Mr. Wright & Mr. Wrong: A BWWM Romance (25 page)

* * *

S
he once again found herself
in Business Class and her head was in even more turmoil going back to New York than it had been coming to Paris. Despite the comforts of her seat and the champagne she drank with abandon, she couldn’t relax.

Even though she tried to distance herself from her family, they were still her family. Daddy, Cleveland, London. She realized that even her mother, despite not being a member of the firm, would be affected by this as well. She felt like crying but shook those thoughts right off.

She had to be strong.

Once she arrived in New York, she sprang for a Taxi and didn’t bother heading to her place to drop her bags off. She went right to Harlem.

At the destination, she paid the driver and lugged her bags up the steps of the brownstone, which already had a sprinkling of reporters standing in front of it. She gave each of them evil glares as they eyed her curiously, before realizing she was no one of importance.

It, understandably, took a while for the door to be answered.

Finally, it cracked opened and she saw her father as she had never seen him before. He’d always been an imposing, godlike, figure in her life, filling the room with his big personality. Now he just seemed…human.

“Brooklyn” he blinked at her in surprise, not used to her willingly making an appearance in his life unannounced.

“Daddy,” she said softly, before throwing her arms around his waist and hugging him tight.

It took him a moment as he overcame the shock of this unusual situation, then she felt his arms come around to hug her so hard she thought her ribs would crack.

“It’s good to see you, baby,” he murmured into her head.

They heard the reporters behind them rustling out of their stupor as cameras clicked and questions were thrown out. The two of them quickly pulled her bags inside and shut the door on them.

W
orking
at one of the top law firms in New York was not without its perks.

Michael had spent the entire weekend with London, watching impotently as she fell further and further into despair. She assured him that it was enough that he was there for her, but it wasn’t nearly enough for him.

By Monday morning, he was itching to actually
do
something. There was no way he would be getting anything as civilized as a sit-down meeting with the man. So Michael decided to go another route. There was nothing tactful or professional about what he was about to do. It was old school justice.

Just the sort of thing a man like Clayton Moore deserved.

Michael waited outside the court building where he’d learned Clayton was meeting with the D.A., no doubt working out some deal he didn’t deserve. Michael wasn’t ashamed to say he felt a tiny little thrill about his decision. If the gentry of New York could see him now they would be less than impressed, to say the least.

But London was suffering. And this asshole was the cause of it. In some respects, this was actually more than he deserved.

After several blocks Michael made his move.

“Nice day isn’t it?” he asked casually as he matched Clayton Moore’s stride.

As soon as the man looked over in surprise, Michael grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pushed him into the empty alleyway nearest them. Their progress was stopped by a filthy dumpster. As Clayton’s back hit the metal, Michael held him there.

Finally Clayton found his voice. “What the fuck man!” he yelped.

“We have a bit of a problem, Clayton,” Michael began in a reasonable tone.

Clayton began to struggle in his hands, ignoring his first words.

Michael gave him exactly one warning. “You should probably stop and listen to what I have to say…otherwise I’ll have to make you stop.” His voice was still quite reasonable, but the undertone left no room for doubt.

All the same, Clayton chose to continue ignoring Michael’s sound advice and instead tried to take a swing at the man. Michael dodged it easily, which was lucky for Clayton. Otherwise, what came next would have been far worse.

It took one blow to the stomach, pulled back at the last moment for more impact to immobilize him. As the man bent over, mostly from shock. Michael leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“I’m sorry I had to do that,” he said sincerely. “But I really need you to pay attention here.

“Let me start off by saying that, as you’ve just learned, I can pack a pretty good punch. Do you want to know why that is?”

Clayton was still bent over, too stunned to talk.

“You know Mario Rodriguez? Little guy? Wins lots of boxing matches? Well the guy who used to train him, now trains me. Gotta stay in shape somehow.”

Clayton began lifting himself up, glaring up at Michael, but he didn’t make a move to leave.

“First, I’m going to start with a big juicy carrot here, in the hopes that it will soothe some of the pain you’re no doubt feeling.

“I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking ‘fuck you. You can take your offer and shove it up your ass.’ Am I right?”

Clayton just stared back at him petulantly.

“That’s a fair thought to have. An ego is a delicate thing, especially in us men. Especially when it comes to women.”

