In this electrifying psychological thriller, a high-powered sociopath meets his reckoning when he’s accused of the brutal murder of his mistress.

Did he kill Charlie Doyle? And if he didn’t...who did?

Peter Caine, a cutthroat Manhattan defense attorney, worked ruthlessly to become the best at his job. On the surface, he is charming and handsome, but inside he is cold and heartless. He fights without remorse to acquit murderers, pedophiles and rapists.

When Charlie Doyle, the daughter of the Manhattan DA—and Peter’s former lover—is murdered, Peter’s world is quickly sent into a tailspin. He becomes the prime suspect as the DA, a professional enemy of Peter’s, embarks on a witch hunt to avenge his daughter’s death, stopping at nothing to ensure Peter is found guilty of the murder.

In the challenge of his career and his life, Peter races against the clock to prove his innocence. As the evidence mounts against him, he’s forced to begin unraveling his own dark web of lies and confront the sins of his past. But the truth of who killed Charlie Doyle is more twisted and sinister than anyone could have imagined...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A.F. BRADY is a New York state–licensed mental health counselor/psychotherapist. She resides in New York with her husband and their family. She is the author of The Blind.

Also By A.F. Brady

The Blind

Once a Liar

A.F. Brady

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © A.F. Brady 2019

A.F. Brady asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9781474083119

Praise for A.F. Brady’s The Blind

“Brady’s fast-paced, riveting psychological chiller will wow suspense and thriller lovers alike. Brilliant character study and superior writing make this an outstanding debut.”

—Library Journal, starred review

“[C]omplex, intricately plotted... This psychological thriller grabs the reader and doesn’t let go until the truth about Richard’s past is finally revealed.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Brady’s entertaining debut is told in the wry voice of Sam, who uses black humor to hide an undercurrent of pain.... A satisfying, darkly funny tale of redemption.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Dark, moody, and fascinatingly flawed describe Brady’s...protagonist.... A suspenseful look at our weaknesses and ability to forgive.”

—Booklist

“Sometimes stark and often startling, The Blind asks important questions about the arbitrary lines we draw between the sane and “crazy” members of our society. Along the way, this quick-paced debut novel pulls its reader into a web of deceit, recrimination and, ultimately, redemption.”

—Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet and June

“Madness is at the heart of A.F. Brady’s gritty, gripping The Blind, in which a psychologist navigates her own inner demons while attempting to care for her patients...with devastating results.... Sly, dark, and completely enthralling, The Blind is a knockout debut.”

—Kimberly Belle, national bestselling author of The Marriage Lie and Three Days Missing

“A propulsive, compelling debut. The main character, Sam, is complex, damaged and sympathetic. You won’t soon forget this gripping psychological read.”

—A. J. Banner, bestselling author of The Good Neighbor and The Twilight Wife

“A page-turner that had me holding my breath until the last page.”

—Catherine McKenzie, bestselling author of Hidden and Fractured

“Smart, raw and intense, this is a nail-biting debut.”

—Anna Snoekstra, author of Only Daughter

For the unforgiven

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Quote

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Reader’s Guide

Questions for Discussion

Extract

About the Publisher

“He who fights with monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

NOW

Claire and I are sitting in the back of a black car, each looking out our separate windows. I see in the window’s reflection that Claire has her hands clasped nervously in her lap, the strap of her handbag wrapped around her wrist. I methodically clench and unclench my fists. Claire reaches over my lap to lay her hand on my thigh, and I feel her looking at me with her sympathetic eyes, hoping I will offer her comfort. I readjust my sunglasses and fluff my pocket square.

As the driver turns onto Madison Avenue, a line of similar black cars appears with curbside doors swung open, and Manhattan’s elite filing out onto the sidewalk. The burgundy awning offers little solace beneath the heavy afternoon sun, and sweaty husbands usher their second and third wives inside the building. I hear Claire whisper, “You ready for this?” as I open the door and hold a steady hand for her to take when she steps out of the car. I can’t respond.

We are walking quickly down the carpeted aisle of the funeral home, nearly hip checking acquaintances out of the way. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I haven’t said a word since we left the house; there’s nothing I know how to say. Claire is much more gracious than I am, and she’s looking back over her shoulder to coo hellos and whisper apologies.

As we get to the first pew, I pull Claire by the wrist to enter the row before me, brusquely guiding her by the lower back as she shimmies down to the middle of the bench. She skids to a seat and I remain standing to her right. I don’t need Claire right now, and I would rather she stay discreetly seated. I tighten my tie and survey my surroundings. I know everyone here, and everyone knows me. I can’t remember most of their names, but they know who I am and they know what I’ve done.

I’m not looking at the coffin because I don’t want to look at it and imagine its contents. Claire seems fixated on it. I glance quickly to see that it’s tiny. It’s tiny and white and lacquered. Juliette must have been five-nine or five-ten when she was alive; it doesn’t look like she could possibly fit in there. On top of the coffin, white roses and orchids flow abundantly in a huge cascade. Just like Juliette to make everything perfect. Even her death is beautiful.

I scan the room, forced to lock eyes with people and nod politely, looking for someone in particular. Harrison Doyle, the New York County district attorney, walks through the door and gives me an inappropriately large wave. Harrison has been trying to get me to join him on his side of the law, but I’ll never be anything other than a criminal defense attorney. He’s afraid of me, and he should be. But right now, Harrison is not who I am looking for.

Even I can feel it when something in the air suddenly changes, and the mourners terminate their hushed conversations and slip into their seats. I watch as everyone around me sits, and finally I lay eyes on the person I’ve been waiting for. Jamie is walking through the doors with his chin to his chest, supported by Juliette’s mother, Katherine.

Jamie looks up expectantly as he clumsily plops down next to me in the front pew. Satisfied that he has decided to sit with me, I take my seat and lay my arm over my son’s shoulder. I think I feel Jamie’s muscles tighten slightly underneath the weight of my arm. I imagine he must be uncomfortable, everyone looking to see how he’s handling his mother’s funeral, and he’s not used to affection from his father. Claire reaches her hand over me to tenderly pat Jamie’s knee. She knows how to do this better than I do.

“You okay, honey?” she whispers. Jamie nods, and a fat tear splashes Claire’s hand. I watch the way they look at each other and make a mental note of what real sympathy looks like.

Some priest or minister or whatever he is begins the service and my mind wanders back to the time when Juliette and I were dating before we got married. She was vibrant then, jubilant. Before I broke her, she had all the life in the world.

I think of the first charity benefit we went to together. She had been planning it for months. I picked her up in a Rolls-Royce and brought her a wrist corsage that matched the rose in my lapel. She laughed her brilliant laugh and wore it proudly for the entire event, gazing at it, and me, while she was onstage, thanking the benefactors for their donations.

I remember the way the light left her eyes when she finally realized I would never change, despite her best efforts.

I’m pulled back into the present as the music stalls and Jamie rises from his seat. He takes a deep breath, sending shudders through his broad shoulders. The priest pats his back as Jamie places his notes down on the lectern in front of him and clears his throat to speak.

“Thank you for coming... My mother would have been so happy to see all of you here, continuing to show your support for her. Although today’s event is not benefiting a war-torn nation, underprivileged children or endangered animals, we are here to honor a woman whose life and legacy are just as deserving of our admiration and protection.”

I’m impressed with Jamie’s words—I hadn’t expected such eloquence from a kid not yet sixteen. But the discomfort is rising in my throat as I worry what he may have in store for his speech.

“I grew up in a single-parent home, but you would never have guessed that because Mom played both the role of father and mother to me for as long as I can remember. After Peter left, she picked up some typical male hobbies and took me to sports games, so I wouldn’t feel deprived of a male influence.”

This is exactly what I was afraid of, Jamie bringing up my absence and adding insult to injury by calling me by my first name. All the sympathy I had been getting from the crowd drains as they remember how I abandoned my wife and child. I tune out the rest of his speech and concentrate on appearing remorseful.

As Jamie continues his tribute to his mother, I imagine fond memories creeping into the minds of the mourners around me, and I turn to study the expressions on their faces. I’ve caught the eye of my ex-mother-in-law, Katherine. Katherine hates me, but despite our troubled history, she offers me a sympathetic nod. I mimic the nod back and robotically clasp Claire’s hand.

When Jamie breaks down talking about how quickly his mother turned for the worse, I carefully observe the reactions from the crowd. I file these looks away in my brain for reference in the future. I wouldn’t have to pay such close attention if only I could still conjure these emotions naturally. But I haven’t felt remorse, I haven’t felt sympathy and I haven’t shed a genuine tear in as long as I can remember.

The other two speeches are delivered by two of Juliette’s childhood friends. I listen to the adulation and respect in the stories they tell; I laugh when the crowd laughs and bow my head when the crowd cries, just like I’m supposed to. When the pallbearers lift Juliette’s coffin and Louis Armstrong plays, I pull out of Claire’s grasp and escort my son down the aisle, closely following his mother’s body. Juliette wasn’t the first to die, and she wouldn’t be the last.

* * *

“Jamie,” I call when he finally exits the funeral home, “why don’t you walk with us?”

Jamie extracts himself politely from a stranger’s embrace and shuffles quickly to my side like a good obedient son. He is almost exactly my height, with the same thick, dark brown hair, mine developing dignified silver at the temples. Most of his good genes come from me.

Seeing a group approaching to offer condolences, I feel immediately exhausted and turn south on Madison Avenue, hurrying Jamie and Claire along. I don’t have the energy to fake it with these people. Several teenagers, must be Jamie’s friends from school, are huddled together smoking cigarettes on the southwest corner of Eightieth Street. One of them reaches out a fist as we walk by, saying, “Sorry, bro.” Jamie fist-bumps him and nods with a tight-lipped smile as I pull him closer to me.

Claire fishes out a Kleenex from her handbag and dabs at the sweat beading on her upper lip. The heat doesn’t bother me, and I rarely sweat. I think she looks sloppy using tissues, so I hand her the pocket square from my jacket. As we walk east on Seventy-Eighth Street toward Park Avenue, I see a taxi pull up in front of our destination, and I watch Katherine slither out with her third husband.

I stop walking, stalling our group—I can’t bear the idea of sharing the elevator ride to the penthouse with my ex-mother-in-law and her shiny, replacement husband. Claire takes this opportunity to wrap Jamie in a kindhearted embrace. As soon as she pulls away, I follow suit and squeeze my son into my chest. I scan my surroundings for witnesses, but unfortunately, no one saw the hug. Disappointed that my shows of affection garnered no attention, I release Jamie and we walk the rest of the block to Katherine’s apartment in silence.

I elongate my stride, leaving the other two behind, and quickly walk to Katherine’s to get this charade over with. Claire and Jamie watch as I kiss both her cheeks. I hold her waist and look through her. If you didn’t know me, you would call me sympathetic. Genial. Honest. Katherine revels in the attention, playing the part of mourning mother to perfection. I feed off this, and it helps me fall into the performance we put on in public.

Swarms of funeral-goers enter the palatial apartment, marching through the required rounds, commiserating with Juliette’s family and close friends. Although we’ve been divorced for a decade, Juliette never remarried, so the crowd treats me as a grieving widower, and they all lavish me with hollow gestures of comfort. I delight in the attention from their frivolous posturing, wondering if all the kindness could lead me to have real feelings about Juliette’s death.

Claire is keeping to herself near the bar, plucking bobby pins from her hair and arranging them in patterns on a mother-of-pearl coaster. Surprised by my approach, she stammers to attention, yanking the last pin from her hair, causing it to cascade down her shoulders.

“Have you seen Harrison?” I ask, not quite looking at her.

“He walked in a few minutes ago with Ethan and Elizabeth. I think he’s still talking to Katherine.” Claire is affectionately stroking my forearm, looking for some trace of loss or bereavement in my face.

“Charlie wasn’t with them?” I muse hopefully.

“No, I didn’t see Charlotte,” Claire responds with disappointment. “It would be pretty inappropriate for her to be at Juliette’s wake, don’t you think?”

“Hmm.” I swallow hard, momentarily picturing Charlotte in a lacy black bra. I shake the image out of my head and move toward Harrison, leaving Claire alone with her champagne and stack of bobby pins.

Harrison’s fat, ruddy face lights up when I approach him, and he promptly puts down his cocktail, freeing his hands to pull me in for an awkward embrace. I hate it when he does this.

“Peter! How the hell are ya? So sorry to see you under these circumstances. Juliette was such a lovely girl. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Shame. Shame to see her go so young.” Harrison keeps a sweaty palm on my shoulder and shakes his head. I shrug off his hand and crack the bones of my neck. I stand nearly six foot two, and Harrison is the only man in the room taller than I am.

