Chapter 14.
Jared
Trudy was Jared's lawyer. She was the one he talked to when a legal question arose for himself or for a client he needed to help. But at the beginning she herself was one of his clients, and she remained a client until he retired from the Agency.
They were both around twenty-five when she called the Agency to hire a representative. She did this because she believed she would never find a lover in the ordinary way. She was not convinced that even a man hired for the night would be willing to stay with her. Just to be sure he would at least show up, she would not send a holo of herself, or allow the viewing function on the phone where someone could snap an image.
And yet she had the most beautiful face, he thought from the first, clear perfect complexion, sensuous red full lips. And she had the loveliest eyes he had ever seen, incredible eyes, deep pools of liquid brown-gold, framed with long dark lashes. He had seen all sorts of cosmetic, pharmaceutical, even surgical lash enhancements; he would have bet serious credits on these lashes being genuine.
She came up about to his shoulder, and she weighed perhaps twice as much as he did. To put it bluntly, she was huge.
And yet she was attractive, and, her mind available to him, he saw what her weight disguised. She was probably the most sensuous woman he had ever met; there was nowhere he could touch where she did not respond, nothing he could do that did not excite her. And this in turn excited him, as it flattered him, although he knew it wasn't his skill; it was the way she was made.
She had no experience. She did not have the confidence to seek a relationship. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now," she said that first evening.
"Come here.". He drew her into his arms. He had long arms. She fit, and her body was warm and luxuriantly bountiful against him. "Just leave it to me," he said.
It would be a mistake to confuse sex, even phenomenal sex, with romantic love. And Trudy had her own past and her own fears; he never would know the details, only that there had been love and hope and massive rejection. She did not really believe in love now. He did; he had it, and although he was fond of Trudy, she would never be Maud.
So there would not be romantic love, but there were other kinds of love. Jared liked her mind, the way she collected, ordered, and bent facts to serve her needs; she had a strong sense of right and wrong underneath these legal gymnastics, and he could, through her, glimpse how the law could be made to serve the cause of justice, whether or not it was in itself just. And he liked the nimble way she could assemble a solid argument out of next to nothing; he thought if he were ever in legal trouble, he would feel very safe relying upon her.
She liked his mind, too, although it worked very differently from hers. She respected his knowledge of people and their motives and his ease in reading them; she was not, of course, aware of his secret talents, but she could see how well he could read body language and the small hesitations and equivocations of speech, and she relied on his advice in these areas.
She made Joan happy, signing a contract with the Agency, and Jared made sure that he was available for her, sometimes rearranging his schedule to accommodate her. Her work and her professional ambitions ate up her time; she could not arrange any regular dates with him. But she wanted him when she could have him, and he enjoyed it as much as she did; she was a delight.
Because he genuinely liked her, he thought, and hoped, that she would gain enough confidence to attempt a real relationship one day. There were men in her law firm and other firms, and there were people she met outside work, although not many, since most of her life was work. Some of these men were, in his estimation, almost good enough for her. Her professional achievements as she passed the bar and joined the firm as a practicing attorney gave her professional confidence, but never quite enough personal confidence to overcome her discomfort with her appearance.
She lost perhaps twenty pounds, talked of diets and drugs. He did not like drugs any more than he liked alcohol, for much the same reasons. He really hated what he knew of the various kinds of surgery for weight reduction and for fat removal, and he strongly discouraged this. She listened; she respected his judgment, although when he pointed out that anyone who rejected her for her weight wasn't worth knowing, she only laughed and shook her head. It doesn't matter, her uplifted chin said. I don't care. And her liquid brown eyes drowned the hurt. He could feel it in her; he could read her fairly well as the years passed, although she was an intensely private person and knowing this, he didn't try to go too deeply into her mind.
Trudy was one of the clients he worried about when he finally left the Agency, but it was time for him to move on, and he knew it. He had his doctorate in view, and flattering offers from the Institute, and the things that had attracted him to the Agency no longer interested him. If he had had a point to prove with poor Ava, long dead, he had proved it. He was tired of superficial relationships with clients, even his regulars, the ones he liked; he no longer felt the game of seduction was worth the effort. He liked the solid relationship he had with Maud, the accumulation of shared experiences that made the sex better, the sex that made the shared experiences better.
