Devil's Advocate Read online

  “I…” Caitlyn wanted to declare that she’d worked hard, too, but as her eyes traveled from the big house and then over the field to the smaller building they were heading to, she felt no larger than a blade of grass below her feet. As firmly as she wanted to believe she’d earned her way to where she was, the evidence of her privilege was impossible to shake. “I know you’ve worked harder than me, okay? And maybe you’re better, too. And maybe I’m wrong, because I don’t really know you, but you seem like you’re someone who wants to be more than a cog in the machinery of corporate law. To do more.”

  Ash’s lower lip trembled. “To do anything, I have to be more than I am right now. That means working for a big firm. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I have to win.”

  “If you don’t”—Caitlyn softened her question with a light brush of her hand along Ash’s elbow—“what’s your game plan then?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t plan on losing this competition.” Ash crossed her arms, pulling in on herself like she had nothing else in the world.

  Caitlyn had to fight the crazy urge to wrap her arms around the woman and crush her into a hug to chase the loneliness away. “You’ve made that clear, but surely you’re hedging your bets.”

  Ash swallowed, the cracks in her armor widening, allowing her vulnerability to shine through. “I guess I’ll just have to figure it out the way I’ve done everything else. On my own.”

  “I know how that is.” Nothing Caitlyn had ever said had been truer. Instead of judging or shutting her down with a snappy comeback, Ash’s expression urged her to continue. “I may have grown up with money, but there are a lot of things money can’t buy.”

  “Like what?” Ash’s words came out at half volume, like her throat had closed around them to keep them from escaping.

  “Like a father who gives a shit. I could win every goddamn thing in the universe and it wouldn’t make him care.” Caitlyn drew a sharp breath as she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry. I know that’s nothing compared to having a father who’s dead.”

  Ash shook her head quickly, as if urging Caitlyn to put the thought out of her mind. “Either way it hurts.”

  “It does.”

  As they reached the annex building, the moon poked its way from behind a cloud, bathing them in a soft glow. Their eyes met with understanding, and a pang of longing hit Caitlyn in the ribs. A look echoing her emotions flitted across Ash’s face. It was the look of someone who was tired of facing everything alone.

  How Caitlyn could relate.

  Coming to a stop in front of Room 422, Caitlyn cleared her throat. “We made it to our rooms, just like I promised. Totally unscathed. Not a single murder between us.”

  “There were a few close calls,” Ash teased, a softness around her eyes saying she’d gotten fond enough of Caitlyn’s company that she’d nearly forgotten any desire to murder her. “But no. No homicides.”

  “I almost think we should celebrate.” Caitlyn touched her tongue to her lips, noting how Ash’s eyes were glued to the motion. Would it really be the worst thing if she gave into temptation, let loose for once, and had some fun?

  She waited for the voice in her head to chime in with all the reasons not to, but for once, that voice had gone mute. Caitlyn’s body drifted toward Ash. She waited for the woman to move away, but it didn’t happen.

  “How?” Ash’s voice cracked with uncertainty. “How would we celebrate?”

  “I don’t know.” Caitlyn’s attention became riveted on Ash’s mouth, knowing what she wanted but not certain if she dared. But didn’t they both need this? Neither of them wanted to be alone. “I mean, maybe we could—”

  The soft landing of Caitlyn’s lips on Ash’s mouth completed the unfinished sentence like punctuation. It was meant to be quick and flirty, the kiss equivalent of a period, or maybe an ellipsis, but from the moment they came together, it was nothing less than an exclamation point. Or three. Or like being a teenager again, writing in her diary, putting big puffy hearts beneath a whole row of exclamation points instead of the standard dots. In purple glitter pen that smelled like grape.

  Yeah, it was that kind of kiss.

  Ash’s lips parted, opening, inviting. Caitlyn shuddered with longing, her chest burning in anticipation as the deepening kiss pulled her entirely into the woman’s orbit. Tongues tangled, exploring and claiming.

