Author's note: Thank you all for reading this story. I just love writing and it's so lovely to know people have taken the time to read it. I'd love to hear what you think as the story progresses!
A quick update this time, as I have a lot of the early chapters already written.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and I hope you enjoy the angst. Bella x
The Butterfly Effect
Part 2 - Sticking a plaster over a gaping wound
She sees the tall elegant woman walk towards her.
She knows the suit is couture. She notices the walk is powerful. Her expression is all poise and repose.
From what she's seen and what she's heard, she thinks she'll end up with a deep sense of respect for the woman heading in her direction.
"Donna." The slightly older woman utters her name as a form of greeting.
"Ms Pearson."
"Please, call me Jessica." She says smiling warming at the redhead. "How are you liking it at the firm so far?"
"It's different, but I'm enjoying it." Donna replies, keeping her cards close to her chest. Jessica has no reason to think Donna's contribution to the firm will be anything less than excellent, given the high-esteem in which her associate holds her.
"You must be very good at what you do." Donna thinks it's an odd comment to make. She thinks that maybe there's something behind the remark. But she knows she's not implying what Daniel Hardman had only days earlier.
"We make a good team." Jessica smirks at her in reply. She seems pleased with the answer. "He admires you greatly." Donna adds. The tall woman regards her with curiosity. "For him to choose you over him, it means something. He won't let you down." The Senior Partner smiles more broadly at her.
She's quietly impressed at the red head's loyalty and honesty.
"It was nice meeting you Donna." She says turning on her heel and heading back towards her office.
"You too Ms Pearson." She says to her already retreating form.
Donna thinks the woman is someone she's going to like.
She catches him staring at her through his office wall. She gives him a look that says get back to work.
Asking her to come to the firm was his way of keeping her close. That morning at the diner, he hadn't given much thought as to the wider implication of working every hour of every day with her. He'd slept with women he'd worked with before. Hell at the DA's office he'd had to hide around corners, a lot. But with her he didn't want to hide.
He wonders if when he agreed to her conditions for coming to the firm, that he thought her rule wouldn't stick. That she'd relent and they'd give into their urges. But as the days turn into weeks, he realises that was naive.
If it happened again, what would happen next? Would they date? Would she be the secretary he slept with? Could he give her what she wanted? Would they have a great and passionate couple of weeks before it fizzled out, or worse implode?
Did he want her? God yes.
She struts around with long legs he's had wrapped around him. She gives out advice with a smirk on the lips that he can still remember the taste of.
But the more she improves his days at the firm, the more indispensable and irreplaceable she becomes, the bigger the risk becomes.
He just needs to put it out of his mind, and never mention it again.
"Hey gorgeous" She smiles at the sound of his warm tone. She always enjoys speaking to him on the phone.
After first speaking with his father, it was clear to her where Harvey's boyish charm originated.
"Hi Gordon. How are you?" She says smiling down the phone.
"Just thought I'd check that I have an eldest son, and that I hadn't imagined it." He says with good humour. He knows Harvey has a busy and demanding job. They've both always understood the realities of their professional demands. After all, Gordon had spent Harvey's childhood on the road.
"Nothing old about you." She playfully flirts back. "We both know that you're the Martin Sheen to his Charlie." He laughs at her antics. He genuinely doesn't know how his son is able to sit in front of him with a straight face, and deny that she's the best thing that's ever happened to him.
"I promise I'll get him to call you back. I know he's been desperate to tell you all about his first few weeks back at the firm. He sure is making his mark."
"Sounds about right." She can almost hear his father smiling and shaking his head at Harvey's ruthless ambition.
"Tell him that if he's not careful, he'll be so busy trying to create an amazing life, that he's not going to have any time to enjoy it."
"Oh trust me, trying to get that boy to loosen up and relax is a lost cause." She says with affection. His father knows she'd lay down on the tracks for him.
"Well if anyone can do it, it's you."
She loves his Dad. She always has.
He's Harvey but a freer spirit. He's Harvey without the broken childhood and the ruthless ambition. He's handsome just like his son. Sandy blonde hair and tanned skin.
Not the eyes though. She doesn't know where Harvey got his deep brown eyes from. They're his, unique.
"Then what the hell is this?!" He says screaming at one of the interns while slamming a blue folder down on the desk.
