Legally Binding

by Cleo Peitsche

  Maisie remembered a joke her mother had told her. You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

  She crossed her arms. For the first time since waking up that morning, she was more worried than excited.

  “I’ll email a longer list of specifications: how he takes his coffee, when he wants his dry cleaning picked up—”

  “He expects me to pick up his dry cleaning?” Maisie asked, crestfallen.

  Mrs. Donahue ignored the interruption. “Next, Mr. Banno. He has a full-time personal assistant who handles most of his needs, but occasionally you’ll have to step in. To that end, I recommend spending a few hours with Gladys, letting her show you the ropes. Mr. Banno will require your assistance less often than Mr. Lattimore, but he can be quite demanding.”

  She paused as if for dramatic effect. “A previous employee served him cold coffee. That man ended up wearing it.”

  Maisie’s stomach curdled. “That’s terrible!”

  “Instead of constantly interjecting your opinions, you might want to consider the warning I’m giving you. Assuming you’re smart enough to take a not-so-subtle hint.”

  The temptation to match Mrs. Donahue’s rudeness was almost overwhelming. Gritting her teeth, Maisie said evenly, “I graduated from Penn, you know. Same as Ethan Brennbach.” She’d read it in an article about the firm.

  “Did you? Then I imagine you have a lot of student loans to pay back and need this job more than we need you.”

  Maisie felt her face heating with anger. People were usually impressed when they heard where she’d gone to school. “Well, I read some general books about law practices in preparation for working here. I’ve also got a good memory and speak three languages.” Sort of.

  “Look around you, Ms. Novau. Do I look like HR? Does this look like a Broadway audition? Here we’re all drones, stacking up billable hours. That’s the only language you need to concern yourself with. Since you brought up Mr. Brennbach…” She gestured Maisie closer and glanced around even though there wasn’t anyone near them.

  Maisie leaned in. She could see the unevenness of Mrs. Donahue’s foundation and the bloodshot veins in her eyes.

  And was that the sweet grape scent of wine on her breath? First thing in the morning? Maisie chanced a quick sniff. It sure was.

  “Mr. Brennbach suffers from… an embarrassing affliction.”

  A million possibilities raced through Maisie’s mind. She had an uncle with IBS, but he didn’t seem particularly embarrassed about it. If anything, he thought it was funny, or at least pretended to.

  Mrs. Donahue drew a finger around her own face. “His countenance,” she said. “The right side. It happened two years ago, and it didn’t improve his disposition any.”

  Prickling crawled along Maisie’s skin. With each passing second, it burrowed deeper, permeating her with cold dread.

  “His face? I think… I think I saw him on the street, but he was heading—”

  “If you think you saw him, then you did. He doesn’t like being reminded of his disfigurement, for obvious reasons. Don’t stare, don’t gossip. In fact, the best advice I can give you is to pretend you don’t notice at all.”

  Too fuckin’ late. A nervous, choked giggle escaped Maisie’s pursed lips.

  “Honestly,” Mrs. Donahue said, flustered. “Don’t do that when you see him.”

  Maisie pressed her fingertips against her mouth. She could smell a trace of that intoxicating aftershave, or maybe she was imagining it. She remembered the solidity of his body as he caught her. “What happened to him?”

  “That’s none of your business, so don’t go asking. It’s not spoken of.”

  “But—”

  Mrs. Donahue snapped her fingers. “It’s not discussed here. If you gossip and he finds out, he won’t just fire you. He’ll sue you for creating a hostile work environment. He’ll win, and you’ll be selling your blood plasma and collecting cans for the next thirty years. That man never loses a case, and he never forgets a slight.”

  Maisie nodded, but the blood had drained out of her face, leaving her woozy.

  3

  Maisie absorbed very little of the tour after that. At the end, Mrs. Donahue explained about the other office, half a block away, where the majority of the staff worked. She made threats that Maisie would be transferred to the mailroom there if her performance was unsatisfactory.

