10. Regret

KIMBERLY

~•~

FIVE YEARS LATER

My feet were hurting in my heels but as always, I faked a smile, walking into the building.

“Hey, Kimberly.” One of my colleagues greeted me. I flashed a smile at them.

“Hey, Kim.”

“Kimberly.”

“Good job, Kim.”

“Another case under your belt, Kimberly, good job.”

The praises were coming from left and right and they were almost overwhelming. My face almost hurt from smiling too much. My cheeks were flushed because of too many compliments. After a few years, I should have gotten used to it but it felt surreal every time I came out of the courtroom and went back to my office.

“Well, if it isn’t the famous Attorney Watson who has never lost a case in the whole of her career. The first intern to get assigned a case only after three months.”

I rolled my eyes as my boss, George, approached me. “Spare me, please.” I laughed as I fell in step with him and we approached the elevator. “The case was a tough one and I should be at home resting but as always, you can’t do anything without me.” I teased him. “What did you call me in for?”

George was my boss but we were also good friends. When I first came to California, it was hard to get a job, especially being inexperienced and pregnant, but George was kind enough to offer me an internship. I was also on probation though until I proved myself worthy of the job, which I did. He was patient with me during my maternity leave and gave me a paid leave. He was the best boss I could ever ask for.

Then again, it could be because he liked me. I wasn’t trying to sound proud but he had made a few advances toward me and I refused. I told him I wasn’t looking to find a relationship. I was focused on my career and my child, so I didn’t have time to date. George was willing to wait for me.

“Let’s go to my office first.” I nodded and we got into the elevator. The first three floors belonged to his law firm, so we pressed the button for the third floor. His eyes ran up and down my body. “You look good today. Did you buy a new outfit just for today’s hearing?”

I grinned. “You know me too well. It’s my winning outfit.”

“You’re so humble.” He snorted.

I chuckled. I loved how easy it was to communicate with him. We didn’t have to force professionalism and most of my colleagues thought we were together because of how casual we were with each other. He was almost my best friend. If I said he was my best friend, Reiya would kill me. She didn’t want anyone to take her place which was why she made sure we talked every week and met up every two months.

Reiya strongly encouraged me to let her follow me to California so we could start over together, but I couldn’t allow her to do that. She had a job there. Finding jobs was one of the hardest parts of adulthood, although I was lucky to meet George. She also had a relationship back in New York. I couldn’t make her do long distance just because I was no longer comfortable there.

That was in the past though. We ended up working something out and here I was, following my boss into his office while others wiggled their eyebrows at us.

George closed the door behind us as I collapsed on the chair opposite it. “You could try not to feed into their rumors, or at the very least, debunk them.”

George shrugged and shed his suit jacket. “They might become true sooner or later. What’s the use?”

I shook my head. He was so confident, but I didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t know what could happen in the future. He wasn’t a bad choice for a boyfriend but I’ve been pretty scarred. I didn’t want history to repeat itself, finding out that he was not who he was supposed to be.

Pushing all that to the back of my mind, I arched an eyebrow T my boss. “Yes? I still have to go and pick up Amelia from her babysitter. She’s going on a trip this afternoon.”

“Really? You should have said so earlier. We could have talked on the way there.”

“Just tell me now. I still have time.”

“Okay. I just accepted a new case.”

“You want me to take over?”

“No, not really. I want us to work together on this one. It’s pretty big and it’ll be time-consuming. The first hearing is on the fifteenth of July.”

“It’s a month away. We still have time.”

“Yeah, we do…” he trailed off, staring at me warily as though he was afraid of saying something.

“Spit it out.” I prompted.

“We might have to travel for this one. The client isn’t in California.”

“Where?” Was it a small town? Why did they leave their city to find a lawyer in California? It was crazy.

“You won’t get mad, will you?”

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why would I get mad because the client is in a different city?”

“Yeah, well, they’re in New York.”

“And why would I be mad about that?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I know you came from New York, but you don’t say anything about the place, which means you didn’t like it very much there. You always evade questions about New York. I just thought it would be a problem.”

It was a problem. My old life was in New York and there was no guarantee I wouldn’t run into someone I knew when I went there. The day I left New York, my face was plastered all over the tabloids as Jackson Clarke’s ex-wife. They made up a lot of stories about me; how I cheated on him with another man, how I was carrying another man’s child. They even had a picture of me in the hospital as proof.

The reporters went wild with their articles, which was why I shut down every connection to New York when I got here.

“So it’s not a problem, right? Can we go together?”

I didn’t want him to think something was wrong which was why I said, “Yeah, it’s not a problem.”

I knew I was going to regret that sooner or later.