  Even if she had wanted to stop, she couldn’t. No force on earth would have been strong enough to pull her away.

  Caitlyn wrapped an arm around Ash, her fingers trailing along the woman’s back. Snaking beneath her jacket, under the hem of her blouse, and up her bare flesh.

  Heavenly, like raw silk with tiny raised goosebumps dotting Ash’s skin.

  Caitlyn’s nostrils filled with the clean scent of soap and a hint of citrus and mint as she teased a stray lock of Ash’s hair with her other hand. Ash’s hands answered by gripping Caitlyn’s bouncy curls with a raw desire she couldn’t remember anyone showing toward her before. A similar urgency burned in her core. She wanted everything. Now.

  “Should we go inside?” Caitlyn asked in a breathy whisper.

  Ash instantly froze. The unexpected chilliness snapped Caitlyn back to reality and she pulled away. What had they been thinking? They were opponents! This was the last thing Caitlyn should have allowed to happen.

  Allowed? Hell, she was the one who had started it.

  “I’m so sorry!” Caitlyn declared. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “I can’t believe you.” Ash clasped a hand to her mouth. “This was your plan all along?”

  “What plan?” Caitlyn’s body trembled, overwhelmed by confusion. They’d seemed to be on the same page before, and now Caitlyn wasn’t sure they were even in the same book. “What are you talking about?”

  “To get me alone to… get into my head.” Ash’s breath came in gulps, her eyes flashing with an almost irrational anger, directed as much at herself as at Caitlyn.

  “No! That wasn’t it,” Caitlyn insisted, her tone pleading. Ash had to believe her. But by now, the woman was in a total panic, melting down like a nuclear reactor before Caitlyn’s eyes.

  “Oh God, what was I doing? I don’t know how I could have let this happen!” Ash’s words were so fast and high that soon only chipmunks would be able to understand her. As if realizing this, her voice dropped an entire register as she added, “I don’t know what mind games you’re playing, but they’re not going to work.”

  “It wasn’t a game,” Caitlyn said, her chest tightening as sobs threatened to escape. “I thought we were… friends.”

  “Friends?” A wildness flashed in Ash’s eyes. “You said yourself, we don’t have friends. They’re a liability, right? They ruin your life.”

  “That was women in general,” Caitlyn interjected. Unfortunately, the sentiment felt too true at that moment to lighten the mood.

  “I’m not sure about ruining your life, but I promise you this.” Ash paused, drawing a breath and squaring her shoulders like she was preparing to ride into battle. “If I get the chance, I will destroy you. I can’t afford to lose. My whole life is at stake.”

  With that, Ash wrenched open the door to her room and disappeared inside.

  Utterly deflated, Caitlyn slumped against the wall beside her own door, her heart racing. She should have been furious, smarting from rejection, but instead her thoughts were a jumble and her emotions a confusing whirl. In their short time together, she’d caught a glimpse deep into Ash’s soul. The woman was the most formidable opponent Caitlyn had ever encountered, both awe-inspiring and heartbreaking. Perhaps even life changing.

  For the first time in her life, Caitlyn had no idea what she should do.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The lights weren’t on yet as Ash made the familiar trek from the elevator to her tiny office on the third floor of a chic converted warehouse on the Boston waterfront. This wasn’t a surprise. The only other occupants at this time of the morning were the m
ice Ash couldn’t see but knew were there as they scurried inside the brick wall behind her desk. They didn’t bother her. She liked to think of them as her dedicated coworkers, industrious little fighters, like Ash herself.

  No building along the waterfront was rodent free. There was a lesson to be learned there. All the Ivy League lawyers and Scandinavian minimalist furnishings in the world didn’t make one iota of difference. Behind the fancy façade, there was little to separate a high-end law office downtown from the two-bedroom apartment in Brockton where Ash’s mom had struggled to raise three kids after their dad had died. From public housing to the halls of government, everybody dealt with mice.

  A bitter laugh bubbled in her throat, breaking the silence, but Ash didn’t have time to dwell on the root cause. A stack of work taller than her computer monitor waited on her desk. It had been the same all weekend. And the previous week. And month. And year.