Trudy said she understood, and that she wished him well, and that she would miss him. "So why don't you check out that guy in insurance litigation? You said he was cute," Jared reminded her. "You said he's single."
"He wants a mother figure, not a girlfriend," said Trudy, shaking her head. "You're a romantic, Jared Ramirez. You believe in Sleeping Beauty and the triumph of the Ugly Duckling. Beauty and the Beast, reversed. Not going to happen, Jared. I'm going to miss you."
"I'll miss you."
"Maud will be pleased, I'll bet." She knew a little about that relationship by now, although he had given her few details; those weren't things he shared with a client, even one he liked as much as he liked Trudy.
"Yes," he said. Maud was not jealous, as long as she knew his love was reserved for her, but she was glad he was going into a more prestigious career, even though, as he warned her, it would not cause him to purchase any greater quantity of decent shirts, a dig he could not resist. When he was graduated with his MA, she had bought him a silk shirt, complete with cuff links. He hung it in a prominent place in his closet and ostentatiously did not wear it. She thought that was irritating and also very funny.
"So should I call another Agency?" Trudy asked him. "Forget your fairy tales; a person like me is better off with an Agency. If I can't have Prince Charming, I'll settle for a competent playmate."
"No, just leave it to me," he said, unwilling to leave her on her own to sort through the sea of representatives, constantly fearing criticism and rejection.
He looked over the men at the Agency, the ones who, like him, specialized in women. Sean was sensitive to the needs of his clients. He wasn't as bright as Trudy, but he was skillful and attractive and he would care about her, at least a little, and this mattered to Jared. Breaking all precedent, realizing that he was being overprotective, he introduced them himself and sent them out to dinner to get acquainted. He knew Trudy would need reassurance before she would trust herself to this new man, no matter how well-paid he was.
It worked well enough. Jared was privately glad that Trudy didn't like Sean quite as well as him. They parted warmly, hugs and kisses at dawn; she didn't cry but he knew she would once he was safely out of sight. She would not willingly break down in front of him.
"If you need a lawyer," she said. "I'm serious; if I can ever do anything – no strings attached, you hear me?"
"I hear you, darling girl," he said, holding her as close as he could, a bountiful armful he knew he would miss.
"Remember," she said. "If I hear you're doing business with some other attorney –"
"I promise I will come to you first," he said, "and listen closely to your recommendations, and in return, will you take another look at the cute guy down the hall from your office? Forget being a mother substitute; ask the man out, be the aggressor, see what happens. I guarantee, if he ever gets into your bed, he will never want to get out. I swear it."
She laughed. "Well, I'll think about it," she said.
He saw her in action once; she filed a malpractice case on behalf of his very last client against her therapist, who had taken advantage of her vulnerability.
Trudy won Katie a substantial out-of-court settlement and separated Dr. Brandon from her license with cold-blooded skill and efficiency. She did not like therapists. One of that ilk had told her that her weight compensated for professional failures. Trudy did not have failures. There were sometimes temporary reverses. There were not failures. Another suggested that she maintained her weight as an excuse to avoid intimacy. Jared managed to talk her out of suing.
She was also not keen on skinny women, but in Katie's case she saw it as the symptom of her problems rather than a life choice.
Jared had taken a risk calling Trudy in, but he wanted that predatory mind on Katie's side, and Trudy seemed delighted at the opportunity to demonstrate to him what she could do, and undisturbed at the connection between Jared and Katie, who was a sweet little waif, but not remotely in Trudy's class, or Maud's. She roused only his protective instincts. He was relieved to see her find her feet at last, and glad to move on to his own life, and Maud.
Trudy might have thought about the cute guy down the hall, but when Jared next met her she was still calling Sean, who was very well settled with the Agency and unlikely to leave any time soon. She had cut her hair, her weight remained stable, and she wore no wedding ring, although she had other jewelry. She had made partner by now, and could afford it.
Jared had hesitated in calling her this time, too, but he didn't like Maud's lawyers; he was aware that she hadn't liked her lawyers either, and he didn't trust them to handle her legal affairs. He knew Trudy preferred litigation, of which he hoped there would be none in this case, but she could, out of the law firm where she worked, recommend someone who understood the intricacies of an estate as complex as the one Maud had left in his hands.
Trudy closed the door to her office behind him and met him with a kiss that was in no way sisterly; it pushed the boundaries of simple friendship. "You look so good," she said. "God. But no strings; I promised. And Sean is a good man. Just not as good as you."
