Legal Affairs - Violation: Legal Affairs Serial Romance by Sawyer Bennett Page B

client’s
file,” I say, my voice as calm as can be in the hopes that she
will lower hers. I’m not too worried about any of the staff
hearing us, because they all clear out right at 5:30 PM on the dot.
    “Not just any
fucking client’s file,” she screeches, and I resist the
urge to put my fingers in my ears because damn… she sounds
like a cat in heat. “This is the file for my hearing today in
front of Judge Hudson that you were to prepare for me. And do you
know what? The fucking Order you were supposed to draft wasn’t
in there.”
    She punctuates the
last words of her statement with so much anger that spittle flies out
of her mouth and hits me on my arm. Geez! What is it about people
spitting on me?
    “Don’t
you have anything to fucking say for yourself?” When I just
stare at her blankly, because I know damn well the Order was there
when I handed it to her this morning, her rage reaches a crescendo
and she cocks her arm back, letting the file fly at me. I see it
hurling toward me almost as if in slow motion, turning end over end.
All the loose papers inside take flight into the air, and then it’s
just an empty folder flying toward my head. I duck quickly to the
left, and the folder splats harmlessly on the wall behind me.
    It’s my
personal belief that Lorraine’s greatest rage comes not because
the Order was missing, but because she failed to peg me with the
file. The minute I ducked, her anger turned to molten lava, and she
lets out an almost inhuman screech.
    “You’re
such a fucking screw up, McKayla!”
    Okay, enough is
enough. Now I’m getting really pissed but before I can even
open my mouth, my office door flies open so hard, that now my law
degree falls off the wall and succumbs to the same fate as my
undergrad degree.
    I stare at it sadly,
and say, “That’s just great.”
    Looking back toward
the door, I see Matt Connover standing there, his face furious. He
glances briefly down at my two degrees broken on the floor, and then
turns back to me. He doesn’t yell, but then he doesn’t
need to. He’s Matt Fucking Connover.
    “What the hell
is going on here?” he asks, his tone measured and calm, even
though I can tell he’s bristling with anger.
    “You broke my
frame,” I say lamely, because I’m really not sure what
else to say. I told Matt on my first day of employment that I would
never bring my problems with Lorraine to him. I’m a big girl,
and I can handle this.
    Matt gives me an
exasperated glare and turns to Lorraine. “I repeat… what
is going on here? I heard yelling clear down in my office.”
    Lorraine stands
there nervously, wringing her hands together. She gives me a sidelong
glance to see if I’m going to spill the beans on her. I avert
her gaze and start organizing the papers that flew out of the file.
    Hey… look at
that. I pick up a piece of paper that had fallen out of the folder
and hold it up to Lorraine. “Here’s your Order.”
    Lorraine’s
face blanches, and not because she just yelled at me for nothing.
She’s terrified that I will tell Matt exactly what she did,
even though she had no cause to yell at me like that.
    The power I hold
over her right now almost has a ticklish feeling.
    She and I engage in
a staring war, and I slowly open my mouth like I’m going to rat
her out. Lorraine’s eyes plead with me and I make her wait out
her sentence for just a few more seconds, then I let her off the
hook.
    Turning to Matt with
a smile I say, “Nothing’s wrong. Just a little
disagreement, but we cleared it up. Right, Lorraine?”
    Lorraine lets out a
huge, pent-up breath and smiles at me, although the light doesn’t
quite reach her eyes. “Right. No problems here.”
    Matt stares back and
forth between us, and I can tell he doesn’t buy a word of what
we’re saying. Finally, he sighs and says, “McKayla…
let’s meet on the Jackson case so I can get out of here.
I’ve got plans tonight.”
    Great.
    Another pointed
reminder that Matt’s plans