Objection (5 page)

“Got a
minute?” Matt says.

My head snaps up and
I put on my mental boxing gloves, prepared for him to jab me with a
scathing remark, or God forbid, call me doe-eyed. Which, if he does
that, may cause me to need my literal boxing gloves.

I don’t
respond, just look at him in question with my head tilted slightly.

He takes my silence
as acquiescence, and let’s face it… he’s the boss
so he can come and go in my office as he pleases. When he takes a
seat opposite my desk, I take a moment—just a few seconds
really—to appreciate the hotness of Lawyer Matthew. He looks
utterly resplendent in his dark gray suit that is perfectly tailored
to fit his frame, and he’s rocking a buttery yellow tie with
gray striping. His hair is perfectly styled, but there is a tiny hint
of stubble on his chin. He appraises me with his golden eyes, and I
wait patiently to see what he wants.

After glancing
around my office and taking note of my bare walls, he says, “Aren’t
you going to decorate in here?”

Shrugging my
shoulders, I say, “Sure… one day.”

He’s quiet for
another few moments, and then his eyes finally settle on mine with a
look of frustration. “Look… I want to apologize for what
I said the other day. I was more than a little unsettled when you
walked in, and it had nothing to do with that bullshit about you
being ‘doe-eyed’. In fact, I’m not even sure what
the hell that means myself.”

I snicker to myself
but don’t let him see anything more than genuine interest on my
face. It certainly will not help my boss to know I find him adorable
in a weird sort of way.

“It’s
important to me that my business stay business, and my personal
remain personal. Understand?”

“Totally,”
I say in firm agreement.

“I mean…
the other night, we were explosive,” he adds.

“To the moon,”
I supply.

“And that has
no business in this office.”

“No place at
all.”

“No matter how
hot that experience was.”

“It’s
not even an issue.”

“So…
we’re in agreement?”

“I have no
clue,” I say sincerely, only because I really have no idea what
he’s getting at. “But if what you’re trying to say
is that what we had was amazing, but that it is over and done with,
then I’m in full agreement.”

Matt stands up.
“Then we can put that in the past and never think about it
again?”

“It’s
already gone from my mind,” I say with resolve.

“Good,”
Matt says emphatically, although his face still carries a touch of
worry.

Or is that regret?

I don’t want
there to be any animosity between my boss and me, and while yeah…
I’m still going to continue to think about that amazing night
because—BEST SEX EVER—it was never meant to be anything
more than a one-night stand, and our time has indeed passed.

“Thanks for
the apology, Matt, and I’m really looking forward to working
for you.”

He gives me a smile,
and his two dimples pop out. “Yeah, me too.”

When he walks out
and the door closes behind him, I let my forehead
thunk
down
on my desk and groan.

It’s so weird
that I know what my boss looks like naked.

“Personally, I
suggest you keep your lips sealed and let me do the talking,”
Lorraine growls at me as we walk toward Matt’s office. She
still hasn’t forgiven me for asking about my missed paychecks,
convinced I’m trying to sabotage her.

Perhaps the greatest
thing about this new employment with Connover and Crown is that
Lorraine is no longer the boss of me. I mean… sure, she has
supervisory authority over me on some of the cases, but Matt is my
boss, and she can no longer threaten to fire me every other day. It
makes me want to just stop in my tracks, put my thumbs in my ears,
stick my tongue out while waggling my fingers at her, and say,
“Neener, neener, neener”.

Childish, I know,
which is why that particular fantasy will just reside in my head.
Along with all my hot fantasies of my night with my boss, Number 134.

Matt quickly waves
us into his office and motions us over to a large worktable that
takes up one corner of his office. We take a seat and wait for him to
finish his phone call. I busy myself flipping through a few files but
when I take a peek up every now and then, I catch Lorraine staring
hungrily at Matt.

I wish I could tell
her about my night with him and mock her with my “neener,
neener, neener” move. That would knock that lustful gaze right
off her face.

Oh well.

When Matt hangs up
and stands up from his desk, Lorraine’s head snaps down to a
file in front of her, and she hastily opens it up. I mentally roll my
eyes over her pathetic attempt to cover up the fact she was checking
him out. Matt seems oblivious though, as he walks over and takes a
seat between the two of us.

“Okay, so I
want to go through your entire case list, figure out if you’re
comfortable handling them on your own, or if you need help, and sort
of set a review schedule so I can stay in the loop with things.”

I nod at Matt in
understanding, but Lorraine just can’t help herself. She does
that little maneuver where she reaches out to touch his arm and says,
“I have a good handle on my cases, Matt. I don’t think
you need to waste your time with them. I mean… I’ve been
practicing for twelve years now.”

Nope… I can’t
help the smug satisfaction I get when he pulls his arm away from her
touch.

I could have told
her that Matt is definitely all business when he’s inside this
building. It’s equally as satisfying when Lorraine’s face
goes red when he says, “I appreciate that, Lorraine, but I have
my fingers in all the cases in this firm. I like to know what’s
going on and ensure the cases are being worked well. And while you’ll
be reporting to Bill, I want to use today for me to get familiar with
what you have.”