"You look sensational," he said, and she did, in well-chosen and well-cut clothes, and still those incredible eyes. "And I'm glad you're happy with Sean. I'd be gladder if you told me about that guy down the hall –"
She shook her head, laughing. "Married now. Expecting a kid in the summer. Not for me; I told you that. So sit down. How have you been? I've heard about you now and then. From Sean and from others. They love you at the Institute."
"I don't know about that, but I'm enjoying it," he said.
"And you're good at it," said Trudy. "By all accounts. Have you heard from Katie?"
"Indirectly. She's still in therapy with Dr. Feingold; Pat calls me now and then with updates. I understand she's seeing a man pretty regularly. Pat approves of him. So with luck, things are working out for her."
"Glad to hear it," said Trudy. "Poor little mouse; the work I went to, getting her ready to testify. She was scared to open her mouth. I will never forget your patience with her. I'd have wrung her neck in two weeks if I'd had to see that much of her."
"She'd had a rough time," said Jared, although he had had momentary urges toward neck-wringing himself; luckily such urges were overridden by the need to take care of her, since for a long time he was the only one doing it.
"Some people," said Trudy, "are natural victims."
"Unless they're taught better," he said, sticking to his position, and she laughed.
"Still a romantic optimist," she said. "Well, tell me what made you think of me today. I know you're not in the business of taking care of people like Katie anymore. You told my assistant it had to do with a will?"
"Yes, a friend of mine named me as executor, and it's a complicated estate; I decided I could use legal advice. This isn't my area of expertise."
He passed her the reader with the copies of the will and the death certificate and what other documents he and Carter had located in the files on Maud's computer; Trudy flipped through the pages. "Oh, yes, Ms. Clipper. Now there was a mover and a shaker. Definitely one of the powers in this town. She moved in pretty rarefied circles; I wouldn't have thought you and Maud Clipper –" She broke off abruptly. "Maud," she said, and then she looked up at him, frowned, shook her head. "No," she said. "This isn't your Maud. She couldn't be. No."
He shrugged and smiled, leaving it at that; it was too fresh and too raw yet. He still ached; he wondered if he would ever stop aching.
"Oh, god, Jared, I'm so sorry," she said. "She was quite a bit – and I never thought –"
"Yes," he said, conscious that he had said it before and would say it again. "She was older than I am. I remember telling you so. Obviously richer. And I loved her very much, as you know."
"She was a shark, a damned shark," said Trudy. "She could have had you for breakfast. She could have bitten you in two."
"I didn't allow her to bite me," said Jared, which summed up at least a part of their relationship.
"Incredible," said Trudy, quite seriously. "And again, I am truly sorry. I liked to think of you with your Maud, somewhere in some nice apartment, being alone and happy together. I'm so sorry it didn't work that way."
"Frankly, so am I," he admitted, although it never would have happened; thinking this he smiled in spite of himself. "And you accused me of being a romantic, Trudy."
"I guess we all have illusions," she said. She returned to the reader, flipping through the pages. "And getting back to solid ground, I'm wondering – well, there you are, she did name you -- good god, Jared, administering a trust? A considerable one, I see, but still –"
"Oh, hell, I never wanted her credits. These funds are to be used according to, well, some private plans; we discussed it the night she died, actually."
"I don't find written instructions about disbursing the funds in the trust. Oh, there it is. Your discretion, I see. And at least the interest comes to you without restrictions."
"Which leaves me free to apply the interest to the principal, and that's what I'm doing. This isn't one of the problems that concerns me here; this is just Maud having the last word." He smiled and Trudy eyed him, a little bemused. "What I need," he said, "is advice about the steps I need to take about the rest of the properties, ensuring the foundations she was endowing, that sort of thing. I know this isn't your area, Trudy, but I thought you could recommend –"
"Oh, I can handle this. It's a good excuse to work with an old friend," she said, smiling across her desk at him. "I'll do a little research on estate law; it's been a while, but there haven't been any big changes I know of. We'll do fine. I'm just surprised – well, you must have been together for years."
"Oh, yes. Around thirteen years."
"I would have expected her to leave you more. And you to accept it," she said.
"That's because you are only a part-time romantic," he told her, which made her laugh. "So," he said, "It's up to you; I don't know what to do here."
"Just leave it to me," she said with a smile.