My grip on my restraint slipped again. ‘Don’t thank me for loving her.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
Chess met my gaze. Even subdued, it was easy to tell this was a Shaw I was sitting across from, all fists, all teeth. ‘I would never thank anyone for loving her, like it was some favour, some hardship, something they had to go out of their way to do,’ she said. ‘She deserves all the love in the world.’
‘Agreed.’
‘So I want you to know that I’m going to fight like hell to make sure you can keep your job,’ she said, waving past me as Sadie approached our table again. ‘What the university is doing is in a grey area between legality and illegality, but even if we don’t get a ruling in our favour, I can absolutely fucking bury them in paperwork and red tape. If nothing else, I can make it much more expensive for them to fire you than to keep you on.’
‘Plus,’ Sadie said, sitting back down, putting her phone on the table and then lacing her fingers through mine, ‘according to Julia, we’re already getting a ton of interest on the media side of things. Lyons is going to look like they’re trying to fire you so they can fund a brand-new major in kicking puppies. If we pull enough public heartstrings, the pressure on the university will be so intense they’ll have to back down.’
I nodded. I didn’t think it would be that easy – years of growing up with Professor Christian Fisher as a father had shown me that universities did not particularly care about anyone’s feelings – but I was hardly about to say it.
Sadie drew our joined hands to her lips, kissing my knuckles. ‘We’re about to become the nation’s most extremely married couple,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re ready for that.’
I used my free hand to tip her face up to mine. ‘What do you fucking think, Shaw?’
She grinned. I kissed the tip of her nose. Opposite us, Chess took a sip of her sparkling and almost certainly shoved down about a thousand things she wanted to say.56
That, at least, I could respect. ‘Thank you, Chess,’ I said, turning away from Sadie to look her in the eye. ‘For helping us fight this.’
She gave me a tight-lipped smile. ‘You’re welcome, Jonah.’
One day, I might push Chess harder. Much as I’d meant everything I’d just said about wanting a good relationship with her – and much as it would make me a giant hypocrite, given my own track record as a sibling – it was difficult to set aside how angry it had made me, watching my wife suffer for all those months. One day, I might ask why she’d really done it.
But tonight, Sadie was so happy sitting there with both of us, fingers squeezing mine in approval, and that was more important than anything else – so even if that day might eventually come, it was not going to be today.57
‘Now, talk me through this food menu,’ Chess said, businesslike. ‘Tell me what’s good.’
She and Sadie got into a discussion over whether we should order a cheeseboard before dinner or after – ‘I mean, we’re obviously getting the cheeseboard,’ Sadie said, ‘it’s just a matter of when.’ I let them talk, speaking only when spoken to.
Chess and I might never truly see eye to eye, but on the most important point, we were in clear and firm agreement. If Sadie was happy, then that was good enough.
‘No!’ Satoshi barked suddenly. ‘Out!’
He pointed a finger at the man who had just come into the bar. ‘You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here. Out!’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me.’ Satoshi was shaking.
Isamu put a warning hand on his shoulder and said something quietly to him in Japanese. Satoshi snarled something back.
Isamu looked at the man and folded his arms. Even under the white dress shirt he was wearing, his biceps bulged ominously. ‘It would be best,’ he said, ‘if you left.’
‘Fine,’ the man said curtly. The door swung closed behind him. ‘Jonah, what’s wrong?’ Sadie asked me. She must have felt my arm stiffen around her.
‘That was Matt.’ I drained my water glass. ‘Fiona’s piece-of-shit husband.’
‘Oh, shit, darling. Are you all right?’
I nodded. ‘Fi might not be, though. The one upside of him not paying child support is that she doesn’t have to deal with him. If he’s back in town…’
‘What’s her legal situation?’ Chess asked. ‘Does she have a decent lawyer? Because if they’re not protecting her and her rights properly, I can help. I don’t do family law myself, but I’ll find you a shark.’
I glanced at her, surprised.
‘I have a soft spot,’ she said, ‘for sisters.’