Clayton finally found his voice. “Fuck you, and fuck that bitch. Just because she got a little case of Jungle Fever—

The slap came swift and hard. It was accompanied by an even harder look from Michael.

“You speak about her again in any way that’s less than respectful and you’ll find a lot worse than that, you hear?”

Clayton just stared at him in stunned surprise, holding his cheek.

Michael brought the congenial tone back to his voice. “Now where were we?

“Ah yes, we were about to do a little
bro-miserating
about our egos. Well, I also have a pretty fragile ego. And I’m about to take it, rip it up into tiny little shreds, flush it down the toilet, go down into the sewer to fish it out, then flush it down the toilet again.”

“Why don’t you just get to the fucking point, man,” Clayton said, casting a wary eye toward him in case another slap should materialize.

Michael just nodded. “You’re right. I can’t stand the sight of you so I’m going to wrap it up here.

“You know who my father is, right? Just nod, I don’t need to hear the sound of your voice.”

Clayton nodded reluctantly.

“I don’t like my father very much. More importantly, I hate,” he leaned in closer to Clayton, causing the man to shrink back, “
hate
, going to him, hat in hand. I don’t like owing him favors.”

“But I’m going to do that. Not to save your sorry ass…that’s just collateral damage. I’m going to do it because the woman I love is suffering. I don’t like watching her suffer. That’s something else you might want to keep in mind the next time you want to play dirty.

“The good news for you is, I’m going to make it easy for you to clear the Jefferson firm’s name because, whatever it is you are being offered, I’m going to make you a better offer. One you can’t refuse…so to speak.” He gave Clayton a cold grin that made the reference very, very clear.

“Just in case that isn’t good enough for you, I’m going to give you a bit of the stick to match that carrot. Just like I know people who can help you, I know people who can utterly destroy your life. You think it was bad when the finger was pointed at you? Well, I know people who can lay the JFK assassination at your feet and have the whole world thinking you did it, even though you weren’t even born at the time.”

That’s when the real fear came to the man’s eyes.

“That look on your face tells me you know I’m not lying. And just in case that isn’t enough for you, remember the part where I talked about my trainer? Well, if you don’t fix this by tomorrow,” he leaned in with a cold stare, “I’ll kick your ass.”

“What?”
Clayton said, as if wondering if those words had actually come out of Michael’s mouth.

“You heard me. I’ll come right up to you one day when you least expect it, and beat the cowardly shit right out of you.”

Michael would never do such a thing…probably. This current situation was about as “street tough” as he was probably willing to be.

But it sure was fun to watch the little fucker squirm.

* * *

I
n the end
, it hadn’t come to either Michael going to his father or meeting Clayton someday when he least expected it. He couldn’t deny that a small part of him was just a wee bit disappointed at the last bit.

Like all cowards, all it took was a slight flick of the finger and their dominoes came crashing down. Clayton was low man on the totem pole of the Summer Lunch Program scandal. As such he had no protection, which was probably why whoever was mostly at fault had picked him in the first place.

It also made it easy for Clayton to point the finger in any direction he wanted. By the next day, his finger had switched direction and was no longer pointed in the general vicinity of the
Jefferson, Jefferson, Jefferson & Associates
law firm.

Michael considered it a job well done on his part.

O
n Wednesday morning
the three Jeffersons and most of the firm associates were standing in one of the larger conference rooms, watching the local news in shock.

The news was good. It had taken a little more than a weekend for Clayton to come clean. London wanted to add his inability to even be faithful to a lie, to yet another list of flaws, but she was more than happy to take it. At least it had saved the firm some late nights...and their sanity.

After her night with Michael, London had spent the day with him while he brought her back around from a fractured and damaged, zombie-like, shell of a woman, to the smart, capable lawyer she actually was. The kind who takes action.

Unfortunately, the past several days had been all brainstorming and little action. They were losing clients left and right and the D.A. was making noise about spearheading an investigation into the firm.

London had finally offered to suck up her pride and go straight to Clayton in the hopes that maybe something of the past ten years they’d had together would make him come around. They all knew he had only targeted the firm to spite London. Her father had put the kibosh on that real quick.

“Preposterous!
I will not have you groveling, London,” he’d pronounced. “He wasn’t worth it before this, and he certainly isn’t worth it now. The truth will come out, we just have to work harder to find it.”

