Page 2 of Trick or Tease

GARRETT

I adjusted my silk tie and stared across the mahogany conference table at the sharks in tailored suits opposite me. After a day of tense negotiations, we’d finally reached the finish line. The Meridian Tower deal was going to happen.

I had done it.

One and a quarter billion dollars changing hands faster than I could blink.

Un-fucking-believable.

My clients, the Westbrook Group, were lined up on either side of me. I was smack in the middle. The one in charge. The guy making the shit happen.

Across the table, the buyers’ legal team looked equally ready to be done with all this shit.

They had needed five attorneys to deal with little old me, and my two amazing paralegals, of course.

Pride filled me at the thought. The partners at my firm were going to be over the moon.

Maybe they would finally see it was time to make me a partner too.

It had been a long hard road to prove myself.

People assumed being a lawyer was all about sitting around in an office and showboating in court.

They didn’t know about all the long nights, the weekends.

The dickhead clients with unreal expectations.

The ruthless partners who tore apart everything I did until it was perfect.

Days like today made it all worth it. Tonight the champagne would be flowing.

“Article fourteen, subsection C,” I said calmly, like I hadn’t been sweating every line item on the paperwork. A single mistake could tank the whole deal, and my malpractice insurance wouldn’t cover a billion-dollar fuck-up. “I changed it in accordance with your suggestions.”

Lead counsel for the other guys, a silver-haired bastard named Morrison, nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It looks sufficient.”

I reminded myself not to bounce my knee up and down. The firm was going to bank serious money on this transaction, and I couldn’t wait to walk into the supervising partner’s corner office with the signed contracts. The old man was going to be absolutely thrilled.

Thrilled might be an exaggeration. Ron Geiss didn’t get thrilled. But surely, even he would be impressed this time. He had to be.

I leaned back in my leather chair and allowed myself a small smile as Morrison’s team shuffled through the final documents one more time.

I had been grinding hard at my firm, Ivar & Geiss.

Six years of eighty-hour weeks, missed holidays, and relationships that withered because I was always at the office.

But this deal? This was my golden ticket to a seat at the big boys’ table.

“Everything looks to be in order,” Morrison said, finally looking up from the documents. “My clients are satisfied with the terms.”

“Excellent.” I straightened my tie and glanced at my watch. Nearly four. We’d been in the conference room for six hours, but it was worth every minute.

I felt that familiar rush. Victory was in sight.

I could practically smell the ink on the paper.

The deal would be the launch I needed in my career.

I was only thirty, but I had my eyes on the prize.

I started at the firm as an intern and landed a job the day I passed the bar.

Now it was time to get on the partner track.

All of it was hinging on one signature. Everything I’d worked for since leaving my hometown of Greenleaf twelve years ago was at my fingertips.

My phone buzzed against the table. Billy’s name flashed on the screen. I flipped it face down without reading it. Whatever farm crisis he was dealing with could wait. The world didn’t stop spinning because a tractor broke down or the pumpkins were lumpier than usual.

“Gentlemen,” I said, closing my leather portfolio with a satisfying snap. “If there are no further revisions, I believe it’s time to put this baby to bed.”

Finally, the pens were picked up and everyone signed. I held my breath until the last signature swept across the page.

There was a round of handshakes and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. My clients were a hell of a lot richer, my firm had just banked, and I had made a decent chunk of change too. Life was good.

After the sellers left, it was just me and my clients.

Robert Westbrook, the CEO of the Westbrook Group, loosened his tie and let out a long breath. “Damn, Garrett. When Morrison brought up that zoning issue on Tuesday, I thought we were dead in the water.”

“That was a curveball,” I said, instead of calling it what it actually was—a total fucking disaster. Never let a client see you sweat. “The research team pulled through, though. We found a way around it and got the deal you wanted.”

Robert stood and extended his hand. “Six months, Garrett. Six grueling months of phone calls, meetings, revisions, and more meetings. But you never let up. You kept pushing against those thugs.”

I shook his hand firmly. “That’s what you pay me for.”

“No,” he said. “What we pay you for is competence. What you delivered was excellence. There’s a difference.”

The praise felt good—better than good. I’d been chasing this feeling for years.

I needed the validation that I’d made the right choice leaving Greenleaf behind.

Every missed family dinner, every declined invitation back home, every time Billy called and bitched that he was doing all the work on the family farm had all been worth it.

The fact that I was very single with zero prospects for a wife was worth it.

I was getting the prize.

“I hope you’ll count on me for your next sale,” I said as I walked them to the elevators.

“Absolutely,” Robert said as the elevator doors opened. “You’re our go-to guy now, Garrett. You’re a miracle worker.”

I watched the elevator close and satisfaction washed over me. Another client locked down, another relationship solidified. This was how you built a career in Manhattan—one handshake at a time, one deal at a time. And one massive commission check.

