“Oh god,” she says with an exaggerated eye roll when she sees me at my desk.

  “Fuck off, Kendra.”

  She rears back, obviously surprised by my outburst. But guess what? You can only poke and poke and poke a bear so many times before the bear bites your freakin’ hand off.

  And while I’m not exactly impressed with my behavior—I mean, I won’t be doling out advice on how to conduct yourself in a corporate setting anytime soon—it does succeed in shutting her up. She doesn’t let out another peep while the two of us get to work.

  Later, she asks me rather politely (for her, at least) if I have a certain file I can email to her, and after I do it, she mutters a quick, “Thank you.”

  A half-hour later, when I go into the break room to scrounge around for a snack (aka candy), I pick up two mini bags of Skittles and toss one on her desk when I walk back into our office.

  She doesn’t say anything, but she does tear into the bag straight away.

  So there you go. Progress, I guess.

  From down the hall, I hear, “Someone come fix my fucking printer!”

  And I sit at my desk, smiling my little smile and working my butt off. It’s the happiest I’ve felt all day.

  Chapter Ten

  Hudson

  I’ve been summoned to speak with God this morning.

  Anders’ office is ten floors above mine, so high that when I stand at the windows overlooking downtown Chicago, I feel a rush of adrenaline. He has quite the setup, expansive floor-to-ceiling windows covering two of the four walls, more space than he knows what to do with. There are four segregated seating areas inside his office. Why would four different groups of people need to meet in one place together? I don’t care. I love it.

  I look down at the pedestrians crossing over the river, caught in the sunshine and going about their day, when Anders begins. “I’m incredibly satisfied with how you’ve handled this KinBio issue.”

  I’ll bet he is. I’ve clocked 236 hours in the last three weeks. I’ve had associates working around the clock too. The issue is out of my hands now. As we expected, the FTC ruled against the merger, and KinBio will be seeking the breakup fee Chapman International agreed to in our original contract. Though now, of course, they’re refusing to pay it. I won’t be going to court over it. That’s for our litigators to handle, but I’ve given them everything they should need, and we’ll continue to work closely with them over the coming months. There’s no doubt we’ll get KinBio those millions, and I will be rewarded handsomely as well.

  “I understand my daughter helped your team.”

  “She did.”

  She’s been at the office more than any other first-year associate. I’ve had to kick her out of the building more than once while she grumbled under her breath. God, I love her mouth. I love her feistiness. I shouldn’t be stoking the flames with her. I should be keeping us on the straight and narrow, leading her with dignity—but that’s not my style.

  Besides, Anders must know what his daughter is like at this point. I doubt she’s a perfect angel outside the office…

  “My daughter seems extremely happy here. I take it you’re going easy on her like I requested?”

  Good thing I’m facing the windows so he can’t see my smile. The question should be: is she going easy on me?

  “I asked her about work last night at dinner,” he adds. “She said she likes her team and credits a good deal of that to your leadership.”

  I turn back. “What about her fellow first-years?”

  His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “She didn’t mention them much.”

  Interesting. So she really is handling the animosity all on her own. I have to hand it to her, it hasn’t been easy these last few weeks. Though I suspect the bullying instances are lessening, Scarlett hasn’t been let into their tight-knit group yet. She still eats lunch by herself, still arrives and leaves the office on her own. I suspect there’s more. There’s no telling the ways they’re antagonizing her, but she takes it in stride. Keeps her head down. Focuses on work.

  I check her billable hours at the end of every day, comparing them against her peers. She’s leading the charge, and knowing that makes something like pride unfurl in my chest. “What does her direct supervisor say? Sophie Smith?”

  “Nothing but compliments, though of course no one’s going to give it to me straight for fear of offending me. But with you—” He chuckles. “I don’t have to worry about that.”

  Right.

  “Scarlett is fine,” I answer curtly.

  His eyebrows rise. “Just fine?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  He smiles. “Something more than that.”

  “I don’t get paid to wax poetic about your daughter.”

  I’ve done plenty of that in my head, on my own time.

  He laughs, nodding now. “All right. Fair.”

  I’m tempted to dismiss myself, but I get the sense that there’s something more. He walks over toward the windows, mirroring my posture from a few moments ago. He sighs and suddenly, his age shows. I wonder how many more years of law he has left in him. There will be a power vacuum after he leaves. David Hoyt retired five years ago, and we’ve only just regained stability here in the Chicago office.