Now, out of the blue, Clayton was changing his story. The
Jefferson, Jefferson, Jefferson & Associates
firm had nothing to do with switching out the Summer Lunch Program funds. Right now the finger was pointed to Dion Davis’ Chief of Staff, Sean Carmichael.

Just as they’d been camped out mostly in front of Frank Jefferson’s house and the front entrance to the law firm, the media was now hounding Sean. So far it was a firm, No Comment, through grim lips on his part. Smart man. All the same it didn’t stop Dion Davis from immediately firing not just Sean, but all of his heads of staff in order to start over with a clean slate.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the only reason he was still in the running was because—as the Great Black Hope everyone pegged him as—he was still unopposed as the Democratic candidate. London was pretty sure the Dems were now furiously scrambling around for a suitable contender, no matter how hard Davis tried to distance himself from this mess. Even with Richard Wright (whose latest bout of idiocy had been to add to his campaign promises, a fee to use the New York Public Library to put an end to freeloading) as his main opponent, Dion Davis was problematic, to say the least.

According to her father, Dion had already reached out to the firm to express his intent to renew their services. After the headache the entire campaign had already caused them, London would have been more than happy to politely decline, or just tell him to go fuck himself.

In the end she was outvoted by the other two partners, who helped her to see reason. Right now they couldn’t afford to turn away clients, especially a major one, especially one who
might
just eek by and become the Mayor of New York. Besides, it was a definite vote of confidence to have such a big name come crawling back, which was how London, personally liked to picture it.

London chose to see it in a positive light. It would be a monumental test of her legal and P.R. abilities to make Dion Davis come out of this smelling like roses. If he actually won, by some miracle, it meant she was excellent at her job. She wasn’t quite sure what it said about her morals. Especially since she was certain the buck sure as hell didn’t stop with Sean Carmichael.

At least the firms’ young associates were a bit less jumpy these days. Their jobs were, somewhat, secure. The firm was out of the spotlight, at least as far as negative publicity went. Her father was working on a full media blitz to bring the firm’s image back around. She had faith him; it was what he was best at after all.

She went back to focusing on the TV until Clayton’s face appeared again. She had seen enough of him to last a lifetime so she left the conference room to head back to her office. Now that they actually had work again, it was time to get back to it.

She saw that there was a message from Michael on her phone and she smiled.

H
e’d been such
a strong support this weekend, she definitely needed to repay him somehow. Her smile grew as she thought of the ways she could accomplish that. She picked up the phone and pressed his number.

“So it looks like you had a nice little surprise this morning.” he said.

“Yeah, kind of shocking really, but I’m not complaining,” she laughed. “I can’t even imagine what made him change his mind, and so quickly!”

“Someone probably just slapped him in the face with a dose of morality,” he replied.

“Well,
someone
certainly had to; he didn’t have much to begin with,” she said. “The good news is, he’ll definitely be disbarred.”

“Probably indicted as well,” Michael added.

“Never find another job,” she mused.

“Totally ostracized.”

“Lose all of his friends.”

“Have little old ladies on the street hit him over the head with their handbags.”

London laughed and joined in. “Attacked by clowns.”

“End up with two lemon Starbursts in those little fun-sized packs.”

“Whoa, whoa, let’s not get
totally
sadistic,” she said.

“Yeah, I think that does kind of cross the line.”

“How about we talk about something else? I’ve kind of had my fill of Clayton Moore,” she said.

“Sounds good to me,” he responded. “So what are we going to talk about then?”

“How about, how I’m going to repay you for this weekend,” she responded.

“I like the sound of that.”

“Since you came up to see me, maybe I can come see you tonight.”

There was a pause as he took in the implications of that. “Are you sure? Not worried about the Davis Campaign, now that they’ve just taken you back?”

“Not even a little bit,” she said bitterly. “If they have a problem with it, they can take it up with me.”

“And your dad?”

“He’ll get used to it,” she sighed. “I don’t think he’s particularly fond of your father, but I’m sure
you’ll
win him over.”

“Well it helps that we have one thing in common,” he laughed. “As long as you’re okay with it, I look forward to it. We can finally put an end to this sneaking around in hotels.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That was kind of fun.”

“Hmm, yeah it was. But for tonight, I guess this means I have to hide my collection of My Little Ponies.”

She laughed. “So, I’ll see you at 8?”

“It’s a date,” he said.