Page 88 of After Everything
"Ms. Peterson? Are you still there?"
"Yes. Sorry. I'll—if I see him, I'll let him know."
"Thank you so much! And please emphasize the Friday deadline. We're hoping to have him out to New York early next week to meet the partners. The firm is very excited."
She hung up.
I stood in my kitchen, phone still pressed to my ear, listening to dead air.
The pasta water was boiling over. I turned off the burner without looking at it.
New York. Partnership. Morrison & Klein.
I knew that name. Everyone in the legal world knew that name. Top-tier corporate firm. The kind of place that made you a millionaire by thirty-five if you were good enough to make partner.
The kind of place David would have killed to work at five years ago.
The kind of place he'd destroyed our marriage trying to reach.
My phone was still in my hand. I pulled up Google with shaking fingers.
Morrison & Klein New York. Partnership compensation.
The search results loaded. Articles about the firm. Rankings. Prestige. Average partner compensation: $2.3 million annually.
Two point three million dollars.
I sat down hard on the kitchen floor.
He was going to take it. Of course he was going to take it. Why wouldn't he? Everything he'd ever wanted, everything he'd chased, everything he'd sacrificed us for—it was being handed to him on a silver platter.
And I'd been sitting here for four days, agonizing over whether I could trust him again. Whether the change was real. Whether I could risk letting him back into my life.
While he'd been fielding offers from New York firms.
Multiple offers, the headhunter had said.
The burned pasta smell finally registered. I pulled myself off the floor, dumped the pot in the sink, opened a window.
Then I called Jess.
She answered on the first ring. "Hey, I was just about to—Emma? What's wrong?"
"A headhunter just called me." My voice sounded hollow. "Looking for David. Partnership offer in New York. Morrison & Klein. She said they're very excited. Significant compensation package. She needs his answer by Friday."
Silence on the other end.
"Jess?"
"That motherfucker."
"She said he's probably fielding multiple offers. That everyone wants him."
"Emma—"
"He's going to take it." I was pacing now, from the kitchen to the living room and back. "He's going to take it and move to New York and I've been sitting here trying to decide if I could forgive him, if I could trust him, if I could—" My voice cracked. "And he's already got one foot out the door."
"You don't know that."
