The Bad Judgment Series: The Complete Series (5 page)

“I’m the one who doesn’t know what to fucking expect,” Walker said, and the playful tone was gone from his voice. He looked tired and beaten again all of a sudden, like the tiredness and sadness had just been crouching inside, waiting to take over. “I actually can’t believe that this is happening to me. I can’t believe they’re doing this to me.” He looked around the empty restaurant, back over his shoulder, probably wary of reporters. “I haven’t accepted it. I think I might be in shock, or something.”

I looked at him with sympathy. His flirting, his playfulness this afternoon...of course he was in shock. There was no way he’d be so cavalier if he’d fully accepted his situation. “It’s probably normal that you feel that way,” I said, gently. “It’ll be easier to deal with if you accept it in stages.”

I paused for a second, wanting to know more but not wanting to make him upset. “It’s a lot to take in all at once…but I’m curious…were you expecting
anything
like this? Had the SEC given you any indication about an investigation? Any sort of a warning?”

Walker sighed and rubbed his face. I could almost feel the stubble beneath his palm and I indulged in all sorts of inappropriate, but luckily invisible, clenching again. “Let’s finish eating, first. I have a lot to tell you.”

I nodded at him and went back to my burrito, which unfortunately had lost some of its charm due to the seriousness of the conversation. I pushed the chips around on my plate, fidgeting. “Nicole,” Walker said. “Finish your food. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m not worried,” I lied. “You have the best lawyers money can buy.”

“Are you the best?” he asked. “And is it possible to actually
buy
you?” He managed to sound playful again, and also a little excited, which didn’t help at all with the clenching.

“I have very keen powers of observation,” I said, “and they tell me that I am, in fact, the best. Sadly, you can’t buy me. You may, however, pay my exorbitant legal fee. I’m worth every penny.”

“I love a woman who’s not afraid to brag. And earn money,” he said.

“Then we should get along just fine,” I said, wondering how he’d so seamlessly put me at ease. And then I realized it: I was being managed. Walker was the CEO of a billion-dollar company, and he was used to people doing what he wanted. He was an expert, and he was in control. He wanted me to like him, to be on his side.

He was an excellent manager. I’d forgotten all about the orange debacle of this morning, and all I cared about right now was liking him. And being on his side.

W
e pulled his ridiculously expensive
— and awfully fun — car into Back Bay, home of professional athletes, professional models, and probably some of the Proctor partners. I had no experience with the neighborhood, aside from a cheap Chinese restaurant on Commonwealth Ave that Mike and I used to go to sometimes. The gorgeous Victorian brownstones glowed in the early evening light; the on-street parking was jam-packed with the newest Audis, BMWs and Mercedes.

I sighed inwardly. Whenever I was in a ritzy neighborhood like this, it just made me feel bad.
You’re ridiculous,
I scolded myself.
I was an attorney; I’d gone to a top law school; I worked for one of the most prestigious law firms in the city and I made well over one hundred thousand dollars a year.

Still, I knew I would never live in a neighborhood like this. Not ever, even if I made partner. Just like I knew there were some stores in Boston that I would never dare go into. I’d stood outside one recently, on Newbury Street, wanting to try on a dress I saw in the window. But as crazy as it was, I was worried I’d walk in and they’d think I was a shoplifter. It was ridiculous and I knew it — but when you grow up poor, you grow up class-conscious. At least
I
did. As a kid I was always aware of my cheap jacket, my mother’s crap station-wagon. And now that I was a grown woman, I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that most of my suits cost a fraction of what the other women at my office wore. Having grown up without expensive clothes, jewelry and handbags, I didn’t think of them as necessary. I liked them as much as anybody else, but they weren’t
necessary
. I seemed to be the only one at my office, and certainly the only one on Newbury Street, who seemed to feel that way.

Maybe most people in my office and on Newbury weren’t coming from where I came from. A walk-up in Somerville, one parent with a small income, one parent who was now dead, who’d left thousands of dollars in medical bills I still needed to pay. Law school loans. Undergraduate loans. Two little brothers who needed food, new clothes, sports equipment and college funds.

This was why I shopped at Bargain Basement
.
And why most of the time I didn’t think twice about it.