She can see that the kid is undecided whether or not he's supposed to explain, or whether he's supposed to keep his mouth shut. He looks so frightened she swears she can see him shaking a little. She's worried he might pass out.
She's noticed that his sharp edges are beginning to match the sharp suits.
She knows the corporate world is cut-throat and hyper-competitive. She knows it runs as much on bluster and confidence, as it does on rules of torte and legal briefs.
But he's starting to harden. The boyish charm is being buried under all of his ambition, the pressure of the job, and his desperation climb to the top ahead of his colleagues.
Of course she's seen him lose his shit before. He hates being wrong and he hates to lose. He has an engrained sense of justice, he's fiercely loyal, and he's stubborn. That all adds up to someone who occasionally loses their temper, and loses it big time. But this little outburst is different.
The kid had fucked up for sure, but he'd immediately apologised and tried to correct his mistake.
Harvey's done his I'm here, and you're here bullshit with her in the past. With his pompous and superior hand gestures to further illustrate his point, and boy had she wanted to smack him in the mouth when he did it.
But his lack of remorse and empathy when she confronts him on how he treated the intern today, concerns her.
Instead of a small look of embarrassment or humour that would normally sneak into his eyes when she gave him 'the look' and a talking to, this time all she sees is anger and impatience.
She feels an odd and unfamiliar sensation brewing in her gut, and then it hits her.
For the first time ever, she thinks she doesn't like him.
She doesn't like what he's becoming.
"So how is that pretty as hell assistant of yours?" His father boldly asks. Harvey already knows where this is going and shifts uncomfortably in his chair.
"Donna?" He says trying to feign indifference. "She's good." Harvey gives him a look that he hopes will shut this conversation down.
"You ever going to ask her out, 'cos if you don't do it soon, I might beat you to it."
"Neither of those scenarios are happening. Besides she works for me." Harvey says taking another drink from the beer in his hand.
"I see how you look at her. That's not how I look at my colleagues." Harvey knows that his father is rooting for him and Donna, he's not exactly been subtle about it over the past couple of years.
"That's because your colleagues are a bunch of middle aged, booze soaked men." His father laughs and nods his head in agreement.
"She makes you a better man." His father says pushing on regardless of Harvey's clear interest in ending this topic of discussion.
"She makes me a better lawyer. That's it."
"She's out of your league anyway." Alex says approaching the table.
"You both come here, drink my beer and get on my back. Who needs friends eh?" Harvey says while putting down his beer and picking up the deck of cards.
"I'm just saying, I know the look of a man who's heart is taken." He knows his father has always been a hopeless romantic. It's also part of the reason he was ignorant to what his mother was up to behind his back for so long.
If caring makes you weak, then love makes you blind.
"Me and Donna . . it's never going to happen, so you can drop it." He thinks that because 'it' has already happened, and because he's sworn it'll never happen again, that it means he's technically telling the truth.
"You're meant to be the one with brains, but jeez, I wonder sometimes." His father says shaking his head. "Right . . Alex, deal us in." He says throwing Harvey's friend a nod. Alex grabs the cards from Harvey's hands.
"I'm just worried that my marriage has scarred you for life where women are concerned." His father says with total honestly.
"Trust me, me and women are just fine." Harvey replies with trademark cockiness.
"That's not what I'm talking about Harvey, and you know it. I'm taking about someone that's got your back, someone to share your life with."
"Right now, I just want to play poker and drink my beer." Harvey says gathering his cards from the table.
"You might find that when you're finally ready, the one you want is already gone. So don't say I didn't warn you." His father says looking at him with an uncharacteristic seriousness.
Harvey doesn't reply, he just averts his gaze and throws his chips into the middle of the table; wherever they might fall.
She can tell just from watching him that he's frustrated. That he's having a difficult conversation with his father. While she listens into his conversations in a professional capacity, she's always respected his privacy when it comes to his personal calls. His father and him enjoy a closeness that offers her a softer, more approachable version of Harvey, one that few get to see. She respects it. It's almost something sacred.
But the more he runs his hands through his hair, and loosens his tie and clenches his jaw, she wonders what the hell they could be talking about.
She knows she shouldn't press the switch. But her instinct to protect him takes over. She knows he's entitled to a private life, and that despite their blurred lines she's ultimately just his assistant, maybe his friend. But she worries about him. She worries that he internalises everything, confides in no one; and she cares for him deeply.