“Thank you, Harry. And thank you for coming,” I say, not caring at all. “I see you brought Elizabeth and Ethan. Charlie’s not here?”

“No.” Harrison shakes his head. “My daughter is in Phoenix doing some charity thing with kids over there. Something noble and important, as usual.”

“Right, out there doing God’s work, like Juliette used to do.” I’m not listening to Harrison. Instead I’m looking at Claire and Jamie and watching how their interaction seems a little too familiar, a little too comfortable.

“Seriously, now, you all right?” He seems to be attempting genuine sympathy. “Everything working out with the custody stuff?”

“Custody shouldn’t hit any snags. There are details to work out with Juliette’s estate but all that is tied up in trusts...” I begin moving away from him, terminating the conversation. I approach Claire and Jamie to investigate whatever’s going on with them.

I watch several times as Claire stops herself from leaning over to pet Jamie’s hair like a mother would. Jamie has Juliette’s narrow angular features positioned on my strong-chinned, high-cheekboned face. Like his hair, his eyes are mine, a striking hazel-green, with emerald rings rimming the iris and gold flecks scattered inside. Good genes.

“Hey, kiddo,” I say, mimicking the family sitcoms I feel I should emulate in this situation, “how’s it going?”

“It’s fine,” Jamie responds, dropping his head to his chest. “I’m okay.”

“You need any help getting ready to move into my place?” But I’m not listening to Jamie’s response. And I’m not listening when Claire tells me to stop touching her ass in public. I would like to listen and attend to my family, but I just can’t bring myself to care.

THEN

We met while I was working for a prestigious law firm. I had graduated first in my class from Columbia Law and was offered ludicrous starting salaries and promises of professional distinction at many firms across the city. I was quickly bored with the work; the courtroom wins came easily to me, and I didn’t feel the clientele was bringing me the sort of challenge or notoriety I was looking for.

I was working toward a better future for myself and was open to exploring all avenues, so I accepted an invitation to a talk and reception given by Eileen Cutler, one of the foremost environmental lawyers in New York. As it turned out, Juliette had wrangled a ticket to the event, having spent years following Eileen’s work as she fought against dirty corporations.

The reception was held at the Lotos Club, and as soon as I caught my first glimpse of Juliette, I was drawn to her. She listened intently to Eileen regaling us with stories of fighting the establishment, and I could plainly see that Juliette was passionate about just the sorts of things I cared nothing about. She was an environmentalist, a humanitarian, a woman obsessed with saving.

I was singularly focused on getting away from my upbringing, making a name for myself and never again feeling the way I felt growing up. I wasn’t getting any of that from the law firm I worked at, and I had come to the event that night to see if I could find some people who could help me achieve my dreams of getting to the top. I was seeking wealth, respect, and above all else, I wanted to be unforgettable. Juliette seemed clearly on her way to just such a destiny, and I wanted her beside me.

“You seem enthralled,” I said, startling her with my approach as I sidled up behind her.

“Oh. Yes, I’ve been a big fan of Eileen’s for years. Such important work. Are you a fan, as well?” She was bold and shy at the same time.

“Becoming a fan. This is my first time hearing her speak. I’m not very familiar with her work.” I stretched out my hand to her. “Peter Caine,” I introduced myself, trying to create a more personal nature for the conversation.

“Juliette.” She smiled and shook my hand. She didn’t tell me her last name. I couldn’t have known who her father would turn out to be.

As luck would have it, she didn’t have plans after the talk, so I offered to take her out for something to eat. Still high from the encounter with her idol, she agreed, and we wandered east toward a hole-in-the-wall dumpling place she suggested. We sat side by side at the tiny bar, and she ordered for both of us.

“So, you’re a defense attorney, you’re twenty-eight years old and you’re not from New York.” She summarized our discussion, smiled and delicately popped a dumpling in her mouth.

“What makes you think I’m not from New York?” I asked.

“You stopped at every light and didn’t jaywalk once. New Yorkers don’t stop at lights.”

“It’s that obvious, huh? No, I’m not from New York.” I had been developing the story of my past since before I started college, spending much of my time testing out details about my family before I settled on a suitable series of fabrications. “I’m kind of from all over the place,” I told her.

“Army brat?” she asked, seeming genuinely interested.

“Not quite, no.” I never went for the military-upbringing story. I feared it had too much of a blue-collar bent and it could alienate me from the influential people I was trying to fall in with. “My father was an art dealer, and we spent most of my childhood living in different countries in Europe.”

“Oh, wow. That sounds interesting.”

“It was.” I tried to conjure up images of old European cities in my head. “What about you? Did you grow up in New York?” I steered the conversation back to her.

“Yes, born and raised in Manhattan.” She turned her chair to face me. “Tell me what it was like living around Europe. Did you have a favorite place?” She seemed to want to keep the spotlight off her background just as much as I wanted to keep it off mine.

“I look back now and realize it was very glamorous when you think about it from an outside perspective, but it was hard for a kid.” I’d practiced these lines. “I went to excellent schools, but I never stayed at the same one for more than a couple of years, didn’t make lasting friendships and I was always somewhere I didn’t know the language.” These quick, heartstring-tugging snippets would provide just enough information for people to find me intriguing and sympathetic. I took a dramatic pause and sipped from a green tea that Juliette had ordered for me.

“That’s so lonely,” she said with compassionate eyes. “Do you have any siblings?”

“No, it was just me and my parents. Definitely a lonely time.” Although the story isn’t true, the sentiments were. I did have a lonely upbringing, but it wasn’t in Europe and it wasn’t because I didn’t have siblings.

The evening felt easy and natural, despite me telling her manufactured stories. She told me how she came to follow Eileen Cutler’s career, and I told her of my dreams to be a high-powered defense attorney. I found her charming as she discussed her passion for helping others, and her work to open her own charitable organization. She seemed to imply family connections and money but kept the details guarded, and I didn’t pry.

“Do you have any idols in your field?” she asked me, after gushing over Eileen. “Seems a difficult business to keep one’s integrity.”

“Maybe. But I find being a defense attorney quite honorable. The justice system hinges on the belief that lawyers are fighting for the rights of their clients, but often defense attorneys are underdogs in the fight.” I turned my body to face her. “With my talents and abilities, I am simply serving to even the playing field. And yes, I do have an idol in my business.”

“Tell me about him.” She looked at me kindly. “I’m interested to hear your perspective.”

“Ever since I wrapped my mind around going into criminal defense, there’s one man whose career just blows everyone else’s away. He’s a legend in the business, and I met him at an event before I graduated.” The excitement was rising in my voice. “It was Christmastime, and my cohort was invited to a big party hosted by different law firms. All the big names were there, as well as representatives from the public defenders’ offices and the DA’s office. I was first in my class, and I knew many of the lawyers were there to talk to me specifically.”

Juliette seemed impressed, listening intently as she ate.

“This lawyer—my hero—was known and feared, having beaten many of the other lawyers who were there in court battles, and my classmates were practically starstruck when they noticed him standing by the entrance. He called my name—‘Caine,’ he said, and he didn’t even look at me as he said it, he just lifted a glass of scotch in my direction.”

Juliette’s head bounced in a slow, methodical nod. “He knew your name?”

“Most of the lawyers did, yes.” I suddenly felt reticent. I didn’t want Juliette to get the impression that I was gloating. “They do their research before recruiting events.”

“That must have been a thrill for you.”

“Oh, absolutely. I was nervous and excited when I approached him. He just handed me the scotch, picked up his martini glass and then turned and walked to a corner away from everyone. I followed him. I didn’t really know what to do. I mean, I’ve been admiring this guy’s career since college, and I couldn’t believe he was there to talk to me. Then he downed his whole drink in one sip and asked me if I was ready to give up all the bullshit.”

“Gin?” Juliette asked.

“What?”

“Never mind. What was he talking about?” Her tone was deliberate, knowing.

“He pointed at the rest of the lawyers in the room and told me that they were all there to fawn over me, and if I was serious about my career, I would call him instead. He asked me if I was ready to realize my talents and rise to the top.” I recalled the event with embarrassment. “All I had ever wanted to do was meet this guy and impress him, and when he was standing in front of me, I had no idea what to say.”

“So, what did you say?”

“I told him I was willing to take any opportunity he was willing to give me. Looking back, now I see why he was immediately turned off. He told me that I was still soft, and I should call him when I toughened up. He put his card on the corner of a cocktail table and walked out without saying another word to me.”

“Did you ever call him?” She had turned to face me and was studying my eyes.

“His card didn’t even have a number on it. It was just his name. Like he was leaving me a challenge to go and find him, like that would prove that I was ready to take him up on his offer.”

“And?” she asked excitedly.

“Well, truth be told—” I looked around us for eavesdroppers, then leaned in conspiratorially “—I tracked down his number months ago, and we’re opening a firm together. I’m keeping it hush-hush for now, don’t want to jinx myself before everything is finalized.”

Juliette and I ordered a last round of drinks. She congratulated me and toasted the news that I was about to open my own firm with my professional hero. As I paid the bill, I found myself uncharacteristically drawn to her, and I didn’t want the evening to end. I knew dragging it out beyond its natural conclusion would put a future encounter in jeopardy, so against my natural inclinations, I brought the evening to a close. She commended me again on my new business ventures and scooted her stool back.

“It has been a pleasure spending time with you, Miss Juliette, and I hope you will allow me to take you out again sometime.” I stood and held my hand out to help her from her seat.

“Thank you, Mr. Caine.” She bit her lower lip and smiled an unforgettable smile. As I guided her toward the door, she pulled a packet of matches from a bowl and scribbled her phone number inside. She raised her arm for a taxi on the corner and handed me the matchbook. “Call me,” she said as a taxi pulled up in front of us. “I’d love to hear how the business turns out.”

I watched the taxi heading uptown on Third Avenue until the rear lights blended in with the horizon. I called her the next day, and thus initiated the beginning of her end.

NOW

Everything feels status quo, not unlike any other day of my life, despite cremating my ex-wife and becoming the sole guardian to my estranged teenage son. But every person I pass looks at me a little closer, stays and chats a little longer, compassionately touches my shoulder, as if these changes were something drastic. Anna, my assistant, hands me my morning coffee as I pass her in the hallway, and a junior partner whose name I’ve forgotten blocks the path to my office.

“So sorry to hear about your wife, Peter,” he says to me. “I hear she was a wonderful woman.”

“Ex-wife,” I correct as I push past him and continue down the hall. As a man known to not need sympathy, let alone accept it, I can’t understand why my colleagues would still offer condolence for the loss of my ex-wife. I reach the door to my office, and I see Sinan walking toward me. I leave the door open for him to come in.

Sinan Khan, a Turkish lawyer from London, has been living in New York and making a killing as a defense attorney since the mid-1990s. Marcus brought him on to Rhodes & Caine almost as soon as we had formed. Sinan and I share the same moral flexibility, paired with a seemingly bottomless depth of knowledge of the law. He understands me.

“Got some stuff for you,” Sinan declares in his baritone British voice, sidling up to my desk. “I have the case files from that custody thing I tried last year. I think you can use the same case as precedent in your kidnapping trial. It’s a tiny loophole—I’m saying ants can’t squeeze through it—but you should be able to sell it.” He tosses the files onto my desk. “And Anna was about to walk in here with this stack of nonsense—” he flaps a bunch of envelopes in my face “—so I’ll just leave them on your bookcase next to the Oban.”

“Thanks. Sit, have a drink.” I wave at a large leather chair in the corner of my office.

“Drink? It’s 8:20 in the morning.” Sinan oozes sophistication.

I look up at him and smile. “You Muslims and your prohibitions.”

“Mmm,” he sneers. “I have something else for you, as well.” Sinan reclines in the leather chair and fiddles with a marble chessboard on the table next to him. “A blast from your past is on his way back out into the world.”

“Back out? When did I ever have a client who went in?” I run my fingers through my hair, knowing full well to whom Sinan is referring.

“You should know exactly who I’m talking about, especially since he stands pretty much alone in your guilty column.”

“Bogovian?” I blurt when Sinan substantiates my fears. “You’re telling me Stu Bogovian is getting out? Has it been that long already?” Stu Bogovian was a New York congressman with a penchant for sexual assault. He came from an outrageously wealthy family who paid his victims for their silence, leaving Stu to never learn any self-control. I can’t believe he could be released so soon. Seems like yesterday he went to prison, not the nearly twenty years it’s really been.

“Yes, love. Stu Bogovian is getting paroled next Thursday. Mark your calendar!” Sinan holds up his hands and twinkles his fingers in mock celebration. “You think he still hates you after all this time?”

“Back off, Sinan.” I feel the ugly anger rising in my stomach. “Who’s representing him now?”