I walked back through the lobby of our forty-second-floor offices. I walked past the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a breathtaking view of Central Park.

The reception area was all sleek glass and chrome, with the firm’s name in gold letters behind the desk. Our receptionist sat with a headset on. She barely looked at me as she typed and talked.

I used to dream about working in a place like this back when I was nothing more than a young boy slinging pumpkins on the farm. I always knew I was destined for expensive suits and fancy cars. I wasn’t the kind of guy that rose with the sun and ran a tractor all day.

That was Billy’s thing.

Not mine.

I walked back to my office and closed the door.

I couldn’t resist fist-punching the air.

Nailed it.

I fucking nailed it.

I grabbed the signed contracts and left my office, unable to conceal the pep in my step. I made my way down the hall to Ron’s corner office. His door was open.

“Ron,” I called out, rapping my knuckles against the doorframe. “Hope you’ve got some champagne stashed in that filing cabinet of yours.”

He looked up from his computer, his gray eyes narrowing over his reading glasses.

At sixty-two, Ron Geiss had the kind of cold expression that came from three decades of high-stakes litigation and stress-induced insomnia.

His hair had gone completely silver, but his mind was sharp as a fucking razor.

I knew a lot of the women around the office thought he was a silver fox, but I didn’t care about any of that.

“Westbrook?” he asked, leaning back in his wingback chair.

I held up the contracts like a trophy. “Signed, sealed, and delivered. One-point-two-five billion. The wire should hit our account before close of business.”

For a split second, I saw something that might have been approval flicker across his features. Coming from Ron, that was basically a standing ovation.

“Commission structure as discussed?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Two percent. That’s twenty-five million to the firm.” I couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of my voice. “Not bad for six months of work.”

Whatever was on his screen seemed to be far more important than what I was saying. I stood there and waited like a dog drooling for a treat after bringing in the newspaper.

He gave me a thumbs-up and continued reading whatever was on his computer screen. A fucking thumbs-up. “That’s a big case for you. Good job.”

I moved into his office, a glutton for punishment. “I thought you’d be more impressed. I kind of thought it would be a good time to discuss being made a partner in the firm.”

Geiss finally looked up. “That Westbrook deal, whose client was that?”

“Mine.”

“No, it was mine ,” Geiss said. “I found them, brought them in, and signed them. You just did the paperwork. You want to make a splash? You want to be a partner? Then find your own big client and bring in money. That’s the difference between you and me.

I don’t just close deals. I find the deals and then close them. ”

What. The. Fuck?

He’s really going to pretend like he did this?

I forced my shoulders to stay where they were and not rise to my ears with the tension building in my body. My fingers wanted to curl into fists, but I forced my hands to stay slack.

He was the boss. I had to play it cool.

I don’t need accolades . “I’ll find clients,” I said.

“Let me ask you a serious question. Why do you want to be a partner?”

Is he serious? “That’s the goal, right?” I asked.

“So you just want a title?”

“No, of course not.”

“Is it the money?”

“That’s part of it, I guess. Sure.”

“I’m only asking because getting on the partner track takes serious commitment,” he said.

As if I didn’t know that. I nodded. “I know.”

“You will have no life for the next five years, at least. I burned through two marriages before they put my last name on the wall. Is that something you’re willing to do? It’s okay if the answer is no. There’s plenty of room at the company for junior associates.”

I wasn’t expecting that from him. The guy was all work but I knew there was plenty of playtime in his life. Besides, I knew the day I decided I wanted to be a lawyer that I would have to make sacrifices. I already had.

“I want to be a partner,” I stated, unwavering.

“You need to really think about it because it’s all or nothing,” he said.

“I feel like you’re trying to scare me off.”

“Absolutely not. I wholeheartedly think you should chase the career. Everything else can come later. Wives are temporary anyway.” He chuckled.

“Fun in the beginning, and a nice distraction if you get a day off in the middle of summer when deals slow down, but a hot piece of ass can’t compete with the high of closing a deal. But you already know that.”

“Making partner is what’s important to me,” I said. “Let me work on that. I know I can bring in work and money for the firm. I’ll prove myself. In the meantime, what’s next on my plate?”

He regarded me with a cold expression. “Go find your next clients. Show me what you can bring to the table. Impress me.”

“You don’t have more work for me?” I chuckled nervously. “It kind of feels like you’re firing me.”

“Not yet. Sort your shit out, Garrett. I’m not handing you deals on a silver platter anymore. Now I have more important shit to do. Are we done?”

“I guess so.” I turned and made for the door.

“If you want to be one of the big boys, you need to act like it. But don’t worry, you’ll get a hefty bonus from this one.”

Show me the money.

“My paralegals worked really hard on this. What about them?”

“What about them?”

“Shouldn’t they get something?”

“Feel free to give them some of your bonus. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a meeting. Bring me a client and we’ll talk about your future.”