Chapter 109: Sara And Arthur.
Sara stretched across the chaise lounge on her private terrace, the late afternoon sun warming the south of France in a way Seattle never managed.
A bottle of champagne sat chilling in a bucket beside her, condensation beading down the glass, and a manicurist knelt at her feet, carefully applying a fresh coat of blood-red polish to her toes while Sara scrolled through her phone with her free hand.
Her phone lit up with an incoming call. No name attached—she’d made sure of that, deleting the contact the same day she’d deleted every trace of the arrangement from anything that could be traced back to her. But she knew exactly who it was before she even looked at the number.
She waved the manicurist off for a moment, holding her hand up carefully so the fresh polish wouldn’t smudge, and answered with the phone pressed between her shoulder and ear.
“Hello, Arthur.”
There was a pause on the other end—brief, clipped.
[“Are you alone?”]
Sara arched an eyebrow, glancing at the manicurist, who was diplomatically pretending not to listen while dabbing polish onto her pinky toe.
“I am. Why does that matter?”
[“Because we have a problem.”] Arthur’s voice carried none of its usual composed authority. It had an edge to it now, something close to irritation barely held in check.
[“You made a mistake. The one job I gave you, and you managed to botch it.”]
Sara sat up slightly, more curious than alarmed. “How exactly did I make a mistake?”
[“The account. You set the story to private. There weren’t nearly enough eyes on it before it disappeared.”]
Arthur have been trying to reach her but Sara was always unavailable, he was simply lucky today.
Sara let out a small, unbothered laugh, reaching for her champagne glass with her free hand, careful of her nails. “Oh, that.”
[“That’s it? ’Oh, that’?”]
“Relax, Arthur.” She took a slow sip. “It might not even matter. If Liam’s too buried in everything else going on in his life to bother reading his termination letter closely, none of this changes anything.”
[“And if he does read it?”]
“Then I suppose it gets interesting.”
There was a beat of silence, and Sara could practically hear him deciding whether to ask the question sitting underneath everything else. He asked it anyway.
[“Was it intentional?”]
Sara smiled, genuinely, the kind of smile that had nothing to do with the phone call and everything to do with the memory attached to the question.
“I mean—I did like him. A little. It only felt fair to give him some kind of fighting chance.” She swirled the champagne in her glass. “Besides, it makes things less suspicious this way, doesn’t it? More exciting too. Which one of my favourite lawyers will come out ontop?”
[“I don’t like this, Sara.”]
“You don’t have to like it. You just have to let it play out.”
[“You realize what you’ve potentially exposed us to.”]
“I realize that if I’d kept it public, everyone would’ve seen it exactly the way you wanted, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She held up her hand, admiring the fresh coat catching the light. “His termination would’ve been airtight. Instead, there’s a little bit of room in it. That’s all. It will still have the same outcome.”
Arthur exhaled hard enough that she could hear it crackle through the speaker.
[“This isn’t a game.”]
“Everything’s a game, Arthur. You’ve just forgotten how to enjoy playing one.”
[“Is this such a good idea? Playing games with him, of all people, right now?”]
Sara actually laughed at that, waving the manicurist back over now that her nails had dried enough to risk it.
“I don’t particularly care either way. If it comes down to it, I can make our little arrangement public just as easily as I kept it private. A man in your position calling his former employee’s “girlfriend” this many times—” she let the sentence trail off deliberately.
“People smell scandal fast. And I’m smart enough to season it exactly the way I want.”
The silence that followed told her the point had landed.
[“You’re impossible,”] Arthur muttered.
“Is that so?”
He didn’t respond to that immediately, and Sara used the pause to hold her hand out for the manicurist to begin the topcoat, admiring the color against the setting sun behind her.
Arthur exhaled again, quieter this time, something closer to resignation.
[“You were always the smart one. That’s why I brought you into this in the first place.”]
“I know.”
>”But even with you in his life—the money, the attention, the mess of it all—his work never suffered. Not once. Performance stayed exactly where it was. That was supposed to be the outcome, Sara. That was the entire point.”]
“And it didn’t happen.” Sara shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Some men compartmentalize well. He’s apparently one of them.” Like she was actually proud of Liam.
[“It’s more than impressive. It’s inconvenient.”]
A pause.
[“Which raises a different question entirely.”]
“What question?”
Arthur didn’t answer right away, and Sara let the silence stretch, sensing there was something underneath his frustration that hadn’t fully surfaced yet.
“Why do you want him humbled so badly,” she said slowly, testing the words out loud, “instead of simply gone? You could’ve buried him quietly months ago. Instead you’re spending this much effort, this many resources, engineering something far more elaborate than a standard termination.”
This felt like he was trying his best to ruin Liam, not just sacking him.
Arthur said nothing.
“That’s not business, Arthur,” Sara continued, setting her champagne down, genuinely curious now. “That’s personal.”
The line stayed quiet long enough that Sara almost thought the call had dropped.
[“Get some rest, Sara,”]
Arthur said finally, voice flat, giving nothing away.
[“We’ll speak again soon.”]
The call ended before she could push further.
Sara stared at the phone for a moment, an amused, knowing smile settling across her face. Whatever this actually was—whatever history sat buried underneath Arthur’s obsession with dismantling one senior associate so thoroughly—it was clearly deeper than office politics.
She set the phone down on the table beside her and held her freshly painted hand up to the light, admiring the finish.
“Trouble?” the manicurist asked carefully, capping the polish.
Sara smiled, leaning back into the chaise, entirely unbothered. “Nothing I can’t manage.”