Shit. This was not good. But she didn’t have time to spiral. ‘So how did you get my address?’
‘From the office system.’
‘Can you find out where Rohan lives?’
‘Sure. He moved again a couple of months ago. North Adelaide to a beachside suburb. Can’t think quite where, though. I’ll get—’
‘Somerton Park,’ she interrupted, the pieces falling into place. She sipped her coffee. ‘Perfect, as always. Do you have any idea where Rohan is this week? Gerard said he’s on leave.’
Tien shook his head. ‘He left straight after you spoke with him the other day. I figured maybe you’d finally had enough and upended laxatives into his coffee or something. He never came back in and Gerard had me cancel everything in his diary.’
Jemma chewed on her lip, although she knew it would ruin her makeup. There was something there, lurking on the edges of her awareness, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. ‘Celine Wilkins’s kids. How old are they?’
‘The twins? Almost eight.’
‘And the other one?’
‘Jacob? Seventeen or so, I believe. Wilkins never formally adopted him, though, so he doesn’t factor into the divorce agreement.’
She crossed to her desk and scribbled numbers onto a pad. Tien, can you find out which campus Celine was at and the years?’
‘Of course. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Jemma didn’t need to wait for Tien to come back—sheknew what he’d find. She only had to check the graduation certificate on the wall of Rohan’s office to confirm the link.
She marched back into Gerard’s office, not bothering to knock. ‘Gerard, why have you given the partnership here to me, not Rohan?’
Gerard leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. Jemma sensed he was choosing his words carefully. ‘Rohan needs to take some time to consider his life choices. It’ll do him good to get away from Adelaide.’
She observed her boss for a long moment. Gerard had done right by her, giving her a foot in the door, helping her climb the ladder. But, as Hamish said, there weren’t any shades of honesty. Principles weren’t principles if you chose where to apply them.
‘You know about Rohan and Celine Wilkins, don’t you?’
Gerard’s pained expression gave her the answer she needed. For once, she didn’t feel victorious, though.
‘I’m going to choose to think that you’ve only just discovered their relationship, although from what I can see, it appears to have been going on for several years. Regardless, while it was my oversight to fail to allow for nepotism in my career planning, I shouldn’t have to allow for corruption within the firm.’ Jemma spun around and walked away.
Her path was once again clear.
Hamish would be finished work on the farm when night fell. And he was exactly what she needed.
31
Hamish
‘So, now that some of the blood is able to return to my brain, explain it all to me again,’ Hamish said. ‘Use small words for dumb farmers, okay?’
Jemma snuggled further under the quilt they’d pulled onto the couch in front of the fire, resting her cheek against his naked chest. ‘You are so far from dumb,’ she said, running her fingers through his chest hair. ‘But this is so complicated, so wildly random, that I’m having trouble getting my own head around it. So—’ She took a deep breath, flipping onto her back to stare at the ceiling as though ordering her thoughts. ‘My colleague, Rohan, and our client’s almost ex-wife are in a relationship. There’s a photo which shows them together around a decade ago, though I wonder if the connection dates all the way back to uni.’ She dismissed that thought with a wave of her hand.
‘But if she’s separated, what’s the issue?’
‘The issue is—besides the fact that it’s totally unethical for Rohan to even take on this client, because of therelationship—that Rohan encouraged our client to make exorbitant financial gifts to the ex-wife, on the presumption that it might expedite having a domestic violence charge dropped.’
‘So they were extorting your client.’ Hamish summed up.
‘Succinct. Nice,’ Jemma said, and he tried not to bask in her praise. ‘That’s why Rohan handed the domestic violence case to me: he was distancing himself, at least legally. But he wanted to handle the divorce, so he’d have all the financial details and could milk as much from the client as possible.’
‘And I thought passing off last season’s hay as fresh was a shady deal. You reckon Gerard knew about this relationship?’
