Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Violet
My neck strains as I stare up and up at the building in front of me, and the hand I have cupped over my eyes does nothing to block the blazing sun that is far too bright for seven-thirty in the morning. The hazel color of my eyes have always made them sensitive to light but I didn’t risk wearing sunglasses, lest I have imprints on the bridge of my nose that I know will be deemed unprofessional the moment I step off the elevator. And when you’re standing in front of a building like this, sleek and elegant and one hundred and twenty floors high, professionalism and perfection are the name of the game.
The Tyrrendor is one of the most iconic buildings in Chicago and contains the home of Aretian Law, my new place of employment and occupant of floors 100 to 105. Nervous would be an understatement to describe the emotions pumping through my bloodstream, and probably the reason for the sweat currently in a fighting battle with my deodorant. I bought the expensive kind too, thank fuck. Can you imagine sunglasses lines and smelling like a locker room on your first day?
I couldn’t imagine either. The early fall heat is blazing as it often does in early September. It happens like clockwork in Chicago and the beads of sweat developing where my coronet braid meets my forehead is what finally propels me through the door. Except about four other people seem to have the same idea and given my ongoing struggles with being vertically challenged they don’t see me. And while I have the deft footwork to avoid slamming into three people, one person didn’t make the cut. It’s a miracle they don’t spill their metric-ton jug of coffee on me but my luck stops there. If looks could kill I’d be on Dateline tomorrow, front page news telling the sad tale of a young woman murdered on her first day of work. And the motive? Fucking clumsiness.
“Sorry!” I hold up a hand and put on my sweetest, midwestern smile, hoping it softens the blow.
Spoiler alert? It does not.
“Watch where you’re fucking going!” The asshole has his phone pressed to his ear and makes no move to help me where I’ve nearly fallen over.
Ugh. Fucking corporate assholes. Of which I am now one…
A flush overtakes my face as I steady my breath, reminding myself that I went to Harvard Law and Columbia before that for undergrad and I am damn good at my job. So good in fact, that I was hired as a second year associate after nearly three years at the public defender’s office in Boston. People don’t make that jump often, let alone from city to city, but I did. And I skipped a whole fucking year too.
If only Brennan could see me now. Fuck, if Xaden could see me now–
No. Not going there. Not today. Today is going to be a good day. It’s my first day at a badass law firm that’s going to pave the way for me to give me the capital I need to make a real difference, rather than fighting my way through impossible cases that Markham dumped on me knowing they were unwinnable.
Even though I still won some.
But still, today my head is held high. It’s not the day to think about dead brothers. Or their asshole best friends.
I adjust my shoulder bag and fix the collar on my blazer where it's gone askew, smoothing down the non-existent wrinkles in my pencil skirt and take my next steps towards the elevators. I pause staring at the screen and watch in wonder as person after person uses it with ease, like they could press the buttons with their eyes closed. I roll my shoulders back, having figured it out after observing a few more people with their noses in their iCloud calendars or bluetooth headphones stuffed in their ears, making ever-important phone calls.
You type your floor number in and some megacomputer buried somewhere in the bowels of this skyscraper figures it out and instructs you which elevator to take. It’s a feat of engineering, and the hustle and bustle of the lobby fills me with a rush of excitement. I am now a part–albiet a small part–of an intricate ecosystem that keeps this building going. It’s a far cry from the run down office I worked in before. And for the first time in a long time at my place of work, I feel positively alive.
“Use Elevator G, please.” The robotic voice tells me after typing in floor 100.
“Yes, Miss Elevator Robot.” I say aloud, unknowingly, with a cheerful tone. More than one onlooker eyes me strangely, as if people don’t talk back to the bots instructing them in which elevator to use.
How rude.
One’s gaze seems to linger and the brunette purses her lips, crossing her toned arms and eying me like I belong in one of the trash cans on the street rather in the most prominent building in town. The likelihood that the oddly beautiful woman in head-to-toe red works in my office is less than likely, so I raise my brows at them in a give-no-fucks sort of way and spin on my heels towards “elevator G” before I miss it.