So she tentatively reaches for the button, still in two minds as to what to do, before finally taking the plunge.
"All I'm saying Harvey, is that maybe you should just think about calling her. She's still your mother." She can hear the exasperation in his father's voice.
"She might be my mother, but I have nothing to say to her." Harvey's response is cold and measured, but despite his best efforts, his tone betrays how much he is affected by the subject of his mother.
"Harvey, people make mistakes." His father pleads on behalf of his ex-wife.
"What's that supposed to mean? And why are you of all people making excuses for her!?" His voice slightly rising, something she's never heard Harvey do before with his dad.
"It's meant to mean that people are complicated. Love is complicated."
"Yeah well, more fool them." He sneers.
"Harvey it doesn't always end like me and your mother. Your brother - he's met a great girl, she's kind and supportive." His father tries to calm him down.
"Enough." He says in a tone that he uses in 'those' kinds of meetings. The look of regret that washes over his face as he chews on his lower lip, shows Donna that he immediately regrets snapping at his dad. He loves his father, more than anyone else in the world.
"OK, just think about it, that's all I'm asking." His father says trying to conclude this particularly difficult conversation. Harvey stays silent, like a sulking child.
"Beers and hitting a few balls next Thursday?" His father offers, holding out an olive branch.
"Sounds good, I'll put you back through to Donna and she can check my diary."
"See you then kiddo."
"Night." His voice softens before he places the phone back down on his desk.
She hurries to turn the intercom off before Harvey connects her to his father.
"Hey, is my boy free next Thursday." Gordon sounds tired.
"He sure is for you. 7pm sound good?" Donna says cheerfully, trying not to let on that she knows they've just had an argument.
"Pencil me in." He's quiet for a moment on the other end, and Donna knows he's not done talking. "You're good for him Donna and he knows that, even if he never manages to say it." Gordon says with heartbreaking sincerity.
"He has his moments, but he's a pretty great boss." Donna says acknowledging that beneath the surface is a very good man; potentially a great man.
"He would make a pretty great husband too." Gordon says, never giving up on the idea that the redhead is the key to his son's happiness.
"OK Gordon," she says chuckling down the phone, "but we both know that he's not my favourite Specter." His father laughs down the line.
"You two must be quite the force to be reckoned with."
"We sure are." She says playing with the paperclips on her desk.
"Night Donna. Don't let him keep you there too late." He says quietly.
"Night Gordon."
She gently places the phone back in in its cradle.
She misses the small smiles that plays across Harvey's face as he watches her interact with his father.
She doesn't witness the way his breathing becomes more peaceful at the thought that she is part of his life.
She can't feel the warmth that settles in his chest at the notion that she makes everyone around her at ease and happy, including him.
And she doesn't know that when he watches her tuck her hair behind her left ear, while placing all of her concentration into sticking a small yellow post-it on a page of his diary, that he thinks she's turning into the most reliable and comforting presence in his life.
It's the first time he's slept with someone since Donna.
The beautiful blonde waiting in line at the bar had asked him if he wanted a drink. He was up to date with his casework and he didn't have a particularly early start the next day. So he thought, why not.
He thought that going home with her would help him have some fun and take his mind off work and it's recent stresses. But if he's really honest, he'd gone home with her to take his mind off his feelings for Donna.
He wanted to prove to himself that things were back to normal, and that his night with her wasn't something unique and special. Only he's managed to prove quite the opposite.
Maybe it's because she's still there everyday by his side, joking with him, organising him, looking after him, smiling at him, hell - caring for him.
She's not just some random girl he picked up in a bar, or someone he went on a couple of dates with. She's Donna.
He thinks about how the reason he's not in Donna's bed tonight has nothing to do with having grown bored with her, or having gotten her out of his system.
He's not with Donna tonight because she'd told him to forget about that night and made him swear to never to mention it again.
He's not in her bed because it's too much of a risk for both of them.
Yet as he lies next to the girl from the bar as she slowly begins to fall sleep, he has the sudden urge to escape. Not his usual when is it polite to leave and get a good night's sleep in my own bed kind of urge to leave. No, he wants to leap out of the bed as though the sheets were on fire.
When he'd gone home with her from the bar, he was into it. It wasn't the best sex of his life, but it was good.
But lying here next to her, every bone and muscle and nerve is screaming that he shouldn't be here; that he belongs somewhere else.
