by Liz Peters
“Morning, Deb.” Her tone was happy. Debbie took that as a good sign and decided it was safe to venture a question about Reid.
“So, you sound happy. I guess that means things with Reid are good.” The grin that spread across Samantha’s face when she mentioned her husband told her everything she needed to know.
“Yeah, things are really good. We talked and worked things out. He’s happy we’re getting someone to help us out around the office. Speaking of which, does Jamie start today?”
“He’s supposed to be in at eight.” Debbie tried to drop that bomb nonchalantly, but she knew that Sam had heard everything she was saying as soon as she said the word ‘he.’ Sam’s eyes went wide while Debbie tried to look like it was no big deal.
“I’m guessing Jamie isn’t a woman then?” She looked amused at least, but Debbie could feel all the reserve she’d been building up breaking apart when Samantha looked like she was just holding back a laugh.
“No…” Her voice cracked, and Debbie’s face fell into her hands as everything that she’d been keeping in just came bubbling out of her. “And he’s gorgeous and divorced and smart and probably the best person I could have ever hired for the job. To be honest, I have no idea why he agreed to the salary when it’s only a fraction of what he was making before. I don’t even know how I’m going to behave myself when he’s here. Throw that in on top of the fact that I went on a date with my professor and wound up kissing him before I walked out of the restaurant before the end of dinner, and I’m pretty much screwed all around here.”
Sam’s face went from amused to concerned in a moment while Debbie was babbling. Debbie had no idea what she’d said that was wrong, but she was pretty sure it was the way she’d thrown out the fact that she’d kissed her professor that brought the frown to her best friend’s face.
“Deb, is everything ok?” That was all Deb needed to just kind of fall apart.
“No.” She shook her head and let out a soft sigh, trying to keep from crying. She had no clue as to what was wrong with her. “I just have no idea what I’m doing. I’m terrified I’m going to screw up everything.”
“Well, first things first. You went on a date with your professor? What in the hell are you both thinking?”
Debbie took a deep breath, trying to steady herself as she carefully wiped away the couple of tears she’d let fall.
“I don’t know. I’m not thinking. I have trouble thinking every time he talks, and it’s getting to be a real problem. I have to pass his class, and I need to keep things between us at least nothing more than friendly between now and then. I know how much trouble we both could get into with all of this. I’m not stupid or naive enough to think there’s no consequences for a professor dating one of his students.”
“There’s a lot of consequence for it. He should know better on top of all of that. I know you two met before you knew you were in his class, but it really should have stopped there. Just be careful, Deb, ok? I’m worried about you.”
Debbie didn’t like the sound of Samantha’s voice when she said she was worried. She didn’t want to be a disappointment. She’d come a long way out here to help Samantha oout, but Samantha had put a lot of faith in her being able to get done with law school while working and then being around to help with the law office when all was said and done. There was a lot riding on her being able to do all of this without a hitch, and she knew it. It just put that much more pressure on her.
“I’m worried about me too, Sam.” Debbie frowned, putting more of her weight on the edge of the desk. “I try to stay away, and then I get a message or he calls me and pulls me right back in. I have no idea why I can’t say no, but it’s been damned near impossible.”
Jamie chose that exact moment to come in through the front door with a, “Hello?” that echoed around the empty foyer and into Sam’s office.
“Well, I do believe that’s your new employee, Mrs. Spencer. We can finish this conversation later.” She sighed, rolling her eyes and pushed herself up to stand as she tugged her skirt back into place around her thighs and made her way out into the foyer to get this day started. Something told her it was going to be a long one.
#
After a few hours of working with Jamie, Debbie was almost at her wit’s end with both herself and Jamie. There was no denying he was good at his job. He had already pointed out about a dozen things that the two of them were doing wrong with the day to day running of the office. It made her feel stupid. Well, he made her feel stupid. It wasn’t that he meant to do that to her. It was just that he kept on pointing out obvious things that they should have thought of as she showed him how things worked around here. Everything from the way they made appointments to their billing system got called into question.
Finally, when she showed him the way things got filed on cases they were done with, and he asked her why in the hell they filed them chronologically instead of alphabetically, she lost her composure entirely. She’d barely been holding onto it for most of the day. Debbie felt her hands going to her hips and her eyes blazing as she whipped around to face him. It was similar to the way she’d felt when she walked out of dinner with Professor Brennan two nights ago, except here her work was being called into question. It just made things that much worse.
“Listen, I get it that you’re better than me at this. It’s why I hired you in the first place, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and let every single thing I’ve ever done be called into question one after the other. I’ve done my best with what I had to work with here. I’ve been working at law firms since I got out of college, huge ones, but because they were so huge, my only job was to make sure the phones got answered, appointments got booked, and the copies got made. I got in over my head with all of this. Maybe we both did. We know we’re not the best at this, but do you have to make me feel like an absolute idiot every time I show you something else? Is there anything you’ve seen me doing the right way since you walked through the front door?”
