Mitigation (4 page)

I don’t
fucking believe it.

I go a solid week
without seeing or hearing a peep from Matt. The first few days, I
would sometimes stare longingly at my office door, hoping he’d
come through it and tell me that he saw the error of his ways. But
then I started to settle in to my new life without Matt Fucking
Connover in it.

Even when I had some
questions on the
Jackson
case, I was able to pick a few of my
colleague’s brains and save myself from having to deal with
Matt at all.

But this morning, he
walks into my office at eight AM and hands me a folder. He tells me
that I’m going to argue a Motion to Compel for him in court and
that I have thirty minutes to get ready for it. He tells me this is
in a calm voice… no menace and no anger, so I don’t
think he is doing it to punish me. In fact, he assures me that this
is a slam-dunk motion. He points me to the actual rule on civil
procedure that will, in fact, win the motion for me, as long as I
argue it properly, and tells me that he will be by my side if I run
into any trouble.

Then he walks out of
my office after telling me to be ready to go in half an hour.

I then commence to
have a full-blown freak out. I think I even start hyperventilating.
Handing in my resignation is the only way out of this, and that
scenario is looking pretty damn good.

But then…
after about five minutes of spazzing out, I remember that Matt said
this was a slam-dunk motion, and he wouldn’t have given me
something I couldn’t handle. So I log on to our legal library,
pull the rule up, and read it. I print it and read it a second time.
It looks pretty straightforward, but I still manage to memorize it in
my allotted time frame.

Now, here we sit in
front of the Honorable Jericho H. Stanback, a kindly looking judge
with snowy white hair and wire-framed glasses, and my armpits are
pouring sweat. I feel a little light-headed actually, and try to take
a deep, calming breath.

It doesn’t
work.

Matt leans over and
whispers, “You got this, Mac. Piece of cake.”

I turn to look at
him. He’s looking at me with such confidence that I feel a bit
of it infuse inside of me. He continues to stare at me, conveying the
same message.

You got this,
Mac.

When the judge asks
for my arguments, I stand on shaky legs. I will admit there is a
moment where I think all my brain function has died. I go blank.

Then it comes
flooding back to me, and I start talking. I give the judge a short
background of the case and explain why we are before him today. I
quote the Rules of Civil Procedure, even perfectly laying out the
portion that applies to our case. I assure him that there is no law
to the contrary, that the facts of the case fall squarely within this
rule, and that I respectfully ask His Honor to grant our Motion to
Compel.

When I’m done,
I sit back down and listen carefully to the other attorney make his
argument.

It’s kind of
lame to be honest.

Then the judge is
granting my motion... in essence, claiming me the victor. I want to
stand up and do a football-touchdown dance, or do my “neener”
move to the other attorney, both of which would assuredly land me in
jail on contempt of court charges. So I just walk over to my opponent
and shake his hand.

Matt gives me a
short smile and congratulates me. He then tells me to head back to
the office on my own as he has a few other matters to attend to at
the courthouse.

I’m riding so
high on my first real court appearance… and a victory to boot,
that all my other worries just sort of melt away. This is what I’m
supposed to be doing. McKayla Dawson is going to make a hell of a
litigator.

When I get back to
the office, I can’t help but relate the entire scenario to our
receptionist, Bea, but I can tell when her eyes glaze over that she
could care less. She listens to me with a painted smile and nods like
she understands, but I’m betting inside she’s probably
wondering what to eat for dinner that night.

With no other
victory parade to attend to, I head back to my office and get back to
work reviewing the slip and fall case Matt had given me. He’s
right… the case is pretty craptastic. It was some bonehead
walking through a grocery store that didn’t notice the dark red
cranberry juice that had spilled in a huge puddle on the white
flooring.

Hello, open and
obvious danger.

Yeah, I was going to
lose this case, but Matt said it would be good to cut my teeth on.
That also meant no pressure.

A knock on my door
causes me to look up, and it’s Matt. I’d like to tell you
that I could look at him without my blood racing through my veins or
my heart tripping all over itself.

But I’d be
lying.

“Can I come
in?” he asks.

“Sure,”
I tell him and watch as he steps in and closes the door behind him.

I expect him to sit
down across from me, but he walks right up to where I’m
sitting. His hand reaches out and cups me behind the neck, pulling me
up from the chair.

I’m powerless
to stop, my body betraying me quickly.

Matt leans in and
nuzzles my neck. “I’m coming home with you tonight, Mac.”

His voice is low,
husky… filled with promise. It makes my toes curl inside my
pumps.

Yes, home with me.
That is what every part of my body is telling my brain.

Well… not
every part. My heart rears its ugly head up and practically roars at
me. “Don’t be a fool, McKayla.”

My hands come up to
Matt’s chest, and I push him back. I keep pushing until he
releases me, and there’s a foot of space between us.

“No,” I
tell him firmly. “You’re not.”

Anger flashes across
his face. “I don’t get it. You want me, and I want you.
Why are you being this way?”

“I do want
you,” I admit. “I want you a lot. But I want more than
just sex. I need more than just sex.”

He stares at me,
confusion written all over his beautiful face. His words are slow and
cautious when he asks, “What more do you need?”

“I want a
relationship. Dating, conversation, shared secrets. I want it all,
Matt. I deserve it all.”

He soaks in what I’m
saying, but then his shoulders sag slightly. “I don’t
have that to give.”

“Yeah, you
do,” I tell him. “You showed me you do in Nashville. You
have a lot to give.”

I reach my hand out,
intending to take his in mine. To give him soft and reassuring
contact, so my skittish beast of a man doesn’t flee.