The gorgeous, tasteful homes blurred into each other. I wouldn’t have any idea how to live in a house like one of these, in a posh neighborhood like this. I’d never be able to relax. I’d always have to dress up, get plastic surgery, and wear enormous sunglasses just to take the trash out. I looked over at Walker, with his thick, tousled black hair and his thousand-dollar suit. He looked over at me and smiled, the lines on his face only increasing his attractiveness. My heart plummeted to my stomach. Why was this man so gorgeous, smart, rich
and
nice? It was one of those days when it was brutally clear to me: life wasn’t fair. I wanted to be Minky Lucca, the Hollywood starlet in the yellow ruffled bikini, splashing water at his gorgeous abs. Instead, I had to use all my considerable brain power just to keep him out of jail.

And I’d never get to sleep with him.

“You’re being quiet,” he said. “Are you plotting Introverted Barbie’s next move?”

I pushed my glasses up on my nose and pouted at him. In the back of my mind I knew I desperately wished my pout was sexy — but the front of my mind knew that it was not. “Yes. Yes I am, Walker,” I said.

He pulled the car, suddenly and expertly, into a garage next to one of the brownstones. My mouth dropped open. “You have a
garage
?” I asked, incredulous. “I thought garages in Boston were an urban myth.”

“Yes, I have a garage,” he said, and laughed at me. “Don’t get too excited. It’s only a two-car. The Patriots linebacker has a four-car garage. He got into all sorts of trouble with the Zoning Board, but then he and his gorgeous wife both signed some autographs and signed on to all sorts of charitable events, so…”

“So?”

“So apparently everybody on the zoning board thought they were great, and they got whatever the hell they wanted,” he laughed. “Would
you
say no to his wife? She’s a lingerie model. I freaking wouldn’t.” His eyes had the faraway, lustful look of a red-blooded male considering a tall, gorgeous lingerie model. Against my will, my face scrunched into a pout again. I was on the short side and I was no lingerie model. I pouted some more.

He looked at me, searching my face as we sat in the car. “Nicole, are you one of those girls...that think if I say someone else is pretty...that I don’t think
you’re
pretty?” he asked. “You’re smarter than that, aren’t you?”

“Walker, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and I felt my face turn absolutely, flaming scarlet.
Does he think I’m PRETTY?
My brain screamed at me, but I ignored it. “First of all, I’m your attorney. Enough said. Second of all, and no offense, but I already know that you have a thing for pretty women. It’s not like it’s a big secret.”

He looked at me again, half a smile on his face. “It’s not like I planned on being in those magazines,” he said. “Those last pictures, on the beach with Minky…those were embarrassing. She actually had them set up. She wanted them for publicity. But I didn’t find that out until afterwards.”

I shrugged at him.
“I’m not judging you, Walker. You’re
City
Magazine’s most eligible bachelor, and a successful CEO. You can do whatever you like with Minky Lucca.”
And her stupid yellow ruffled bikini,
I thought. I sighed, willing myself to stop having this conversation with my client. But I had to get the words out so I could concentrate on my job. And not his gorgeous face and big shoulders.

“That’s not why I’m here — not for flirting, not for talking about personal stuff. Yes, you are easy to talk to. Yes, you are friendly and yes, I like you. No, I do not care if you think your lingerie model neighbor is hot,” I lied. “I’m here because you’re in trouble and David Proctor trusts me. I’m your attorney, and yes I’m young and I’m female, but because I
am
your lawyer, you cannot flirt with me, okay? Just pretend I have a dick instead. You know what I mean?” I asked, exhausted from trying to get all the words out of my mouth as fast as I could.

He sat and looked at the steering wheel for a beat, taking it in. Then he turned to look at me, a vaguely puzzled smile on his face. “You are weirder than I gave you credit for,” he said. “Pretend you have a
dick
?”

I sighed. This was harder than I thought. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want there to be any issues between us: there can’t be,” I said, and it was true. No one needed or wanted their job more than me.
One hundred thousand in debt down, two hundred thousand to go,
I reminded myself. “And I don’t want to hypothesize about whether you think I’m pretty or not,” I said, even though I desperately, pathetically, insanely wanted to know if he did in fact think I was pretty. “Let’s just get off this topic. And never go there again.”