The sheets smell different, her hair feels different, the light from the window is different, the texture of her skin is different. And then he wonders, different to what?
And then it slams into him like a freight train. Different to Donna. And that's what finally makes him jump out of bed.
"Where are you going?" The girls asks him, her tone filled with confusion and edging towards angry.
"I realise this doesn't look great." He says sheepishly while hunting around for his underwear and shirt.
"No, it really doesn't."
"I've got an early meeting tomorrow morning." He knows she knows he's lying.
He gets a cab, goes home and has a shower. The warm water is soothing and cleansing, and it relaxes him far more than the sex did.
He dreams of her. Donna that is. It's vivid and evocative, and sharp in its focus. It's pretty much an action replay of their night together two months ago.
When he wakes, he realises that he enjoyed the dream more than going home with the girl from the bar.
It's the first time he dreams of her like this.
He's worried she's ruined him for life.
God if she knew, she'd kill him.
When he walks into the office the morning after, she passes an appraising and scrutinising gaze over him. He can tell she wants to say something, but that she's holding it back, which is unlike her. He feels like he's under a spot light.
He mutters good morning and heads towards his office.
And then it dawns on him, what she's doing and what she's noticed. He'd forgotten that she did this, because she hadn't done it for a while. Because she'd been the person he'd been with last. So he forces her hand in an attempt to force out the awkwardness.
"Go on, say it." And for a split second she looks startled and hurt. He thinks that maybe he shouldn't have pushed it. He wants to explain that he's only getting her to do it because it's what they used to do. That he wants them to go back to normal, and he's worried that may never happen it they don't try a little harder to be like they used to be. Nonetheless, she decides to play along.
"You're early, because you couldn't get back to sleep. Which means you probably snuck out of her house in the middle of the night. You're wearing one of your high collared shirts which means you've probably got a hickey somewhere underneath there. Your cheeks are slightly red, normally a sign you've drunk too much the night before, but you didn't have anything in your diary, so you probably picked her up at the bar down the street."
She finishes her soliloquy with her usual smug grin and playful eyes, but they both know it doesn't feel fun and teasing, it feels forced and clawing.
He feels like he's been caught cheating.
He wishes he could turn the clock back by an hour, and change everything he's done and said and worn, so that she doesn't know what he did last night. He'd do anything to turn back time and stop the hurt and disappointment he can see hiding in the back of her eyes.
Shit, he wishes he could go back and never go home with the girl in the first place.
"I. . ." She can see he doesn't know what to say. Like he's lost all of his words.
"Harvey, there you are." Jessica says headings towards them.
"Saved by the bell!" She says far too cheerfully before walking off in the direction of the assistants kitchen.
Half the assistants are excited that he's back, and the other half are happy that there's this handsome new associate at the firm. As a consequence, whenever she goes to make a coffee or do some photocopying, she's constantly fielding both subtle and not so subtle inquiries about her boss and his relationship status.
So when she comes back from her lunch-break to find one of the girls from legal flirting with him, she's not surprised. Her long chestnut coloured hair is wrapped over one shoulder while she leans over his desk to get him to sign something.
She knows he's flirting back, it's what he does. It's second nature. He enjoys the banter and the chase and being wanted. He's not one of those people that doesn't realise he's good looking. He knows it and he uses it to his advantage. Oddly, it's part of his charm.
When he spots her back at her desk, his eyes divert from the woman in front of him to settle on her. She tilts her head, cocks an eyebrow at him and rolls her eyes. He smiles at her over the girl's shoulder. It causes her stomach to flutter. She thinks she's an idiot for having this reaction, particularly while he's flirting with someone else.
But sometimes he smiles at her in a way that makes her think it's a smile reserved for only her. But then his gaze shifts back to the girl in front of him, and he carries right on.
She looks down at her desk and swallows the lump in her throat. She begins checking her e-mails and typing her notes to distract herself from what's happening a few feet away.
"Hey . . " he can tell he's startled her when her shoulders slightly flinch.
"Hi . . what do you need? I could have come to you." She says flustered and hurried.
"Nothing, I mean . . I don't need anything." He looks like he's searching her face for an answer to a question he hasn't asked.
"Then why are you here bothering me?" She says teasingly, but the tease doesn't reach her eyes, because she knows exactly why he's here.
He's checking she's OK.
To be continued.
We're heading towards trouble . . . .