The elevator doors open with a sleek and expensive sounding chime and I gracefully step aside to let people disembark first–as one does in accordance with elevator etiquette.
Fuck you brunette lady in red. Maybe expressing gratitude to the elevators should also be a part of social etiquette.
I’m about to enter into it when a final passenger remains, ready to step off himself but he stops in his path, stepping aside instead to let me get on. His previous stoic expression breaks off into one of excitement, mouth falling into a wide smile that I almost lose in the forest of his neatly trimmed facial hair.
Dain Aetos has a beard.
“Vi, you made it!” He waves me into the elevator and pulls me into a quick hug, one I reciprocate but it becomes difficult considering how large he’s gotten. “I was just coming down to find you just in case.”
“You didn’t think I could figure out the elevator system?” I tease him when I pull away, gently knocking his arm. He rolls his eyes but lets out a small laugh, shaking his head and staring as if he can’t really believe I’m there.
“No, smartass, I knew you could figure it out. I was more concerned with you getting lost in the sea of people.” That earns him a glare, one that he just continues to laugh at. He scratches the back of his neck with his palm and sighs as the elevator begins to move. I think…it’s so damn smooth it's hard to tell. “And maybe I was selfish and wanted to see you before you were swallowed by the tidal wave that is Aretian Law.”
I hum in response, leaning against the back of the elevator as the car rises and rises into the sky. His posture matches mine as he gently hip checks me, drawing out a soft laugh from my lips in response. I’m happy to see him too before the craziness starts. He’d prepared me for this a few months ago, when he put in a good word for me to get the interview, spending two hours on the phone to give me the lowdown on company culture. The stakes and the expectations will be high given that I skipped my first associate year, but I feel better knowing I have Dain in my corner.
What are childhood best friends for?
Sure we haven’t seen one another in years and only recently reconnected, but Dain’s always been loyal. Unlike some other people I know–or knew rather…
Nope. Still not going there.
“Vi?” Dain’s voice pulls me from my ruminating train of thoughts. I turn to look up at him, brows raised. “You went somewhere else. Your face got all twisty. Are you okay?”
“Just a little nervous.” I half-lie, forcing a smile. But it's close-lipped and doesn’t quite reach my ears. I know he sees through it, but he doesn’t push.
“You’re gonna do great, Violet.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders, tugging me to him. He squeezes my shoulder once and then lets go. The car is nearing the 100th floor, bringing us closer to the start of the rest of my career.
I sure as fuck hope he’s right. But I’m ready for this. I can do this.
“You can do anything you put your mind to, Violence. And don’t try to argue with me. You know I’m right.”
A memory replays in my mind like pressing play was a reflex and not an active choice. A smooth voice followed by a crooked smile and a pair of gold-flecked onyx eyes that used to look at me like they knew me.
I don’t shove it down quite all the way this time, instead I let it run its course. Because in this sense he was right. I can do this.
“Ready?” Dain asks me as the elevator dings and the doors open to the most beautiful lobby I have ever seen. I smile, an uncontrollable expression that makes my cheeks hurt.
“Yes.” I tell him and gesture my arm to the doors so he can lead the way. “Yes I am.”
And I mean it.
-
The conference room they corral all of us new associates into is larger than I expected. But I suppose bigger is better at Aretian Law and it's something I’ll need to get used to. Dain scurried away for a meeting shortly after he walked me to where I was expected, some senior associate business. I waved him off with a smile and slunk into one of the available seats, readily pouring myself a cup of surprisingly delicious coffee from the carafe in the corner–two sugars and a splash of cream, the same way I’ve been taking it since I was fourteen. Others pour in eventually, and I find myself surrounded by a spunky, but friendly, group of associates getting to know one another. The others in the room are already giving pretentious prick vibes, and I much prefer the auras of the people in the corner.
