The Bad Judgment Series: The Complete Series (3 page)

“Richie’s just being your dad,” she said, spraying puffs of heavy-smelling hairspray onto the top of my bun. “And you can’t get mad at him for that.”

I exhaled and she handed me my glasses. We both looked at my reflection in the mirror. “You look good,” she said and beamed at me.

“I look passable. And a little tan. Thanks to you,” I said, and smiled at her. I looked at my watch. “Shit,” I said, and Tammy held out my laptop and my purse.

“Go get ‘em,” she said, cheerfully. “Sit next to Mr. Hottie McTottie CEO and tell me how it is.”

I groaned.

“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Better than fine,” she called.

I groaned again and went down to meet my super-hot client.

I
took
the silent elevator downstairs, alone, and saw David Proctor and Broden Walker pacing near the door. “You’re late,” David said, going through the revolving door.

“One minute late,” I mumbled, looking at my watch and following them out to the Town Car that was waiting for us.

“I’m sure you’re worth the wait,” Walker said, coming up beside me and opening the car door. I froze and looked up at his gorgeous face mutely.
Did he just…compliment me?
I slid into the car, any comprehensible response I might have formed hopelessly lost somewhere between my brain and my mouth.

Walker looked at me briefly as he sat down. “Smile,” he whispered to me. “It’s not going to be that bad.” I smiled at him weakly, ashamed that he was having to encourage me when
his
ass was on the line. I didn’t realize someone that hot could be so nice.

He turned and looked out the window and I sat between them, looking straight down and pretending to read the notes on my yellow legal pad. I was actually just sweating and feeling consumed by stress. Walker seemed lost in his own thoughts, while David bounced his knees up and down while he read and re-read his notes on his tablet.

No one spoke as we finished snaking our way through the Financial District in Boston and reached the federal courthouse; my stomach churned in anticipation as we pulled up outside. The building was both imposing and beautiful. It sat right on the waterfront, surrounded by skyscrapers on one side and boats on the other. One entire side of the building was glass. If you faced the building from the water, you could see a wall of windows that descended like a waterfall. It was breathtaking.

The view from the parking lot was breathtaking, too — literally, I couldn’t breathe — because as our car pulled up, it was swarmed by reporters. I didn’t know how they knew already, but they did. I looked sideways at Walker. His jaw was clenched and he stared at the throng outside.

Some court security guards stood in between our car and the curb; they opened the door and yelled at the reporters to get back. We emerged into a sea of bodies, questions, and camera flashes going off; I squinted against the noise and the lights. “No comment. No comment right now,” David yelled at them, jostling me forward. “We’ll make a statement at the press conference.” The guards formed a barrier around us. I had to hold onto my laptop for dear life. I felt like I was in a mosh pit, even though I’d never been in a mosh pit. Walker, used to attention, had put his game face on and waved calmly and handsomely, nodding to the reporters he recognized. He knew better than to open his mouth. We finally got through the doors and I could breathe again. David took one look at me and sighed. “You’re going to need to get used to this part, Nicole. There’s gonna be a lot more of it.”

I nodded at him and straightened myself. Then I looked at him closely for the first time this morning: he had on a beautiful pin-striped suit, and a tie that probably cost more than my “good” shoes. He looked expensive and professional, Walker looked gorgeous, and I was wearing a cheap blue suit and too much of Tammy’s bronzer. I cringed.

“Courtroom four,” David said, checking a monitor.

We went in and sat in one of the first rows; I watched as the government’s team assembled on the other side. Marnie Edmonds was the U.S. Attorney and it looked like she was handling this case. I’d never seen her in person, just on TV, and I couldn’t help staring. She was wearing a cream suit that set off her pale skin beautifully. She looked like she’d had her makeup professionally done, looking more like an actress who played a lawyer on television than an actual United States Attorney. She’d managed to look relaxed and refreshed even though I knew she wasn’t; I wondered briefly when was the last time she’d slept. Probably before I voted for her in the last election. I had a feeling that I was going to regret that particular decision more than I’d ever thought possible over the next few weeks. Marnie Edmonds was a brilliant, aggressive attorney, and she’d made a point of tackling high-profile cases during her term. There was talk that she was interested in a federal appointment by the current administration. She was in the public eye, and she was not going to take it easy on Broden Walker. She would try to put padlocks on his coffin, not just nails.