His eye grew hooded and dark as she went on her tirade, the fiery temperament she’d inherited from her father along with her red hair was shining through every word that Debbie said. It appeared that he had a temper to match hers in every way just from the look on his face. When he spoke, instead of yelling his voice was low and gravelly and filled with a barely contained rage.
“Well, other than the fact that you make a good pot of coffee and seem to look like a million dollars in a skirt, I’m not certain.” And that was it. She wanted him to say more, and then she wanted to slap him right across the cheek for the last thing he’d said.
“God, I hope you know how exasperating you are. It has to be hard to live life like such a perfectionist.”
“Actually, I find it quite freeing to keep everything in order and efficient so I don’t have to spend all my time figuring things out later. But I guess you wouldn’t seem to know about that would you?”
She growled and took a step forward, planting her finger in the middle of his chest as she looked up at him and lost all her cool.
“Listen here, Mister. You don’t know anything at all about me or my life, so why don’t you take that opinion and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”
“I’ve got a few things you can shove too, Miss…” He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because that was the moment she grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to take the kiss she’d been wanting to get since the minute he walked in through the front door. She had no idea why in the hell the two of them going at each other made her want him that much more, but it did, so much more than anyone who complimented her and came onto her. Him calling her on her faults was absolutely sexy, as was the way that he did it all while keeping himself calm and collected and just showing that hint of disapproval in his voice. It infuriated her and enticed her at the same time.
She expected him to pull away and be absolutely offended that she’d done that to him. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her in closer to hi
s chest. When he returned her kiss, it took everything to an entirely different level and put the kiss she’d planted on Professor Brennan’s lips on their night out to shame. It had been a long time since Debbie could say that she’d been kissed like this, if ever.
The two of them stood there tangled up in each other for what seemed like a long time before one of them pulled away. Debbie couldn’t have put her finger on which one of them moved first, but as soon as the both of them came to their senses, she found herself fixing her clothes and Jamie mirrored her motions, tugging the wrinkles out of his button-down shirt. He had been dressed impeccably when he walked into the office, but she’d done a good job at making sure he looked fairly disheveled by the time the two of them untangled from around each other.
“I’m sorry.” He was apologizing, and she was disappointed that he thought he needed to, though the fact that the two of them shouldn’t have done that was absolutely clear.
“Right. Me too. That shouldn’t have happened. It won’t happen again.” She turned her attention back to the files that she’d pulled out of the filing cabinet in front of her, trying to sort them back into order.
“Listen, just do whatever you feel like needs to be done around here. You’re the expert, and like I said, I hired you for a reason.” She’d lost the energy that had made her so annoyed before and found herself fading fast as she tried not to process the fact that she’d just laid the most passionate kiss of her life on the lips of someone who technically worked for her. Never mind the fact, that he seemed to immediately regret what had happened between them as soon as it was over.
“I mean, I guess we need to figure out what works best for you guys before we go changing everything. I’ll go home tonight and think about things. Maybe talk to Mrs. Spencer tomorrow while you’re out and see what she thinks before I go changing anything too drastically.”
“Whatever you think is best. Listen, I should let you get to your work and settling in around here. I’ll be at my desk if you need me. I need to finish moving everything into the office so you can have that desk anyway.” She nodded, sliding her hands in her pockets as she walked away with a soft sigh as soon as she was out of his line of sight. She was screwing things up left and right these days. Maybe it would be smart if she stopped listening to her instincts and maybe just put her focus on trying to make sure she didn’t fail out of law school or get fired instead of the two guys who had somehow made their way into her life.
Chapter Ten
Jamie went home after a long first day at the office and settled into the couch in his new apartment with a groan. He hadn’t lived here very long, and all of the furniture was new to replace everything he’d left behind in the house he used to share with his wife. Valerie was an excellent lawyer, and so when she’d told him she wanted a divorce so she could continue her affair with her partner Steve with impunity, he just walked away from everything the two of them had shared without a fight. She hadn’t been happy for a long time, so it had come as no surprise that she’d also been cheating on him for the last couple of years.
At least it wasn’t weird being in a house alone. They were well past the age when most of their friends were having kids and starting a family, but Valerie was focused on her career. Jamie had understood that, and he hadn’t pushed her to do anything she hadn’t wanted to do. He thought he was being supportive, and maybe he was. But he’d also handed her the way to remove herself from his life forever.
He shouldn’t be sitting here in the dark thinking about his ex-wife, and how he’d really been as unhappy as she had been during the last couple of years. He shouldn’t have been thinking about the temperamental redhead who’d hired him on as the office manager of a law firm that consisted of one twenty-something fairly fresh out of law school lawyer and one half-paralegal half-secretary turned law student who had no idea what they were doing running a business. He had walked into the job because it was something to do.