“I’m Rhiannon, I’m from Madison. My parents and my twin sister still live up there. She’s married with a kid and works in our family store. My nephew’s cute as hell. But I needed to get out of Wisconsin. I spent a few years doing Lawyers Without Borders but then found myself here.” A woman says as she tosses a few braids over her shoulders with a smile. She has dark skin and deep brown eyes, and she might be the most beautiful woman in this room. But when she describes her accolades and mentions her degrees from Yale and internships in New York, coupled with her previous work and side gig of teaching kickboxing, I think her beauty might be the least interesting thing about her.
“Sawyer Henrick.” A lanky, freckle-faced brunette waves his hand next. His smile is kind and he seems a bit shy, but when he starts talking about his interest in disability and malpractice law, he has captured all of our attention. He admits that he’s a year behind, that this associate year is a repeat for him, because he’d taken some time off. When a curly haired guy with a big mouth next to me asks why, Sawyer just laughs and shakes his head, holding up his prosthetic leg as explanation.
“Ahhhh, your area of interest makes more sense now.” The guy who’s put four feet in his mouth already says with a smirk. “I’m Gamlyn. Ridoc Gamlyn. First year associate and…” he turns towards me and winks, flirty smile on display like he’s carefully crafted it. His bushy eyebrows waggle like he’s trying to hypnotize me. “-future love of your life.”
Sawyer chokes on his coffee, spitting some of it back into his cup. Rhiannon slaps his back a few times to help him breathe again and I just roll my eyes and lean back in my chair. I’m not unused to being hit on and perhaps it should frustrate me that it’s already happening in the workplace. But this guy is giving the vibes of someone whose wagging brows and dimples for days are harmless. Like English is his second language and flirting is his first. I just crinkle my nose and shake my head.
“Do quit while you’re behind.” He lets out a mocking gasp and clutches his heart as if he’s just been shot. I chuckle in response to his dramatics and smack him lightly in the shoulder. “Where were you before this?”
“Oh, I just graduated from Michigan Law.” Ridoc shrugs, though I see his smile flicker, as if something resembling shame is hiding behind it. “Just passed the Bar in July. Had to work my way through undergrad and law school so it took me a little longer.”
“Hey, you’re here. You’re an associate at Aretian Law.” Rhiannon tells him with a wide smile. “There are thousands of lawyers out there who may have been able to call themselves esquire before you, but they can’t call themselves that.”
“Thanks.” Ridoc’s eyes crinkle with the grateful smile but then one corner curls higher than the other. I haven’t known this man for much more than ten minutes, but I can deduce that whatever he’s about to say is going to earn him a chorus of groans. He flutters his eyes at Rhiannon, lips curling into a seductive smile. “Can I also call myself your next lover?”
“Jesus, Ridoc.” Sawyer squeezes the bridge of his nose and shakes his head, like the two of them are old buddies and he’s been reining Ridoc in for years.
“I have a girlfriend.” Rhiannon shrugs with a curved smile. That only brightens Ridoc’s smile further.
“Really?” He starts, opening his mouth to speak more but Sawyer turns to me and interrupts.
“And you?” His voice is a little forceful, eyes pleading with me to change the subject away from the HR disaster waiting to happen next to us.
My cheeks hurt from smiling so much already, further cementing that I really do feel like I’m in the right place.
“Yeah, okay.” I agree and straighten in my seat. “I’m-”
“Violet Sorrengail?” The voice makes my blood freeze as I turn my attention towards the source. There standing in the doorway, with a smile directed right at me, is the boy I used to call sunshine incarnate.
Liam Mairi.
The warmth of his grin melts the shock away as I push back from the table and stand to meet him. But that pursuit is unnecessary as he crosses the conference room in only a few short steps and pulls me into his arms.
The sudden appearance of Liam makes me think of another boy from home. One with dark eyes and a smile that only a few people got to see. I shove the memory away.