“Some Harvard prat. But don’t fret, darling,” Sinan teases, “no one remembers that you were the one who couldn’t get Stu off, and from the trial transcripts, it sounds like Stu had no problem getting off!” Sinan laughs and knocks over the white marble queen with a thin black bishop shaped like an obelisk.

“He doesn’t hate me—no one hates me.” I swallow the acrid taste of defeat. “He hates Harrison Doyle. And he hates that ADA twerp who put him away, whatever his name was.”

“You remember the assistant district attorney’s name,” Sinan sighs, knowing I wouldn’t dare forget.

“Someone who cared would remember his name.” I try to focus my attention on anything other than the Bogovian trial and the birth of my vendetta against Harrison Doyle. Sinan grins at me and emits a low grumbling laugh, amused to know I still get flustered. I draw in a deep breath and wrangle my irritation.

“Are you coming to this cocktail thing tonight?” Sinan probes, changing the subject. “I’m bringing a very beautiful young man from St. Louis.”

“You don’t even know where St. Louis is,” I say. Sinan, brilliant though he may be, is hopelessly elitist and thinks America is made up of Manhattan and Los Angeles.

“This is true. He’s dead from the neck up, but gorgeous. You should come tonight and bring Claire. She’s kind enough to talk to my beautiful St. Louis boy, so I won’t have to.” Sinan smiles and blinks his long eyelashes, trying to convince me.

“Sorry, my friend, I won’t be able to get Claire to butter up your plaything for you. I’m not going to the party. I have drinks with Harrison tonight.”

“Why do you continue to spend time with that terminally classless man?”

“He’s useful,” I say. “We should have him in our pocket.” My nerves settle as I remind myself that I am in control, and Harrison’s time at the top is limited. “And you should be facilitating these kinds of relationships, too.” I wave a gold pen in Sinan’s direction. “Not just lapping up the affections of impressionable Missourians.”

“I bet he’s going to rub the Bogovian thing right in your face tonight. Try not to lose your temper and knock him out.”

THEN

Juliette and I went on four dates before I found out who her father was. Each time I picked her up at her apartment, she was already waiting for me in the lobby, so I never had to announce myself to her doorman and ask for her last name. It was over brunch at Union Square Cafe that I finally made the connection while I told Juliette of the first major case I was working on at my new firm.

“We were hired to represent Congressman Stuart Bogovian,” I began. “It’s just the kind of case we need to get noticed quickly.” I explained to Juliette that since the firm was still new, having such a high-profile case right off the bat would get us the notoriety we were looking for. My partner, Marcus Rhodes, had been working for himself for decades, so he brought along a caseload as well as his reputation. I wasn’t able to bring any of my clients from my previous firm, so when we were called about Bogovian, Marcus encouraged me to take on the case.

Bogovian was rich, slippery and completely unaffected by the expected behavior of decent society. Entitled to the degree that he viewed people as property, he never encountered a problem he couldn’t pay his way out of. He had been charged with assault and attempted rape in the first degree. Allegedly, he pinned an intern between his desk and bookcase, tied her arms and stripped her of her clothes, intending to rape her, but she broke free and escaped.

I didn’t want to share too much information about the case with Juliette, even though it was already in the news. I worried that she would get the wrong impression of me and the work I was doing if she saw the people I represented as monsters who didn’t deserve freedom. I wanted her to see that they were people who required the best defense just like anyone else, and I was hired to uphold the law, plain and simple.

She already seemed to be getting uncomfortable when I talked about work; leaning away from me, responding with one-word answers and not really engaging. I wanted to assure her that I was one of the good guys, despite my profession’s reputation.

“You’re going to be the congressman’s defense attorney?” she asked, not making eye contact.

“Yes,” I said cheerfully. “Marcus and I agreed that I should take the lead on Mr. Bogovian’s case.”

“Your partner’s name is Marcus?” She looked at me curiously, a forkful of salad balanced in front of her mouth.

“Yes, Marcus Rhodes. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

Juliette let out a single burst of laughter. “Yes, I’ve heard of him,” she snorted. “Marcus Rhodes is my father.”

“Your father?” I balked. I should have known; her smile seemed so familiar. I was almost jealous. I looked up to Marcus, nearly regarding him as a father figure, much more so than my actual father. I almost felt that I wanted to keep him for myself and not share him with Juliette. “He didn’t tell you he was starting a new partnership? You couldn’t have thought it was a coincidence?”

“No, he doesn’t involve me in his business life. I had no idea he was starting something new.” She shook her head, seeming disconnected.

“I’m sure I’ve mentioned his name before today. Didn’t you know I was talking about him?”

“Honestly, no. When you told me he left a card with no number, that sounded like a move my father would pull, but I didn’t know for sure.” She ate her salad as if this realization were no big deal, while I felt like the news was prodigious. I was working with Marcus Rhodes and dating his daughter. This was the world I was supposed to be in. Everything was beginning to feel right.

“I can’t believe you’re Marcus’s daughter,” I marveled. “What a serendipitous coincidence.”

Still seeming a bit uneasy, she agreed, amazed that the world could be so small. “You’re sure you know what you’re doing getting involved in a case like this with my father?”

“Yes, absolutely. I’ve always wanted to have a mentor like your father, and I’m certainly ready to take on whatever Harrison Doyle throws at me.”

Juliette held her glass up to me as if to toast my goals. I didn’t think twice about her question as to whether or not I was prepared to take on the case. I felt unstoppable, and I was sure I could handle the DA.

Harrison Doyle was in his first term as district attorney, and he put a viper of an ADA on the Bogovian case, making sure he made a splash in the headlines right off the bat. That viper went by the name Eric Gordon, and he was intolerable. Both Gordon and Doyle seemed obsessed and pulled out all the stops, ethical and unethical, to ensure a win for the prosecution.

I allowed my professional ambitions to cloud my better judgment. Had I known what was going to happen, I never would have tried the Bogovian case, and I never would have developed the bad blood with Harrison Doyle.

NOW

Harrison is standing at the Four Seasons bar, waiting impatiently for me to arrive. Every time I see him, I have to actively suppress the memory of him humiliating me after the Stu Bogovian trial. I don’t like Harrison, and I never have, but over the years, he has been hounding me to be his friend, even going so far as to offer me jobs with outrageous perks and benefits at the district attorney’s office. He’s not trying to make up for what he said after the Bogovian trial; he’s trying to keep my mouth shut.

When I spot him at the bar, I see two empty glasses sitting in front of him while he works on his third drink. I cross the room, nodding hellos to men in suits at various tables. Some leggy supermodel-type stops me before I reach Harrison, kissing my cheeks three times. She must be one of the French ones. I grasp her by the waist and then release her, barely stopping to take the time.

Harrison pulls me in for a strong handshake.

“I’m having vodka. I think it’s my third or fourth by now, not that anyone’s counting. What are you gonna have, Pete?”

I recoil and wipe my hands on a handkerchief. Instead of allowing him to place my order, I lean behind him and ask for a single malt scotch from a bartender I know but whose name I have long forgotten.

The only reason I am here, as I tried to explain to Sinan earlier, is to remind Harrison that I have all the ammunition I need to take him down and ruin his reelection bid, and that it’s in his best interest to stay in line. So, I play with him now and again. I know he’ll get drunk and ask me to come to the DA’s office, his typical move to try to settle the bad blood between us. He wants me in his pocket. With me as his underling, he would gain control, and I won’t allow him to take away the power I have over him.

He thinks if he shows me affection and professional courtesy I’ll forget what he did to me, and I’ll forget the things I know. But I have no plans of joining the DA’s office and becoming complicit in Harrison’s dirty work.

I lean against the bar and look anywhere but at him and his droopy, drunken eyes. He is tuned into my every move, like a schoolgirl with a crush.

“Pete, Pete,” Harrison is saying. I ignore him, not even bothering with one-word answers, sipping my drink and scanning the room for more interesting company.

“Nice work on that assault case last week, by the way. Didn’t think you’d be able to pull that one off, not even you.” He plies me with faux sincerity and compliments. I’m beginning to feel nauseous.

“Not even me?”

“I mean, the guy had the gun in his possession, right? With her blood on the handle? You really have a way with overcoming physical evidence.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I swirl the ice cubes in my drink.

“Pete, I asked you here tonight because we’ve got to talk about my offer. I need you now more than I ever have.”

Harrison is covering his ass, and I can see right through him. When he gets worried that I’ll jeopardize his career ambitions, he invites me out and tries to entice me into submission, but he can’t acknowledge this. If he admits that he’s scared of what I know, he’s essentially admitting he has something to hide. It’s amusing for me sometimes, keeping up this cat-and-mouse game, watching him squirm.

“I’ve said it before, but clearly you don’t listen, so I’ll say it again.” I don’t even bother to look at him. “I am not, ever, going to work for you at the DA’s office.”

But again, he isn’t listening. “Pete, I’m up for reelection. You know this. The campaign is strong, but I need someone like you—some soulless bastard like you—who can win cases without even getting out of bed in the morning. Use your talents to clean up the streets. Put the bad guys behind bars instead of defending them. Come on. What can I do to convince you?”

If I work at the DA’s office, then I’ll be complicit in his illicit dealings, and I won’t have a leg to stand on if I want to roll over and expose the things I know.

I laugh right in his fat face. “Nothing, Harry. There’s nothing you can do to convince me. If I were to go to your side, I would take your job. I’m not working under you or anyone else. We’ve been having this argument for years and I’m tired of it.” Already sick of his drivel after just one drink, I throw my black card onto the bar behind Harrison’s hulking form.

Harrison tries to steady himself on the corner of the bar and instead his elbow slips, and he barely catches himself on the seat of a barstool. “Jesus, Harry, you’re in public.” I quickly scan the room for onlookers, trying to ensure no one sees me with this classless mess. “People know me here. They know you, too. Pull yourself together.”

As the bartender hands me back my card with the tab, I flick away the plastic Four Seasons pen and draw a Montblanc from my jacket pocket. I leave an enormous tip, hoping to keep the bartender’s mouth shut when it comes time to gossip about drunken bigwigs.

“I need you, Peter. The ADAs have no fight in them, no spark. It’s all perfunctory. No one grabs the bull by the horns like you do. I can guarantee you’ll take my position when I retire. I only want one more term, make it five total.” Harrison pulls my lapels. “Come on, Peter, whatever it takes.”

His desperation is becoming revolting. “Get home and get some sleep, Harry. You’re never going to get me away from criminal defense, and you’re never going to get me to work under you.” I gently slap his hands away from me and lead him down the stairs.

“I’ll fix the Bogovian thing,” Harrison proclaims. “Now that he’s getting out, it’ll be in the media again. I’ll make amends publicly, righting whatever wrongs may have come to you, and then I can announce that you’re coming to work for me. I mean with me.”

I glare at Harrison with raised eyebrows. I knew he would offer me some kind of recompense to sweeten the deal, but I didn’t think he would dare bring up Bogovian.

“No,” I manage to growl.

Harrison sways and bobs and I reach a hand to his elbow to stabilize him. A man of his size should learn to handle his liquor.

“Charlotte.” Harrison shakes a perceptive finger at me. “I know you have a thing for her.” He pulls his arm away from me and stares me squarely in the face. “Come to the DA’s office, and I’ll give you Charlotte. What more could you possibly want?”

Both bemused and taken aback, I let a smile stretch across my face. His expression remains cold. “You’ll give me your daughter? How could you possibly do that?” I laugh incredulously and walk down the wide steps in front of me.

“I’ll give you my blessing, to—you know—sleep with my daughter.” Harrison stays two steps above me, leaning against the banister, certain this offer will be what turns me.

“I didn’t need your blessing, Harrison,” I sneer through gritted teeth.

Harrison’s face registers shock before sliding into understanding. Of course I’d already slept with his daughter.

With a laugh, I saunter down the steps. Still grinning when I reach the landing, I look back up to Harrison. He’s walking back toward the bar, unruffled, appearing completely sober.

THEN

Marcus and I had rented office space for Rhodes & Caine, LLP, in downtown Manhattan on Church Street, just north of Leonard. I walked to work from my loft in Tribeca, and as I strolled to the office one morning when the trial preparations for the Bogovian case were just beginning, I thought back to home for the first time in a long time.

I had lied to Juliette about where and how I grew up, and although I didn’t quite regret it, it was becoming clear to me that she was more than just a girlfriend and maybe she should know the truth. I had buried my past behind a curtain of carefully designed lies, and I never pulled back that curtain.

