Page 20 of The Best Worst Mistake (Off-Limits #2)

Dax

I’m seriously regretting my life choices. All of them. Becoming a lawyer. Hiring Lila. Allowing Abby to ghost me for a second time. And helping myself to that second helping of parmesan chicken from the now nearly-empty takeout containers around our office conference room.

One plateful would have sufficed.

Perhaps it was the forty-seventh glare in the last twenty-four hours from Lila that put me over the edge, and I found myself stress-eating my way through that second bit since my preferred method of stress relief in L.A. (i.e., Abby Torres) has been put on permanent hiatus.

This whole day has been jinxed.

Considering the look of shock and anger plastered across Abby’s face today when I announced to the room that Lila and I, along with a few other sharks from Harper & Associates LLP, were there to represent Davenport Media Group in their bid to acquire The Nile Group, I’m pretty sure Abby would have eaten me for dinner tonight if I’d let her.

There are worse ways to go , I think, chuckling to myself.

Lila breaks her concentration just long enough to glare at me from across the table.

Again .

“Forty-eight,” I mutter under my breath, spinning a yellow highlighter through my fingers before catching it again.

“What?” she asks, punctuating her question with another pinched stare.

Forty-nine.

“Nothing,” I say, smiling brightly, just to annoy her.

Did I know that it was Abby’s enormous, nationwide firm representing the original buyer for The Nile Group?

Yes .

Did I know that it was going to be her in that conference room today representing them?

Absolutely not.

I knew her firm’s name was on it, but I’d figured if she was the attorney on the deal, she’d have at least reached out to me before flying all the way across the country.

Until I saw her behind me at the metal detector, I figured she was in New York, stealing some other guy’s lattes off of her friend’s coffee counter.

Not here in L.A., walking into conference rooms, threatening to take me down with just one look.

Although, I’m one to talk here, aren’t I? I didn’t exactly call her before I showed up in her city.

Yet, here we are.

Life is funny like that.

Fate is funny like that.

Downright hilarious , sometimes.

“Are you going to finish that?” Lila asks, breaking my concentration by pointing her fork at what’s left on my plate.

I stare down at the last bite of chicken sitting atop a cold pile of noodles.

“Um, are you?” I ask, shifting my eyes to her fork, hovering menacingly over my plate.

“If you’re not, then maybe. Although—” She looks conflicted. “Yeah, no, I probably shouldn’t.”

“It’s all yours if you want it,” I tell her, pushing the plate toward her elbows, hoping she’ll at least toss it in a nearby bin if she changes her mind.

She sighs, but drops the fork on the table, conceding defeat against my lukewarm, congealed-looking parmesan chicken offer.

We’re in our fifth hour of poring over these board statements, looking for every last loophole to gain another pound of power if a hostile takeover is where this whole thing is headed, though I know there are at least multiple weeks of document review and in-person negotiations left to wade through for all of us.

“Silas is arriving tomorrow?” she asks. It’s more like a question than a confirmation even though she’s very aware that Silas is, in fact, arriving tomorrow. That’s the plan, anyway, although you never truly know with him. “So, I probably shouldn’t,” she adds.

She’s still staring wistfully at the ugly mass of gelatinous noodles and chicken left on my plate, but I’m not sure how Silas’ pending arrival tomorrow has anything to do with her current state of hunger.

The sigh that follows is so loud and tortured that I have to ask.

“What does Silas coming here have to do with whether or not you eat my chicken, Lila?”

I feel the weight of today practically oozing out of my pores.

What started out as a chance encounter with the woman I can’t seem to shake from my mind, has ended with cold takeout and my moody colleague hemming and hawing over whether or not Silas might notice an extra helping of noodles on her hips that she allowed herself to eat the night prior to his arrival.

“It’s not every day I get to meet Silas Davenport,” Lila says, raising a brow in my direction like I’m some idiot she’s just transported in from the zoo. “What’s he like, by the way? Am I his type?”

I blink one, long blink at her as if she’s out of her mind for asking me whether or not our top client, and my longtime friend, is her type .

Though, given my level of boredom and a solid need for entertainment right now, I decide to egg this on.

Lila is one of my favorite people on the planet to give a hard time to, after all.

She’s more like the work wife I probably should have divorced three years ago since our banter moved from playful — borderline flirty — to mostly tired and all-knowing.

She tosses her fork a bit further from herself, as if to ward off any further notions of consuming additional calories, then leans against the edge of the table, clasping her fists beneath her chin like a child waiting for story time to start.

“Why are you asking whether or not Silas is your type?” I ask. “He’s our client .”

“Just doing my due diligence,” she says.

I frown, not bothering to stop a chuckle from escaping my lips.

“Lila, you can’t be serious. Finding out whether or not our client is single is hardly due diligence.”

“Oh stop, I’m allowed to be curious about him. It’s not every day you meet a guy like Silas Davenport, and I just want to do right by him,” she says, making a sound in her throat like she knows she’s being ridiculous.

“Do right by him, or do right to him?” I ask, cracking a grin.

“Can you just answer my question?” she asks. “What’s he like?”

I exhale and push myself away from the leftovers, confirming that I’m just bored, not hungry, so finishing that will certainly lead to even more life regret.

“In his younger years, Silas was my favorite of all my friends. Cut from the same cloth that most of us in our friend group were — a little rough around the edges, but always up for a bit of fun. I never even knew the type of family he came from until we were older because he never brought it up. He always wanted to be just another one of the guys. Not a billionaire’s son. ”

Lila’s grinning like she shares the same memories of him that I have.