When Jamie’s parents had died, they’d left him with enough money that he didn’t really ever need to work again. He had always just managed the office at Valarie’s law firm to have something to do, but after the two of them had separated and the divorce proceedings had begun, he just couldn’t make himself stay there, no matter how many times she told him he was welcome to keep his job. There was just no way he was going to be able to sit around there and face her down every single day while she moved on and married her partner at the law firm and got pregnant as soon as the ink was dry on all the paperwork. He might have been into a few kinky things, but that wasn’t one of them.
What he really needed to do was grab a beer and get everything that had happened today off of his mind. He had taken the job for a distraction from sitting around an empty apartment all alone, but what he’d gotten was a distraction at a much larger scale than he’d ever anticipated. When he walked into the place to be interviewed by a woman who looked like sex on a stick, he knew he was in for a tough ride, but he thought he was going to be able to make it through unscathed. But then, she had gone and yelled at him for criticizing everything they’d set up and ended it by dragging him into that kiss. Jamie hadn’t had a kiss like that in a long damn time, too long actually. It had done things to his brain that he didn’t think he was ever going to get over, but he had to work for this woman. There was no faster way to ruin a professional relationship than by turning it sexual, even if it was what both of them wanted.
For a moment, he was pretty sure she’d hated him, and then she’d grabbed him like some half-starved animal and basically devoured him. It had been a huge surprise and pulling her into his chest by wrapping his arms around her body had been pure instinct. There was no way he was going to be able to get involved with someone he worked for. He had gone down that path before, and it had turned around to bite him in the ass with Valerie. He wasn’t going to do that to himself again when it had almost killed him the first time to have to go through all of that.
At least there would be tomorrow. Debbie wasn’t going to be there, and it would give both of them the chance to get what had happened between them today out of their systems before they finally settled down into working together. There was a lot of work to get done around the place as it was. The two of them were smart, capable women, and he hadn’t meant to imply that they had no idea what they were doing. But really, the two of them had no idea what they were doing when it came to running an office.
In their last jobs, it hadn’t been something that either of them had really had to think about. They’d just let the systems that had been put in place in their previous firm take care of all of the behind the scenes work. No lawyer really ever thought about how things worked in their offices. That was the office manager’s job, and it was the thing that Jamie was good at. It was nice to think that he was actually going to be needed and useful for a change. The two of them stood a good chance at success with just a few tweaks here and there in the systems that kept things going around them. All they would have to focus on was getting their jobs done, and not having to worry about the nitpick details like filing and billing.
He had done the same thing for Valerie all those years ago, except now that things were put into motion and rolling, she didn’t need him anymore. He had become an expendable piece of equipment, like some computer that had gone past its usability and was gotten rid of with the trash. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. All he had to do was keep his eye on the race and not get distracted by the gorgeous woman he was going to have to work with three days out of every five.
He was going to have to not think about how much more gorgeous she looked when she was yelling at him or how her lips tasted when she’d pulled him in for that kiss. Maybe he shouldn’t have been thinking about how right it felt to pull her into his arms and let the heat of her body melt into his chest as the two of them got lost in kissing each other. And he really should not have been thinking about what it would have been like to pin her against the wall in the file room or bend her ove
r the huge table in the conference room and strip every last stitch of clothes off her to see if that porcelain skin covered every inch of her body like he imagined that it did.
Jamie shook his head with a groan, trying to clear his thoughts before he pushed himself up off the couch and headed into the kitchen. He should have been combing through the refrigerator for something to eat for dinner instead of grabbing one of the last couple of beers he had left on the top shelf and cracking the can open to drain it without taking a step away from his spot in front of the fridge before grabbing another one. Jamie made a mental note to go back to the store after work tomorrow to grab another case. He was going to need a lot more of this if he was supposed to keep Debbie MacIntyre off his mind even if she wasn’t going to be in the office tomorrow.
He was still taking over her old desk, and he was going to be lost to distraction every single time he thought about the way she’d kissed him in the filing room. Half of him wanted to call her or text her right now. She’d left him her phone number in case he had any questions tomorrow, but he didn’t want to do that to her. He respected her too much to try to fool around with someone he was supposed to be working for, no matter how attractive she might be.
He wasn’t sure what had come over her when she’d grabbed him and pulled him in for that kiss, but he had this part of him that didn’t want it to happen again for her sake. He was damaged goods. But there was another part of him that wanted it to happen, keep happening and never stop happening.
And there he was lost in thoughts he shouldn't be having about one of the last women he ought to be having them about. He had no idea what it was about Debbie that drew him in like that, but now that it had happened, the attraction was undeniable.
Tomorrow. That was going to be his chance to really start this job and get things rolling without any more distractions. At least that's what he was hoping for. Tonight, there wasn't much left to do except go to bed and hope that his dreams turned out better than his reality for once in his life.