  Hell, for the past six years, ever since Ash had started as a summer associate at McGill and Harding after capturing first place in their prestigious mock trial competition, there had been one thing she could count on in her quest to be promoted to partner.

  Billable hours.

  It was Ash’s secret weapon, the stamina to log fifteen-hour days, seven days a week. Stamina, aided in no small part by the fact that, outside the office, she had absolutely no life. No girlfriend. No pets. Hell, she didn’t even waste time on a houseplant. The closest she came to any of that was the aforementioned mice. The best part about them was they fended for themselves.

  Ash was a loner through and through.

  As if to prove her wrong on this assertion, Ash’s phone lit up with an update from the Tanner family WhatsApp group. It was a photo her mother had taken the day before of her two little nephews in her mom’s backyard wading pool. Their father, Ash’s brother Mike, was manning the grill. Somehow, he managed to beam with pride even though Ash could see that every burger and dog was burned to a crisp. Behind him, Ash’s sister, Breanna, stuck out her tongue for the camera. They wore the carefree expressions of two people who’d been spared the harshest realities of life’s struggles.

  Precisely as Ash had intended. Why else would she have worked so damn hard all this time?

  The photo was accompanied by a wish you were here message from her mother. The sentiment was genuine, not laced with guilt. Ash’s mom was a realist, a fact for which Ash thanked the stars every day. She couldn’t have dealt with one of those sitcom moms, the kind who always tell their daughters that they’re nearing forty and if they don’t land a spouse and pop out a kid or two, they’ll end up sad and alone, like Aunt Marge.

  Only Ash didn’t have an Aunt Marge, meaning she was probably at the top of the list for becoming the cautionary spinster tale of the Tanner family.

  Ash scanned the message thread again and sighed. Despite the sincerity of her mother’s words, guilt squeezed her chest. Another family cookout missed. That made four in a row. If she didn’t get an invitation to the next one, she’d have no one to blame but herself.

  Tuck it down, Ash, she chided herself, refusing to give in to regret.

  This wasn’t the time to wallow in self-pity. Not when the partner announcements were four months away. Ash had one job until then, to keep her butt in her seat and keep working. She’d come too far to slow down now. That wasn’t in her nature.

  It had taken her nine years to finish college, while flipping burgers, bartending, and cleaning houses the whole time to pay tuition and make sure her siblings always had money for field trips and after-school clubs. No small feat. When she’d landed a temp job after graduation at a law firm in her hometown and a kind paralegal had suggested enrolling in law school, Ash had risen to the challenge. She’d worked full time while going to school at night. Five years later, she’d started at McGill and Harding, the only first-year associate who hadn’t graduated from Harvard or Yale.

  Ash hadn’t stopped for breath once. She couldn’t afford to. In fact, in all that time, she’d only wavered from her purpose once. On a moonlit night on the grounds of a Gilded Age mansion, the temptation had been so very hard to fight. But she’d done it. She’d overcome her desires and put her feet firmly back on the path to success, a path she’d been walking tirelessly ever since. She’d learned to play the game, to blend in. She did it so well, sometimes she could barely remember who she was.

  But she couldn’t let that worry her. Even now, her family depended on her ability to keep doing what she was doing, and do it well. Mom would be retiring soon, and how much longer before Breanna decided to get married? Weddings were expensive. Her nephews might need braces. There was always something.

  The motion-sensing light flickered on as Ash shuffled to her chair, turning sideways to pass through the narrow space between the filing cabinet and the desk. While all attorneys at the firm, whether associates or partners, had their own offices, they were not created equally. In addition to the long-term career stability and generous income bump, what Ash really looked forward to with a promotion was having an office where she could open the bottom file drawer and stretch out both of her legs at the same time.

  Until then, Ash would continue to bury her nose in her work, making the surroundings fade into irrelevance.

  “Please tell me you didn’t sleep here last night.”