“
T
en fucking counts of fraud
?” Walker was saying to David. The hearing had lasted four minutes. Four minutes, twenty charges.

Walker looked pale, and very, very pissed. “What the fuck, David?” he said. We were pulled over to the side of the hallway, collecting ourselves before we went out and dealt with the press. Although we weren’t really collecting ourselves. Walker was seething, David was trying to calm him down, and my mind was racing with the amount of work we had to do to prove that Walker was innocent.

“We’re going to handle this,” David said. “I’ve been through this before, Walker. We’re going to break it down, charge by charge, and we’re going to negate everything. That’s why you hired us. Trust me. Let me do what I do best. You’re job right now is to keep calm, assemble the things I need you to assemble, and make sure you don’t do or say anything stupid. Okay?”

Walker paused for a beat. I looked at him sympathetically. “Okay,” he said. “But there are going to be some repercussions for this shit show they’re pulling.”

David patted him on the back. “We’ve gotta go out there,” he said, looking at the throng of people out on the steps. “Marnie is going to make a statement first, and then I’ll say a few words. Both of you, keep your faces neutral. It’s gonna be all over the news. Poker face, poker face, it’s the safest way to go.”

We stepped outside to a deafening roar. A security guard led us over to the side of the steps. I could feel cameras on me.
Poker face, poker face,
I chanted to myself. I could feel David fidgeting next to me; Walker had managed to calm himself, at least outwardly, and he was still and stoic beside me.

The government was going to make their statement first. Marnie Edmonds approached the microphones that were set up in the middle of the stairs, above the press, in her immaculate suit. Everyone got quiet. “Today is a sad day,” she
said. “Last night, a federal grand jury came to the decision to indict one of corporate America’s most promising young stars. I would say that the decision was difficult, but in fact, the decision was unanimous. It was based on the overwhelming weight of the evidence presented.

“And this morning, federal charges were brought against one of our city’s own stars. Broden Walker is being charged with racketeering, grand larceny, obstruction of justice, and multiple other federal charges.”
I watched him carefully out of the corner of my eye, but Walker didn’t flinch.

Shouts went out from the crowd, the camera flashes kept coming, but Edmonds calmly held up her hand. “During the next stage of the investigation, the government is going to explore all options, and may bring additional charges against him. The court will set the date for his arraignment shortly.”

More flashes and more shouting followed, but she stayed calm and didn’t move from the microphones just yet. “I would like to add that the government takes these charges very seriously, and we are going to pursue them vigorously. Corporate responsibility is an important part of America’s infrastructure. When a highly compensated, talented professional takes part in illegal and pernicious activities, at the expense of his shareholders and employees, that individual is responsible to all of us. That individual is responsible to his Board, his company, his shareholders, his workers and their families, and the dignity of corporate America itself. The abuse of corporate power will not be tolerated in this country. Not under my watch. So let me be clear: Broden Walker is responsible to all of us.

“And I intend to hold him fully responsible. I’m not taking questions right now,”
she said, as the reporters erupted into shouts and questions. “Mr. Walker’s attorneys are going to make a brief statement and we’ll both make ourselves available to you as this develops.”

David Proctor took one deep breath, nodded at Walker and stepped up to the microphone. The crowd got quiet again, waiting. “My client,
Broden Walker, is one of our country
’
s finest young CEOs,”
he said smoothly. “He built his company piece by piece. He’s a brilliant, hard-working man who does significant, important work on sensitive government contracts. He’s been successful because of his natural talent, and because he works very, very hard to be the best. Broden Walker works hard because he loves his work, but also because he loves America. He loved his country when he served as a Marine, he loved it when he created technology to protect it, and he loves it now, even when he’s being prosecuted for crimes he did not commit.”
David stopped for a second and flashes went off like crazy.

“Broden Walker is innocent,”
David said, simply, confidently. If David didn’t believe it himself, you would never be able to tell. “He has always obeyed the laws he’s accused of breaking. He is a meticulous, honest, conscientious man. The evidence being presented against him is a complete fabrication, meant to sully his reputation and ruin his career.”
A thousand flashes went off and all the reporters seemed to be shouting questions at once. David held up his hand to silence them.

“That being said, we will cooperate fully with each stage of the investigation. We’re not answering further questions right now, and my client can’t talk to any of you during the course of the investigation. Please respect his privacy and contact my firm for follow up. Thank you,”
he said, and he moved as quickly as he could back to us.

