All I had to do was give up Sandro.
End the relationship. Maintain professional distance. Finish the trial and walk away clean. Keep my law license. Protect my future.
It should be an easy choice. Career over romance. Profession over passion. Everything I'd worked for over a man I'd known for less than a month.
But the thought of not seeing Sandro anymore made my chest ache in ways that had nothing to do with professional ambition. Made my hands shake and my breath catch and my mind scream that losing him would be worse than losing everything else.
Which was insane. We'd been together a few weeks. That shouldn't be enough time to become this important. This necessary. This impossible to give up.
But somewhere between that first meeting in court and last night tangled in his bed, Sandro had become essential. Had worked his way so thoroughly into my life that extracting him would leave wounds that might never heal.
I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out the bottle of whiskey I kept for bad days. Poured two fingers into a coffee mug. Drank it in one burning swallow.
My phone buzzed again.
Sandro:Come to Inferno tonight. We need to talk.
I stared at the message. He knew. Somehow he already knew about the photos and Richard's ultimatum. Of course he did. Sandro knew everything. Had sources everywhere. Probably learned about this before I did.
I should tell him no. Should hide in my office and pretend this choice wasn't destroying me. Should take the full twenty-four hours Richard gave me to process and decide.
Instead I typed:What time?
Eight. Come directly to the apartment. We'll have privacy.
Privacy. To discuss how we were going to handle this. How we were going to navigate Richard's ultimatum and the managing partners' demands and the bar association's inevitable scrutiny.
Or maybe to say goodbye. To acknowledge that this had been inevitable from the start. That we'd always been heading toward this cliff and now we'd reached it.
I'll be there.
I set down my phone and looked at the case files again. Evidence. Witness statements. Cross-examination outlines. Legal briefs. Three weeks until trial and I might not be the one delivering opening arguments.
Someone knocked on my door. I looked up to find Sarah Chen, my mentor from law school. She'd made partner at Sterling five years ago. She was everything I wanted to be—successful, respected, ethical.
"I heard," she said, closing the door behind her. "The whole firm's heard. Can I come in?"
I gestured to the chair across from my desk. She sat and looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Not judgment. Not disappointment. Something softer.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Define okay."
"Fair point." She glanced at the files covering my desk. "Richard told me about the ultimatum. End the relationship or lose the case."
"That's the situation."
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know." I poured more whiskey into my mug. Offered her some. She declined. "I should choose my career. That's the smart play. The safe play. The play everyone expects."
"But?"
"But I don't want to." The admission came out quiet. Almost shameful. "I don't want to give him up. Even though I should. Even though it's destroying everything I've built. I don't want to."
Sarah was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Can I tell you something? Off the record. As your friend, not as a senior partner."
"Please."