  Maisie didn’t really hear her.

  Was Ethan Brennbach the man who had caught her? The possibility filled her with equal parts mortification and hope.

  Little by little, dread won out.

  The instant she was alone at her desk—which was unfortunately within sight of Mrs. Donahue’s desk—she accessed the company directory.

  She’d tried once previously, the morning before her first interview, but LB&B kept the directory behind password protection.

  Now that she was on an office computer, she didn’t need a password.

  Hands trembling, she typed in Brennbach. During the seconds that it took the computer to return the results, she suffered through several levels of hell.

  In the photo that popped up, Ethan Brennbach was staring straight into the camera, his eyes blazing with the knowledge that he held the world in the palm of his hand.

  Maisie lifted her hand and covered the right side of his face, but she already knew the truth: Ethan Brennbach was the man who had caught her.

  Her boss. The man whose scent practically brought her to orgasm.

  The man she had offended.

  She dropped her arm and contemplated the screen. He had strong features, a square but refined jaw and chin, and a straight nose. His face was astoundingly symmetrical. He looked indestructible, invincible.

  Once upon a time, he’d been gorgeous.

  It was one thing to have always been homely, but she wouldn’t have wished his fate on her worst enemy. Actually, maybe her worst enemy. Heather. The woman who’d sabotaged their final project junior year, blamed it on Maisie, and thereby stole the marketing internship that turned into a full-time position after graduation. In contrast, Maisie had ended up paying for courses to be an executive assistant, which at LB&B meant a dry-cleaning fetching, plant-watering, coffee-carrying gofer.

  One of Maisie’s guilty pastimes was imagining all the ways she’d get revenge on Heather. Most of them involved public humiliation. Unlikely it would ever happen; she’d only seen Heather twice in the four years since graduation.

  The second time, six weeks ago, had motivated Maisie to give notice at the call center and start looking for a better position. Maybe she wouldn’t be the head of a department anytime soon, but at least she was working on the top floor of the most exclusive office building in the city.

  She’d just have to steer clear of Ethan Brennbach.

  Maisie found a photo of the three founding partners together. “Wow,” she murmured. Mr. Lattimore was elegant and sleek. Far closer to her age than even early retirement. Dark-haired and confident, he had the kind of charmed good looks that other men sneeringly called “pretty,” as if that would diminish their appeal to women.

  Mr. Banno was classically handsome, with a chiseled jaw and mocha-brown eyes. He reminded her of the Japanese soccer star she’d dated her freshman year—his senior year—before he ditched her for the woman he was now married to. And he’d done it a few weeks before Maisie was supposed to meet his parents, visiting from Osaka.

  Nice memory, that.

  She wondered if it was just a good photo or if the partners were insanely attractive in real life.

  Her gaze kept returning to Mr. Brennbach. He was smiling, his gray eyes hypnotic.

  That much, at least, hadn’t changed.

  She closed out of the directory and turned to the mountain of work on her desk. Mrs. Donahue had explained that Maisie would be started off on simple tasks, to see if she could handle them.

  The matter of love or hate had been settled; she hated Mrs. Donahue.

  First she took a
few minutes to shuffle through the pile, to get a sense of what was there. Nothing too difficult, and by regrouping the drudgery so that she’d be focused on one type of project at a time, she figured she could wring a little extra productivity out of herself.

  This was supposed to take all day? She’d have it finished before lunch, late start notwithstanding.

  And it went fast like that… at first. She turned written forms into typed documents, put together new client packets, and regrouped files. There was lots of photocopying, which she quickly learned meant babysitting a machine that refused to be hurried.

  She took another stack of folders to the copier. Unfasten the papers, copy them, put them back. This was tedious. She was tempted to make it last all day just on principle.

  On the other hand, she wanted to make a positive impression.

  A woman wearing a beehive hairdo and tons of eyeliner walked in with an armful of folders. “How much more do you have?” Her voice was nasally, like she had sinus problems.