Juliette believed I spent my childhood moving from one European city to the next, but in reality, I grew up in Vermont. Not the only child of an art dealer father and sophisticated mother, as I told Juliette, I was raised by my uncle Tommy and his wife, Lee, amid the chaos of their already overstuffed home and family. Lee was pregnant with her fourth child when they reluctantly took custody of me. I was only eight months old. As my uncle frequently reminded me growing up, they took me in because he loved his sister, not because he loved or wanted me. My mother was deemed unfit by the courts to care for me, and she was never married to my biological father, who disappeared after I was born anyway. So, Tommy was my only option.

I have memories of my mother coming around the house sporadically, always looking for a handout, some compensation for what she considered to have been a raw deal in life. She would complain that the state had taken her only child, but as far as I could see, she never made an effort to clean herself up enough to win me back. The visits always ended in Lee demanding my mother take me back or help to support me, which would send her into a tailspin of self-pitying and hysterics.

While Tommy kept me fed and clothed, and implored his children to include me and treat me as a member of the family, they all saw me as an intruder. In their eyes, I was a thief stealing food from their mouths, taking up time and space that would have otherwise been theirs.

Tommy was never really a father to me and certainly not a role model. He was a man who just wanted to get by, to fly under the radar; living a simple life, hopefully ending in a simple death, leaving a simple body to become a simple ghost.

The apathy was thick, and I felt suffocated. My whole childhood, I felt I was living in a house with strangers I didn’t know and who didn’t know me. I didn’t fit in with these people. They didn’t have friends, they didn’t have opinions and they didn’t have ambitions. I, on the other hand, longed for success. I wanted greatness. To be noticed, to be known, to be respected. I was steeped in so much nothing in that house, that I yearned for anything to fill the void. No one asked anything of me, so I asked everything of myself.

To me, the point of life was to be the best. Not second best, not in the top ten: the best. I wanted to have the best house, the best life and be the best at my job. Nothing less would ever be enough for me. I wanted to be respected by everyone. This became the only thing that mattered to me. This was how I protected myself. Be the best at everything I do and be in control of everything else. Everyone would respect me and adore me if I were the best.

And Marcus was just the man to lead me to the promised land I was looking for.

Marcus was savage in his ruthlessness. His pursuit of excellence seemed impossible to contain, and he stopped at nothing to become the best. Not only was he the top defense attorney in New York, he also led a personal life that I idolized. He managed to keep himself head and shoulders above the reputation garnered by most lawyers in criminal defense and was counted among the high-society sect. He attended exclusive New York City social events and was a sought-after guest at major benefits and galas. He led a full and ambitious life and earned his prestigious standing. He was exactly the person I wanted to emulate.

I saw my reflection in the glass windows as I arrived at my office building, and I could see that I was poised to take my place at the top. If I could follow in Marcus’s footsteps, I could be the son he never had, and he could be the father I always wanted. I would finally find the place where I fit, and I could leave my humiliating past behind me forever.

Once I arrived at work, Marcus invited me into his office to discuss the details of the Bogovian case. We had already had two meetings with Stu Bogovian to hear his side of the story and start working out what kind of tactics we would use.

“I’m glad you’re going to be at the helm of this one,” Marcus said to me. “It’s the perfect high-profile case to get your name in the papers.”

“I’m ready for him, but he’s a scumbag, Marcus. Going to be hard to make him look good.” I arranged my notes in front of me, ensuring everything was well organized.

“No one’s arguing that he isn’t a piece of shit, and neither will you. In fact, you’re better off acknowledging that he’s a piece of shit. All you need to do is show that the girl is lying. Out for a payday.”

“But all the physical evidence clearly corroborates her story,” I began, hesitant to go to trial for what seemed to be an unwinnable case. The intern had run directly to a precinct and told the cops what had happened. Bruises, bite marks, ligature marks on her wrists; it all fit with her story.

“It also fits a story about two people having some good old-fashioned kinky sex, Peter.” Marcus looked at me with disappointment that I wasn’t immediately willing to challenge the girl’s story.

“You want me to say she’s lying?”

“Of course you say she’s lying.” He leaned over the table and growled at me.

“But he’s guilty. We should be working on damage control, a settlement, something out of criminal court.”

“We don’t settle, Peter. And if you tell me your conscience is getting the better of you, then I was wrong about you from the beginning. These aren’t people, Peter. They’re cases. Cases to be won, not to be settled out of court. How’re you going to make a name for yourself if you let your conscience dictate?”

The last thing I wanted was for Marcus to have second thoughts about our partnership. I shook the notions of settlement and loss out of my head. I wanted to assure him that he had made the right decision by bringing me on as his partner, and my conscience was not going to be a problem. My professional standing was far from established, and now that I had had a taste of the life I wanted, I was willing to do almost anything to stay firmly on the right path. I had been dealt a disastrous hand with the Bogovian case, but I needed to impress Marcus and he wouldn’t accept anything less than a win.

At first, I struggled with demolishing the accuser’s credibility. She may have been a perfectly good girl, and a terrible thing happened to her. But Marcus reminded me again and again that our job was not to care about the alleged victims—that was for the psychiatrists. Our job was to know every minute detail of the law, inside and out. Ethics and personal principles didn’t have anything to do with criminal defense. I had to suppress my better judgment. I had to develop a thicker skin. This was when my morals had to get flexible, when my natural charm took on a whole new application. Peter Caine wasn’t really born until the Stu Bogovian case began.

It’s not that I changed when I went to work with Marcus; it’s more that I was shown that some of my natural proclivities would be more useful than others; inclinations toward behaving callously, with sarcasm and disregard for emotions. Kindness and sympathy had no place in the legal world we operated in, and Marcus helped me to squelch those tendencies before they interfered with my career.

This is why he invited me to open a partnership while I was so young and still impressionable. This is why he pulled me aside that night at the Columbia Law mixer. This is how he knew that I would be his prey.

NOW

After Claire had returned from work, she spent the evening running up and down the townhouse preparing for Jamie’s arrival. She had gone to sleep past midnight, her hair wrapped in a polka-dot handkerchief like the ghost of Rosie the Riveter. I went to the office before she woke up but left her a note on a piece of Rhodes & Caine letterhead, something that I thought she might find special: Now you get to be a mother. I signed the bottom of the page with my favorite Montblanc pen. I knew using the word mother would have a deep effect on her.

Claire had always wanted to have children of her own. She looked after her three little sisters as if she were their mother when their own mother was no longer able to care for them. She used to put her sisters to bed, and then listen at the top of the stairs while her parents fought. She heard her father gaslighting her mother—convincing her that she was losing her mind, imagining the things she clearly saw. He destroyed her with his cheating and lies. When her father got angry, especially when he was caught in a lie or left evidence of another woman, he would turn completely cold. He wouldn’t speak to Claire’s mother, not even a word, for days at a time.

Claire invented stories for her sisters to help get through it—her only outlet to deal with what she was witnessing—and she would call the stories the Princess and the Ice Man. In the stories, the Princess always managed to escape the clutches of the Ice Man and lived happily ever after with her three little fairies.

In reality, Claire’s mother found a different kind of escape; she jumped in front of a northbound R train.

Claire had begged me for years to have children, but I was finished. Jamie would be my only child, and I made it clear to Claire that if she wanted children of her own, it wouldn’t be with me. In our arguments about having children, she told me she dreamed of having the chance to do it better. To be the kind of mother she never had. The kind who stands up to a philandering husband. The kind who won’t allow herself to be destroyed.

Now that Juliette is gone and Jamie needs a mother, he is her opportunity to be the parent she always wanted to be. It’s almost too perfect—Claire gets to be a mother, and I don’t have to deal with a teenager I hardly know.

I can’t be bothered to pick Jamie up and bring him to my house, so instead I send an embarrassingly large limousine. Katherine’s staff will be sure to help him load his belongings into the limo. Of course, I’m hoping to not be home when he pulls up in front of the house on Twenty-First Street. I called home earlier and instructed the housekeeper to welcome Jamie and apologize that I won’t be there. I told her to make up whatever story she wanted about my absence, forgetting that Claire would be home from client meetings by the time Jamie arrived. Claire could have managed a suitable lie with no problem.

As it turns out, I mistime my return home, and I see from the corner of Twenty-First Street that his limo is just pulling up as I’m making my way toward the townhouse. I duck behind a boxwood topiary in front of an apartment building and watch Jamie exit the car. The driver pulls his suitcases one by one from the trunk, arranges them on the curb and carries them up the steps with Jamie lumbering behind.

Claire answers the door almost immediately and embraces him as he stands at the top of the stoop, pinning his arms at his sides. They walk inside, and I decide to head to a bar I go to when I’m not ready to play house.

I never wanted to have children so playing the dad role is always a burden. Juliette had wanted to be a mother, as I find most women do, and she and her father pressured me into it.

It seemed my family-man role mediated my professional reputation; clients often told us that they admired my ability to create a work-life balance. Little did they know I balanced nothing. After Marcus died and Juliette and I got divorced, no one was around to insist I play daddy, and it’s not like I couldn’t afford the child support payments. Jamie existed, and so did I, and until today, I hardly had to know about him.

I check my watch—6:43 p.m. I throw a fifty on the bar and trudge east toward my house. On my way up to my bedroom, I find Jamie and Claire sitting in the living room together, a room I hardly ever go into. They both startle and jump to attention when they notice me in the doorway.

“Don’t leap, I’m not a monster,” I say, attempting to soothe their fright with a joke.

“Hi, honey,” Claire squeals as she walks over to me. Jamie nervously tugs at the hem of his shirt, looking down at his sneakers, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Claire wraps her arm around my shoulders and kisses my cheek. This isn’t normally how she greets me, and although I’m not sure why she’s chosen to put on a show for Jamie, I’m all the more relieved that she’d rather fake it than face the awkwardness of the situation.

“Did you have a good ride over here?” I ask Jamie, not knowing what to say to him.

“Uh, yeah, thanks for sending the limo.” Jamie peers up at me to respond, and then quickly returns his gaze to the floor.

“Sit down, Jamie. You can relax in my house. I mean, in your house.”

“Our home,” Claire corrects. “You should feel comfortable in our home.” She returns to her seat and makes a display of taking off her shoes and kicking her feet up onto the couch. They both have twitchy, uneasy eyes. They’re looking at me like children with their hands in the cookie jar, and I can’t see any reason for either of them to behave like this.

“Is anything wrong?” I ask, although I couldn’t care less about their responses.

“I thought you’d be home earlier,” Claire softly confesses.

“Yes, so did I, but I got stuck at work. Had to go over a million depositions for this trial I have coming up,” I lie.

Neither of them responds. As I stare hard at Jamie, I see his eyes dart up at me and a flush coming over his cheeks. He knows I’m lying. I look into his face, trying to feel something. Trying to see if the presence of my son in my home will stir up any emotions.

I once again can’t reach down far enough inside myself to pull up anything more than insensitivity. Jamie knows I’m lying, and I just don’t care.

THEN

Still early in our relationship, I met Juliette at the carousel in Central Park for an afternoon date. She said it reminded her of her childhood, and she would often come to listen to the music and watch the children playing. We sat together on a bench, just close enough to hear the carousel and bursts of laughter.

“How is everything going with the congressman’s case?” Juliette asked, her voice tenuous.

“It’s going well,” I lied, still fearful that we were making the wrong decision going to trial. “Your father seems very confident that we will come out on top.”

Juliette sighed heavily and intertwined her fingers in mine. “What do you think is going to happen? Are you confident you’ll come out on top?” She squeezed my hand and looked at me with a genuine concern that I had never experienced before.

“Honestly? No. I can’t get into details with you, confidentiality issues, but I’m not really convinced that we’re making the right decision. But Marcus has been in the business far longer than I have. I trust him, and I know he wouldn’t lead me astray.”

“Peter.” She pulled her hand away gently. “How well do you know my father, really?”

“He’s my business partner. I think I know him quite well, why?”

“He’s a very calculating man.” She stalled and stopped herself before saying any more. “Just be careful, please.”

“What do you mean?” I was immediately intrigued. Somehow, I had managed to go on four dates with Juliette before we realized that I was building a partnership with her father, and now she was making dodgy implications that I was in danger. “What do I need to be careful of?”

“I wasn’t totally honest with you when I said I didn’t know you were opening Rhodes & Caine,” she confessed with an apologetic look.

“I figured as much. How could you not have known?”

“No, I didn’t know, my father never told me anything. He really does keep me in the dark with his business dealings. I mean that I had suspected you were talking about my father when we were having dinner after the Eileen Cutler lecture.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You seemed so taken with him, so hell-bent on becoming like him—I didn’t want to ruin your perceptions with the truth.”

“Juliette, what are you saying? What’s the truth?” I wanted to listen to her concerns, but I couldn’t imagine that associating with Marcus could be anything less than advantageous for me.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I know you’re busy preparing for this case, and there’s no reason for me to throw a wrench in it. I don’t want to compromise what we have going on.” She smiled warmly, clearly trying to shift her demeanor. “I’m really enjoying spending time with you.” She grabbed my hand again, this time with both of hers.