Too late. He steps
back out of my reach and his face hardens. “Are you seeing
someone?” he asks with suspicion. Then it’s like a look
of horror that crosses his face. “Fuck… please don’t
tell me you’re dating Cal.”

“No, I’m
not dating Cal. We’re just friends.”

Mocking
condescension. Yup… that’s all over Matt’s face
right now. “Please… that man just wants in your pants,
and he’ll get there, too.”

“He doesn’t
want in my pants,” I snap. “You’re just going to
have to trust me on that.”

One side of Matt’s
upper lip curls skyward, and he practically snarls at me. “See,
that’s just it. I don’t trust you.”

That feels like an
arrow shooting straight through my heart. I try to remember what Matt
has been through, and I try to reason to myself that he’s this
way because of past betrayal. But damn… it still hurts.

“I’ll
ask one more time… Let me come home with you tonight. I won’t
ask again, McKayla.” His voice is soft… with an almost
underlying hint of pleading in it. I want to give in. I want to take
him home and show him how good I can be to him… for him. But
I’m deluding myself that it would ever lead to something that
is good for me.

Shaking my head
sadly, I say, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Matt doesn’t
like that. Doesn’t like it at all. His eyes go frigid, and his
chin comes up. He’s mad, but he’s also being rejected,
and I know that hurts. I hope to God it is just anger speaking when
he says, “No skin off my back. You’re not the only game
in town.”

He turns away before
I can even respond and saunters out of my office.

I’m struggling
when I get off the elevator, trying to hold my coffee, hitching up my
briefcase over my shoulder, and tottering in four-inch heels and a
skirt that doesn’t do more than let me shimmy around. Add on to
that the fact I haven’t gotten any sleep this week, and I’m
in a poor to piss-poor mood.

If you’re
counting, that means I haven’t had a good night’s sleep
in exactly six days. Not since I told Matt that this was over, and he
implied that he was heading back to
One Night Only
.

Bea watches me walk
in, her face grim and full of doom. My stomach drops. “What is
he?”

“I’d say
about a fifteen?”

“A fifteen?”
I ask in shock.

“Yup. It’s
bad.”

Turning to look back
longingly at the elevator, I briefly consider just heading home and
having a sick day. I can’t take another day like this. I wonder
if Matt’s bad mood is because he’s not getting his
regular sex fix from me, but then I shake that thought away. He’s
getting it… just not from me, so that can’t be the
reason.

You see, each day
Bea and I have taken to a ranking system to judge Matt’s mood.
It’s becoming increasingly fouler every day. It’s a
simple one-to-ten scale, and he had topped out at a ten yesterday
when he yelled at a secretary, causing her to run from the office in
tears with Miss Anders hot on her heels, trying to comfort her.

But today…
Bea says he’s a fifteen, and that is probably bordering on a
nuclear explosion.

My plan? Keep my
head down and stay buried in my office, only surfacing to make a mad
dash to the bathroom to pee. But if I don’t drink any coffee or
water, I can probably go all day without having to leave the sanctity
of my office and risking a run in with Matt.

I’d like to
tell you every day away from Matt is easier, but it’s not. I
miss him, plain and simple. Yes, of course I miss the sex. Hello…
have you read what we’ve done so far? But it is more than that.
I miss his wit, his intellect, and his charm. When he’s
operating at a fifteen though, it’s guaranteed I won’t be
seeing that any time in the near future.

When I get to my
office, I log on to my computer and check my email. My eyes go
immediately to the one that is flagged in red from Matt. It says,
“Jackson Case - Urgent - see me when you get in.”

That’s it…
nothing else, no indication of what’s wrong. And now I have to
go into the bear’s den when he’s at a fifteen. This is
shaping up to be a spectacular day.

Matt grunts out a
terse, “Come in,” when I knock on his door. For once,
he’s not on the phone but sitting behind his desk, reading a
file. When I sit down, he pushes the file aside, reaches across his
desk to grab a thick document, and then hands it across to me.

At a glance, I can
see it is the rough draft of the Answers to Interrogatories I
prepared in the
Jackson
case for him to review. Seeing as how
it was the first set I had ever done, I needed him to review them for
legal accuracy. What stands out the most to me, is the red ink that
spreads across the top sheet. Flipping briefly through the pages, I
see more red ink… slashes and slashes of it, marking up my
words, and mauling my legalese. It looks like Lizzie Borden got ahold
of it… a freakin’ blood bath.

When I look up at
Matt, his face is hard and his eyes icy. “I’m
disappointed in you, McKayla. The draft you handed in to me was
sub-standard at best. A first-year law student could have done
better.”

My face flushes red,
embarrassment practically seeping out of my pores. I am a
perfectionist and to be told my work is bad tears me up inside. I
don’t understand it because I had done meticulous research and
studied several examples of other Interrogatory answers to use as a
go-by. When I handed it in to Matt, I thought I’d get it back
with an A+++ and a smiley face… maybe a gold star glued to the
front.

Flipping through the
pages, I focus on his mark-ups to see exactly where I failed. As my
eyes move from red mark to red mark, my face goes crimson again, but
this time, it’s heating up with fury. Matt’s corrections
have nothing to do with the quality of my legal work. They’re
all picky issues over the semantics on how to word something. For
example, he crossed out the word “instantaneously” and
wrote above it “instantly”. And that was just one
example. Page after page I flip through, and I only spot one area
where he has a legitimate gripe… where I placed an objection
improperly.

When I glance back
up at him, he’s watching me with interest, his eyebrows raised
slightly to see what my reaction will be. He’s ready for me to
erupt, and I think he’ll be disappointed if I don’t. He’s
expecting a fight, and he wants to uncork the tempest that must be
brewing inside of him.