Eight a.m. was too early for this. Suzanne took a long, hot sip from her black coffee and watched him over the rim of her cup, trying to decide how to respond.
With aggression, or more aggression?
“The fact that I’ve worked here for seven years without a single personal request like this should be a testament to my robotic nature, Norm.” She glared back. Suzanne wasn’t taking crap from anyone. This was anemic compared to the face-offs she’d had over the years from opposing counsel, various judges, and at times, her own firm colleagues.
Norm needed to try harder.
Suzanne wanted someone other than Gerald and herself to be pissed off at.
“I can’t take you off the Hopewell-Wright case, Suzanne.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“The difference matters to me.”
“I said it doesn’t matter.”
“Then how about I take my client base and find a firm where it does matter?”
Never before had she made the threat. She’d thought it, sure, plenty of times over the past year, since making partner. Not quite a year—eleven months.
“I literally cannot take you off the case.” Phelps looked at the open door, and to Suzanne’s amazement (which she hid carefully), he stood, crossed the room, and shut the door with a barely audible click that felt like a signature in blood on a contract from hell.
When he turned to face her, his eyes were tired. Norm Phelps wasn’t the most attractive of men (at least, to Suzanne), with hair the color of a young lion, artfully colored on a regular basis, and overly-white teeth that glowed as a result of his burnt-orange tan.
But he wasn’t an asshole, either.
She had to remind herself of that fact daily. Take nothing personally, his executive legal secretary, Inez, had told Suzanne on her first day. Not one single word.
“Look. The Hopewell case is sensitive. We’re in a nasty grey area with this one.”
“Grey area?” Phelps, Miller and Lin didn’t do grey areas. Nothing but black and white. She stiffened. “Are you asking me to act in ways that could compromise my license?”
“God, no, Suzanne.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, lifting his reading glasses up over his eyebrows. “You know I would never do that.”
“That’s not quite true. Remember the Kikendaal case?”
His sigh deepened.
“And the Brownlea, and the—”
“Fine. Fine. Let’s just say that your friend—”
“Ex-fiancé.”
“Your ex is inheriting one hell of a mess.”
Protectiveness for Gerald kicked in. “What?”
“It’s an artifact.”
“I know that.”
“A very rare artifact. A pre-Buddhist item that was supposed to have been destroyed by the Taliban.”
She frowned. “What?”
“And allegedly carries a curse.” He rolled his tongue in his cheek, jaw tightening.
“Phelps, now I know you’re pulling my leg. This isn’t a joke.” She let out a derisive snort.
He paled.
“I know. I’m not the type to get caught up in stupid New-Agey crap like this. But Harold Hopewell was clear: Phelps, Miller handles the case, and Suzanne Dayton is the point person. Period. The archaeologist from the MFA will be here at two p.m. for the meeting.”
“Meeting?” She gave him a blank look.
He waved a dismissive hand. “Letitia must have put it in your calendar.”
“Letitia is my paralegal. Not my assistant.”
“Oh. Right. That’s Margaret.” He shook his head quickly, as if re-centering.
Norm wasn’t usually this off. “What’s wrong?” she asked, as neutrally as possible.
“Nothing.”
“Margaret has been my admin for three years, Norm. You don’t magically forget someone like that.”
He swallowed, hard, the shell rolling off him, revealing the deeper man. The nervous glance at the door made her internal danger radar go off.
“This conversation didn’t happen.”
How bad was this?
“Of course not.”
“Look, the Hopewell case is a hot potato. The fact that your ex is an heir is a sick bit of bad luck.”
“We’re making decent billable hours off it,” Suzanne reminded him.
“And the terms of the will state that you, and you alone, must handle the case.”
She laughed. “Good one. That won’t hold up in court.”
Alarm filled his face. “We can’t take this anywhere near a court!”
She narrowed her eyes. “I think we’d better stop right here, Norm, and you’d damn well better explain what this is all about.”
Curses? Pre-Buddhist artifacts? The Taliban?
And what the hell did Gerald have to do with any of it?
“If you don’t, I resign. I know how many billable hours I bring into the firm. You guys need me. So spill.”
“The artifact is a rare religious item. Dates back centuries, likely millennia. Between age, historical value, political value, actual precious metal and gemstone content, and the competition to own it, that damn item may be worth a cool hundred million on the black market, Suzanne.”
Well.
She’d demanded the truth.
And now she had it.
Plunking her stunned ass into a chair, Suzanne’s coffee dripped out of the small opening on the top as the cup slammed into the tabletop. “Gerald’s inheriting a hundred million dollar artifact? Gerald?” She bit back the phrase my Gerald just in time.