  “Truthfully, I don’t want her here. Maybe I never will,” Anders admits quietly. “I wish she had chosen to work with her mother. Katherine is an antiques dealer. She’s had a shop over in West Town for thirty years. She tries not to let on about it, but I know she hoped Scarlett would join her in the business one day, the way the boys have joined me.”

  “It’d be a waste,” I say, truthfully. “She’s a better lawyer than Barrett.”

  Anders barks out a laugh. “Jesus, you don’t mince words.”

  He knows it’s true.

  Barrett is fine, don’t get me wrong, but he doesn’t have the commitment level you need to really succeed in a firm like this. He travels a lot and has no qualms about leaving the office every day at 5:00. It’s obvious his passion isn’t law, at least not the way I suspect it is for Scarlett.

  “Why did you ask me to take her on?” I ask, studying his profile. The question has been plaguing me ever since Scarlett’s first day at the firm.

  “I respect you.”

  I hum in disapproval. “Well…truthfully, I haven’t gone easy on her, and I don’t plan to.” I’m taking a real gamble here. There’s nothing and no one Anders Elwood cares about more than his kids, and I get the sense he has a special soft spot for Scarlett. “If you want someone to baby her, pull her off my team.”

  He turns and assesses me with those sharp gray eyes for so long it becomes uncomfortable. I’m about to say something—to call attention to the awkward moment—but then he nods, only once. “Understood.”

  And just like that, I’m dismissed.

  Outside the 70th floor and the food court, I’ve seen Scarlett twice over the last few weeks, working with a boxing trainer in the building’s gym. The first time, I didn’t believe it was really her. She had swapped her work clothes for tight leggings and a hot pink sports bra. Her long brown hair was pulled up into a high wavy ponytail and she was lobbing hard punches one after another after another against her trainer’s cushion-covered hands.

  I stood, dumbstruck—just like every other fucking guy in there—until she finished the round and turned to walk to the corner of the ring to get some water. She was bent over, closing the lid, when her eyes flicked up and she caught me staring.

  I was going to make some joke about her picturing my head for every punch, but my words failed me. Heat coursed through me.

  God she was sexy. In her work clothes, yes. In that sports bra and leggings? Criminal.

  She frowned at me then turned back to rejoin her trainer, and that was that. I relegated myself to the other side of the gym where, for the better part of an hour, I tried to do exercises that made it easy for me to see Scarlett in the mirror. Crunches, curl-ups, jumping jacks—there was no rhyme or reason to my workout. I was breaking a sweat, sure, but I was also completely unsure of how many reps I’d done of what exercises, and by the end of it, I’d accidentally overdone it with the leg workouts. When Scarlett saw me limping into the break room the next day, she laughed.

  “Pulled a muscle, old man?”

  “Ha ha, yes. Now move so I can get an ice pack for my ass.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed, and I stood there looking at her like I was under a siren’s spell.

  I’d like to note that I’ve been working in law for a decade, and I’ve never—not a single time—developed a crush on a coworker. In fact, I’ve never even come close. I’m usually so focused on the task at hand that I’m more liable to forget the name, face, employment status, etc. of the person I’m dealing with than to develop a real human connection with them. When I first started working with Lucy, I’d call her “Hey lady out there” until one day she got so fed up she threw her rolled up newspaper at my head and told me I’d “better get some manners” and I’d “better get them real quick.”

  So to have this reaction to a coworker, a junior associate, an Elwood no less…

  It’s laughably bad.

  The same day I needed the ice pack, Scarlett had a care package delivered to my desk around lunchtime. Inside of your aunt’s chunky wicker basket from the ’60s was a jumbo-sized bottle of Aspirin, a pill organizer labeled with each day of the week, a pair of reading glasses, a crossword puzzle book, and some caramel candies. A corresponding note said, “Take it easy, old timer!” which just…goddammit it made me smile, okay?

  I ended up giving the basket to Lucy. She absolutely loved it.

  Well…she loved it once I convinced her I was only giving it to her out of the goodness of my heart and no she didn’t have to work late and no she didn’t have to come in on Saturday and just take it already!

  My one real saving grace in all of this—other than my surly attitude perpetually turning Scarlett away from me at every instance—is the fact that Scarlett is spoken for. Scarlett Elwood is not single, and I’d do well to remember that when I’m jerking off like a horny teenager in my shower every morning thinking about her.

  I need a fucking hobby.

  Chapter Eleven

  Scarlett

  “Moira, it’s just a pretend pumpkin! Leave it alone!”

