now that she knew there was another side to him, after he had rescued her when she fell.
She wore slightly lower heels to the meeting. She saw Scott lean down and check discreetly, and give her an almost invisible thumbs-up, and she laughed. They didn’t talk to each other before the meeting. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the settlement of the case, or be accused of improprieties later that might overturn whatever decision had been reached.
The meeting got under way quickly. Both the plaintiff and defendant were there. Kate’s client was being pleasant and polite and non-inflammatory. Scott was invariably rude and insulting, calling people names so that he had to be reprimanded frequently. It was tedious dealing with him. The meeting droned on for four hours, the opposition offering fresh accusations of malfeasance to strengthen their argument, which Kate knew meant nothing, and was only done to try to increase the settlement.
The defendant’s side finally made their offer, and left the conference room, so the plaintiff and his team could discuss it. It was all about a business deal which had gone sour. Money invested had been lost, and the plaintiff was trying to recoup his losses inappropriately by accusing Kate’s client of everything under the sun, most of it lies. She didn’t think a jury would buy it, but it could take years to resolve if they went to court. The logic of doing so made no sense, and Scott had tried to convince his client of that also, to no avail. His client was a street fighter who had nothing better to do, was bitter about the failed deal, and had billions, so money wasn’t the issue. In reality, the settlement, whatever it was, made no difference to him. It was more symbolic. He wanted his legal costs paid for too. And his lawyers were charging him a fortune.
Scott came out of the conference room a couple of times to go to the men’s room, but Kate could read nothing on his face. They were called in at last, and Kate was feeling optimistic since it had taken them so long to discuss the offer, and she expected to hear that their offer had been accepted. Instead, Scott addressed her, standing in front of her the moment she sat down.
“Miss Morgan,” he began, looking pompous again, which was his official persona, when representing his client. “Or is it Mrs.? What exactly is your marital status?” he asked haughtily, and she almost laughed.
“It’s Mrs. I’m a widow. I don’t see what that has to do with this case.” His client had said “rake them over the coals.” He hadn’t added details, so Scott had thrown that in, allegedly to embarrass her, but he was actually curious himself.
“Mrs. Morgan,” he emphasized, “do you have any idea how insulting your offer is to my client? Do you and your colleagues not understand the suffering and humiliation he experienced when the deal failed? Are you not cognizant of how sloppy your client’s practices are, how fully responsible he is for the money my client lost? Are you not mortified by making us an offer like this? So paltry, so pathetic, so completely without merit? You should be ashamed of yourselves.” His glance took in her partners seated in the room. All the big guns were there. It was a ridiculous speech, an affront and highly offensive, but she knew it was what his client expected from him. She would have hated Scott if he hadn’t knelt at her feet bandaging her knees two weeks before. It was the only way she knew he was a real human being, and not the total horse’s ass he’d been hired to be for his client.
His insulting speech went on for half an hour, while her client looked unhappy and started to lose patience, and her partners looked furious. It was all a long-winded way of his client saying no, and refusing the settlement. They had to go back to the drawing board, but neither her partners nor their client were willing to offer more.
She managed to say quickly, that if the offer was refused, they would go to trial, which no one wanted to do.
“Is it war then?” Scott asked her, sounding theatrical.
“If you want to call it that. It’s a trial, Mr. White. If we can’t make a deal, and we’ve made our best offer today, then we’ll go to trial as I just said. We will