“Tell me,” I said. “Whatever goes on between me and your father has nothing to do with what goes on between you and me. They are very separate relationships, and it’s important you know that.” I kissed her knuckles. “I’m enjoying spending time with you, too.”

She expelled an exaggerated sigh and flopped back against the park bench. “Please be careful with him. I know how charming he is. I know how successful he is. But he’s a dangerous man, and he’s capable of...” Again, she stopped midsentence and began wringing her hands, leaning forward toward the children at the carousel. “Our relationship... It’s not good. We were close when I was a child and he was just getting a foothold in the legal world. But he changed. He became so...cold and—and I wouldn’t want that kind of thing to happen to you.”

“What makes you think it’ll happen to me?” Her sentiment was kind, but I worried she was telling me this only to keep me away from the grueling hours of work, and maybe taking out some of her issues with her father on me.

“You remind me so much of him. The way he used to be. He was so attentive and charming, like you. And this job was what changed him. It’s like he lost his humanity, lost all sympathy and compassion.” Genuine concern warped her beautiful face—she wanted to be heard.

“Don’t worry about me.” I patted her thigh, almost dismissively. “I understand that defense attorneys don’t have the best reputations, but we’re not all bad. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

We stood and began meandering slowly through the park together. I looked at her warnings as a sign of her affections for me, and I swelled with pride and excitement that this woman who I found so desirable was showing such an interest in me. I didn’t heed her advice against Marcus. I wasn’t worried about him.

* * *

One evening early on in the Bogovian trial preparations, Marcus took me out to the Penthouse Executive Club. I felt completely out of place—I never liked strip clubs much—but I didn’t want to disappoint him. He knew the doorman and we were escorted to an elevated VIP room, with an unobstructed view of the stage, two couches and our own small bar and bartender. Two beautiful women were waiting at the steps to usher us up.

“You ever been here before?” Marcus asked me as we sat together on one of the couches.

“Not to this one, but I’ve been to strip clubs before.”

“You like strippers, don’t you?” He held an emaciated blonde with enormous implants on his lap and pushed her face away from his.

I was never particularly interested in oiled-up women being paid to dance for me; I felt sorry for them. But I nodded anyhow.

“Of course you do. Who doesn’t?”

I looked around the club—dark, smoky, everything lit in purple and blue—and began to feel a sickness crawling up my stomach. Women all around me writhed and bounced and although they were putting on a great show, I couldn’t begin to believe that they felt anything more than degraded in there. I looked at their faces, wondering what they really dreamed of doing. Wondering what could have come of them if they didn’t find themselves in this place.

“You want a dance, Peter?” Marcus asked me, roughly swaying the stripper on his lap back and forth.

“I think I’d prefer just to have some drinks and watch the show, thanks.” I held up my cocktail and tried to focus on the stage.

“Suit yourself,” he said, and I heard a squeak of pain come from the dancer. He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck and pulled her down to the ground. She stumbled but complied, and her head flopped against the floor with her lower half still partially sitting on Marcus’s lap. When he stepped on her cheek with his shiny black Oxfords, I jumped from my seat and reached out to help her.

“Marcus—Jesus Christ!” I blurted. He stared into my eyes with a stony cold look.

“You want me to stop?” he asked, with mock surprise in his voice.

“Yes, Marcus, please let her up.” I extended my hand to help her to her feet, but Marcus held back my arm. I had never seen him like this. He was my hero, my mentor, he didn’t behave like this; he was supposed to be a gentleman, noble, a man of the law. I shoved Marcus’s arm away and took the hand of the stripper, getting down on my knee to help her up. I was ashamed. I didn’t want to be associated with him in that moment.

“Let go, Peter,” he snapped at me. Conflicted, aware that my career and future sat squarely in Marcus’s hands, I let go of her arm.

“Marcus, this poor woman,” I began, not yet stifling my instinct to protect her.

“This isn’t a woman, Peter.” He pulled her back up, and I could see her wince. “This isn’t a person—that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. This is an object. A thing. The sooner you can see that, the sooner you’ll be a real criminal defense attorney. Until then, you’re just another hotshot upstart. Her pain and humiliation mean nothing to me, and they should mean nothing to you.” He roughly released her, and she scuttled quickly down the steps. My breath caught in my throat. I was disgusted.

Marcus wiped his hands on a napkin and gazed at the dancers onstage as if nothing had happened. I looked at my mentor, this legendary defense attorney, and finally saw exactly where his success came from.

Juliette was right, and I should have listened to her warning. It wasn’t his gentlemanly behavior and legal wizardry that made him the most successful criminal defense attorney in New York. It was his inhumanity that allowed him to reach the top.

And just as Juliette warned, it was the same inhumanity I was expected to achieve if I wanted to reach Marcus’s level.

NOW

I am supposed to be playing the role of father now that Jamie has moved in, and since I skipped out on dinner yesterday, Claire demanded that I stay home and interact with my son instead of heading to the office on a Sunday afternoon.

“His first night was incredibly awkward,” she says, “and of course it was. He didn’t even eat dinner. He just went up to his room like you did.”

“Remind me how this is my fault, Claire?” I say, still getting ready to go to the office.

“You should have been here. You should have welcomed your son on his first night in your house. You didn’t make any effort at all.” Claire isn’t looking at me. In fact, she hasn’t made eye contact all morning.

“I have to work, Claire. How do you think I afford to provide all of this for him? Sometimes I won’t join you for dinner. You’ve always understood that. He’s just going to have to understand it, too.”

“Oh, stop it, Peter. I know you weren’t at work. I called the office while Jamie and I waited for you, and Anna told me you’d left hours ago. Don’t feed me your lies.”

Caught but unconcerned, I continued to focus on tying my tie.

“He didn’t mention anything about his room. I tried so hard to make it welcoming for him. It’s like I shouldn’t have even bothered,” Claire pouts. She’s not talking to me anymore, just speaking her mind aloud and airing her frustrations into the mirror. I watch her shake the negativity off herself, still determined to make strangers into family.

“Peter, please at least have lunch with us today before you go into the office. For me. I got your note yesterday, the one that said I get to be a mother now? Well, you have to be a father now. It’s Sunday. Please. Stay for lunch.” She turns and rushes down the stairs.

I stand on the landing outside my bedroom and wait until I hear the murmur of chatter in the kitchen before I gently make my way down the steps to Jamie’s room. I’m curious to see what it’s like to have him in this house.

Jamie is impeccably tidy, and I am impressed with the way he’s made his bed and folded his clothes in the closet. I walk around and look at the pictures sitting on the bookshelves, photos of me with bigwig CEOs on fishing trips, of me shaking the hands of politicians and criminals on the steps of courthouses. A photo I don’t recognize is propped up against a frame; a picture of Juliette in a long yellow gown. As I lift it out of the way, I see it’s obscuring a picture of me with my arm around John Gotti holding a giant fish. I lay the photo back in front of a different frame.

I sneak down the stairs to the parlor floor and hear Claire and Jamie chatting in the kitchen. I peek in through the slightly propped door.

“How have you been doing? It’s only been a week since your mom passed.” Claire doesn’t look at him, busy shoving herbs and lemon peels into the cavity of a chicken.

I hear Jamie take a deep, ragged breath before responding. “It’s weird. I mean I knew it was coming, you know? She was sick, but—I guess it still hasn’t really hit me. I feel like I’m on vacation staying here. It doesn’t feel like this is my house.”

“Well, you just got here, sweetie. It’s going to take a little while before you feel comfortable. Sometimes even I feel like I’m vacationing here.” She peeks out from behind the carcass and grins warmly at Jamie.

I step into the doorway to make myself known before they can delve further into their irritating discomforts.

“Hello,” I say, walking into the kitchen as if I hadn’t been listening to them.

“Hi,” they both respond at the same time. Claire’s face flushes, and she busies herself with lunch instead of admitting to me that she’s uncomfortable in my house. Jamie looks at me with the expectant eyes of a teenager. What could he possibly want from me?

“Jamie, welcome. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you get settled yesterday. Big case I’ve been working on, I hope you understand.”

He shrugs like he didn’t even notice my disappearance.

“Good. I’m sure Claire took great care of you.” I glare at her, silently letting her know her lecture was unwarranted.

“I’m making a feast for lunch here, Peter. Jamie didn’t eat anything last night, and I don’t want him to starve to death,” she says lightly, obviously trying to change the subject.

“Fine,” I say, using an authoritative voice I hardly recognize. “I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll be in the parlor. Let me know when it’s ready.” I step through the threshold and sit down in front of the fireplace in the parlor. I pull some papers from my briefcase and open my laptop, but instead of working, I’m straining to hear what’s happening in the kitchen.

Claire leaves the chicken to roast while Jamie tells her about his classes and friends at school. The details are boring, and I’m not hearing my name, so I tune out and focus my attention back on the computer.

After nearly an hour of mundane chatting, I hear the sounds of cupboards opening and closing and the clatter of plates and silverware. I focus back in on them to hear what they’re saying.

“Do you like going to the movies?” Jamie asks her.

“I like watching movies at home—I haven’t been to a movie theater in a long time. Ever since the bedbugs thing in New York, I got really grossed out by those places. There’s a huge screen down in the basement with big leather chairs. It’s really fun to watch down there. It’s like being in a clean movie theater.”

That’s what I like to hear, something positive. At least I’ve provided a good place for movie watching.

“What kinds of movies do you like?” Jamie asks, classic teenage attempt to find common ground with a grown-up.

“I like everything. Action, comedies, romantic stuff that you probably hate. I like sports movies, too. My favorite is definitely Field of Dreams.”

“I love that movie. Been watching a lot of the superhero stuff these days. Lots of Batman movies.” Jamie’s jovial tone turns pensive and my ears perk up. “I feel like Batman sometimes.”

“You feel like a superhero?” I can hear the hopefulness in Claire’s voice.

“No... I feel like an orphan.”

“Oh, Jamie. I’m so sorry. You must miss your mom so much.”

Now I’m getting agitated, and I don’t know if I want to listen anymore. I don’t need to hear about Jamie’s feelings of being orphaned. It’s not my fault his mother is dead.

“Yeah, and I wish I knew my dad. It’s like he doesn’t really exist, you know? My friends tell stories about their dads coming to lacrosse games and taking them on vacations, and I can only tell them stories that my mom told me. And I know she made them up.”

I stand and lean against the doorframe in the parlor to hear them, careful not to step on a creaking floorboard.

“What did your mom tell you?” Claire asks, and I hear the clattering of the oven door close.

“What a nice guy he is, and that person we saw on TV during big trials was just his professional persona. She said that he really loved me and wanted to stay with our family but that he didn’t know how to. She told me about when they first met, and he would take her out on these fancy dates and plan these special surprises. She told me this one story about a scavenger hunt that he set up for her across New York City. She said he made her feel special. But I never saw him like that. He always ignored me.”

I feel a twinge of defense brewing in my stomach as I listen to Jamie list my perceived shortcomings.

“One time he called me Charlie,” Jamie adds. “Couldn’t even remember my name.”

Did I? I chalk it up to a Freudian slip.

“He’s a good man, your dad.” Claire begins her well-versed defense. “Just sometimes it gets lost under his...his armor. He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Is he nice to you?” Jamie asks delicately.

I strain to hear how Claire responds. I know I’m not nice to her. At least not lately.

“Well, no, not all the time. But he can be. And when he is, it makes all the other times worth it. When he’s good, he’s perfect, but when he’s bad...”

Now I’ve had enough. I won’t allow this conversation to continue. I loudly slap the laptop closed and make a point to rustle the papers as I shove them back into my briefcase.

“Does he even know how much he hurts people?” Jamie lays out a final question.

Before Claire can compose an excuse for my behavior, I walk through the parlor doors to join them in the kitchen. I can just see Claire quickly bring a finger to her lips and extend her pinky across the table. Jamie takes it in his pinkie and mimics her finger to his lips. I walk into the kitchen to see my newfound family sharing what they think are secrets behind my back. I don’t tell them that I heard every word.

THEN

I left the club that night before Marcus did, sick to my stomach by his behavior with the dancer. Marcus’s cruelty was deeply etched in his treatment of others, and as I walked home that night, I feared that Juliette’s words were truer than I had given them credit for. I walked downtown, the air cool and fresh, my head filled with contradiction.

I had come to New York to become the next Marcus Rhodes. My ambitions were materializing before me, and I couldn’t allow myself to be held back professionally because I took personal issue that my mentor turned out to be cruel and inhumane. I always knew I’d have to temper my soft side to succeed in this business, but I wouldn’t allow myself to become like Marcus. He was just teaching me a lesson with the dancer, I told myself. A lesson I would be sure to learn sooner rather than later.

