“Oh really?” Perdie raised an eyebrow. She thought about it, reaching for her phone. “Okay, Noah it is then.”
To her surprise, Noah texted in less than a minute, or at least what felt like less than a minute to Perdie. She sent her best argument via text why he should come see them to talk about his potential patent lawsuit when she received another text from him.
Noah: Is Lucille there?
Perdie clapped her hand over her mouth. She glanced up at her friend, trying to sound nonchalant. “You haven’t heard from Hampton recently, have you?”
Lucille laughed a little too hard. “Nah. Not a peep. I’m an emancipated lady. Good riddance.”
Perdie held up her phone camera. “Smile for Noah, Luce.”
Lucille flipped the bird to the camera, yelling, “I don’t smile for no man.” Then she fell back, laughing at her own joke. “Ah, I’m really high.”
Perdie sent the picture with their address.
Perdie: She’s here.
Typing bubbles appeared. See you in twenty.
Perdie woke up late to the frantic buzzing of her alarm clock, her heart pounding, and hair in a frazzled topknot, but it didn’t matter because she had a plan. Perdita Stone was a new woman, reborn, and with her eyes opened.
She reviewed the notes she’d taken on her laptop from the night before from her meeting with Noah. To Noah’s disappointment (and Perdie’s too), Lucille had shuffled off to bed as soon as Noah arrived, announcing she was too high for public consumption. Whatever that meant.
Luckily, Noah had still been nice enough to talk business with Perdie anyway, laying out all the specific, science-y details of his patent case. She could piece together the legal end. They would probably have to hire an expert witness or two to solidify their case, but Perdie had a good hunch about things. Real good.
No time for a red dress and matching bra and underwear today, Perdie yanked on a pair of black cigarette pants with a white button-down and silver smoking shoes. She left her hair in the topknot, and threw on her glasses.
She refused to let the presence of Carter Leplan influence how she dressed. She absolutely did not care what he thought of her one bit.
She arrived at the attorneys’ meeting right on time, rushing to find a seat in the enormous room. Joy and Schulz was one of the biggest plaintiff’s firms in the country, and there were well over two hundred attorneys shoved into the downstairs event room of their office building. After the general attorneys’ meeting they would break off into smaller practice group meetings. That’s when Perdie planned to pitch her case to Frank.
The attorneys were in a titter today. She took a seat next to the two other women in her practice group, Jennifer and Sophia. They were both a few years younger than her.
They gave Perdie slight, distracted smiles and Jennifer whispered over her shoulder, “Perdita, did you see the new guy?”
A chill ran through her. “No, who is it?”
Sophia leaned her head closer to the conversation. “We don’t know yet, but he’s got to be an attorney.”
Jennifer shook her head, clicking her teeth. “If I weren’t a married woman, I tell you what...”
“That man makes Chris Hemsworth look like my seventy-year-old gastroenterologist,” said Sophia.
“You’re divorced, right, Perdita?” Jennifer asked.
Perdie tried not to read anything into the slight tinge of her voice. “Nope, never married.” She pulled out her phone in distraction. “I’m sure I’ve told you that before.”
Jennifer shrugged. “Oh, well, no offense or anything.”
Sophia waved her hand, shushing them. “Look, there he is sitting next to Ferris Joy...he must be someone important.”
“That’s Carter Leplan,” Perdie said.
Sophia narrowed her eyes, nodding faintly. “He’s that hot defense attorney out in San Francisco. What’s he’s doing here? Perdie, didn’t you have some kind of depo out there?”
Perdie swallowed hard. “Something like that.”
Her phone lit up.
See something of interest?
The message came from a new contact. She sneaked a peek at Carter to find him deep in conversation with Ferris Joy. He was dressed positively Charlestonian in dark denim with a forest green V-neck sweater with a blazer. One side of his sleeve had been hiked up so she could barely make out the dark beginnings of the tattoos on his arm. Her knowledge of his hidden tattoos flagged as intimate and forbidden. She quickly averted her gaze, typing on her phone.
I don’t think Interest is the word I’m looking for.
Sure enough he slipped his phone from the inner pocket of his blazer, not missing a beat in his conversation. Her phone lit up.
What word are you looking for?
She glared at him from a distance, but he was still talking. She typed.
Disdain.
This time when he removed his phone from his pocket, he frowned at the message. She waited to see if he would text again but nothing. A secret part of her was disappointed. For a moment, guilt trickled into her conscience. True, she was pissed at him, but there was no reason to be overtly hostile in the workplace.
That was unnecessarily rude. I’ll endeavor to be more professional next time.
Typing bubbles appeared on the screen.