  Maisie glanced at her own stack of work. “I’ll be collecting retirement benefits before I’m done.”

  The woman sighed, then set down the folders. “Guess I’ll come back,” she said, and left.

  With nothing else to do, Maisie started snooping through the folders. It felt naughty. This was prohibited according to Mrs. Donahue, though Maisie had signed nondisclosure agreements.

  The top file was a senior citizen suing his apartment complex because they hadn’t been diligent enough when de-icing the sidewalk. He’d fallen, breaking a hip. There were photos of the walkway as well as the victim, a map of black and blue over his sallow canvas of skin.

  The next case was a contested will, two sisters squabbling over who owned the contents of the house. Boring.

  She moved it aside and gasped.

  “Luther William McAvoy,” she whispered. They’d gone to school together. A glance at the date of birth was proof enough that it was the same guy. Like there was a herd of Luther William McAvoys running around.

  He’d been arrested for destroying a traffic cam.

  “What an idiot,” she murmured. Luther had been the class clown. While they weren’t close friends, if she were to run into him, they’d probably end up chatting for ten or fifteen minutes.

  According to the file, he was married and had a toddler. He worked at their old high school as a janitor.

  Two yellow stickies were attached to the top of the file. Pro bono was written on one, and J.T. on the other. J.T. must be one of the associates, Maisie thought. From what she’d seen, everyone but the partners—the three founding partners plus five equity partners—was referred to by initials, or initials plus last name.

  Well, that wouldn’t do. Luther was a decent guy and deserved the best possible representation, especially if it was going to be pro bono and wouldn’t cost him anything.

  Maisie ripped off the sticky and crumpled it up.

  She liberated a sticky with Mr. Lattimore’s name from another folder and slapped it onto Luther’s file, pressing hard. She memorized the case number: eight digits plus four letters. Once she was a permanent employee, she’d be able to track the case’s progress through the online system.

  She returned the folders to their former order, then tended to the copy machine. Yesterday’s milkmaids were today’s copy machine attendants. Feed it, collect the warm white output.

  Maisie snickered, thinking of the photo of the three sexy partners. She could imagine far more interesting warm white output to be had in this office.

  Her pulse quickened as she remembered Mr. Brennbach’s arms around her, and his deep voice in her ear.

  “Maisie? Mr. Lattimore needs you.”

  She jumped at the interruption and turned to find herself facing the definition of a peaches-and-cream complexion. The woman’s full lips, which were just a little pouty in a sexual way, looked natural, as did her high cheekbones.

  Maisie stared for a second. She couldn’t help comparing herself.

  Comparing and coming up short.

  The woman smiled like she knew what Maisie was thinking. Like she knew Maisie was used to being the most attractive woman in the room, and that here, in this little copy room, population two, she’d slipped into the bottom fiftieth percentile.

  “He needs you now,” the woman said. “I’ll show you the way.”

  Great. She was finally getting to meet Mr. Lattimore, and instead of making a memorable first impression, she was going to be overshadowed by a supermodel in a form-fitting pantsuit. Maisie’s fingers groped for the silver chain around her neck. “What about my files?” she asked as the chain whispered across her skin.

  “We’ll stop by your desk so you can drop them off.”

  Nodding, Maisie gathered everything up.

  The woman had a sexy rolling gait that seemed, to Maisie, a little overdone. It didn’t matter, because it was effective. Hell, Maisie wanted to grow a dick and fuck her.

  If the bosses were amenable to office romance, Maisie was obviously going to have to get in line. And that really fucking sucked.

  She dropped the folders onto her chair and noticed that a new stack had been added to her desk. So much for getting her work done in a couple of hours to impress the bosses.

  “I’m Maisie,” she said, deciding she should introduce herself to the competition, who definitely wasn’t wearing a wedding band.

  “Jayne. I saw your résumé last week. I spent almost half a year at Penn.”

  “Really?” If Jayne hadn’t been able to hack it, that was a point in Maisie’s favor.