“You okay?” David asked Walker, as security guards hustled us towards the car.

Walker shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I need a drink.”

“Me too, son, me too,” David said, and braced himself to get through the crowd.

A
fter we got back
to the office, David told me to go home. It seemed like he and Walker might be going for drinks, which was understandable.

I realized once I let myself into my apartment that it was the middle of the day and Mike was locked in his office downtown. Relieved, I fell into a dreamless sleep for three hours. I cringed when the alarm went off, my heart pounding. But I had to get back to work. I took a hot shower, happy to be washing my hair, and then I carefully towel-dried it and blew it out. I put on extra mascara, but still wore my glasses. I selected one of my newer black suits and some new high heels; I thought I looked respectable but attractive.

Andrew, one of the other associates, was waiting outside of my office when I got back. It was after five and Tammy must have been gone for the day, otherwise she would have scared him away. “Your hair looks nice and I know why,”
Andrew said, tauntingly. “I just saw Broden Walker going into Proctor’s office. I know you’re working on his case — we saw you on TV,” he said. “You might want to check it out. You looked a little orange.”

Orange?
I thought, dreading the image. This sort of taunting, of competition, was normal between the associates. We were all jockeying to be the best, to get the best assignments, the biggest bonuses. The orange had me worried, though. Still, I couldn’t let Andrew get to me.

“It was a healthy glow. Not orange,” Mandy said, bustling into my office and interrupting us.
Andrew and I looked at her in shock. Not because of what she said —
because of how she looked.
She’d gone home and performed some sort of extreme makeover on herself. She was wearing a new, formfitting black dress and sky-high patent-leather heels. She’d flat-ironed her hair so it hung straight and sexy; she was wearing more makeup than I’d ever seen her wear, including creamy eyeshadow that set off her gorgeous brown eyes. She looked positively transformed. Curvy. Radiant. Sexy.

Andrew was just staring at Mandy, enraptured; he’d completely dropped his tirade against my clean hair and orange skin. I looked down at my plain black suit and cringed. Then Alexa stuck her head in and I cringed some more: she look liked she’d hit the salon and had her hair highlighted and her makeup professionally done. She was wearing a white suit I’d never seen her in before, with a plunging black tank top that showed off every inch of her toned, enviable assets. Apparently, they’d both gone out shopping and had their makeup done while I went to court and went home and slept. Great, just great.

I made myself stop looking at my plain suit and looked up at Alexa. “What,”
I said, flatly.

“Time for our meeting with Mr. Walker, girls! Mandy, you clean up nice,”
she said. “I never would have guessed. Nicole, you look like you just got back from the sale rack at Bargain Basement
—
whoops —
I forgot I’m not supposed to make fun of your taste, ‘cause your father’s a janitor.”

“He’s in building maintenance,” I said, shaking my head at her shamelessness.

“Right. But it’s not politically correct for me to say you look cheap because your family’s poor. But I just did. At least you don’t look as orange as you did at the press conference earlier. Oh, and Andrew, shut your mouth, you’re gonna get drool on your tie.”

Andrew shut his mouth and glared at Alexa. I glared at Alexa. Mandy, however, blithely ignored Alexa and scrolled through emails on her phone. She’d probably built up an immunity from years of Alexa’s abuse. Plus, she must have known she looked hot.

Alexa smiled back at us, enjoying our glares. “Sorry to leave you alone Andrew, but the three of us were hand-picked to work Broden Walker’s case,”
she said. “So you should scurry back to your desk and work up a proposal for that super sexy merger you’ve got.”
Andrew stood up and pushed past Alexa with as much dignity as he could muster.

“Have fun,”
she said, meanly, and I felt bad for him, even though he’d been rude to me only moments before. A common enemy could make anybody your friend.

Alexa looked back at us. “Nicole, did you see yourself on TV?” she asked. I shook my head warily,
no
.
“You should watch it. You looked like shit.”

“Alexa!” Mandy said, horrified. “Don’t be such a bitch!”

“I’m trying to be a friend, actually,” Alexa said and shrugged. “Bargain Basement Barbie here looked fluorescent orange, with over-sprayed hair and a bad suit. Here. See for yourself,” she said, and shoved her smartphone in front of me.