“I would have sung that shit from the rooftops,” she says.

I laugh, knowing she’s telling the truth.

“I think most people would. Si was just never like that. Not back then, anyway. But we all grew up. Si and another one of our friends, Grant, and his fiancée all went to Boston — Harvard, actually — while I went over to Northwestern.” Where I met Abby, our new opposing counsel, I want to add, but don’t.

“And now he’s the life and soul of every party he walks into, right?” Lila says, her eyes hungry for more.

I stare at her, knowing she’s in good company, thinking of Silas like that.

“He’s a bit different when you know him,” I say, feeling the need to defend my friend. “He’s been through a lot.”

“Well yeah, that was practically plastered across every tabloid cover from here to The Netherlands,” she says, like I’m an idiot for stating the obvious.

“But as someone who really knows him, what’s he like?

Is he as charming as the websites make him out to be?

Or as wild? Most importantly, is he single? ”

I toss my noodley paper plate into a nearby bin and check my phone screen again, noting one missed call from Abby.

So, it finally happened. She finally called.

Six months late. I purse my lips, not sure I’m ready to open up that conversation between us quite yet, especially considering we’re going to be meeting in the morning again for more negotiations.

I turn back to answer Lila’s line of questions before she adds any more.

“Well, he’s incredibly sharp in every sense of the word. Sharp wit, sharp intelligence—”

“Sharp to look at,” she injects.

“Interesting due diligence you’re doing, Lila,” I say.

“Just stating the obvious,” she replies, coyly.

“And, yes, he’s charming — almost to a fault.

But no, he’s far less wild than the papers paint him.

Part of me thinks those headlines just make for some fairly successful clickbait, given he looks like a Ralph Lauren model with a yearly income that most people wouldn’t make across a thousand lifetimes.

And the last time I heard from him, yes, he’s very much single.

Pretty much always single — without any lack of women in his life, if you catch my drift.

” I rattle through my answers while she licks her lips, ravenously, taking every word in.

“And, I’m still your boss,” I remind her.

“So, if you’re going to try to romantically entangle yourself with our biggest client, one who happens to be a very old friend of mine, then it’s probably best that you keep that little scandal a secret from me.

I don’t think I have it in me to read you the ethical rules behind that sort of thing tonight, so please save us both the trouble and don’t even go there. ”

“Oh please,” she says, drawing both hands beneath her chin. “I’m just getting some background intel about our client. It’s what any responsible attorney would do so I’m not walking into the meeting blind tomorrow.”

“Blind? About his relationship status?”

She shrugs like her behavior’s completely within the realm of normal.

Having been friends with Silas for so long, I’ve grown used to this line of questioning.

Women can’t seem to help themselves around him.

And why should they? Even without the pool of money at his disposal, he’s the sort of guy that most women find attractive.

Aloof, charming. But perhaps most interesting of all, he’s also loaded to the hilt.

“I don’t want to be blind regarding anything to do with him, and if that involves his relationship status, then sure, I’m after that too. There’s nothing unethical about doing my due diligence. Besides, Mr. Ethical Standards, you’re one to talk.”

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, maintaining a well-played expression, the one I’ve practiced enough times for it to say fuck off without being aggressive in the slightest.

“You’re. One. To. Talk,” she says, more dramatically, as if I need each word enunciated in order to understand what she’s telling me.

“I have no interest in Silas Davenport,” I tell her, sarcastically, just to rile her up a bit but also to steer the conversation away from where I think she’s attempting to go.

“However, back to what we’re really here to figure out.

Have you seen the redaction on page seventy-two? I’m pretty sure it’s hiding a—”

“Dear God, you annoy me,” she interrupts, rolling her eyes, but her face cracks into another elusive Lila Lancaster grin. My annoying little work wifey. I can’t help but smile back.

“But seriously, back to—” I start to say page seventy-two , more than ready to move on, but she swiftly cuts me off.

“Abby Torres,” she interjects abruptly. “Don’t pretend like you guys didn’t look like two kids getting caught coming out from the backseat of daddy’s car off a dirt road heading straight to love land this morning.”

“Interesting picture you paint, there, Lila.”

“It was painted for me,” she says. “By you. You two were practically groping each other outside that conference room when I opened the door. Is she the reason you were running so late?”

I blink heavily, slowly, and meaningfully for good measure.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to, Lila,” I say firmly, like I’m beyond bored with this conversation.

She rolls her eyes.

“However, you do win the award for most eye rolls in a night, Lila. I mean, what are we up to now? Fifty-three? Or have we cleared sixty yet?”

She cracks another smile but closes her eyes in an attempt to block the sight of them rolling again.

“Go back to whatever you were saying about Silas’ love life,” she says, swatting the subject matter away. “Or whatever you were talking about on page seventy-two. Is it where that one line mentions The Nile’s interest in only one particular form of AI?”

“You saw that one already?” I ask.

I lean over the stack of documents between us and let the conversation naturally roll over to the real reason we’re here working late tonight.

There’s no reason to let the spotlight sit on Abby any longer than we already have.

That ship has sailed. Twice. And the ball between us is still firmly planted right where I left it, nestled snugly on her side of the court.

I stare at the words spanning hundreds of documents between us until all the letters blur together.

I’m sure that Abby is poring over the exact same records right now to figure out how her client can leverage them, sweetening their own negotiation power to beat ours tomorrow.

I shouldn’t be thinking about anything except how to get Silas what he wants out of this.

But all I can visualize is how Abby’s eyes and hands are likely tracing over the exact same pages as mine right now.

Somewhere in this very same city.

So close, I can practically taste her.