“I didn’t know you were one of the new associates.” He pulls away but keeps his hands on my shoulders, eyes roaming over me in inspection. Not in a sexual way though, more like in a way where he’s cataloging all the ways I’ve changed since high school. As if he wants to learn everything about me all over again to discover all the things he’s missed. Just to see if my favorite food has changed. It hasn’t, it’s still chicken marsala. “I had no idea you moved back into the area. Let alone that you ended up becoming a lawyer. I knew you would.”
“Yeah.” I shrug, looking at Liam with wariness that he doesn’t match. He’s still smiling. My voice teeters on anxiety. “I’m a lawyer.”
“Well what the hell are you doing here?” Despite the cursing in his words he still looks at me like I’m a sight to behold.
“Working?” I shrug with a small smile. I still feel struck dumb that he’s in front of me. I never expected to see him again after Brennan’s funeral. When everything with Xaden crashed and burned, I’d assumed he took Xaden’s side in everything. And maybe he had, but Liam had always been kind to everyone. I’m not surprised he still greets me with this benevolence even if he despised me. “I’m, um-” I stammer. “I’m coming in as a year two.”
“No shit.” Liam smiles wider and shakes his head as if he can fully believe that I skipped year one, but not totally believing I’m right in front of him. I can’t blame him. The last anyone heard I’d run off to the east coast determined to avoid the state of Illinois until the end of time.
“Violet, is it?” Rhiannon, my new best friend, interrupts as if she can pick up on my weird tension. “You were just about to tell us about yourself?”
I whip my head towards her and offer an expression of gratitude. Her subtle nod confirms what I suspected. She was saving me.
“Uh, yeah,” I stutter again, doing my best to get the words out. Seeing Liam is throwing me off balance, bringing up images I’ve long since buried. “I was.” I bite my lip and smile at them, but Liam hovers like a spectre at my side. I feel the heat radiating off of him and I fight the urge to rack my brain over whether I’d even heard that he went to law school. What is it with our suburban town producing lawyers? “I’m Violet Sorrengail. I went to Columbia for poly-sci, then Harvard Law, and worked for the public defenders office in Boston. I grew up in one of the northern suburbs, and I-um. I’m happy to be here.”
“You left the public defenders office to come here?” Liam asks me, pulling my attention back towards him. His brows are furrowed in confusion, like he’s trying to reconcile the version of me that he once knew with the woman in front of him.
“I did.” I answer, hoping he sees the pleading in my eyes and just drops it. I’m not surprised at his confusion. For years all I could talk about was opening a free legal clinic, not working in corporate law. But that is easier said than done. It takes money, and networking, and perhaps a giant fucking law firm willing to build it. “You’re obviously here too? Do you ever see Dain?”
Liam’s expression flickers, and he smiles softly. “Yeah, I’m a second year as well. Dain and I are sometimes on cases together but I mostly work with-” his face twists, lips pressing together like he’s putting his words together in the perfect way. “With um…hey did Dain tell you that-”
“Mairi! I need you.” Dain interrupts, and I see relief flash over Liam’s face. I send a glare Dain’s way, hoping that he sees my anger at not being warned about Liam. That certainly didn’t come up in our preparation phone calls. Dain dutifully avoids my gaze.
“I’ll see you around, Vi?” Liam asks as he backs away, an earnestness in his eyes that I can’t ignore. My smile is finally genuine when I nod, and his hand gestures in triumph, winking at me as he walks away.
“Don’t even.” I tell my new colleagues, my statement mostly directed at Ridoc as I can see him essentially gnawing at his enclosure for the tea of why that felt so fucking awkward. He holds up his hands in defense and adjusts in his seat, changing the conversation to his observations of the office so far.
“I hear the junior partner in charge of us is a dick.” Ridoc states, and for the second time, Sawyer spits out his coffee. The other associates in the room turn to look at us, conversation halting for a heartbeat before the murmuring continues.
“When are lawyers not a dick?” I joke and I get a grunting round of agreements.
“Okay but being late? That is extra dicky.” Ridoc sighs in mock flare as he looks at his watch. “Where is the associate development partner anyways?”
