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Phoenix
Three years later
P
hoenix tightened his charcoal tie over the pale pink shirt he wore, centring the strip of silk down his chest and smoothing it until it ran perfectly into the vest a couple of shades lighter than his tie. He shrugged into his jacket and picked up his briefcase before calling out, “Andi, I’ll be back in a few hours after this conference.”
“Not a problem, Mr Black,” she said with a smile. “I’ll hold your calls until then. Do you have lunch organized?”
“No, I don’t.” He shook his head and recalled the drink bottle sitting on his desk. If he didn’t remember to have any water, he’d end up with a monster headache. The same one he’d had the last three days in a row. It could have been the stress, though. This case was the first really big one he’d been a part of. He was still fairly junior in his career, but he’d worked tirelessly since being hired just over two years earlier. His boss was the kind of supervisor he could only have dreamed of, even if he could never really be himself in front of him. On Phoenix’s first day at the firm, his boss had encouraged Phoenix to learn as much as he could, then focus on one of their practice areas. He wanted him to spread his wings and fly. The firm was a small one—two partners and five lawyers—all of whom worked in property law. It didn’t give him much choice, but he was grateful for any opportunity after working in a bar for nearly a year after his morning-only stint at Stark Williams.
Since then, however, Phoenix had discovered he was good at fine details. He could pour over documents and identify loopholes, or in this case, where the developer had taken shortcuts. Their clients owned a building that was failing, the floors tipping, walls cracking, and roof leaking, all within three years of it being built. He didn’t feel ready to run the settlement conference on his own, but there was no getting out of it. His boss was in a delivery room with his wife. Phoenix was the only other lawyer who had any real knowledge of the case and what the owners were trying to achieve. The stress of such a high-profile case was taking its toll, and Phoenix reached for the drink bottle, taking a swig before realizing just how parched he was.
“I’ll have something here for you when you get back,” Andi said, interrupting his thoughts.
He smiled at her. “Thank you.” He’d barely eaten anything in days, but like a mother hen, she’d been at him to stay healthy. It wasn’t just the stress of the case riding him. He’d had too much on his mind. His flatmate, Rachael’s younger brother Pete, had moved out, taking his search for Byron’s fabled gold into the outback. Phoenix knew it was coming. But walking into Pete’s room to see it stripped of the posters and maps he had tacked to the walls had knocked the wind out of him. Then to hear that he’d fallen for the station owner? Phoenix’s stomach had rebelled, and he’d puked his guts up. He’d secretly been lusting after Pete ever since the man had moved in. A little shorter than him, lithe with slim muscles, freckles, and a shock of red hair, the younger man wasn’t traditionally handsome in that blond god and goddess way of his first loves, but he was cute and smart. But he hadn’t wanted to risk his friendship with Rachael—the only one of their group of university friends who’d continued speaking with him when he’d needed to bail on their expensive apartment. Phoenix had ended up in a two-bedroom dump he’d shared with two other people; it was all he could afford on a waiter’s wages. Even her husband, Steve, barely looked at him anymore.
Pete had gotten under his skin though, and not seeing his smiling face every day had cut Phoenix far deeper than he’d expected. Had he fallen in love with him? He didn’t really know. But when Pete had walked out, he’d missed the persistent, dedicated, and focussed man more than anyone since he’d stolen a taste of what life could have been like with lovers like Jake and Cassidy.
Thinking that had pulled him into the past and Felicity, the woman he’d been sleeping with, hadn’t appreciated it. He’d been moping. Losing his friend had ripped the Band-Aid off the loss he’d suffered years earlier. She’d been pushing for more commitment, and he’d been drowning. He was right where he’d been on the day he was shoved onto the street still half-naked, the feel of Jake buried in him still a sweet ache in his arse. Felicity had been there, lying naked in his bed, waiting for him to strip off and slake their lust when all he could think about were the three people he’d lost. He’d hesitated too long, and when she asked him what was wrong, he’d confessed everything. She’d pulled her clothes on and walked straight out of his apartment, and Phoenix watched her go, far less affected by her departure than he should have been.
He pushed through the double doors of the meeting room in the mediator’s offices. The conference was starting. The case had been a welcome distraction. Of his one hundred and fifteen owner clients, three were with him. They entered together and he held his head up, feigned confidence he didn’t quite feel, and stepped into the meeting room. Bruce, the mediator, was already seated at one end of the table. The developers’ legal team sat opposite, and another man stood facing away from him, gazing out of the windows to the street, two levels below. There was a familiarity with him that had Phoenix on edge, but he needed to focus.