“Because?” he asked me. He was looking at me with a sober expression on his face. Not humorous. Not distressed. Just level.

“Because I need to keep you out of jail.”
And I won’t concentrate on my work if all I’m thinking about his your hot body.
“And I need my job.”

“Well, those things are important to me, too. But I won’t pretend you have a dick,” he said. “You’re too pretty to have a dick.”

I felt myself beam at him, basking in his sneaky compliment, until I reminded myself I shouldn’t beam. I composed my face. “Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s go get started.”

“You’re the boss,” he smiled, and his smile had only the hint of an illicit gleam in it. But it was enough that I felt a small, illicit gleam in my heart, mirroring his, shine back towards him. Even though that shine could never burn.

“
W
ell
, let’s get started,” Walker said. “It’s already late.” I looked at the clock: it was seven thirty.

“This is pretty early for me, actually,” I said, as we went into his house and I examined the gleaming grey-tiled floors in his immaculate mud room. He motioned for me to follow him; I did so nervously, my heels echoing on the tiled floor.

“I like that sound,” he said, nodding at my heels. I glared at him. “I’m just kidding. Sort of.”

We walked into his vast kitchen and my jaw dropped: it was amazing, just like out of a design magazine. I didn’t know how he’d modernized the old building, but the ceilings were soaring and all of the appliances were so new they looked like something out of the future. But the room was beautiful beyond that. The walls were painted a warm, inviting green color; there were colorful original paintings carefully positioned throughout the room, all softly, expertly lit. I’d never seen the type of stone that comprised his island and countertops, but it sparkled from within, like it was magic, like there was light shining out from inside. “This is incredible,” I said. I’d never been in a more beautiful room than this kitchen. “It’s like a kitchen for people who are too good to exist in the real world — it’s like a movie set.”

“I probably am too good for the real world,” he said, but when I glared at him again he laughed and I knew he was just teasing me. “I hired somebody to do it, of course. But all of those are my sister’s paintings — Adrian — she’s really talented.” He sounded proud.

I went over and looked at them. “Is this what she does for a living? I thought you said she was still in school.”

“She is — she’s getting her Masters at the MFA School. She wants to start a gallery. She’s been painting and dragging me to the Museum her whole life."

“These are wonderful,” I said, looking up close at one of her paintings. The paint seemed like it was done in layers, beautifully textured with bold colors. “So she lives in town?”

“She lives here,” he said. “But she’s not around that much — she has a lot of friends, and a boyfriend I don’t care for too much. He has about a thousand tattoos and says ‘whatever’ a lot more than I care to hear it. She’s twenty-four...just about your age.”

“I’m twenty-five,” I said, “ten years younger than you. But that’s a pretty big age difference, for a sibling.” I was thinking instead of the difference between me and Walker. I decided that it wasn't that big a difference for an attorney and her hot client that she could never sleep with.

“Adrian was unexpected,” Walker said, and smiled. “My parents always called her a force of nature. Nothing, no one could stop her. I still can’t get her to behave.” He laughed.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“They’re dead,” he said. “What about you?”

“My mom’s dead. Died five years ago of cancer. My dad lives in Somerville with my two younger brothers.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said. We looked at each other stupidly. I grabbed my laptop and held it up. “You ready?”

“But you don’t live with them?” he asked, ignoring my laptop and my question. I shook my head,
no
. “You live alone?”

“Yes,” I said. I blushed again underneath his scrutiny.
My boyfriend is trying to move in but I won’t let him,
I thought. I kept it to myself. The last thing I wanted to talk to Walker about was Mike the Spike and his fancy beers.

“I’m glad Adrian’s here. I’d get lonely. Do you get lonely?”

“No.” It was true. I was rarely home, and I think if I broke up with Mike and stopped having to pick his boxers and wet towels up off of my bathroom floor, I would be thrilled. Not lonely.

I couldn’t picture Walker being lonely; he was too good-looking to have problems like that. I looked at him expectantly, trying to reign him in. “Our prep work — yes,” Walker said, finally. “Let’s go into the living room. And for the love of god, let’s please have a drink. This is going to be boring.” He grabbed a bottle of wine from a wine cooler next to the dishwasher, and I briefly wondered what it would be like to have a fully-stocked white wine cooler. And a live-in manservant that looked just like Broden Walker.
Fabulous,
I thought.
It would be freakin’ fabulous.

