Chapter 2
The next morning, I didn't take the car Edward had arranged.
The driver waited downstairs for twenty minutes before finally calling me, his voice careful and a little nervous. "Ms. Ryan, Mr. Grant said you're supposed to go to the hospital first today."
I packed my pre-trial meeting materials into my bag. "Please tell him I'm heading straight to the courthouse."
"But Mr. Grant said..." the driver started.
"Mr. Lewis," I cut him off, keeping my voice steady. "You don't have to worry. Just tell him what I said."
After a short silence, he said, "Okay."
When I arrived at the courthouse, Tina already had all the files set up.
She spotted the bandage on my hand and sucked in a breath. "Ms. Ryan, wow, you really came in? You were bleeding so much last night. I thought for sure you'd take the day off."
"The pre-trial meeting can't be rescheduled," I said.
"Edward asked me about your schedule this morning. I thought you two would come together," Tina said.
I flipped open the evidence list. "He asked you?"
Tina nodded, lowering her voice. "He looked pretty rough. Lily came by this morning too, bringing him some medicine. She said she was so scared last night she didn't sleep a wink."
She immediately looked like she regretted saying that and quickly ducked her head to tidy up the files.
I didn't say anything.
The pre-trial meeting went more smoothly than I'd expected.
The other side tried to drag things out with procedural issues, but I handed over the records from the previous two evidence exchanges, and the judge set the trial for next week right then and there.
As I was leaving the courthouse, Tina caught up to me and showed me her phone.
In the firm's internal group chat, the admin had posted a follow-up about the accident at last night's annual party.
In the photo, Edward was standing in front of Lily, blocking her from harm, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders.
The shot was snapped at the perfect moment.
The projector stand was tipping over, lights were chaotic, and the crowd was panicking, yet somehow, in all that mess, the camera made them look like the stars of the disaster.
Tina glanced at me, trying to read my expression. "Ms. Ryan, the admin said they just wanted to keep evidence of the scene. They probably didn't think much of it."
"Yeah," I replied.
I handed her phone back.
She hesitated, but couldn't hold it in. "Ms. Ryan, did you and Edward have a fight?"
No one at the firm knew Edward and I had been seeing each other for seven years.
We started living together the year after I joined.
The day he made partner, he drank half a glass of red wine, held me close, and said the firm was full of eyes. We'd wait for the right time to go public.
Back then, I thought he was right.
Young lawyers dating a soon-to-be partner always had people questioning their competence and whether they were getting special treatment.
But year after year, we kept putting it off.
He became a partner, and I became an attorney.
We'd pass each other in the office, and to everyone else, we were just boss and subordinate, colleagues, or case partners.
Even Tina, my assistant for three years, never dared to ask about us. She could only guess if we'd had a fight.
I handed her the file. "My personal life with him isn't your concern."
Tina snapped to attention. "Understood."
She hugged the files to her chest and rushed off to hail a cab.
As I stood outside the courthouse, memories from seven years ago suddenly flooded back.
Back then, I'd just lost my very first case at the firm, and the client chewed me out right at the entrance, saying I'd never be a real lawyer.
I was sitting in the stairwell, crying, when Edward crouched down in front of me and placed a cup of hot coffee next to me.
He said, "You lost on the facts, not the courtroom rhythm. Go home and break it down."
I was so mad that I snapped at him for being so cold.
But he pulled out the trial transcript and sat with me, marking problems one by one.
After that day, I never let myself cry in front of a client again.
I used to believe, without a doubt, that his calm was his way of shielding me from the world until Lily came into the picture.
Lily started at the firm six months ago.
She was from a top university, had a spotless resume, and was honestly pretty charming. The day she interviewed, Edward had just flown back from a business trip.
He didn't even drop his suitcase off before heading straight into the meeting room.
Later, HR told me Lily's major didn't really match the M&A team, and her written test score was just average.
But Edward still signed off on her hiring.
He said, "New hires can be trained."
That sounded reasonable enough.
The real issue was, he rarely showed this much patience with new hires before.
The M&A team was known for its brutal workload. If you turned in your materials even half an hour late, Edward would send them back to be redone.
But when Lily missed three related companies on her very first due diligence list, he just circled them in red and walked her through it himself.
That day, I went to his office to drop off a litigation risk assessment and overheard Lily laughing, "Edward, you're even more meticulous than my grad school advisor."
Edward looked up when he saw me, his expression calm. "Just put it on the desk."
I set the file down.
Lily turned to me with a smile. "Sophie, I hope you don't mind. I'm still new here, and there's so much I don't know, so I have to rely on Edward for everything."
I smiled back. "You'll get the hang of it with a little practice."
That night, when we got home, I asked Edward, "Were you always this thorough with new hires?"
He was reading an English contract, not even looking up. "She's inexperienced, and the client's on a tight deadline."
"Why did you let her handle Fusion Corp's client to practice?" I asked.
"She needs an opportunity," Edward replied.
I stood by the dining table, waiting for a few seconds.
He finally looked up. "Sophie, don't talk to me like that."
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like you're interrogating me," Edward said.
We didn't finish the meal.
After that, things like this kept happening.
Lily would text him late at night asking about contract terms, and he always answered right away.
When Lily got drunk at a client dinner, he'd go pick her up himself.
When Lily's mom came to the city for medical treatment, and she just said she was scared, he postponed the dinner with my parents for her.
Every time, there was always a reason.
And every time, Edward always had a perfectly reasonable, professional, and respectable explanation.
But when I put all those explanations together, it was suffocating.
When I got back to the firm at noon, I'd barely sat down when an email popped up on my screen.
It was from the Partner Committee Secretariat.
The subject line read: [Confirmation of Annual Junior Partner Review Defense Schedule]
I clicked it open.
My defense was scheduled for this Friday at 3 PM.
Lily's name was on the list too, last on the list.
She'd only been at the firm for six months. By the rules, she wasn't even eligible to apply on her own.
There was a note at the bottom. [With a special recommendation from a partner, she may attend the defense as an observer. Special recommendation by: Edward Grant.]