He held out his hand to the woman in the middle, flanked by the two more junior men. “Phoenix Black, Telford Lawyers, and this is Mary Sciberras, Donald Lee, and Kristine Varga, owners within the building.” She shook his hand and introduced herself as Katarina Rossi.
“And this is our lawyer, Maxwell Denyer.” Phoenix froze, a flash of heat rushing through his veins followed immediately by a dousing of ice-like fire. His breath caught, and he turned startled eyes to the man who had now spun on his heels and was stalking toward the table with a smirk on his face.
“Mr Black. We meet again. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Ah, yeah.” Phoenix shook off the panic that had enveloped him that morning and straightened his spine, calling on every ounce of confidence he could muster. “Well, let’s get started, shall we? I’m sure we’re all anxious to progress this matter.”
An hour later and he was happy with two concessions the developer had made. All his clients would have their rent paid for at least another month while independent engineers inspected the property. They’d also agreed on the process for buy-backs of the units that were most heavily affected. With each minute that passed, and each agreement ticked off, Phoenix settled in. He could do this. He knew the case inside out. He knew what his clients wanted to achieve, and they were on their way to getting it. Now they were covering the administrative matters, the seemingly trivial things that actually made some of the biggest differences to the way these cases progressed.
“No, that’s unacceptable,” Denyer said as he sat back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his knee. The way he sat was a show of dominance, but Phoenix wouldn’t let himself dwell on the memories that assailed him every time he looked in the man’s direction. The hatred in his eyes as he had his goon drag Phoenix kicking and screaming from his lovers’ arms, and the smug smile of a man who’d decapitated Phoenix’s career before it started. No, he needed to stay in the here and now. Focussing on his clients’ needs was the best way.
“It’s standard practice, Mr Denyer,” the mediator reminded him.
With a professional smile in place, his opponent said, “Regardless of standard practice or otherwise, there are no statute or court rules governing the procedure. Therefore, it is open for interpretation. I will not agree to exposing my client to additional expense simply to facilitate an expeditious resolution to a matter which raises complex legal questions.”
“Facilitating an expeditious resolution will, in the end, save your clients significant expense,” Phoenix reminded him.
“Ah, but you’re making a fatal assumption here, boy. You’re assuming that your clients will win, and I can tell you that won’t be the case. I’ll enjoy nailing your arse to the wall—”
“That’s enough,” Bruce cut in. “Mr Denyer, remember that you’re speaking to a colleague here. He may be younger than you, but just like you, he’s an officer of the court, and you will show him respect.”
The glare that he shot Bruce should have given Phoenix a sense of satisfaction, but Denyer’s comment had the impact of a bulldozer. His words had crashed through the foundation of shaky confidence Phoenix had hastily built in the face of his opposition, leaving him a sweaty, freaked-out mess. He adjusted his tie and pulled his shirt away from his throat as he tried to gulp in a breath of air. But his lungs had seized. The room closed in on him as his heart rate accelerated and his mouth filled with cottonwool. Phoenix closed his eyes, and he was right there, back in Jake’s apartment. Back in Jake’s arms. Falling in love with the man all over again. He watched Cassidy watch them as she sat opposite, smiling like the picture he made with her boyfriend was the most beautiful thing she’d seen. The loss of them had hit him hard. Then, the theft of his dream job and the loss of his friends and his hope had tripled the impact. Phoenix had been alone, indebted to his eyeballs—he still was—and on the verge of homelessness for months.
The memories hit him again, over and over like a boxer pummelling his opponent. The fear and anger, the powerlessness of being unable to fight off Denyer’s goon and being thrown out like garbage rather than being shown an ounce of decency, bubbled up and swamped him, drowning Phoenix.
“I…” he gasped, yanking at his shirt and tie until the top button was undone. “I need to go.”
Voices sounded behind him, but the buzzing in his ears drowned them out. He needed air. He needed to get away from him. Phoenix stumbled to the stairs, bumping his shoulder along the walls like a drunkard, but it was the only thing holding him up. His legs had turned to jelly, and he couldn’t breathe. Gasping for breath, his vision swam, and Phoenix tripped, falling onto his hands and knees on the landing.
Just a little more.
He crawled forward, somehow still holding his briefcase. He reached for the doorknob. Pulled it down.
He fell against the heavy door. It swung open.
