Jessa shot Faith a quick thanks a lot glare before diving in. “Darren Bartholomew lost it outside of the courtroom. I bet tomorrow he calls and apologizes and is back to his nerdy self.”

Faith saluted them with her glass. “And you’ll accept his groveling because the rich always get a pass.”

The return of the waitress with more drinks cut off Tim’s response, but he had it loaded and ready for the second she left the table again. “Let’s not turn this into class warfare.”

Faith winked at him. “Says the boarding-school dude with the funky middle name.”

“I’ll have you know it’s a very revered name . . . or so my mom says,” he said in a voice loaded with sarcasm. “Hell, I didn’t pick it.” He laughed as he looked at Jessa. “But let’s stay on topic. The Bartholomews?”

Jessa hated talking about her work. She hadn’t picked family law as her specialty. She fell into it. Right out of law school, she’d worked for a small firm. No one wanted to turn clients away or refer them out, so she’d done a little bit of everything and had gotten into a courtroom, trying cases, long before she likely was ready to handle them.

A few divorce cases got her noticed by her current firm, Covington, Irving and Bach. They specialized in family matters, building up an impressive reputation among the wealthy and connected in the DC area. Being good at something she hated trapped her in a cycle of high salary and low happiness that she couldn’t seem to break out of for thirteen years and two firms. Since that was a pretty nice problem to have, she kept quiet about it.

Tim sighed. “Maybe—and just listen for a second before you get ticked off—maybe you should get out of this case.”

Faith froze. “Are you really worried about her safety?”

“He’s not,” Jessa said. He was worried about his job. His reputation. His partners getting ticked off. He never said any of it out loud, but he clearly weighed and assessed their respective careers and found his far more important and worthy of preservation than hers.

“What I’m hearing . . .” Faith took another sip of her drink. “Is that this is not the first time you two have had this conversation.”

Some people sitting in the third-wheel position might feel uncomfortable. Not Faith. She ran a charity called Safe Harbor Limited that helped women and children displaced by domestic violence find alternative living arrangements, so she listened to people’s darkest secrets and worst moments all day. Nothing shook her or lessened her sarcasm.

“If you don’t think Darren has that power, you at least have to admit his family does,” Tim said, clearly ignoring the tension whirling around the table and the don’t do it side eye from Jessa. “The Bartholomews are related to the vice president.”