Brick red, lush draperies framed huge French doors that opened onto a balcony that overlooked the ocean.
The ocean?
It was so much cooler up here in the hills that the doors stood open. A light breeze drifted through the mountains and ruffled her hair, carrying the freshness of the sea far below, cooling her nose and bringing the taste of salt to the back of her tongue. She hadn’t realized that they had driven up the back of the highest hill, that Cash’s enormous house perched on the very top of the development, or that they were so near the sea. Sunlight glittered on the rippled wave tops far below.
Cash strode over and started closing the doors. “We’ll turn the air conditioning on.”
“I don’t think they’d go out there,” Rox said. “They’re all pretty old and lazy.”
“The coyotes might come in after them.”
“Oh. Good point.”
They carried in her few things—just a suitcase full of clothes and some shopping bags with framed pictures of her cats, her friends, and her father—and the last cat. Cash showed Rox a large half-bathroom off the main rooms where she could set up a litter box and food bowls, and then they released the beasts and took back off for the city and their meeting with Monty.
They strategized all the way there, ranting and laughing in equal parts, with Rox taking notes on her phone while Cash drove.
The two of them were a well-oiled legal machine. They complemented each other, and they had each others’ backs. One time, when they had been negotiating a contract in Moscow, opposing counsel had sent a hooker to Cash’s hotel room. Cash had escaped to Rox’s room, his shirt half-torn off, and insisted that Rox get rid of the woman because the hooker would not take no for an answer. Rox had explained to the mortified woman that Cash didn’t need her services that evening because he preferred men, and the woman had left.
The other lawyers had looked sheepish the next day. Cash had used that embarrassment to negotiate an extra twenty thousand for their client. He had even camped it up a little, if badly. Cash Amsberg would do anything to give his clients the best representation he could because that was the ethical thing for a lawyer to do.
All lawyers may be scumbags, he had told her, except for your lawyer, who was your scumbag.
On the way back into the city, the waving grasses gave way to strip malls, then to tall buildings, but heavy traffic on the freeway delayed them. The drunken idiots were out in full force that day, and Rox saw not one but two people who had put their cars into the wall. One van still spouted fire, and the paramedics were lifting a stretcher into an ambulance. The standstill around the accidents stretched for miles, damn rubberneckers.
Cash drove carefully, never with aggression nor emotion, and they broke free of the jam with little time to spare.
When Rox and Cash finally reached the other law firm’s building, they raced to the elevator, laughing and panting, right up until the elevator doors parted on the opposing firm’s floor.
And they both put on their bitch faces.
An admin showed them to a conference room at Singh, Proctor, and Evans, where Monty Evans was already sitting with the contract stacked on the table.
He scowled at them, his wrinkled forehead gathering yet more folds. “Valerie is supposed to handle your side.”
Rox didn’t let her eyebrows rise at that rudeness. This might not be the South, but it was at least California. It wasn’t like they were in New York.
“Good afternoon to you, too, Monty.” Cash’s dry tone wasn’t a surprise. They were practically psychic twins these days.
Rox dropped the annotated contract on their side of the table with a nice, loud thwack.
Monty scowled harder. “Where’s Valerie?”
Cash said, “She’s in hospital. She had a stroke a few days ago and will be incapacitated for several more days or weeks, at the very least.”
“But she was supposed to go over this contract,” Monty insisted.
Cash glanced at Rox, one eyebrow lower than the other, and turned back. “She’s not available. We will negotiate this contract on behalf of Ms. Watson.”
Monty looked between the two of them, his head swiveling back and forth, his cottony hair swaying in the breeze from the air conditioner. “When will Valerie be back?”
Cash sighed, repeating, “Not for at least a week, perhaps a month. Watson’s representatives need this contract returned by Friday, so you’re stuck with us.”
Monty’s mouth set in a hard line like he was grinding his teeth, and then he said, “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
They started with the first clause on the first page, but Monty dug in and argued every damn item that Rox and Cash had brought up for negotiation. He argued about the time frame for payment, which was far outside the usual window, and all of them knew it. Monty insisted that each item had already been negotiated, and they knew that they hadn’t been, and everything they brought up was tabled for the next session.