Mandy came over, too, and the three of us peered at the screen in interest. The footage was from the local news website. I watched in horror as it showed first a shot of us trying to enter the courthouse while being swarmed by reporters, with Walker looking smooth and unruffled, David looking jostled and pissed and me looking completely petrified — with orangey skin, a cheap suit and oily roots. I cringed. Next the video cut to Marnie Edmonds, who looked impeccable, and then David again, looking more relaxed and in his element as he made his comments. The last shot was of me and Walker, standing on the stairs: he looked stoic and completely gorgeous, and I looked like someone on her way to a Giant Nerd Convention.

The other girls sighed when it ended, and I clasped my head in my hands. “I. Am. So. Embarrassed,” I said. It came out muffled, as if I was speaking from far away, and that was fine with me.

“Nicole, you looked fine. You didn’t have any time to get ready. You’d slept here two nights in a row. David didn’t even give you any notice,” Mandy said.

“I was there with our gorgeous client and I looked like Orange-ish Bargain Basement Barbie,” I wailed into my hands.

“Well, it wasn’t a good look for you. But now you know. And at least your hair’s clean, now,” said Alexa, in what was meant to be an encouraging tone. “Look at the bright side. All you need to fix the problem is to go shopping. Like, definitely before the next hearing,” she said.

I sniffled from behind my hands.

“Okay, Slutty Barbie — that’s you, Mandy. And Bargain Basement Barbie — you already know who you are, Nicole. Time to stop your sniffling. Let’s get to this meeting with our hot client.”

I stopped sniffling and huffily walked with them down the hall. “At least I don’t have to show my boobs at work to get attention here, unlike you two. No offense, Mandy,”
I said. Mandy shrugged and flipped her hair over her shoulder, which was probably going to be her new hot-girl signature move. “My brain gets me all the attention I need.”

Alexa snorted at me. “Um, your
brain’s not as exciting as you like to think it is,”
she said. “Remember that I went to Harvard,”
she said, pointing to her chest. “And you went to Boston College,”
she said, and pointed to mine. “And we all know that Harvard beats Boston College every single time.” She pointed from her chest to mine, and I had to ball my hands into fists to keep myself from smacking her. “So therefore,” she said, “it follows that my brain is more exciting than yours.”

“Your logic is as flawed as your choice in eye makeup,” I said, glaring at her sparkly pink eyeshadow.
“I may be
Bargain Basement Barbie, but don’t forget that I
grew up in Somerville and I can still kick your boarding-school ass.” Mandy laughed, obviously forgiving me for my comment about her boobs, and smiled at me:
Don’t let her get under your skin,
her look said, but that was easier said than done.

“You’re Trust Fund Stripper Barbie,”
I said to Alexa, as I pushed past her into the conference room. “Little Barbie who has it all, but still wants to take it all off.”

Someone coughed and I looked up in horror. Broden Walker was sitting at the table, looking at me and laughing.

“Wha,” I said, unable to complete a word, my mouth hanging open in horror. I thought I might pass out. The double-whammy of him hearing what I’d said and laying eyes on him again was almost too much for me to bear.
I felt myself flush red, and I sat down heavily. Seeing him again literally knocked me on my ass.

“Trust Fund Stripper Barbie?”
he asked, still laughing. “Did I get that right?”

I nodded. “I don’t remember my sister having that one,” he said, his voice friendlier, more relaxed than he looked. He was more haggard than he’d been that morning, the lines on his face making him look rugged, like he’d been through a lot.

He
had
been through a lot.

“Err…I didn’t know you had a sister,”
I said, lamely. I could still feel myself blushing furiously so I focused on setting up my laptop, refusing to look up.

“She’s a lot younger than me — closer to your age,”
Walker said, in an easy manner. He was probably trying to make me comfortable, which was not going to happen. I just sat and tapped lamely at my keypad.

Alexa snorted at my awkwardness. “Don
’
t mind Nicole,”
she said to Walker, sailing down the table and setting up her computer perilously close to him. “She’s an introvert.”

“I don’t mind Nicole at all,”
Walker said, kindly, and I blushed even more furiously. I made myself look up and smile weakly at him, which was sadly becoming my signature move. He smiled back and I immediately looked back down, unable to stare directly into those brilliant blue eyes for longer than a moment.
He had a perfectly symmetrical face, square jaw, some black afternoon stubble across his strong chin, and those massive shoulders. I could see his muscles straining against his lavender button-down shirt. He’d loosened his tie and thrown his suit coat over the back of his chair. I tried to keep my eyes on my monitor and not on those shoulders.

