Author's Note: Hey there! I'm still new at writing these fanfics, so I hope I did Donna's character or voice justice. I got inspired by a Tiktok mentioning "work wives" as red flags. Hope you guys enjoy and reviews and critiques are much appreciated! Xx
Donna knew she was a catch. She was hot, kind, sweet, great at communication, funny, in the best shape of her life, and she knew she was no slouch in the bedroom department. She had it on good authority from multiple of her exes and casual hookups that she was the best they have ever had, and she knew they meant it because they often stated that after the relationship had run its course. So, she knew she had nothing to really be insecure about when it came to her relationships, but all that changed when she started dating Dave Bretnfield.
Dave Bretnfield was a financial advisor on Wall Street. He was 6'0 tall, dark and handsome with piercing green eyes, and a sense of humor that she never expected to find in someone working with douchebags in a high stress-level workplace, that managed to make him hundreds of thousands of dollars before the age of thirty. He somehow managed to keep his humble roots from New England, and even had a goofy side that rivaled Donna's. He was supportive overall, and overly attentive in bed. Donna categorized him as one of the top seven people she ever slept with. Right above Carol from theatre camp, and right below Ted the firefighter that Donna found boring as a brick wall, but he managed to give her multiple orgasms in a night to make up for it.
The point is, Donna didn't find Dave to be above her in any which way, she thought they were both ten out of tens, and she trusted him completely, found no reason to doubt his infatuation of her. Until Cal came into the picture. Or more accurately, Donna found out about Cal, who was there from day one.
It started out about a month and a half into their relationship and Donna couldn't be any happier. They were sitting on her couch after having just eaten copious amounts of Dave's "infamous" rigatoni and were sipping red wine to unwind from their equally stressful workdays.
Although if Donna were honest, she'd admit that Dave playing with the tips of her fingers as they rested on the back of her couch, was the real mood stabilizer, and not the red he bought with him. She tried ignoring the shivers and goosebumps he was inducing and tried focusing on his work story.
"So, Cal finally found the loophole with the SEC laws, and managed to save the deal thank god." Donna smiled at the mention of Cal, Dave's mentee, who was learning the ropes to be the next best financial advisor under his care. He reminded her of Mike- young, bright, and slightly naive but eager to be shaped into the next best thing.
"Looks like Cal saved the day yet again. And I'm sure you'll be taking credit for the smart kickass save?" Donna teased while bringing her face closer to Dave's, wanting the talking portion of their date to end slightly earlier than usual.
"Well Cal did learn everything she knows from me." Dave inched closer to Donna, tugging her closer by her hand and closing the distance between them with his lips on hers. The kiss started off sweet, with Donna angling her head to give him better access. Dave's arms wrapped around her neck, and his tongue managed to find its way into the kiss, causing Donna's brain to short circuit a little, until she finally caught the pronoun usage Dave uttered. Donna pulled away from the kiss, having it end in a loud smack. She looked into Dave's eyes that were hooded with desire and almost wanted to chide herself for abruptly stopping their make out session. "I'm sorry- she?"
Dave nodded distractedly, wrapping a section of Donna's golden locks around his finger.
"Yeah, I mean she wouldn't be half the advisor without my guidance." He smirked slightly, and Donna's entire picture of Cal in her head crashed loudly into shards of broken glass. Cal was not Mike Ross. Cal was a young, bright, ambitious, gifted woman who worked under Dave - who always spontaneously, magically, found a way to find solutions to Dave's problems. Cal was his Donna!
Donna jerked her head even further back with her eyes wide in surprise. "I thought Cal was a guy?" Dave frowned slightly at her train of thought until he put together the nickname, he gave Cal. "Oh no, I'm sorry I'm so used to calling her Cal in the office, her full name is Calliope, but everyone calls her Cal."
Dave figured the conversation was over and resumed wooing Donna. He inched closer to her, sprinkling kisses all over her neck and going up towards her jawline. Donna let out a little moan when he reached the spot below her ear, and she pulled him closer than he was before.
Still, Donna couldn't shut up. "So-" Donna breathed out between pants, "You're mentoring the next female generation of wolves of wall street- how very…" Donna lost her track of thought slightly as Dave coaxed her lips onto his. "Feminist of you." she mumbled against his lips and put down her wine glass on the coffee table. She quickly refocused her attention back to Dave and jumped his bones, the thought of Cal completely disappearing in her peripheral view.
When Dave had finally passed out next to her in bed, completely spent from their second round of sex, Donna thought back to their conversation on the couch.
So, what if Cal was a girl? Donna was not going to be one of those women who grows insecure about her boyfriend having girl friends. She was a god damn modern feminist, moreover, she had no reason to doubt Dave's intentions with her.