It took every ounce of my energy to dig up the dirt on the Bogovian accuser. On the surface, she seemed picture-perfect. I asked around at her high school and her university down in North Carolina. I called everyone who might be willing to throw an old friend under the bus. A college roommate proved to be just the person I was looking for.

The case was making headlines well before we went to trial. Bogovian was portrayed horrifyingly, if accurately, in the press, and my job became harder as I was forced not only to deliver a case that would produce sufficient doubt, but also surmount the image the media had disseminated. Jury selection was a nightmare; everyone in New York had heard of Stu Bogovian and everyone had an opinion. Finding peers without preconceived notions proved incredibly difficult. I was meticulous in my preparations, acutely aware of Marcus’s expectations of me.

The trial itself didn’t take more than a couple of weeks. The alleged victim had a roommate in college who was willing to testify that she was into kinky sex. The roommate had told me a story about the girl being left tied to the bedpost in an encounter gone wrong, and she simply lay there, naked and spread-eagled, waiting for the roommate to find scissors to remove the binding. It started to seem plausible to me that this woman was nothing but a money-grubbing slut, like Marcus said she was, looking to extort a wealthy man. She had probably asked to be tied up, I told myself.

I brutalized the girl’s reputation in court. I brought up every name, every story, every sexual encounter I could verify. After closing arguments, there was nothing to do but wait while the jury deliberated.

Marcus stood by me, reminding me to temper my sense of remorse for publicly destroying the intern’s credibility. But mostly it felt like he was just trying to relieve me of human decency.

It took the jury four days of deliberation to come back with a verdict. When the jurors filed back into the courtroom and we all stood to listen to their decision, my confidence was so high, I had my celebratory cigar unwrapped and clipped in my jacket pocket. I had discredited the accuser. I had poked holes in the prosecution’s timeline and evidence. Although I struggled with the moral depravity, I’d had to do what I’d done to get the win. I knew we would come out on top.

The foreman walked the paper to the judge, and as he read the verdict to himself, he looked directly at me. I could see the traces of a smile upturning the corners of his mouth. My confidence grew even more.

I stood up and pulled Stu’s chair out for him. “Here we go,” I whispered. Stu smiled and shook my hand.

The foreman returned to the bench, looked at the victim’s lawyer as he spoke and refused to make eye contact with me or with Stu. “We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant Stuart Bogovian guilty of assault in the first degree.” They went on to find him guilty of first-degree attempted rape.

The room suddenly felt warm and claustrophobic. I turned to look at Stu, who fell back into his seat and grasped his greasy hair with his sweaty palms. He tugged the bottom of my suit jacket and pleaded with me to do something. “What the fuck, Caine? I thought you said we had this in the bag?”

I couldn’t choke out a word, watching Harrison and Eric Gordon explode with excitement as cheers rose from the crowd. My head felt stuffy and faraway, like I was watching the verdict on an old television through layers of static. Everything felt like it was moving quickly around me, but I was trapped in some slow-motion underwater world where I couldn’t move or react.

The bailiff put Stu in handcuffs and court officers led him away while I stood, disoriented and confused, wondering if what was unfolding around me was really happening.

Stu struggled as the officers opened the door to exit the courtroom, and he screamed accusations and profanities my way. “You’re a fucking fraud, Caine! You’ll never succeed in this town, mark my words!” The door slammed behind him as Harrison and Eric walked across the aisle to gloat in my face, unable to contain their satisfaction.

Eric, smirking at me, extended his hand, clearly a faux-professional gesture.

“Can’t win ’em all, eh, Peter?” He laughed.

I gathered up my papers and briefcase, nodded his way and muttered, “Well played.”

Harrison, for his part, didn’t even attempt to shake my hand or show any dignity. He just slapped his ADA on the back and led him away, looking at me with judgment plastered all over his face.

The reporters waiting outside the courthouse were merciless. Shoving cameras and microphones in my face, hollering questions as I shielded myself from their torments, walking quickly to the curb and jumping into the back of a cab.

Once home, my mind finally cleared, and the realization of what just happened began to sink in. The sickening taste of defeat didn’t sit well with me. I poured myself two fingers of scotch to wash down the bitterness in my throat and turned on CNN to find Eric and Harrison on-screen. Harrison stood larger than life behind his ADA, and Eric took the microphone to speak. Before I could hear what he had to say, my phone rang, and I snatched it up immediately.

“Angry?” Marcus asked me from the other side of the line.

“Furious,” I responded, though I was still more bewildered than angry.

“Good. That’s the kind of fuel you need.” He drew in a deep drag of his cigarette and I could almost hear him grin.

Just as I was about to respond, I suddenly understood what was happening. “You did this...you did this on purpose? You knew we would lose?”

“Of course we would lose, Peter. This was a completely unwinnable case. I’ve always known what you were capable of, and I’m not talking about legal skills.” He sucked in another drag. “You needed to get your ego in check and you needed to access the useful parts of yourself.”

“The useful parts?” A rapid succession of visuals passed through my head, and I remembered watching Marcus Rhodes, my legal hero, a god to my classmates in law school, gutting his opponents in courts without mercy or pity.

“The useful parts are the cold ones, Peter. The unsentimental, remorseless, brutal parts. That’s what you need in your career. Put that sympathetic bullshit behind you and embrace the fury you feel right now.” He was a monster, and I had sold my soul. Juliette’s warning that afternoon in Central Park flashed like a neon sign in my head.

As Marcus instructed me to accept my spite and anger, I struggled to reconcile my thoughts. I couldn’t accept that Marcus would set me up to fail and damage my pristine reputation, the one thing I wanted so badly to maintain. I looked up to him, and for me to learn from him and achieve his levels of success, I couldn’t turn against him—I couldn’t start to hate him.

“Why would you put me through this, Marcus? I did everything you asked of me. Why humiliate me like this?” I didn’t want to whine or appear unappreciative, but I couldn’t understand what we could possibly gain through failure.

“I didn’t do this to you—Harrison Doyle did. Don’t be mad at me, Peter. Get mad at him.” I focused in on Harrison’s pixelated face on the television. It wasn’t Marcus who would be on the receiving end of my hate; it was Harrison Doyle.

I hung up the phone, in need of a distraction. I headed to Bull & Bear at the Waldorf, assured I was far enough uptown to avoid anyone involved in the Bogovian case. But, of course, with the luck I was having that day, Harrison was there, holding court at the bar. I dreaded speaking with him, though I wanted to hear exactly what he had to say. I craned my neck to listen.

“Peter Caine is an ineffective upstart, lacking the singular ability it takes to win cases—heart. Even his client called him a fraud.”

Harrison went on to slander Stu Bogovian, spurred on by the gasps and guffaws of the rest of the lawyers. My ears filled with a burning heat, and the word ineffective blared in my head over and over again. Harrison Doyle said I was a feeble attorney, that I couldn’t do my job. He trashed my reputation in front of colleagues and peers.

My humiliation turned to anger and was then replaced with a burning, malicious drive. Marcus was right—it was Harrison who put me in this position, not Marcus. Marcus was teaching me how to be the best, and I was going to get there. All I needed to do was follow Marcus’s path, coldhearted as it may be.

Ineffective? Never. I vowed to make Harrison regret those words. And oh, how the tables would turn.

NOW

This morning, Claire rises early, catching me as I put on my suit in my dressing room. It’s rare that Claire and I wake up together, and even more infrequent that we share a morning coffee or breakfast. Even on the weekends, I always have something to do that takes me out of the house and away from her. She’s used to living with a ghost; an indent in the other side of the bed, a whiff of aftershave as opposed to a real human being.

“Good morning,” she calls, her voice foggy.

I pop my head through the doorway to look at her. “What are you doing up so early?” I cinch my tie tightly up to my throat.

“I wanted to make sure I was awake to send Jamie off to school before I go to work. Give him a nice breakfast.” Claire yawns and stretches her thin limbs across the whole bed.

“That kid kept me up half the night traipsing around. Floorboards creaking down there—it was deafening.” I scrutinize my reflection.

“I didn’t hear a thing. You’re probably just imagining it.” She takes a long sip of water and rubs the sleep from her eyes. “He’s living here now. You have no more excuses to avoid developing a relationship with him. It’s important—he’s been through so much. He needs his father.”

I don’t respond. After their clandestine conversation yesterday, dancing on the edge of insulting me, I don’t feel inclined to take parenting advice from someone who doesn’t have faith in me.

Claire plods gently into her bathroom to brush her teeth. As soon as she shuts the water off, I close the bedroom door and quickly head down the stairs.

“What am I going to cook for this kid?” she says aloud when she walks into the kitchen. She’s not speaking to me, instead posing her question to the inside of the fridge. I don’t respond. She pulls out a package of bacon and starts laying strips in a frying pan. “All teenagers love bacon, right?” she asks into the pan.

The smell instantly fills the kitchen, and Claire inhales deeply while chopping vegetables for a quick frittata. She punches the button on the espresso machine and makes herself a coffee while she works. I keep my nose in the paper, making sure my presence stills her ability to return to a discussion about me once Jamie comes down.

Jamie appears in the doorway with his backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Morning,” he says. He drops his bag on the ground and pulls up a seat at the round table.

“Good morning, Jamie.” Claire smiles. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not really. I think I need to get used to my new room.” He looks nervously in my direction. “Sorry if I was loud. I was wandering around a bit.”

“No problem,” I lie.

“Bacon and eggs okay?”

“Great, thanks, Claire.” Jamie stands and takes the plates from the cabinets and sets the table for breakfast. “It was good to talk to you yesterday,” he begins but immediately stops himself.

“Yes,” she agrees. She sips her coffee, and I think I see her shoot a wink his way.

“I walked around the house last night.” Jamie fiddles with the knife by his plate, changing the subject from yesterday’s conversation that I wasn’t supposed to hear. “I couldn’t fall asleep, so I went exploring.”

“Where did you explore?” I ask, wondering if he’d been snooping in my things.

“Just around my floor and down here. There aren’t any pictures of me in this house,” Jamie says. “I mean, I don’t want to be an egomaniac or anything, it’s just there used to be so many pictures of me at home. And now I’m in a house with none. It’s noticeable. There aren’t any pictures of you, either,” he says to Claire.

Claire frowns. Both of them look to me for explanation, but I’ve turned my attention back to the paper.

“No,” she sighs. “No, there aren’t. The framed photographs throughout the house were mostly gifts. Prints of Peter and whatever client he just successfully defended. He gets a lot of those as thank-you presents. It’s just part of what he does for a living.” She slices the cake-like frittata and brings Jamie two big pieces flanked by crispy strips of bacon.

Claire holds up the spatula in my direction and asks me if I would like a slice. She is looking at me as if she’d like me to leave. Like she has things to say to Jamie she doesn’t want me to hear.

“No, thanks.” I smile. “I’ve got to make a quick call in the other room before I head to the office.” I hold up my cell phone and walk to the parlor again. I make a show of loudly speaking into the phone to no one and pacing the floor. Just as I expected, Jamie starts back in on the conversation, but I can’t quite hear the beginning of what he says. I mumble a loud “mmm-hmm” into the phone and pull it away from my ear so I can listen to my son.

“Do you think he knows they’re guilty?”

“I don’t know if all of them are guilty,” Claire responds, “but it certainly seems like they are. Peter once told me that it’s not his job to care if they did it or not. It’s his job to provide them with the best possible defense.” I’m pleased to hear Claire defending me so beautifully.

“My mom told me about his cases sometimes—she wanted me to be proud that he was such a good lawyer. But then I would look up the cases online, see who he was defending and what they had done. The funny thing about all of Peter’s cases—” Jamie chews a piece of bacon “—when his clients are found innocent, no one else ever gets arrested for the crime. So, it seems to me, his guy must have done it. But they still go free all the time.”

Juliette seems to have spent quite a bit of time talking about me. I reflexively crack my neck in agitation.

“A person needs a proper defense. Our whole legal system is based on that notion. Innocent until proven guilty, right? And if the prosecution can’t prove it, then it’s the system’s problem.” Claire knows exactly what to say. I’ve trained her well.

“Do you ever talk to him about it?” Jamie’s fork and knife clatter onto the plate.

“Not much anymore, but we used to. Peter compartmentalizes his life, and he keeps me separated from his business. I think it’s easier for him to manage that way. He has to keep his emotions separate from work. It’s just a by-product of the job. It doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

“And he keeps his emotions separate from me, too.” Jamie lowers his voice, and I can hardly hear him over the grinding of my teeth. “I’ve never stayed in this house before. I’ve never even been here before.”