  “Yeah. The professor overseeing my independent study took a position at Penn, so I followed her, wrapped up the project, then went back.” She smiled. “To Stanford. It was a logistical nightmare, and I almost didn’t graduate on time.”

  Somehow, Maisie smiled back. She hadn’t done an independent study. None of her professors would have asked her to tag along to another university. In fact, she doubted any of her former professors could have picked her out of a lineup two months after semester’s end.

  And then there was the fact that Stanford had rejected her.

  Maisie hadn’t met many people who made her feel so insecure that she wanted to slink into a closet and hide, but of course there had to be one at her new job, a goddess with a perfect body and a starlet’s face. It figured.

  Jayne led her to a conference room, where she went right up to a seated man Maisie recognized as Mr. Lattimore. He was older than in the photo; she’d thought late twenties, but he was likely in his early thirties. Thick, dark lashes framed his sleepy blue eyes. Bedroom eyes.

  Irresistible.

  Maisie liked guys who were a bit older, and eight years was the sweet spot. They were confident, accomplished, and knew their way around a woman’s body—most of the time, anyway.

  Mr. Lattimore didn’t immediately drop everything he was doing to stare at Jayne’s beauty. Maisie was impressed by his restraint. He was, however, speaking to her like she was a colleague. And Maisie realized… Jayne wouldn’t be an assistant. Not if she’d been an overachiever in college. And while she didn’t look older than Maisie, she was the kind of woman who probably aged at a tenth the rate of mortals.

  Jayne probably was Mr. Lattimore’s colleague.

  Oh well. Maybe it was better to be thoroughly outclassed. At least she wouldn’t have to waste time and energy competing.

  Mr. Lattimore finally looked over at Maisie. He stared a fraction of a second too long… just a normal reaction to seeing any unknown person, Maisie realized with a fair amount of disappointment.

  “You’re my new assistant.”

  “Yes.”

  He stood to shake her hand, and Maisie noted the breadth of his shoulders and the firmness of the muscles under his starched shirt.

  Oh, she definitely appreciated what she saw.

  When their fingers touched, she swore she felt a spark of current zapping between them.

  “Welcome, Maisie. Maybe
we can chat later, but at the moment I need you to drop whatever you’re doing and check a transcript against one of the Ballystock depositions. Mrs. Donahue is setting it up. Whenever you find something that doesn’t match, note the time from the recording as well as the text of the discrepancy.”

  He paused. “I know it’s a bit much on your first day, but we’re under deadline. You have to be detail-oriented.”

  “I am,” she assured him. “It’s not a problem.”

  She gradually became aware that Jayne’s posture had changed. She was standing a little straighter, maybe holding her breath, and her attention was fixed on someone behind Maisie.

  When Maisie turned, she discovered that Mr. Brennbach had entered the room.

  His scarred face, too, as handsome and horrific as she remembered.

  And he was looking right at her.

  4

  His expression was unreadable, but Maisie had no difficulty supplying a plausible running commentary.

  There’s that fucking bitch who panicked when she saw me.

  Then she realized that while she was standing there in shock, she’d broken the cardinal rule: she was staring at him.

  And everyone had noticed.

  “I’ll get right on that, Mr. Lattimore,” she stammered, dropping her gaze, then hurried to the door.

  Mr. Brennbach didn’t move out of the way, and she sensed his disapproving glare as she squeezed up against the conference room table to avoid bumping into him.

  She caught a whiff of his aftershave, and the memory of that morning slammed into her like a truck. That scent. His arms around her. His voice in her ear, letting her know she was safe. The silk of his suit and the hardness of his arms and chest underneath.

  She fled down the hall, anxious to get somewhere safe. What she needed was a minute in the bathroom, to pull herself together. But then she saw Mrs. Donahue impatiently hovering over her desk.

  After giving a demonstration on how to operate the self-explanatory transcription software—which Maisie tolerated because she needed a moment to calm her pounding heart—Mrs. Donahue planted her hands on her hips.