He grabbed glasses, an opener, and then led me through French doors to his living room. Dark, almost black, hardwood floors and a luxurious, thick white throw rug contrasted with the enormous leather couch. The room would have been stark if not for the artwork on the walls, which were of brightly-colored flowers...and the...enormous pink poodle Pillow Pet that sat slumped on the couch.

I went over and sat next to it. “Yours, I assume?”

“Ha-ha,” he said, opening the wine expertly and pouring two glasses. “My sister’s in her twenties, she’s an avowed Feminist, she has five tattoos and her nose is pierced, and yet, she keeps that thing around. It’s a fucking Pillow Pet. It’s embarrassing.”

“I think it’s sweet,” I said, thinking about the fact that I still kept my jewelry in a music box that had a spinning ballerina in it. My mother had given it to me when I was nine. “Sometimes it’s nice to have something to hold onto.”

Walker put a very healthy glass of wine in front of me. “I can’t drink more than I already have, remember?” I said. “I’m on the clock.”

“Trust me, I’ve had plenty of drinks with David Proctor — we had some earlier today — and they’re all on the clock. Fucker bills me for
everything.
” He took his tie off, unbuttoned his shirt further and put his feet up on the coffee table. He motioned to the wine. “I’ll just leave it there until you get so bored you feel compelled.”

I doubted I would find staring at him for any length of time anything but fascinating. Boring was not on the agenda.

“I’m a lawyer,” I said. “Boring is what I do. That’s why we get paid so much — we have a knack for being able to review documents and listen to backstories that put lesser professionals to sleep.” He laughed and I smiled at him, but I was being serious. “I’m going to take all of this information, sift through it, articulate a compelling narrative, and then I’m going to find a way to get you off. And that will be anything but boring.”

“Well, it might surprise you, but I get tired of hearing myself talk, so I’m gonna go ahead and drink,” he said.

I snorted at him. “I kind of don’t believe you, but drink away,” I said, and turned on my laptop. “Now, tell me about how you started Blue Securities in 1999.”

“In 1999, I was twenty, and I didn’t know shit, like most twenty-somethings,” he said and smiled at me. I gave him the requisite glare, which he ignored. He stretched his arms over his head and I could see his large biceps pressing against his shirt. It made me feel squishy inside. Therefore I turned on my laptop and started taking notes so I wouldn’t stare at him with my mouth hanging open.

“I was in the Marines. We were in Serbia for several months, on the ground. It was during the Kosovo war. You were probably too little to remember that,” he said.

“I remember Slobodan Milosevic,” I said. “I remember being afraid of him, watching him on the news. And I remember that there was some sort of war going on. Something horrible.”

“So you were a smart girl even then. Yes, it was brutal. He was rounding up ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. I was part of a crew that was trying to take out the front line of his forces. They were his version of Special Ops. And we couldn’t get a handle on these guys. We never knew from where they were going to strike — they were slippery, and they were always ahead of us.

“In any event — this is the long version, sorry — I’ve always been a tech guy. I used to invent things in my parents’ basement when I was growing up. I had a couple of things catch on fire...but both my parents worked and I managed to clean things up pretty well. They never knew. So when I wasn’t in school, I was building electronic things in my basement. I was a teenaged mad scientist. And then I’d try and sell my inventions to my friends.”

“Did they buy them?” I asked. I could picture him as a hot Marine in Serbia, but I couldn’t picture him as some dorky kid inventing things in his basement.

“The ones I swore could blow things up sold quite well,” he said. “But my results weren’t very reliable back then.”

“So you were a teenaged-mad-scientist entrepreneur,” I said. I couldn’t picture it. I knew he was brilliant, because of the company he’d managed to build. But he was so gorgeous, and so playful, that I couldn’t imagine him like that, trying to cook up inventions alone every day after school.

“Absolutely. I had some friends, but I spent a lot of time alone. I liked to invent things and use my imagination. I also liked to read spy novels. So I was always trying to invent Bond-like gadgets, cool things that a spy could use, weapons, stuff like that.”

