The odd thing was that he had always told himself it didn't matter to him, but he realized now it did. Just knowing that his name was dirt, that his business had gone down the tubes, and the reputation he'd had along with it, made him feel finished. He suddenly realized what Alex had felt when she lost her breast, and with it her sense of femininity and sex appeal, and her ability to have children. She had felt diminished as a woman. And he of course hadn't helped by going out with another woman. Nice guy, he reminded himself. All he seemed to have were regrets now. But with the loss of his important position and his respectability based on it, he felt a loss of his manhood.
“Phillip is putting together a great team for you,” Alex said encouragingly on the phone. The worst of it for Sam was that she seemed to bear him no malice. It would almost have been easier if she'd hated him, but apparently she didn't. She seemed not to care about what he'd done to her at all. She had made her peace with everything that had happened to her. He had no idea how she'd done it. And clearly he hadn't figured out about her involvement with Brock yet. Alex gave away nothing, and even Annabelle's mentions of him didn't seem to imply anything but friendship.
“Are you going to be on that team?” Sam asked, embarrassed to even ask her. But he felt so insecure and so scared it was almost childish. He didn't even know what he was going to do with himself before the trial. They were closing the office, and liquidating their affairs. And all the company assets had already been frozen. He was trying to make up as much as he could to as many of their clients as possible, out of his own funds, but there were going to be staggering losses for many. Simon was responsible for most of them, but Tom and Larry had done their share of the damage too, and Sam had unwittingly helped them with some of the deals he had co-signed. He just hadn't been paying attention. He felt terribly guilty, but it was too late to change it. All he could do was pay the penalty, whatever it would be. Sometimes he thought he deserved to go to jail for sheer stupidity, and he said as much to Alex before she had a chance to answer his question.
“As far as I know, that's not a crime yet. And, no, I won't be on the team, but I'll watch from the sidelines.” He knew it was more than he deserved from her, and he didn't argue.
“Thank you. We're going to be closing the office in the next week or two. Almost everyone's gone now.” It had taken exactly three days to empty all the offices, and no one wanted to be associated with them for a moment longer than they had to. They were a pariah. “I guess after that, it'll be all preparation for the trial.” And then, out of nowhere, “I'm going to be selling the penthouse. I'm not going to need it now,” he had really bought it for Daphne, “and frankly, I need the money. Besides, if I go to jail, you don't need the headache of liquidating that for me. I'm going to stay at the Carlyle.”
“Annabelle will like that.” She had tried to sound encouraging, but like her illness the year before, the prognosis was not great. He had some tough stuff to go through. He would be stripped to the bone, and bared for all to see, all his sins, and stupidities, and failings, and then he would be at the mercy of twelve good men, or women, a jury of his peers, who would determine his future. It was pretty scary.
And then she remembered that it was almost the Labor Day weekend. “Are you still taking Annabelle?”
“I'd like to.” He was going to be alone with her, and it was going to be a relief not to have to fight with Daphne. He didn't think they'd go anywhere. He just wanted to be with Annabelle and enjoy her.
Carmen brought her in to the city and when he picked her up Alex was out. She didn't see him again in the office that week, although she knew he'd been in to see Phillip. She was trying to stay out of it officially, but still keep an eye on things, although from a distance. And she had promised Sam that she would sit through the trial with him, and go to as many meetings before that as she could. But she didn't want Phillip to feel that she was crowding him, or interfering.
And by the time she and Brock left for East Hampton for the weekend, on Friday afternoon, they were both exhausted. He was still annoyed that she hadn't taken the bull by the horns with Sam, and pressed him for an immediate divorce, and she thought Brock was being unreasonable and childish. They had a big fight about it again on Friday night, and for the first time in her five-month affair with him, they both went to bed angry.
But in the morning, as they woke up, he reached over and pulled her close to him and told her he was sorry.
“I'm sorry I'm such an idiot about all this, he just scares me,” he said, and Alex turned to look at him in amazement.
“Sam? Why, for heaven's sake? The poor guy's practically in jail. He's got plenty of problems of his own, what's to scare you?”
“History. Time. Annabelle. It doesn't matter what kind of sonofabitch the guy was to you last year, he's still your husband, and he had seventeen years with you before that. That carries a lot of weight. It's hard to fight that.” He looked at her knowingly, and she couldn't deny it, but she loved him too, and she wanted him to know it.
“You don't have to worry, Brock,” she said holding him close to her, and smoothing his hair with her hand, like a child. Sometimes she felt light-years older, but she was touched by what he was feeling, and he was right in some ways. The things he talked about had bound her to Sam for close to two decades. But Brock had a history with her too, a history of incredible kindness, and she couldn't ignore that either. Besides, she loved him. “Don't worry about him. I'll get it all worked out after the trial. It just didn't seem right to do it before that. Like his moving out before I finished chemo. I'm sure he wanted to, but even as lousy as he was at the time, he stayed till I was finished. Sometimes it's just a question of basic decency and good manners.” She smiled and Brock smiled at her in answer. He relaxed for the first time in days and held her close to him.
“Just make sure good manners don't keep you married to him, or my manners are going to fall apart in a hurry. I may kill him.” Brock was the gentlest person she knew, and she knew he didn't mean it. He just wanted her out of her marriage to Sam, and she didn't blame him. She wanted that too. But in the right way, at the right time, without causing even more damage.
They spent an easy weekend on the beach, and packed up their things with regret on Monday. He had rented a station wagon to take everything home with them, and they were unpacking her things at her apartment when Sam came home with Annabelle. And she looked a lot happier than she did after her weekends with Daphne, but this time Sam looked a little startled. Suddenly, seeing Brock help her unload the car made Sam realize that there was more to it than just work at the office.
“Can I give you a hand?” Sam asked politely, carrying a box into the front hall. He suddenly felt like a stranger in what had been his home, and he realized he didn't belong there. Brock was painfully polite to him, and Alex was very pleasant, but when he saw Annabelle with them, he realized that this was a unit he could no longer interfere with. They were part of it, and he wasn't.
He left shortly afterwards, feeling depressed, and Brock looked pleased. There was no question. The message had been clear. “She's mine now,” and Sam had got it.
Chapter 21
Annabelle went back to nursery school after Labor Day, and the rest of them went back to their usual routine. Alex had taken on her full workload again, and she appeared in court almost daily. Brock was still helping her, but he had his own cases too, and they didn't work as constantly together as they had while she was in chemo. And they both agreed that they missed it.
Several of her partners had commended her for her fortitude in hanging in while she was sick, and she had become something of a legend in the law firm. And in spite of the amount of time they still spent together almost every day, no one had yet figured out that she and Brock were seriously involved with each other. It had remained a well-kept secret.