  “What?” Ash glanced up, her body still hunched over the open case file. Jenna, one of the paralegals, stood in the open doorway.

  “You were sitting in exactly the same position when I left here on Friday.” Jenna perched on the lip of Ash’s desk, crossing her arms. “I’ve been here three years, and it’s always the same. You’re the first in the office and the last to leave.”

  “How do you know I’m the last to leave?”

  “If you want to know the truth, the paralegals have a weekly pool going.”

  Ash straightened her back and slanted her head. “Tell me more.”

  “Every Monday, we bet on which associate logged the most hours and which was the biggest slacker. Becky in payroll checks it against the key card swipes.”

  “Should you have access to that?” Ash’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. How am I doing? And who’s the slacker? It’s gotta be Zach. He thinks he can skate to partner on charm alone.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jenna boosted her brows, laughing as Ash let out a frustrated grunt. “You’re in first place when it comes to hours. No contest. Actually, we’ve started betting on second place because it’s just no fun anymore.”

  Ash gave a derisive snort, though she couldn’t help the flames of pride that flared inside her at hearing she was number one. “Sorry I ruined your fun with all my hard work.”

  “Just wait. I have a feeling the competition will be heating up.”

  Ash frowned. “Why’s that?”

  “Didn’t you hear about the new hire?”

  “What the—?” Ash stopped short of saying fuck. Even though Jenna was the closest thing Ash had to a friend in the office, a mentor had once told Ash that swearing at work was unprofessional and made her sound unrefined. She’d broken the habit years ago, but still kept a diligent watch in case she regressed. “I thought the firm was freezing hiring due to the harsh—”

  “Economic environment,” Jenna finished the sentence in her best imitation of founding partner Cuthbert Harding. “He uses that gem to justify everything under the sun. Did you know they’ve replaced the Starbucks coffee in the break room with that generic shit from Costco?”

  “A travesty.” The corners of Ash’s lips twitched. Jenna had no problem swearing in the office, one of the many reasons Ash liked the paralegal. They’d come from similar backgrounds and Ash found Jenna’s rough edges comfortingly familiar when surrounded by so many pretentious, rich assholes—a category that included clients and colleagues alike. “Good thing I drink tea.”

  “And not even the good kind.” Jenna made a face, not that Ash cared. Lipton was perfectly fine, no matter what anyone said. “But
all things considered, that makes bringing in someone new very curious, doncha think?”

  Ash shrugged. “It’s a little premature, given the bar exam results won’t be released for over a month, but—”

  “No, it’s not a first year.”

  “Then what is it?” Ash massaged her right eye to temper an annoying twitch. “I mean, who are they?”

  “Another fifth year, like you.”

  Ash bolted upright in her chair. “What the fuck?”

  “I thought that might get your attention.”

  “I don’t understand.” Ash’s heart raced as her head rushed to recalculate the odds of making partner with this new wrench thrown into the works. There were too many variables, which only made Ash’s panic boil. “They haven’t held interviews. I haven’t heard a goddamn thing about this bullshit.”

  Ash’s no swearing in the office rule had officially gone out the window, or would have if her tiny office actually had one.

  “It’s someone who’s just moved here from the New York office. Between you and me—” Jenna glanced over her shoulder, edging closer to the desk. “I hear they’re some sort of legacy.”

  “You mean legend?” Ash fought back the urge to be sick. Just what she needed, a hotshot with a New York attitude to swoop in and try to steal her promotion.

  “No, legacy,” Jenna repeated. “Like, related to somebody important or something. I don’t know. You know how little we have to do with that office, so little overlap with cases. No one here knew the four-one-one for sure, but that was what I heard.”

  “Naturally.” Ash would’ve rolled her eyes at this revelation, but the twitch had worsened to the point she feared her eyeball might become dislodged and roll across the floor if she tried. “It’s how half these assholes get into college. Might as well be how they get their jobs too.”

  “I looked up her record,” Jenna offered. “She brought in several new clients last year. Some real whales.”