She thought back to all the stories Dave had told her about Cal. About the way she cornered Dave into hiring her at the bank line on a random Tuesday, of the time Cal convinced Dave to try vodka soda and it became his guilty pleasure drink, and the other time Cal miraculously saved Dave's ass by covering for him at work and going to an online bidding war using his name behind his boss's back.
She thought of random night bars, vanilla in coffee, and forged signatures on paper slips. Donna shook her head at the parallels. So, what if Cal was Dave's Donna to his Harvey? Her and Harvey's relationship was completely innocent and if the situation was reversed, she would hope Harvey's girlfriends knew that she was not a threat, and that her own boyfriends knew Harvey was just a friend who happened to be her boss.
At that thought Donna put the situation to bed and spooned closer to Dave's resting body, letting his hand curl around her waist naturally. All was well between them.
Until two more weeks pass by, and Donna feels like she is in a three-way relationship with Dave and his trusty sidekick Cal.
Whenever she called the office Cal would pick up first citing some inner joke between her and Dave as a greeting before passing the phone to Dave. She was brought up in every one of his work stories, and while Donna at first found it endearing and refreshing to date someone that took his job as seriously as she did, it also meant they got to see each other less, and when they did manage to get together, work stories were more than the main topic of conversation. And Donna, well, Donna was human. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy every time Dave laughs recalling something Cal did at the office. When she thought Cal was a man, she found it a sign of his maturity and his naturing abilities that he got along so well with his protegee, and she still did- for the most part.
It just didn't help matters that Donna finally caught sight of the infamous Cal, and she was drop-dead gorgeous. A petite blonde with an hourglass figure and a sleek style with her slicked back ponytails and perfectly tailored blazers and pantsuits that made her look like working-girl Barbie. She met her once on a random Wednesday when Donna managed to sneak away from the office for a quick lunch and decided to meet Dave at his office for a surprise picnic at the park. She found her in Dave's office, and they exchanged a quick hug in greeting. She was super nice, and Donna immediately felt like they could be fast friends.
But the more she spent time together with Dave the more she felt like he regarded Callie as the Sun, and Donna as a mere… star in the galaxy, pretty and captivating but not compared to The Star that his entire world orbited around.
The final straw for Donna was in the third week of their almost two-month relationship, and she was at work, trying to get out of late-night work with Harvey to meet up with Dave and celebrate. When he called her.
"Hey." Dave greeted laughing into the phone receiver against Donna's ear.
She caught Harvey looking up from his desk to her to see who it was. "It's Dave" she mouthed to him and turned around, missing Harvey's eye roll at the mention of her personal call. "Hey, you. Are you almost done from work?"
"Yep," he popped the p at the end and Donna finally caught on to the fact he may have had a few drinks.
"Oh no, are we having celebratory drinks or disaster-at-the-office drinks?"
"Oh, mix of both. Disaster did occur, but Cal and I managed to prevent it from being a bigger disaster. We're just drowning our sorrows and lucky stars in-"
"Let me guess, vodka sodas?" Donna chuckled into the phone, and he laughed in agreement.
"Yeah. So hey, do you wanna meet up tomorrow and help cheer me up some more? I think a game of scrabble against The Yale Theatre school educated Donna Paulsen is just what I need to get over this."
Donna swallowed down the feeling of rejection she felt at him brushing off their half-assed plans for tonight to tomorrow. She wondered if he even realized he was inadvertently choosing to celebrate with Cal as a pick me up over his own girlfriend.
She shook the thought out of her head and looked over her shoulder towards Harvey's office again. She found him engrossed in the Henderson file.
"That's perfect timing Dave, because I don't think I'm gonna make it out of here for another few hours. Tell Cal thanks from me that she's cheering you up." She hoped her voice conveyed sincerity and was affirmed that fact when Dave says he will and that he misses her. That he can't wait to see her, but then he hung up before Donna could say she missed him too.
Donna sighed as she hung up the phone and turned around, only to be affronted by Harvey's figure leaning against her cubicle wall.
"Jesus, Harv! Make a noise before you loom above me like a night creature." She said as she rolled her chair closer to her desk.
Harvey smirked at her dramatics and leaned slightly closer with his arms crossed against her cubicle wall. "Who was that?"
"I told you," She said, slightly annoyed at him feigning ignorance "Dave."
"So, is he the reason you're jonesing to get out of helping me with the Henderson case?"
"Don't worry Harvey, I'm not leaving you alone with that gigantic tower of files tonight."
Harvey's face looked surprised for a nanosecond before he quickly glossed it over with a look of slight interest instead.
"What happened, I thought you liked Mr. Wolf of Wall Street?"
Donna smiled slightly at his choice of nickname before realizing. "I think that he and I are...over."