“He’s not late, Ridoc.” I roll my eyes playfully as I point to the clock that reads 8:15 AM. “This meeting isn’t supposed to start until nine.”
“So are we all just masochistic early birds?” Ridoc asks, sighing like the meeting itself is an inconvenience.
“Overachieving people pleasers most likely.” Rhiannon adds, nose crinkling in mock disgust.
“Well at least we're all in this together.” Sawyer holds out his fist in the center of our little group, and we all meet his gesture.
Chatter falls into lighter topics as we continue to wait, but it's only a few minutes later, the man in question showing up earlier than the meeting time, when the door slams shut and a stack of files drops onto the table with a loud smack. The sound covers the room in silence and draws all of our attention to the front of the conference room.
“Welcome, new associates.” For the second time this morning my blood runs cold, nearly stopping my heart this time. Though unlike my unexpected reunion with Liam, I don’t expect my body to thaw anytime soon.
Because that is a voice I could never forget, one I’d recognize in a sea of thousands, even if it now belongs to a stranger. The stranger whose laugh I’ve never been able to burn from my brain, whose touch I’ve tried and failed to scrub from my skin, whose kiss I still sometimes feel against my lips like a phantom that has no idea how to stop haunting.
Xaden Riorson.
My intake of breath is so audible that every pair of eyes jumps to me, including Xaden’s, the ones that are a kaleidoscope of gold-flexed onyx. Still beautiful after all this time, still bearing the scar that bisects his brow. I do my best to cover up my outburst with a cough and while the others in the room gradually trickle away their gaze, Xaden’s remains.
His lips twitch into the barest flicker of a smile, the slightest of cracks of joy. My body freezes on that precipice of excitement and giving up, the feeling you get right before diving off of a cliff. The gold in his eyes starts to brighten and I begin to let myself think that maybe seeing him again will be okay. In that single heartbeat he looks at me like missed me, like he’s happy to see me and that it's okay for me to be happy to see him.
But then just as quickly as the hint of a smile arrived, it’s gone. It’s like he remembered he’s supposed to be mad at me. That we’re strangers now. Every ounce of warmth has disappeared and only frigid barrenness is left behind.
There’s enough coldness in his eyes to rival a Chicago winter and I snap myself out of my stupor enough to match his energy. If he wants to fucking glare at me, well then the only thing he’s getting in return is a sneer. He narrows his eyes as if each one is a knife directed right at my heart and his jaw clenches in barely contained fury.
But then in a flash even the anger is gone, replaced with the calculated, controlled boredom that he was known for growing up. He’s always been most comfortable existing behind a wall, and it was a rarity for anyone to see how he lived behind it. And it seems that wall is fully fucking forged, strengthened two miles wide, when he’s here at Aretian Law. I’m not sure I want to see what’s behind it this time, not when the brief crack in the brick revealed rage and reproach directed right at me.
He breaks our staredown first, but probably only because he has fucking work to do and having a glaring-match with a new associate is not on the to-do list I know is in his back pocket waiting to be crossed off. My heart lurches with a mixture of emotions and a wave of nausea wracks through me. All of a sudden moving back home feels like the world’s biggest mistake. There’s a reason I left the Chicagoland area, a huge fucking reason wrapped up in the brother who’s buried in the ground and the man at the front of the room who may as well be too. I suck back tears because fuck, grief is tied up in this too.
Because I’ve just realized that Xaden Fucking Riorson is my boss.
The Xaden Fucking Riorson who taught me to ride my bike and pulled at my pigtails and gave me flowers at my recitals, the guy who danced with me at the spring formal when my date showed up drunk. The man who kissed me once under the stars the night of my going away party, my brother’s best friend. The man who disappeared after the funeral and walked out of all of our lives.
The one who told me I’d be a good lawyer, who nudged my shoulder in encouragement and said “can I help?” when I shared my dream of opening a free legal clinic.
That man is the one in front of me, looking at me with contempt and disappointment, no hint of a smile to be seen.
Worst. Day. Ever.