Page 3 of Feared

“John, do you reallythinkthat?” Anne’s lovely green eyes focused on him, awaiting his answer, as was Lou.

“Um.” John swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple getting stuck on his cutaway collar. “I said that.”

Mary moaned inwardly, and everyone fell silent. A pink streamer fluttered from the ceiling to the carpet.

“Foxman.” Bennie controlled her tone. “You said that to aninterviewee? Explain.”

John went ashen-faced. “I’m the only male lawyer. If we’re being honest, I do feel that way, sometimes.”

“Like when?” Judy and Anne interrupted, in outraged unison.

John gestured vaguely at the streamers. “For starters, at a baby shower.”

Judy threw up her hands. “John,Ifeel out of place at a baby shower.”

“But I do feel out of place here, at times.”

“John, really?” Judy blurted out. “You’re not out of place here. You’re one of us, whether you’re a man or woman. You know that.”

“Bummer.” Anne was shaking her head, her glossy red hair shining. “You never said anything like that to me.”

Mary could see that John felt terrible, but now they were on the legal hook. Litigation was a nightmare, especially when you were on the receiving end, and it was the last thing she needed in a difficult pregnancy. She tried not to throw up.

Bennie raised a hand. “Foxman, I asked you to explain the circumstances in which you made this statement to an interviewee.”

John stiffened. “Well, during the interview, I guess McManus and I got to talking. He was a nice guy. I felt we had a rapport. That’s why I wanted to hire him. I might’ve admitted that I felt out of place here, sometimes. As a guy.”

Bennie squared her shoulders. “Foxman, I’m disappointed. If you’d brought it to me, we could have addressed it. Instead you chose to make your views known to an outsider, who’s using it against us in a baseless lawsuit.”

John swallowed, mortified. “It was a mistake.”

“No, it was treason.”

John flinched. “Bennie, I’m sorry. Do you want me to resign? I don’t want to, but I will if you want me to.”

“And add fuel to the plaintiffs’ fire? No.” Bennie glared at him, creating the most awkward moment in legal history. “Where do you think those resumes would be? Or a copy of the ad that we ran? Do you have them?”

“Yes, somewhere.”

“Find their resumes and any other communications you had with them—email, text, phone calls, whatever. Prepare a chronology so we understand exactly what happened. We have to know what they know.” Bennie glanced at Anne. “Murphy, I’m tasking you with preventing this from happening again. We have to institute a formalized way of dealing with interviewees from now on. We can’t do it by the seat of our pants anymore. Please coordinate with Marshall, set up a system, and let us know your recommendation. We need to implement it immediately.”

“Will do,” Anne said quickly.

Judy turned to Bennie. “Who represents the plaintiffs?”

“Hold on, let me see.” Bennie flipped through the Complaint, then looked up. “Guess who, DiNunzio.”

“Tell me.” Mary hated guessing games from before she was on progesterone, which left her feeling dumber than usual.

“It’s your mortal enemy.”

“I don’t have any enemies.”

Judy smiled. “Truth. She’s universally beloved.”

Bennie met Mary’s troubled gaze. “You beat him last time, and he’s back with a vengeance. Nick Machiavelli.”

“Oh no.” Mary’s heart sank. Unfortunately, her gorge rose. The real Niccolò Machiavelli had thought it was better to be feared than loved, and his alleged descendant, South Philly lawyer Nick Machiavelli, followed suit. He was feared, not loved, while Mary was loved, not feared. She knew Machiavelli would come back for an ultimate lawyer battle, like a fight between good and evil, with billable hours.