thought he could perhaps persuade her. She'd been hurt, and it was his fault, but she had to see—he had to make her see—he'd give up everything he had before he'd ever hurt her again.

He'd use the Consolgard news as his excuse. Marissa wouldn't mind, or if she did, he'd make it up to her. But he needed to see Philippa, needed to be the one to tell her she'd had a win at last. Needed to see that gracious, surprised, remarkable smile unfold across her face.

His secretary, the one he'd inherited from his father, didn't look at him as he rushed out of the office.

Chapter 17

Pippa unlocked the door she'd avoided opening since she first moved into the house. She'd avoid it longer if she could, but the rest of the house was done. The things that had to go were separated from the things she would take with her, and this was the only thing left.

Inside the narrow, tall utility cupboard sat, silent and reproachful, the salvaged artefacts of her mother's life. There was the lone Royal Doulton teacup and saucer that had survived the violent rages. A gaudy kewpie doll, circa 1980s, its neon pink tulle skirt lush with dust, which her mother had clung to as evidence Pippa's father had sometimes been kind to his girl. A shoebox of mixed tapes, the dance songs by long-forgotten bands catalogued in her mother's small, neat cursive—Pippa thought she might have kept some of those, if the machine for playing them hadn't gone the way of the fine tea set. Other random relics: a pair of sneakers she couldn't remember her mother wearing; a few boxes of tattered, well-loved romance novels; the clear plastic bags, mothballed and tightly zipped, holding frocks and jeans and underwear—why the hell had she kept her mother's underwear?—and the tiny, cracked, shell-encrusted music box, its ballerina futilely spinning on her one remaining leg as she circled the cheap plaster earrings and tarnished bracelets and simple, plain gold wedding band Pippa's father had refused to have buried with her mother.

It wasn't much in the way of memories to leave behind. It wasn't much of a life. But it was all she had left of her mother; and while she knew it was pointless, a little gruesome, to simply pack it all up and move it to another cupboard in another house, Pippa also knew she wasn't going to throw a single item out.

On the bottom shelf was the sole cardboard box she'd kept of her father's. No tragic memories here; no heirlooms, no personal curios. It was paperwork, mostly, and she'd only kept it after he died because she'd sheltered a lingering fear she'd one day receive a belated demand from the tax office or social security or one of his painted, tattooed lady friends.