With that, Matt
starts having Lorraine go through each case where she gives him a
summary, he gives a few recommendations if necessary, and they move
on to the next case. Lorraine’s mouth is set into a grim line
by the time they are finished, although she does get a tiny bit
cheerful when he points out the cases that I’m to work on
underneath her. It’s apparently a happy day for her that she
will still have a little bit of control over me.

“Lorraine…
you can go ahead and get back to work while I talk to McKayla about
her brain injury case.”

Lorraine opens her
mouth to say something, but she can tell by the look on Matt’s
face that her time in his presence today is at an end. She grabs her
files and leaves.

Matt pinches the
bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Is she always like that?”

“Yeah,”
I say with a heavy heart.

“Well, if you
have any problems with her, just let me know.”

“Not going to
happen,” I tell him assuredly.

His eyebrows raise,
and his lips quirk at me. “Excuse me?”

“I can handle
Lorraine on my own. I won’t be running to you if I have an
issue.”

Matt opens his mouth
to argue, I can just tell, but I stare at him with a look that says
the subject isn’t open for discussion. His mouth snaps shut,
and he shrugs his shoulders. “Suit yourself.”

He then proceeds to
grill me about my case, but I know it forward and backward. I can’t
tell if he’s impressed or not when I tell him about how I
proved the headlights were on. He merely grunts and nods his head,
but I imagine compliments don’t come often from someone like
Matt.

After I finish, he
says, “You know this case is a major uphill battle.”

“Yeah…
I sort of figured that out when seven other law firms turned it
down.”

“Then why did
you take it?”

I hate to admit
this, especially to a high-powered lawyer like Matt, but no sense in
hiding it. “I just really liked Miranda and Larry Jackson. I
felt sorry for them, and they remind me of my parents. Strong,
hardworking… they didn’t deserve this, and their life
has been ruined because of it. I know those are stupid reasons to
take a case.”

Matt stares at me
for a moment, his face unreadable. He’d make a great poker
player. But I also remember him that night we were together and all
of the emotions I read across his face. Desire, passion, lust. He
wasn’t masking anything then.

Finally, he says,
“Those
are
stupid reasons to take a case. For you to
even have a chance, you’ll have to hire a really good accident
reconstructionist, and you’ll need to have expert medical
witnesses, plus a biomechanical engineer. This case will probably
cost a good fifty grand just to get it in the courtroom.”

A biomechanical
engineer? An accident reconstructionist? I have no clue what he’s
talking about, and I’m so out of my league here.

My heart sinks,
because I doubt there’s any way in hell that Matt will agree to
front that type of money on what is probably a loser case. Yet I
don’t know what I’ll do if he tries to make me get rid of
it. I suppose I could leave, and go out on my own… get a loan
or something to fund the case.

Matt interrupts my
thoughts. “Those reasons may be stupid, but it doesn’t
mean they aren’t the right reasons. Sometimes you take stupid
risks in this business, just because you happen to really like the
client.”

“So we can
keep the case?” I ask, hope coursing through me.

Matt can hear it in
my voice, and he can’t help but to smile fully at me. “Yeah.
I’ll fund this case. But it’s going to be a monster.
You’re going to need me to help you with it.”

“Absolutely,”
I say with excitement, having to restrain myself from running around
the room in a victory lap.

I’m even
betting now that I have the Great Litigator God, Matt Connover, on
this case, the insurance company will start quaking in their boots. I
can’t wait to tell Larry and Miranda, although sadly, Larry
will just forget.

Matt goes over a few
more things that I need to do to get the ball rolling on the expert
witnesses we’ll need, and then he sends me packing so he can
take another call.

It’s Saturday,
and just because I had a change in my employer and work address, it
didn’t equal a change in my work habits. I work every Saturday,
come rain or shine. Lorraine demanded it of me when I first went to
work for her after I passed the Bar, and I hated the hours. Then,
when Pete dumped me, I immersed myself in work so I could forget the
pain of my heartbreak. Work became like a drug for me—I needed
it to survive.

Now that I’m
starting to move past the pain of Pete and emerge back into the real
world, I’m here working on a Saturday mainly out of habit,
because I have nothing better to do. I’ve been here for almost
seven hours already, but I have another three in me I bet.

Matt’s
agreement to help me on the Jackson case has renewed my love of the
law. After I finish getting some urgent things handled for
Lorraine—because everything is always urgent with her, and yet
I don’t see her in here working on a Saturday—I tear the
Jackson file apart and re-organize it. Putting it in binders, I
create a perfect organizational layout of my one and only case. I
fill my bookshelf with those binders, then sit back in my chair and
admire my work for a moment, feeling empowered and hopeful that I can
really make something of this case.

After that, I scour
the internet for information on biomechanical engineering, because
Matt said I’d need one for the Jackson case, and I have no clue
what a biomechanical engineer does. It sounds immensely technical and
overly dry, and I’m dreading what I might find. The internet
does indeed cough up a wealth of information for me.

I am nose deep in an
article that has words like “velocity” and “deceleration”
and my eyes are practically rolling into the back of my head, when
the hair rises up on my arms. Looking up into the doorway, I yelp in
fright to find Matt standing there quietly watching me.