Monica placed a syrupy smile on her face. “I was doing what I love to do with many other people who feel the same way. It didn’t suck.”
Goldstein placed a hand on her shoulder to encourage her to remain composed. She took a deep calming breath through her nose and slowly exhaled. Didn’t work.
“When was the last time you took a vacation, Miss Mann?”
“A friend of mine married last summer.”
“Where did you go?”
“Texas.” Katie and Dean were married in the same church Jessie and Jack tied the knot.
The opposing lawyers spoke to each other under their breaths before the woman started asking questions.
“How much money do you make as a nurse a year?”
Monica glanced at her lawyer, who nodded.
“I claimed a little under sixty thousand last year.” And she was damn proud of her accomplishments.
“So your take home was what, forty-five?”
“I guess. I didn’t add it up.”
“Student loans?” Hudson asked.
“Yeah.”
They spent the next twenty minutes whittling away at what Monica made. By the time they were finished with the questions, she felt like a pauper.
“So according to your own accounts, you don’t have the finances to fly to Jamaica for a vacation?”
“Objection!” Goldstein sat forward, his stare penetrated the wall behind the lawyers on the other end of the table. “Save that for a trial, counselor.”
“It’s OK, Miss Mann. No need to answer that question. I think we have a clear picture of what we need.”
Monica shook her head.
For the next two hours, they talked about what she did on the island in reference to her job. Easy questions and in Monica’s head, nothing damning.
When they took a fifteen-minute break, Monica turned to Goldstein. “Why don’t they ask how I can afford you?”
“My guess is they already figured that out.”
“Wouldn’t my sister and Jack dispel the questions of my using Borderless Nurses for a free ride?”
“That depends. Have you ever taken money from your sister in the past? Asked to use their air accommodations for your own personal use?”
“Of course not. It was hard enough asking that they help me out with this.”
Goldstein raised a brow. “All of which would be brought out in court. They don’t have the actual answers to those questions, and they don’t want to look like the idiots here. They’ll ask for your bank statements, credit card statements, phone records.”
“I have to show them all this?”
“You do if you want to keep your license. Your job.”
She shuddered. “I feel violated.”
Goldstein placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Try not to show it. If they think you’re weak, they’ll pounce.”
“Why? It’s them trying to screw me. I should be suing them for unlawful termination, slander.”
“Pain and suffering,” Goldstein’s second hand said behind her back.
“Exactly.”
Goldstein gestured to his colleague, who placed his briefcase on the table and removed a stack of papers.
“I’ve taken the liberty of having these drawn up.” He handed the packet to Monica. She glanced at them, confused.
“What is it?”
“The papers to file suit.”
Her eyes slowly looked up. “Seriously?”
“Right now they think of themselves as the hunters. As long as they think they have a case they’ll continue. When they’re done they will either mess up your life just to walk away, or they will violate you and walk away. Or violate you, pay you for your trouble, and walk away. Your call.”
Hell yeah. These ass**les shouldn’t get away with this.
Monica held out her hand. “Does someone have a pen?”
“We’ll file them at lunch,” Goldstein told her.
If Monica thought she was violated before the personal questions began, she was wrong.
They didn’t bother with any easing into the personal when they reconvened.
“Did you have an affair on the island?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“How could you have had time for an affair if you were busy every minute of every day?”
“I had to sleep, eat?”
“Having an affair is more than sleeping and eating.”
“That’s not a question,” Goldstein stated.
“How many days were you in Jamaica?”
“Six before we were trapped in the cave. Five after.”
“And of those, how many did you see your lover?”
Monica clutched her hands at her side to stop from throwing a punch. Since when had she become so ready to hit someone? “He wasn’t my lover the whole time.”
“Answer the question.”
It wasn’t possible for her to answer the question without it damning her. “He flew the helicopter to the main hospital the first day there. Early the next he was my ride to the clinic. The clinic that didn’t have any place for me to sleep except beside my patients.”
“So you decided to sleep somewhere else?”
“Trent offered a bed, to sleep. I was exhausted.”
The lawyers smiled at each other.
Monica wondered if she could sue them all twice.
“So the third day you spent with your lover?”
“He wasn’t my lover then.”