Katherine tapped her nose, her expression smug. “It’s only a matter of time. With all the new business I’ve brought in and all the hours I’m billing, that upcoming spot is mine. This is your chance to get ahead of the curve.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Janie said. “I’d rather apologize.”
Katherine shrugged and pushed up from the chair. “The kind of passion you showed at the bar says something different, Janie. I’ll get the partnership, and then I’ll get you.”
Janie laughed again. “You’re actually serious,” she said, shaking her head. “You think me destroying you at the bar was foreplay?”
The corner of Katherine’s lip twitched before she walked away. She paused to turn back after she’d opened the door. “I think you’re doing too much protesting for it to be anything else.”
Katherine was gone before Janie could seriously consider throwing something at her smug face. Hannah would go crazy if she knew Lori’s philandering ex-wife was not just working with Janie but also putting the moves on her. Not that they’d ever had trust issues, but Hannah had very definite thoughts about the sanctity of marriage and the gross indecency of cheating spouses.
Janie got up from her desk to close her door again. The voice she heard coming from farther down the corridor froze her insides. It couldn’t be.
“Can I get you some coffee, Angela?”
Phillip Wall didn’t get coffee foranyone, and his question confirmed her worst fears. The great Angela Evans was in the building.Herbuilding. Her mother hadn’t been there since Janie’s first day, when she’d inspected the place to make sure it was good enough for her daughter. Except that wasn’t about Janie; it was about the Angela Evans’ legacy. Everyone at the firmhadto be made aware of who Janie’s mom was, and the firm had to understand that they weren’t just getting a new lawyer, they were gettingAngela Evans’sdaughter.
“No, thank you, Phillip,” her mother said with the curt chill in her voice that had put the fear of God into a thousand opposition lawyers over the years. “I didn’t really have time for this trip at all, so I definitely don’t have time for coffee.”
Her dismissal was complete, and from the doorway, Janie saw Phillip stop and almost bow.
“Maybe next time then,” he said and retreated.
Janie stepped back from the doorway before her mother could see her and slipped back behind her desk, needing the physical barrier.
“We need to talk,” her mother said as she strode into Janie’s office.
“Talk about what? Why are you here, Mother?” Janie realized she was gripping the arms of her chair hard, and she tried to relax her hands. Her mother surveyed the office, silently judging her aesthetic choices.
“Tell me why I had to hear about you abandoning your children from someone else,” her mother hissed quietly, not trying to hide her disdain. “It’s profoundly disappointing behavior, Janie.”
Her motherknew?Janie eased up from her chair, despite the child inside wanting to crawl beneath the desk. “And how do you know anything of what’s going on in my life right now?”
Her mother gave a tight smile. “Iknowthings, Janie. You know Ruth is a dear friend.”
Janie clenched her jaw. She should’ve known her elderly neighbor had snitched; anything to score points with herdear friendand previous employer. “This is my office. Mother. If you have a desperate need to talk about my ‘profoundly disappointing behavior,’ we won’t be doing it here.”
Her mother arched her perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “At least you’re owning your actions. That’ll save us time I don’t have.”
Janie flared her nostrils. Of course. Seconds, minutes, billable hours. Janie had known time was a commodity as soon as she was old enough to do math. She hadn’t asked her mother to come here. Shewouldn’thave asked. But who had? Hannah? She clutched her chest. If Hannah had thought she could enlist Janie’s parents to help repair their relationship, she sorely misunderstood them. And she misunderstood Janie too. Had she forgotten how much Janie despised their judgment?
“I suggest we go downstairs and have lunch,” Janie said. She had to eat, that’s what Maria kept telling her, so she might as well do two things she wasn’t interested in at the same time. She grabbed her blazer and purse and led the way to the elevator, ignoring the furtive glances of her colleagues. Oh, the humiliation of having her mother strut into her office. What stories would be fabricated at the water cooler at lunch, or at the bar tonight?
“This isn’t a social call, Janie. We’ll have to be quick.”
“Understood.” Janie didn’t think she could recall a single social call from her mother in her life. She tapped the ground floor button repeatedly, wanting the elevator doors to close before any brave or stupid souls tried to join them and grab a few seconds with the legendary Angela Evans.
“This is a self-indulgent crisis that could have been avoided,” her mother said when the elevator finally began its descent.
Janie fiddled with the buttons on her jacket then stopped herself. She shouldn’t retreat into youthful coping mechanisms. She was an adult now, and she didn’t have to take this from anyone, even her own mother. Still, the familiar tension of her mere presence wrapped around Janie like a suffocating shroud. “It’s hardly self-indulgent, Mother.”
“No? What else should we call it? A strategic withdrawal from a marriage you weren’t prepared for? A panicked retreat from motherhood, which you also clearly weren’t ready for?” Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “The children are my main reason for being here.”
Janie couldn’t respond. Her throat tightened, and an icy-cold chill rippled over her skin. Her mother was more right than she could’ve expected to be. And of course her mother was most concerned about her grandchildren. No doubt she didn’t want her vision of a do-over parenting challenge derailed. Janie had joked with Hannah that her mother was probably planning on molding her very own set of Supreme Court judges. She’d been surprised her mother hadn’t been more insistent about her involvement up to now, but she was likely just waiting for the triplets to start stringing more syllables together before she pounced.
When they’d been seated in the cold, faceless restaurant, Janie swallowed hard and prepared herself. “The children are fine. They’re with Hannah and her father, and they’re safe.”
“I think our ideas of what is and is not safe might very well differ,” her mother said. “You know how I feel about Hannah’sbohemianlifestyle.”