Claire exhales heavily. “Give him a chance, Jamie. He can be a father to you, and I know under all this, he wants to. Please, try to give him some time to adjust.” The faucet turns on as Claire begins washing up, and I can no longer hear their conversation.

I bark into my cell phone to keep up the facade that I’ve been on a call. As I walk back into the kitchen, I see the expression on Jamie’s face, and for the first time, I realize how much we look alike.

THEN

The backlash from the loss came almost immediately. Harrison Doyle was eager to show the voters of New York that he had been the right choice for their district attorney and gloated to the media. I was at a café having breakfast, reading the paper days after the verdict was announced, and there were still stories about the trial because both Harrison and Stu Bogovian refused to let it die.

A Post headline read, “Invigorated DA Vows to Continue Success, Convict All of Manhattan’s Criminals.” Inside the article, Harrison was quoted as saying, “Ex-Congressman Bogovian was practically a career criminal, and until he was found guilty last week, he was getting away with countless heinous acts. His attorney, Peter Caine of Rhodes & Caine, LLP, had the reputation for being unbeatable, but clearly, he has met his match. In this new administration, we refuse to allow anyone to bully the courts, and justice will be done.”

I felt assailed from all angles. It seemed no matter where I looked, I was being reminded of my first loss. In a television interview, I watched Stu rewrite the history of the trial.

“If I had an attorney worth his salt, I wouldn’t be in this godforsaken place, wearing this hideous jumpsuit, trying to clear my good name.” He sat inside an interview room at Rikers Island, inviting as many journalists as he could to come publicize his side of the story. “Of course I’m going to appeal the court’s decision. And once the verdict is overturned, which it surely will be—” he nodded his fat, sweaty head “—then I will probably sue my former attorney, Peter Caine. He shouldn’t be in this business if he is unable to properly represent his clients.”

I spent those days and weeks learning what it felt like to seethe. I was enraged, livid, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I had partnered with a man who was practically a celebrity and the face we put on in public and all the actions we took were scrutinized and dissected. My hands were tied, and I had to sit back and take it.

“You’re breathing awfully heavily over there,” Marcus said to me when I got to the office.

“I’m trying to keep from killing anyone.”

He flashed a grin that filled his whole face and pointed to his bottom drawer. “Bottle of gin down there if you need it.”

“I hate gin, never drink the stuff.”

“It’s good that you’re feeling this way. You should feel this way. You’ve never lost before, and you’re never going to want to lose again now that you know it doesn’t suit you.”

“You should have let me plead him out, Marcus. I don’t need to go through this to know I don’t like losing.”

“No. I don’t plead out. I don’t settle,” he growled. “You win and sometimes you lose, but you don’t play it safe. You’ll never get to my level playing it safe. I asked you to join me because I knew you had what it took, and this is just part of the learning process. Don’t you dare make me regret bringing you on.” He spoke to me the way I feared he would if I lost a case. But he wasn’t angry at me for losing, I told myself; he was just teaching me a lesson.

Marcus told me he was going to limit the cases I worked on for a while after the media coverage died down. He wanted me to focus on other endeavors. “I’m going to keep you under the radar for a while. You’re going to need to keep working, because I don’t want you hiding under the covers like a scared little bunny rabbit, but I want you out of the media for a while,” he said. “Get your bachelor pad in order, buy some suits, spend some time with Juliette. Spend some money, for crying out loud. You’ve earned it. But don’t say a word to the press, and keep up appearances like you don’t even know who the fuck Harrison Doyle is, you hear me? If he gets under your skin and anyone knows it, you’re done. Show them all that nothing can get to you. Learn to wear the disguise, Peter.”

“I don’t want to step off the main stage and get lost in the background, Marcus. I didn’t build this firm to be your number two. We are partners—equals.”

He glared at me with his head cocked to the left and stood up from behind his desk. “We are partners, but we are not equals. Until you get into the headspace you need to get into, you’re going to be number two, understand?”

“No, I don’t understand, Marcus. You want me to be your partner, you put my name next to yours, you’re encouraging me to take your daughter out, but still you don’t seem to think I’m ready. I don’t understand.”

My frustration was overwhelming. Before I partnered with Marcus, I’d been undefeated in court at my old firm, I’d been swimming in money and living the high life. In law school, I’d been at the top of my class, everyone had looked up to me, and now I was being made to lose cases, suffer indignity and public humiliation, and I was being told I was number two? This was supposed to be my ascent, not my downfall.

“You haven’t seen success yet,” Marcus said. “You think it felt good to win before? Just wait and see how it feels once we’re ‘equals,’ as you say. Once you’re up at my level and you know how to work this system, you’ll be so high, nothing will ever bring you down. I know you’re pissed now, and I know you don’t want to have to go through this schooling, but if you want to get to the top, you’ll do exactly what I say.”

* * *

Once I acquiesced to temporarily stepping out of the spotlight at Rhodes & Caine, I found, with Marcus’s help, it was easier than I thought to focus on life outside of work. He brought me to tailors who crafted me the highest quality bespoke suits and sent me to John Lobb to have shoes made. He introduced me to owners, maître d’s and managers at all the important restaurants, and soon I became a regular, as well. I became more confident bringing Juliette out—I knew just where to take her and just how to behave. While a deep hate for Harrison Doyle and the feeling of humiliation still festered inside of me, I was able to distract myself with Juliette.

Juliette had just launched the Rhodes Foundation, a charitable organization she put together with the society and old-money connections she had through her parents and their friends. Juliette would personally research the plight of various unfortunate peoples, figure out their individual needs and throw massive fund-raisers benefiting the cause du jour. She was able to gracefully straddle the line between privileged child of high society and salt of the earth humanitarian.

I took her to Restaurant Daniel one night, excited to show off the new connections I had made. It didn’t occur to me that she would know the staff at the restaurant better than I did.

“Mademoiselle Rhodes,” the manager greeted her, “welcome back. How lovely to see you again.” He shook my hand with a sly smile on his face, and I was reminded that I was the new blood around here.

“Is that a new suit?” she asked me as I helped her into her chair.

“Yes.” I stood back so she could see it before taking my seat. “Your father took me to a tailor to have it made.”

“Looks very familiar. I think he has one just like it,” she said with disappointment coloring her tone. Before she allowed herself to recede into displeasure about her father, she changed gears and I spent the evening listening to her regale me with stories about her work with the foundation.

“I went to Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit,” she began. “I remember before I went, I had always felt like hurricanes were just intensely bad weather, and the devastation was exaggerated for the sake of television ratings.”

I smiled, having had the same thoughts myself.

“But my God. When I got there, I was completely overcome. Everything was flattened, and all the street signs and landmarks were destroyed, so there was no way to figure out where you were or where you were going. There was nothing recognizable, and everyone wandered like zombies, lost, desperate and terrified.”

“What took you down there?”

“I wanted to see firsthand what had happened, so when I presented to the board the idea of having a fund-raising gala, I would be able to speak from experience.”

“But why bother putting yourself through that? Couldn’t you have sent someone on your behalf?”

“If I sent someone else, I never would have known what it was really like.” She sipped her champagne and smiled at me. “I can’t begin to describe to you the landscape. Everything was rubble. It was like standing on top of a landfill, nothing but anonymous, unidentifiable rubble. And people were desperately trying to salvage pieces of themselves, pieces of their lives, but nothing was left.” She was becoming choked up at the memories.

What struck me was that she really cared. She would agonize over the well-being of struggling families she met during goodwill trips to places like Sarajevo after the war, sub-Saharan Africa during the AIDS epidemic or a gypsy camp in northern Greece. She told me about a time she doubled over in physical pain when she heard news that a beloved shelter dog had been euthanized.

“I’m going to stop before I bawl right here at the table,” she said, elegantly blotting the corners of her lips. “Tell me about you. How is it going with the law firm?”

“It’s going fantastically well,” I lied, remembering to always radiate an air of success. “Marcus hired a new attorney to join us, a Turkish guy called Sinan Khan. Great guy, real character. He’s been in the business a long time, recently left a big firm, looking for something a little more boutique. He’s got an impressive record, and he scares people, so Marcus snapped him up as quickly as he could.”

“Sounds just like my father.”

“Sinan’s been working some of the bigger cases for me. I decided to take on a little less work than I normally would.” I lied again to make it look like I was the one who made the decision to pull away. I didn’t want her worrying that her father was taking control of me.

“Oh? Are you busy with other things?”

“Well, I hope so, Juliette. I’d like to be busy with you.” I kissed her knuckles and hoped she would allow me to spend more time with her.

“Would you?” she teased as she leaned in to kiss me.

From that moment forward, we were inseparable. I went to the office most days of the week, but spent my time there planning dates and thinking of ways to impress Juliette. Professionally, I was becoming indifferent to the nature of my cases, the plight of my clients and their accusers, disengaged from the emotional aspects, but with Juliette, I was infatuated.

NOW

Claire has been living in my house for eight years, but I still can’t fully acclimate to cohabitating with another human being with her own will and own needs. The last person I lived with was Juliette, and I got used to my solitude in the interim. Claire didn’t need to move in with me. She had made plenty of money on her own, working for a prestigious interior design firm. She wanted to live with me. Yet I still stumble over her things, crash into her when she stands between me and my destination and I can never remember how she takes her coffee.

When we prepare and dress ourselves for an evening out, we holler between rooms; Claire in her boudoir between the master bedroom and the master bath, and me fixated on my own image in my dressing room mirror. Just as we are doing this evening.

“He’s never been to a benefit with his father,” I remind her, “and you’re constantly saying that I need to develop a relationship with him, so why not let him go in your place? It’s not like you enjoy these things.” I tie and untie my silk bow tie, never satisfied with its position.

Claire is already in a full face of makeup, hair held in place with clips and pins while she tools around with a curling iron. She wears a flesh-colored slimming leotard, intended to smooth out any undesirable bulges even though she has none, unless protruding hip bones and delineated vertebrae are no longer in style.

“It’s his first week with us—he hasn’t even unpacked yet. You think he wants to go to a formal affair?” Claire calls across the rooms.

“Why not? He’d love it, famous faces galore.”

“So, I got all dolled up for nothing?” Claire leans out the door to look at me, probes her hair and pouts.

“I didn’t ask you to put all that on.” I walk into her boudoir and position myself behind her as she leans over the vanity and puts on lipstick, teasing me with her ass in the air.

“You never ask me to put things on,” she coos, smiling at me in the mirror.

I hold her waist with my left hand and lean back to look for a way to remove her leotard. There are no clasps, no zippers or buttons for me to undo, so I slip a finger under the elastic on her hip and slide it between her legs. Bending her down farther with my other hand, I glide her legs apart with my knee and pull the crotch of her leotard to the side. I control her movements while I unzip my tuxedo pants.

I can feel Claire’s eyes on me, but I’m staring only at myself in the reflection. No matter with whom I’m having sex, my mind always slips back to that night Marcus and I went to the strip club. Every girl, every soft, slim body I enter, inevitably turns into the stripper at the club who Marcus defiled. If I don’t look at Claire’s eyes, I can pretend that I’m not completely indifferent, that she is special and loved, but in reality, Claire could have been anyone. She’s disposable. Expendable.

Every time we have sex, I feel as though I turn inhuman. I become a robot; not violent, not hurtful, but mechanical, disconnected. My hips thrust back and forth, and I can see myself in the mirror, but I feel nothing. The physical pleasure I’m supposed to experience is buried underneath the idea that I am controlling another human being. That’s where I get the gratification from; it’s not about connection or intimacy, because I don’t care. I can’t care.

Once I finish, I pull out of her and leave her standing there, red handprints rising on her ass. I tuck myself back into my pants, zip up and return my attention to my bow tie.

“I’ll tell Jamie to get ready,” I say, disregarding the intermission in our conversation. Claire readjusts the crotch of her leotard so she isn’t exposed, pulls a silk robe off its hook and wraps it around herself. I walk out of her boudoir to the bedroom and buzz the intercom in Jamie’s room.

“You busy tonight?” I pause and wait for Jamie’s response.

“Um, no?” He asks me more than tells me. “Just homework, I guess.”

“Good, take a quick shower and get a tux on. We’re going out.”

Claire stands in the doorway and looks on as Jamie tells me he’s grown out of his tuxedo.

“Don’t worry,” I respond, “you can borrow one of mine. We’re probably the same size.”

A peculiar look spreads across Claire’s face as she watches me slip my antique cuff links through my French-cuffed shirt. She’s not quite looking at me, more through me, and I tell Jamie I’ll be waiting for him downstairs in fifteen minutes.

“Claire will bring the tuxedo to your room,” I say before hanging up the phone.

