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“But Dad’s right, Mom. If you guys lose, it’s going to look as if you’re liars and schemers. That would look worse for your company and could do even more extensive damage,” Chris said.
Exhaling heavily, I set my glass down on the counter. My throat felt dry despite the wine that just passed through it. It felt like someone just dropped a huge chunk of lead on my chest.
“We won’t lose. I don’t lose,” I said, wondering if my throat was closing up and pushing past the panic rising up within me. I was Valerie Levine. I wouldn’t let myself down.
“Neither does Jared, Mom,” Chris said.
I shot daggers at him. “That little boy has never been in a courtroom with me and Ben. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. Isn’t that right, honey?” I asked Ben who smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“What are you even doing here, Chris?” I turned an annoyed gaze back at him.
“I stopped by for a chat with Dad concerning the investigation,” he said. “But after hearing Tiffany today, I think she might be telling the truth.”
My shoulders grew heavy as I spun around to pour myself another glass of wine. “Hate to say I told you so, Ben,” I said.
The whole reason we were going to court was because Ben wanted to try to save Tiffany’s image by assuming a different angle, to prove to the court that she was a victim rather than an active participant. Play the sympathy card so we wouldn’t have to disown her. I told him I didn’t believe she was a victim. He didn’t believe me. Now, here we were.
Look, I didn’t care if Tiffany wanted to screw twenty guys at once. Just as long as she kept it private. I didn’t want to know about it, and the public didn’t have to either. But she was sloppy. That was her mistake.
She let it escape into the public. She was careless and left everyone else to clean up her mess. If she wanted to be reckless, she could be reckless. On her own. Without our support. She could do what she wanted but whenever those actions affected us, someone had to jump in and do something. And her recklessness did affect us; her name wasn’t just hers, it was ours.
She made her private life public when she let herself be discovered by someone outside of their dynamic. Someone with nothing to lose. I was only doing what I had to do to save what we had built.
So let Tiffany be Tiffany. But she could no longer hurt the Levine name. I did my duties as a mother, and now my duty was to myself, our name, our company, and our reputation.
No one, not even my own child would break down what I had built and leave me with nothing.
Chapter 20
Benedict
“Chris,whydon’tyouuh, head on home. I’ll call you later.” Patting him on the shoulder, I ushered him through the kitchen and toward the front door.
Before I could even step back inside the kitchen correctly, my wife was accosting me on my return. “You’re having second thoughts about this case, aren’t you?” Thankfully, the ringing of my cell phone which I fished from my pocket in a desperate rush, saved me from answering.
“Uhm.” I made way past the obstruction in my throat to speak. “Hello. Yes. I understand. Yes. Yes. Thank you,” I uttered before hanging up.
My wife was staring at me, waiting for an answer to her question. But I didn’t have an answer. At least not the one she was looking for. Especially now.
“That was Jared Crawford’s assistant,” I said, feeling a sting at the back of my throat.
Val’s eyes flew open. Her eyes demanded I let her know what was happening.
“Crawford & Beam pushed for an immediate trial, and it looks like they got it. We have to be in court tomorrow,” I said.
Her eyes grew even wider until it seemed as if her pupils would pop right out of her head. She put the wine glass she was holding down on the table with a swift clink against the counter and reached out to take hold of my arms.
“You can’t back out now, Ben,” she said. “Oh! They’d slaughter us tomorrow if you did.” She released me in a panic, throwing her arms up in the air as she walked across the kitchen. “We’ve got to keep a united front. You understand that, right?” she asked as if I were senseless.
Her touch still burned in my skin from when she grabbed hold of my arms. Memories of when she used to hold them with sweetness and affection washed over me. When did we lose that? As I looked at the older version of the woman I fell in love with all those years ago, it felt like no time had passed and too much at the same time.
She still looked like her, even with the added wrinkles, graying hair that she liked to dye, and her age spots. But she no longer felt like her. It had been awhile since she had felt like her. I just couldn’t remember when that began. It seemed like since then, I’d just been holding onto the moment she’d return again, the woman I fell in love with. The woman I could still see, could no longer feel but missed so much and yearned for.
When I fell in love with her, it was because she was so different from what I was used to, she intrigued me. And with her belief, her visions, her hopes, and her dreams, she inspired me. She amazed me with how she saw the world despite not having as much as I did. And although many would have said that the world hadn't been as kind to her as it was to us because we came from money, she had a kindness within her that felt like it could’ve only been a part of her if she’d experienced it.
She didn’t quite see it that way, though. She saw it as they did. That the world hadn’t been as kind to her, and she had her reasons, I suppose. We bonded over the fact that we were so different. I wanted what she had, she wanted what I had, and we became something until we became nothing.
Each time something great happened, I waited, hoping it would bring that thing back. That spark, that love, that affection. Like when we got married and started our law firm together. We celebrated, and it was great until it wasn’t. And when we had children, we experienced such a high. It was amazing, until it became mechanical. No high, no joy lasted long enough to bring us back to the love and affection we once shared.
