Maya squared her shoulders and said, “Go ahead.”
Everyone stopped and looked at her.
“Go ahead,” Maya replied. “I made the choices I made, and I’ll live with the consequences. You can out me in court, and it might mean that I lose my ability to continue working. But there are thirty-eight other women who need this job. I’ll still fight for them.”
Inverno smiled briefly. “And how will you renumerate your counselor afterwards, with no income of your own?”
“That’s hardly your concern,” Max said calmly. “We’re here to talk about possible solutions short of going to open trial.”
“Sure, sure,” Tripp said, giving Maya a nasty look. “You can buy me out of the business if you want. I’ll take half a million.”
Maya blinked and gave Tripp an incredulous look. “That’s more than twice as much profit as we’ve made in seven years.”
Tripp shrugged. “If I’m getting cut out of my ongoing half, I’m getting something out of it. That’s just business, baby.”
Inverno’s eyes flicked aside to Tripp, just for a fraction of a second, and he did not look amused.
“That’s… not even insane so much as inhumanly asinine,” Maya responded calmly. “If I don’t have a quarter million to give you, I certainly don’t have half a million.”
“That’s my fuckin’ price,” Tripp responded, his tone nasty, his reptile eyes focused on Maya. “You little whore.”
I came up out of my chair.
Inverno rose to hold out a hand toward me, his tone warning. “Dresden.”
I held up my own hand to Inverno, a placating gesture, but I didn’t look away from Tripp. “Please advise your client,” I said in a very calm voice, “that if he continues in such insults against Maya, I’m going to consider them fighting words and I’m going to hit him in his big, fat mouth.”
Tripp scowled at me. “The fuck does that mean?”
Inverno stared at me for a moment, and then a little malicious smile barely touched the corners of his mouth. “It means that if you insult the lady like that again, he will consider doing so viable grounds for physical attack, and will presumably follow through,” Inverno replied.
Tripp laughed. “In front of my attorney? That’s a fuckin’ slam dunk assault charge.”
Inverno didn’t like Tripp any better than me. That wasn’t how fighting words worked in law, but he let it play out. “While true, there’s at least some chance that he can get away with it legally afterward.” Inverno glanced at Tripp calmly. “Given how you present yourself, I’d say he has a better than average chance. Perhaps you should moderate your tone where the young lady is involved.”
“I got the right to speak,” Tripp said stubbornly.
“And he has the power to strike you if you continue in the vein you have been,” Inverno replied with a sigh. “Which is, admittedly, an egregious one.”
Tripp didn’t look like he understood the word ‘egregious,’ and maybe that was what made him subside. “Fine. We’ll pretend she’s a square and not a… what she is.”
Inverno eyed me and lifted an eyebrow.
“Thank you,” I said. We exchanged a small nod, and I sat down again, slowly.
Max cleared his throat, bringing the conversation back on course. “Your client’s offer is not a reasonable one.”
“No,” Inverno said. “It isn’t. However, it is his prerogative to decide what to offer. Perhaps you have a counteroffer in mind?”