"You think?"
"Well, I'm going to break up with him."
"But... why?" Harvey may have not liked the guy's profession and found it annoying that for the past two months Donna's been trying to leave work at a reasonable hour and taking a random lunch every now and then to meet the guy when she should be focusing on work. But still, he knew Donna was slightly smitten.
"He has this… girlfriend." Donna said hesitantly.
"He cheated on you?!" Harvey growled, his tone immediately lowering into a gravel deep one that rivaled Batman's, as his hands immediately clenched into fists at the mention of infidelity, specifically infidelity and Donna.
"No, no, Harvey he just has a friend who is a girl, who he's clearly in love with." Harvey frowned at her words, even more confused with her explanation.
"And you know this… how?"
She gave him a look that Harvey now recognized to be her "When will he learn" look of exasperation. "She's you know, his 'work-wife,' although I hate that term. It's just the way he acts around her, how he talks about her, the little things."
Harvey nodded along as if he understood. "So, you're breaking up with him based on nothing." He smirked slightly at the irritated look she shot at him. He's not entirely sure why he's making a case for Dave when he'd like nothing more than for her to stop seeing him.
"Harvey, trust me. He thought she hung the moon or something, and I prefer my boyfriends to think of me in that way, not their coworker."
"Wow, I didn't know dating Donna was so controlling, I think I should send Dave a case of Smirnoff as an apology for putting up with you." Harvey couldn't help but throw a dig at her boyfriend's choice of drink.
Donna narrowed her eyes at him as she got out of her chair and started walking towards Harvey's office to get started on their work pile. He quickly followed suit. "I'll have you know he was lucky I ever graced his life thank you very much. But he was great." Her voice turned wistful, and Harvey swallowed down the feeling of discomfort he felt at hearing her speak like that about a guy.
They didn't do this often. It was usually him talking about his love life- or more specifically, Donna butting her nose in his.
"If you like him so much, you should just keep seeing him." The words felt like glass against his throat, but he was happy that they fell out of his mouth casually, like he couldn't care less what she did.
"No, I really can't. In his eyes, whether he knows it or not, Cal is always going to come first. He just got off the phone with me to tell me he's hanging out with her instead of me. His world revolves around work and while I can relate to that, his work world's center point is also Callie, and he may not realize this now, but she's become his focal point in every aspect of his life. Better cut off ties now before I get sucked into a messy situation where I end up hurt."
Donna shrugs her shoulders at the end as if her mind were made up. She starts rummaging around his desk collecting the files they need and organizing them in an efficient manner to get the ball rolling.
Harvey made his way towards his decanter of scotch ready to pour them both drinks. He contemplated Donna's words as he fixed them drinks. He had a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that her words sounded familiar.
"So, you really think you can't make it work with Jeff because of his so called, what'd you call her... 'Work-wife'?"
"Dave" Donna snapped back in turn, "and yes, I really do."
Harvey suddenly realized why he was bothered by Donna's word choice.
Donna was, for lack of a better term, his own work wife. She was a best friend, and a coworker wrapped in one. They were partners at work and any partners in life he'd ever want to have would have to accept her in their life as well.
And if someone with the amount of self-esteem and egoism as Donna couldn't handle it, how in the hell would he ever make it work with anyone else? He thought back to Scottie and Zoey, and the off-hand comments they had made over the years about Donna. He looked back towards her sitting on his couch. She had already made herself comfortable, her feet up on the coffee table, one over the other, leaning back letting her tall, limber body stretch out as she set a file in her hands, highlighting sections she knows he'll need to focus on to win. His eyes take in her Louboutins, trace her long legs, and finally rest on her fiery red hair that rested on her shoulders.
He couldn't believe that someone like her was placing herself as second best to some woman.
He figured she really was over exaggerating, and probably just looking for reasons to break up with the guy. He put the idea of Donna as a roadblock in his love life out of his head as well because he knew when the right person came along, they'd know how it was between him and her.
He took Donna's general nonchalance with the whole Callie and Dave situation as a cue that Donna hadn't picked the parallels between them and the situation.
Which made him think Donna definitely viewed them as nothing more than friends and colleagues.
The thought stung slightly, but he pretended it was the scotch he had just gulped down and ignored it all.
Tonight, was about cheering Donna up from her impending break up and finishing up work.
"You wanna order in some shitty Thai? I'm willing to risk food poisoning just this once."
Donna didn't even look up from her work as she responded, "We both know it won't be just this once. And you better order your own spring rolls this time."
Harvey scoffed at her words in reply as he went over to his desk to pick up the phone and press 3 under the speed dial for the Thai place they always ordered from.
He smiled to himself as the phone rang.
He was pretty happy with his current evening plans.