“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 foryourlawyer, who wasyourscumbag.
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, loudthwack.
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.”
“Butshewas 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.
After three pages of getting exactly nothing done, Rox started keeping an eye on Cash. He never exploded at other attorneys. His rants were reserved for the office where they were effective tools and amused Rox and where he and Rox could do something about the underlying problem.
However, on the third page, when Monty insisted that the production studio retaining autobiography rights was normal and customary, Cash’s negotiating slowed. He blinked languidly, his dark eyelashes fluttering over his emerald green eyes before he answered Monty’s attacks, and he leaned back in his chair. Bulges appeared at the sides of his square jaw as he chewed a pen.
Lawyers argue, yes, but they have a specific way that they argue.
If you can argue the law, then you argue the law.
If you can’t argue the law, then you argue the facts.
If you can’t argue the facts, then you just argue.
Monty was just arguing.