He was too sexy for a conference room. I knew he was a CEO and probably lived in a conference room, but he really belonged on a beach with no shirt. With Minky Lucca. In a yellow bikini.
Not a Giant Nerd on her way to a Giant Nerd Convention,
I reminded myself.

There was a long, awkward pause during which I scrutinized my laptop, sometimes looking up at Walker’s gorgeous face, and Alexa and Mandy just blatantly stared at him. Walker smiled at all of us indulgently, clearly used to having this effect on women, his fatigue not affecting his threshold for female attention. Finally, after what seemed like an hour but was probably more like a very long second, David Proctor came into the conference room, reams of paper with him, and a pen sticking out his mouth like a cigarette.

He threw everything down onto the table, into a huge, messy pile. “Hello girls,”
he said. “I see you’ve spent some time with Walker. Walker, these are the associates you met earlier. Mandy and Alexa. You remember Nicole from this morning.”

“Of course,” Walker said, nodding at us, an amused glint in his eyes. I wondered what he actually thought about us — Trust Fund Stripper Barbie and her cohorts, myself included. But his amused look faded quickly, and Walker turned back to David.
“Do you have any idea how long this is going to take?”
he asked. Again, I noticed the lines on his face, the dark shadows forming beneath his eyes. “It’s been a long day. And if I remember the representation agreement I signed yesterday, I’m paying you by the hour.
All
of you.” He motioned around the table. But
David wasn’t paying attention to his client; he was reading through a report he’d grabbed off his pile, his brow furrowed.

“Probably just a couple more hours,”
Mandy offered, kindly. If she was nervous speaking to Walker, her voice didn’t betray it. I watched as she smiled at him. She looked ridiculously pretty, and I started to think that I might not like her as much as I’d always thought.
“
David will probably take it easy on you, if you’re exhausted.”

“David? Take it easy on me? I doubt it,”
Walker said. David snorted in lieu of a response and rifled through the report. Clearly, he was not concerned about the balance accruing on Walker’s legal fees.

“He’s had me in meetings since the hearing this morning. Making sure all of my property and money are properly located in various trusts. So that when I go to jail, it will be protected.”
Walker sighed and stretched his hands out behind his head; I tried not to stare at his massive shoulders and thick black hair.

“You mean
if
you go to jail,”
I said, gently, remembering that I was here to be this man’s lawyer, not to be his groupie.

“Marnie Edmonds is out to get me. You saw her,” Walker said. “David assured me that I need to expect the worst.”
David snorted again and continued to otherwise ignore all of us. He was now settled in and reading another large document, pen sticking out of his mouth, largely oblivious to his surroundings.

“David is very big on worst case scenarios,”
Alexa said, beaming at Walker. He was studying Alexa’s face. I felt my stomach clench, again, and I vowed to have a long talk about professionalism with myself as soon as this meeting ended. Right after I clawed Alexa’s eyes out.

“Hey wait —
aren’t you Senator Blake’s daughter?”
he asked.

“That’d be me,”
Alexa said, shrugging at him like an innocent schoolgirl.
“
We met at a
Best of the City
party a couple of years ago. But you’re so famous, I was sure you wouldn’t remember me,”
she said. I was pretty sure that Alexa believed that all males would remember her, into perpetuity and beyond, but she was trying to be humble and appeal to him. It made me want to reach across the table and smack her.

“I didn’t recognize you at first. Sorry,”
he said, and the practiced smile was back.
Sorry, Trust Fund Stripper Barbie. What color are your underwear?
That’s what his smile said.

My heart sank, watching them.

“You kind of have a lot on your mind,”
Alexa said, now sounding sexily sympathetic. I felt my hackles rise. Alexa could be prettier than me, richer than me, she could have better boobs —
that was life. It was a mix of genetic coding and luck, and I could deal with that. But I hated liars. I loathed people who cheated to get ahead. And that’s what Alexa was doing with Broden Walker right now. Pretending to be nice and sympathetic when really, she was Mean-Spirited Trust Fund Stripper Barbie. I caught Mandy’s eye and Mandy shook her head:
Typical Alexa.
I rolled my eyes back at her and resumed looking at the file on my computer, willing my brain to start working, to start being productive.