Her inquisitive look turns dark. She pulls the tuxedo from my hand to bring to Jamie, and I can just hear her mutter, “Who am I living with?” under her breath as she leaves the room.

I reach into a drawer and pull out several masks to choose from. Claire and I have attended several masquerade balls and costume parties over the years, and we never seem to throw any of the masks away. I study each one, some feminine, silky and feathered, others simple and sleek. I pull out two and move to the mirror to try them on. I’ve worn one of them before, but the other, the white one, I’ve been saving for a special occasion. The smooth white mask covers the top half of my face, and at the forehead, above the small eyeholes, two large golden horns protrude.

I slip the mask over my head and it settles perfectly on my face. I’m reminded of a minotaur as I look myself over. Before I walk down the stairs to meet Jamie, I say loudly to my reflection, “Yes, Claire, who are you living with?”

THEN

It wasn’t a year from the day we met before we were married. Juliette and I flew down to the Turks and Caicos, just the two of us, knowing exactly what we were planning on doing but telling no one. She had hidden her engagement ring from public view before we got on the plane, but as we looked out over the turquoise water, she slipped it on her finger. We rented a house on the beach and spent a few days relaxing in the sun, completely wrapped up in one another.

I wanted to keep Juliette happy. I was already elated that she’d agreed to elope and I wasn’t forced to attend a wedding where I would inevitably have to discuss my upbringing, and why my family wasn’t in attendance. We lay on a daybed on our porch overlooking the sea, and as if she could read my mind, Juliette started in on a conversation about family.

“Do you think we should call my parents?” She looked up at me while I stroked her hair. “If your parents were alive, I’m sure they would want to be here, don’t you think?”

I was jolted with conflict—I had sold my story to Juliette. The story about my art dealer father, my philanthropist mother and their tragic and untimely deaths. I had told the story so many times since leaving Vermont that it had become true to me. It was only with Juliette that I felt like I was lying, and it gnawed at me. We were about to get married, and if I was planning on spending the rest of my life with her, I felt compelled to tell her the truth.

“Yes, I do think they would want to be here. But...” I paused, concerned that she would be hurt and upset that I had lied, but sure that if such a time existed that would be perfect for a confession, it was right then. “But we’ve gone our separate ways, and I can’t turn back now.” I started my revelation.

“Your separate ways?” she asked, confused but not yet suspicious. “You mean after the car accident?” She turned uneasy.

I sighed deeply, slowly responding, “There was never a car accident. As far as I know, my parents are probably still alive.”

“What?” She quickly sat up and turned to face me, pulling off her sunglasses. “You told me they died in that accident when you were still living in Europe. What do you mean they’re alive?”

“I know.” I hung my head, embarrassed and apprehensive. “I know what I told you. It’s the same thing I tell everyone. But it’s not really what happened.”

“What really happened, Peter?” The anger was rising in her voice.

“Nothing happened, darling.” I tried to hold her, but she leaned just out of reach. “We just went our separate ways.” I couldn’t fully bring myself to tell the truth. I felt terrified of being exposed, bringing my humiliating past to the surface and letting her know that I didn’t belong among her venerated peers.

She didn’t say a word, but her wide eyes and furrowed brow told me to keep talking.

“I didn’t grow up in Europe,” I confessed. “My father wasn’t an art dealer.” I threw my sunglasses on the daybed beside me and rubbed the ache out of my eyes. “I hate where I came from, and I never want to go back there. I started making up stories a long time ago, and I never told anyone the truth after I left.”

She softened slightly, a look of sympathy rising in her eyes. “Where did you grow up?”

My stomach burned with adrenaline. “Vermont. In Burlington. My father took off, and my mother gave up custody when I was an infant. I was raised by my uncle and his wife.” I felt light-headed as I continued, completely unaccustomed to saying these words aloud. “They were dead inside. No drive, no passion. They floated through life and I couldn’t stand it.” I couldn’t look at Juliette as I admitted the truth. I had buried the truth so deeply, bringing it back up made me feel like I was violently heaving. “I was a burden to them. They barely scraped by raising their own four kids—they certainly didn’t want to have to worry about me.”

“I don’t understand. You grew up in the States? Your parents are alive?”

“It’s hard to explain.” I shook my head, frustrated. “My mother... I didn’t know her. She came by once in a while, but she didn’t take responsibility for me. She dumped me with my uncle Tommy and his wife. They were dead, Juliette. I don’t know how to make it clear to you. They were nothing at all, just bodies with no souls, no vitality, no life inside them. They didn’t raise me or teach me or discipline me. I just existed alongside them. They gave me nothing. Not a chance, not an expectation, not a modicum of concern. Nothing.”

She examined my face, looking at me hard, as if she were trying to find a sign I was telling her the truth. “Are they still in Vermont?” she asked, the anger in her voice waning.

“I guess so. I don’t know. I left before college, and I haven’t spoken to them since.”

“And you never had any contact with them? They never tried to find you?”

“No. As far as I know, they were just as happy to be rid of me as I was to be rid of them. My cousins, Tommy’s kids, they always reminded me I wasn’t one of them, and I didn’t belong. I didn’t look like them, I didn’t act like them. I was smart, I wanted to succeed in life. When my eldest cousin, just two years older than me, finished high school, I took off that summer. I was seventeen years old, I had worked after school to earn some money, and when I could afford to get out of there, I got a one-way ticket to Chicago and never looked back.”

“Jesus.” She gently scooted up beside me and laid her hand on my lap. “No wonder you left.”

“Yes.” I sat up at attention, surprised she could understand me. “Yes, I had to get out. I needed life, I needed to be loved and respected and seen. I needed to be up in lights, on top of the world...” Just as suddenly as I felt understood, it flipped, and I felt like I was right back in Vermont. I felt vulnerable and desperate for the first time since leaving Burlington, and I hated it.

Juliette looked at me for what felt like years before speaking again. “It all makes sense,” she said. “No wonder you went looking for my father. He’s the opposite of what you grew up with.”

“Yes.” I glanced away, afraid of being exposed, of letting anyone see that I did in fact have vulnerabilities. “I will never allow that to happen to me. I will never be nothing the way they were. I can only accept the best, be the most successful, amass the highest achievements possible. Otherwise, I just won’t be a part of it. I learned to hate it, Juliette.”

“And it’s no wonder my father went looking for you.” She stared out toward the sea in front of us. The breeze blew her hair out of her face, and I could see a pained expression. “He wanted a son, an heir. Someone like-minded, who he could mold into his successor. Someone exactly like you, who thinks he’s the be-all and end-all. I feel like you two have been searching for each other.”

“I was jealous when you told me he was your father,” I admitted. “I had always looked up to him in that way, and I wanted my father to be like him. All drive and ambition, never satisfied, all hunger for the best.”

She turned to me suddenly, stern and almost scolding. “But please tell me that’s not why you want to marry me.”

I pulled her onto my chest and stroked her long hair to help ease the tension. “I want to marry you because I love you, Juliette.” I’d never said the words to another human being before, and they felt foreign and sticky coming out of my mouth. “It has nothing to do with Marcus.”

Those were the words she needed to hear, to be reassured that we were both going into the marriage for the right reasons. Before the conversation ended, I made sure to add a final caveat. “One more thing,” I began, “no one knows the truth about where I came from, and it’s going to stay that way. If you ever repeat anything I told you, there will be trouble.”

I realized my comments were bordering on threatening, but Juliette understood me. I had only scratched the surface of the truth of my upbringing, and I hadn’t yet shared with Juliette how I got out of there and into the world where she found me.

Two days later, we had a small ceremony on the beach in front of our rented house and cemented our mutual commitment.

In the time since I had stepped out of the public’s attention, Stu Bogovian had hired a different attorney to represent him during the sentencing and subsequent appeals, but Marcus made sure it appeared my absence was for the sake of my wedding and honeymoon.

“You want to get all the way to the top, don’t you, Peter? There are steps to be taken, and it’s a very delicate dance you have to perform to get where you want to be.” As if he were raising a son, he was using me to proliferate his own legacy. “You lost a very public and very high-profile case, and your client has been sentenced to the maximum. You needed to get that ego in check. Your law school reputation and the name you made for yourself at that white-bread firm were impeccable. We needed to dismantle that a bit.”

I seethed listening to him. I felt like he was treating me like a lost little boy, scolding me and putting me down. “I don’t need to be publicly humiliated just to be put in my place, Marcus. I’m extremely good at my job, and I would appreciate it if I could get back to work on the kinds of cases I should be working on.”

“Don’t worry, Peter.” He laughed a hearty, guttural laugh and slapped my shoulder. “The rest of this is going to be fun for you. There’s no more losing involved. You’re making the right moves now. Getting married was a very good step. People trust a married man, especially one married to such a humanitarian as Juliette. Her shine will reflect on you, and you’ll fall in with the right crowd.” Marcus’s demeanor shifted in that moment, and he turned his back to me, holding his hand to his mouth.

“What?” I demanded, fearing his caginess. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“There are two things.” He turned to face me but didn’t take his hand away from his mouth. “First, I’m going to give you some cases, and you’ll have to win. None of the big ones—leave that to me and Sinan. You just have to keep winning and do it powerfully and without remorse. That’s the way I’ve gotten to where I am today, and where you want to be.”

I wanted to protest. How could he withhold all the desirable cases from me? “And the second?” I asked with teeth clenched.

“The second step is more personal, more private. Something I need from you because I never did it myself.”

“Stop stalling, Marcus.”

“I never had a son, and now you’re here filling that role. And if this empire is going to last beyond my death and yours, we’ll need an heir. You’ll need to become a father.”

NOW

Jamie and I ride in silence up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I can’t think of a thing to say to him.

“How are you adjusting?” I attempt, just as Jamie opens his mouth to say, “Was Claire supposed to come?”

We both grumble awkward half laughs, and I wave Jamie to go on, so he asks his question again. “Um, tonight, to this party, wasn’t Claire supposed to go instead of me?”

“The invitation was addressed to me, and I was permitted a guest, so frankly, it’s up to me who I bring,” I respond. “And Claire never seems comfortable at these things anyway.”

“Oh.” He adjusts his seat and tugs at his sleeves.

“You’re not uncomfortable at these events, are you?”

“Where are we going again?” Jamie looks beyond me, out the window as we continue north on Madison Avenue.

“The Met. We are going to a masquerade ball, a benefit for your mother’s foundation. Didn’t she bring you to these before?”

Jamie’s face blanches. “Yes, I’ve been to a couple of Rhodes Foundation benefits before.”

“Well, soon you’ll receive your own invitations, and you won’t need to be escorted by the old man.”

I practically lunge for the door handle as soon as we pull up to the museum to free myself from this awkward car ride. I grab the two masks off the seat, one a basic black Zorro-style mask, and the white satin one with the gold horns. I slip the white one over my face and hand the other to Jamie.

A narrow hunter green carpet has been draped down the front steps of the museum, creating an exclusive pathway for the benefit-goers. Jamie slides on his mask and fumbles with his borrowed cuff links, as if he’s worried they’ll fall out. I hurry in front of him, ascending the stairs, periodically checking my Rolex. I can’t stand being late, and getting my son properly dressed took longer than expected. We arrive, finally, with just fifteen minutes left in the cocktail hour.

This is a philanthropic event filled with New York socialites. All the men are wearing tuxedos, and the younger women have on more jewelry than clothing. The masks range from cheap Halloween versions to massive feathered-and-bejeweled affairs held up on golden rods. The stick-thin plastic women are hard to differentiate, and all share the same manufactured smile. Hardly a natural face or body exists in my present company, but I’m scanning the party for one gorgeous creature in particular.

I navigate the crowd, stopping in for greetings among various groups.

“Hello, Senator,” I say, popping up behind an elderly gentleman who is not actually in politics and his much younger trophy wife. “And how is your daughter this evening?” I say, kissing her hand and smiling. He gives me a jovial slap on the shoulder and she looks at me through glazed, unfocused eyes.

The cocktail hour conversations all revolve around thinly veiled competition over whose child is the most accomplished—who has been accepted to which Ivy League school, who was offered a modeling contract with Ford.

Jamie follows me as I insert myself into small clusters of guests for quick shallow greetings. “Alysia,” I coo, wrapping my arm around the bare shoulder of a gaunt middle-aged heiress known to be desperately waiting for her father to die. “How beautiful you look this evening.”

She kisses both my cheeks and offers condolences for the loss of my ex-wife. I raise my finger to my lips and hush her before she can continue, pointing to Jamie by way of excuse. Jamie politely introduces himself, and she kisses both his cheeks, as well. Jamie wipes his face absentmindedly and we continue on our walk to the bar, so I can fetch something suitable to drink.

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