He did not strike me as a man who had been unpopular or alone for a day in his life. I couldn’t reconcile a young Walker, cackling over his latest invention, with the gorgeous six-foot-two babe sitting across from me. “That sounds…nerdy.”

“I’m guessing you would know all about that,” he said, and although I frowned at him, I let it slide. Because in fact, I
did
know all about that.

“Anyway. I had that sort of technical background — or at least a technical curiosity — before I joined the military. I didn’t go to college — I never went to college,” he said and laughed. “The military was a much more practical education. I got to see a lot of the world, and I got to keep inventing things. Which brings us back to 1999. I’d been working for a long time to create all sorts of tracking devices. Once I started in the military, I wanted to make one that you could insert into a computer. So that you could track the physical computer itself, but also be able to review documents, communications, etc. from the hard drive. It was basically a two-fer. A GPS and spyware wrapped into one small microchip package. That was the Holy Grail I’d been trying to create. And that year in Serbia, I finally made a prototype that worked.”

“And you still sell that, today,” I said. I’d done my reading on what Blue Securities actually made.

“Correct. Blue Securities was borne out of that one invention. Even though I created it during my service, and it was for military use, I made it on my own time. It was outside of my obligation to the Marines. So it was proprietary, and the government agreed then to buy it from me. We tested it over there, in Kosovo, and it really worked. When we got off of assignment, I had it patented, and I sold the exclusive use of the device to the United States government. And then I started manufacturing it. It’s one of the technologies that I sold to a third party. I think it’s one of the reasons I’m here now, giving you this statement.” He sat up abruptly and drank some wine. His face looked troubled, but I left it alone.

“What happened next was that the original contract with the government was doubled. Then tripled. Then I increased output by two-hundred percent. I used a good portion of the money I made to invest in research and development, and I hired the best people I could find. They loved the work — it was exciting, cutting edge stuff, meant to help our country. My scientists produced a number of profitable inventions. We now hold over 5,000 patents.”

I let out a whistle. “That’s incredible,” I said.

“Yes. It is.” He rubbed his face and drank some more.

“So you've been in business for fifteen years? How many contracts do you currently have with the government?”

“Ninety-eight percent of all of our contracts are with the United States government. We have over 20,000 contracts of various sizes, in various stages. They range in value from thousands to millions of dollars. Two percent of our clientele, the newest two percent, are foreign governments and privately held corporate entities.”

“And do you sell any of the same technology from your U.S. contracts to foreign governments?” I asked.

“Yes, we do. And we sell them to corporations, too. But only the nonproprietary technology. There are some of our contracts that have locked-down non-compete clauses. Those are our classified products. And we don’t sell those to anyone but the American government.”

He drained his glass and looked at his watch. “Nicole,” he said, and he put his face in his hands. “I can’t do this anymore tonight. I was with David Proctor all day, yesterday and today. You are much nicer than him, but I was indicted this morning. The one good thing that happened today was the fact that we got burritos. Otherwise, it’s been shit. And talking about my company, that I’ve built from the ground up, that I’m about to lose, is making me sick.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “I totally understand. I’m going to call a cab now.”

“You don’t have to rush out of here,” Walker said, giving me a long look and having another sip of wine. My insides squeezed themselves fiercely. “Stay and keep me company.”

I swear to God, I almost had a hot flash right then and there. “No, I’d better not,” I said, and called the cab company immediately before I rushed over and sat on his lap. “I don’t want you getting sick of me so early on.”

“I’m not worried about it,” he said, and relaxed back in his chair. “It’s probably the one thing I’m not worried about right now.”

“Glad to be of service,” I said. He looked like he really wanted to say something else right then, but he didn’t. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning, then,” he said. “Text me your address.”

“I need to run an errand first thing in the morning,” I said, knowing that I needed a new suit before the arraignment. “So I’ll text you while I’m out. Is ten-thirty okay?” I asked. He nodded. “What’s your number?”

Five awkward minutes later, I was sitting in the back of the cab, staring at his phone number in my contacts. My fingers lingered over his number and I smiled to myself. Then I fanned myself the whole way home. In spite of my better judgment.

O
nce I got back
to my apartment, I ripped off my suit and my bra, threw on my sweats, poured myself a very large glass of wine and silently thanked God that Mike wasn’t here. Not necessarily in that order.