“I thought at the very least because you’re now taking a paycheck from Compass Development that you’d have the good sense to avoid pulling the company into another dispute,” I growl. “Don’t you find this to be a conflict of interest?”
“No, not at all. Like I said, you did not ask me to stop doing my advocacy work,” she replies simply. “And since I’m your personal attorney and am not involved in the actual development side of the company, there is no conflict.”
I scrub my face with my hands, my irritation and frustration starting to boil over. I don’t want to fight with Berlin – not after we had such an amazing weekend together. And not because our relationship is really starting to take off and head in the right direction. I’ve finally seemed able to really wrap my head around and embrace the idea that I’m going to be a father, and we seem to be growing closer with each passing day. I don’t want to derail that.
But at the same time, I still have a business to run. If I keep delaying every single project because I’m fighting with Berlin about the how’s and why’s of every single one, I’m never going to get anything done. At that point, I might as well shutter the building, call it a day, and retire because Compass will not survive that sort of forced charitable giving.
“When I gave you the delay on the Atwell, I told you I still had a business to run. I told you it was a one-time deal, and I was still planning to proceed with all of the other projects I had on the docket,” I remind her. “And that certainly wasn’t a challenge to you to rifle through the files to cherry-pick projects you wanted to derail. Maybe you don’t see a conflict, but I’d be curious to talk to the legal department and hear their thoughts about the legality of that.”
“I didn’t go looking for the file until I got a call from one of the residents,” she snaps. “When I learned what was happening, I did my due diligence and found the information.”
“You’re the lawyer here, so correct me if I’m wrong, but you took proprietary information,” I grumble. “I don’t think you taking it in response to a phone call matters. Legally speaking.”
“So what are you going to do here, Sawyer? Are you going to have me arrested? Prosecuted?” She glares at me. “Are you going to have me thrown in prison for trying to do something good for people?”
I feel my jaw clenching, and every single muscle in my body grows taut. She’s really pushing me right now. I know I need to throttle it back, or this is going to get ugly really fast.
“No. I’m not going to have you arrested,” I tell her. “I’m simply saying what you did is unethical.”
“Do you know how many people currently reside in the Jackson?”
The sudden change of direction in the conversation nearly gives me whiplash. But I know from Rider it’s an old lawyer trick meant to trip people up – and to divert from a subject they want to get away from. In this case, it’s the possibility that she may have broken a law in doing what she did. At the very least, it’s a massive breach of ethics.
“My understanding is that as it currently stands, the Jackson has five hundred and twenty-three units,” I reply, deciding to play along for now. “I don’t have a current head count on the place.”
“One thousand, four hundred and twenty-two,” she informs me. “That’s how many people are living there, Sawyer.”
“Sounds like it’s overcrowded.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No, the point is that I have a business to run and contracts to deliver on,” I fire back at her. “I don’t have time to play these fucking games.”
“This isn’t a game, Sawyer,” she hisses. “This is almost fifteen hundred people who are going to be homeless.”
“And how is that my problem?” I say, my voice rising. “I followed all of the legal niceties. The people at the Jackson were given ninety days’ notice when I acquired the property.”
She looks at me for a long moment, an expression of utter revulsion on her face. I don’t know what it is she wants from me. I’m a businessman. This is my business. This is what I do. This is what I’ve always done – this isn’t news.
“Does it really not bother you that you’ll be putting almost fifteen hundred people out on the street?” she asks. “I mean – do you really not care about them?”
“What would you have me do, Berlin?”
She stares at me with a stricken expression on her face – she looks absolutely heartbroken. It pulls at my own heart, but I don’t know how to stay true to myself and my company and make her happy at the same time. My business is obviously not compatible with her morality. I love her, but I can’t keep bending to her will on everything.
“Berlin, it’s not that I don’t care about these people,” I tell her. “It’s just that I’m trying to run a business. This is what I do.”
“Why can’t you also do something that helps the people? The regular, blue collar, hard-working people?” she asks, her voice sounding dejected. “Why is it your projects all seem to cater to the wealthy and run roughshod over the poor?”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “The work is going to be done, one way or the other, Berlin,” I protest. I already know she won’t accept that answer. “If not by Compass, then by somebody else. I have plenty of competitors who’d love to snap up the work.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you can’t do something to help the people who need
