She raised her eyebrows. “I need to know to do what I do best.”
“I understand, but the client’s a bit eccentric.”
“If I can’t even know who the client is, what am I doing?”
“Nothing too complicated. You just need to”—he raised his shoulders in a careless shrug—“review some documents that the in-house counsel’s been working on.”
“That won’t take me any time at all.”
“Oh there are quite a lot of them. Fortunately, there’s no real rush. So you won’t need to work more than forty billable hours a week on this.”
“So I can still work on the Solaris case.”
“No.” John sighed. “The new client will be your only one. For the time being.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Vanessa. I assure you, this won’t count against you.”
“Right.” She knew how the game was played. If other people had more billable hours than she did, she’d look bad in July, no matter what John said now. She gave him a hard stare. “Are you doing this because you have somebody else in mind for July?” she asked point-blank.
John started. “What? No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then there’s no reason for you to take me off the Solaris case. Put somebody else on this new thing. Like Stan.”
“Vanessa—”
“You know this is going to hurt me. I’ve dedicated my life to this firm.”
“Yes, I understand that. But I give you my word, this won’t be a black mark on your record. Quite the contrary. We’ll be counting your billable hours at two and a half times the actual rate. So even though you’ll be putting in forty, it will count as a hundred.” He spread his hands and beamed at her.
Vanessa gasped. “You can’t do that. That’s unethical.”
John’s smile collapsed. “I’m aware of the ethical aspects, thank you. This is what the client wants.”
“The client told you to limit the work to forty hours, but to bill them for a hundred?”
“Correct.”
“And you expect me to believe this?”
He leaned forward, his previous bonhomie gone. “I don’t care what you believe. I expect you to follow my instructions. And before you think about reporting me to the bar, everything I’ve said in this room is true. If you cause trouble, you’ll end up jobless. Most likely you’ll have to start fresh at some other firm…assuming you can find one that will have you.” He waved her away. “Now run along. Everything you need to look at is in Conference Room 2B.”
Fists clenched, she left. What a bunch of… John had to be lying through his teeth.
Or did he? She thought about it, her feet slowing as she walked down the hall. The firm was doing great. He was doing great. There was no reason to risk tarnishing the firm’s reputation, much less his own. And Vanessa had never seen him lie to an associate before. Why would he start now?
On her way to the conference room, she stopped by Felix’s desk. “I can’t believe it.”
He gave her a concerned look. “What happened?”
“He put me on another case.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. And he won’t say who the client is or anything.”
“That’s weird.”