  Moira doesn’t listen before she swipes my little festive pumpkin from Target’s dollar bin right off my TV stand. It’s the third Halloween decoration she’s tried to sabotage. The small hanging ghosts I attempted to put up over the weekend were so personally offensive to her she had them ripped out of the ceiling in a matter of minutes. The black papier-mâché bats? Reduced to dust.

  Maybe Halloween just isn’t her thing. Maybe in another life she was one of those moms who didn’t let her kids read Harry Potter and thought Halloween was just a way for the devil to access your soul through slightly melted snack-sized Snickers bars.

  Or you know what? Maybe Moira is just more of a Christmas girlie. Either way, she will not let me get into the spooky holiday vibes!

  I yank the wooden pumpkin off the floor, and she hisses like she wants me to know there’ll be a round two if I’m not careful.

  “I’ll put the pumpkin away, okay! You did it! You beat Halloween, you jerk.”

  There’s a knock on my door. It’s Jasper, here with our dinner, and not a minute too soon because I was about to rip into my pantry and eat another few fistfuls of pre-dinner chips.

  “Come in, come in!” I say in a rush. Then I help him unload the brown paper bags from our favorite Thai restaurant onto the kitchen counter. Yellow curry, yellow curry, yellow curry. I’m just repeating it like that in my head, doing a little happy dance while I get plates and forks.

  I haven’t seen Jasper in almost a week because of our hectic work schedules, and it doesn’t even occur to me until he stares at me with two arched brows that I forgot to greet him in a proper girlfriend way.

  I laugh. “Sorry! Hi! Thanks for bringing dinner!”

  I arch up on my toes and plant a kiss on his cheek. It feels weird, but then again, everything with us feels weird lately. Ever since I started working full-time, we’ve fallen out of sync somehow. He moves left, I move right. He’s free, I’m busy. He wants to go out and meet friends, I want to chill after a long day. I feel like I’m getting on his nerves and vice versa. Worse, we haven’t slept together in weeks.

  But it doesn’t feel like I can just snap my fingers and make it better. In fact, there’s this niggling feeling in my gut that I’m purposely pushing him away and I don’t know how to stop, or if I even want to stop at this point…

  He’s already launched into talking about his day at work, and I nod along, having a hard time keeping up with all the key players. It changes so much week to week! Like I thought Helen was an attorney in your office, but she’s the opposing counsel? Oh, you do work with a Helen, but this is a different Helen. Okay, but can you just please pass me the pad thai before I dart across this table and yank it out of your hands because how long could it possibly take you to scoop a little mound of it onto your plate and keep it moving? Why do you keep stopping to emphasize your point? I will listen to whatever story you want me to hear while I’m eating.

  “I feel like you aren’t listening,” he says with an exhausted sigh.

  I blanch and look away from the to-go carton in his hand. “I’m sorry. I am.”

  My stomach gnaws on itself, and he sets the pad thai down a mile away from my outstretched hand. Like did you not think I would maybe want some of that right after you? I’m the one who requested it. ARGH.

  “You’re distracted, I get it,” he continues. “It’s hard to wind down after a long work day and I know you have it harder than most working with a difficult team like yours…”

  I frown, not sure how I’ve given him that impression. Short of the first week I started, I’ve been extremely mindful about what I share with Jasper concerning my relationships at work. I know he’ll take every tiny situation and blow it out of proportion. No, things have not really improved with Kendra and the gang, but it sort of feels like it’s been put on ice for now. In the last week, there’s been a decline in snide remarks. No one’s inviting me to lunch, but I’m not holding out for that. I’ll just take a neutral work environment. That’s all I want.

  “My team is fine,” I insist.

  He snorts. “Barrett told me who you’re working for. Hudson sounds like a total prick.”

  “You don’t even know him.”

  My tone takes us both aback. Moira too, apparently, because she latches onto Jasper’s leg under the table.

  There’s a feline shriek and then Jasper flies back off his chair. “Shit. Get off me!” Then, under his breath, “God I hate your cat.”

  “She was just trying to protect me,” I fire back, fiercely protective of the wild beast I let live in my apartment rent-free.

  I mean, I think that’s why she attacked him. You never know with Moira. She might have just seen Jasper as the weakest link standing between her and the shrimp in our takeout.

  When he’s not looking, I reach for a shrimp and call for Moira so she’ll follow me into my bedroom. Usually, I don’t let her in here without me because she enjoys nothing more than cleaning her anus on top of my pillow, but right now I think it’s best if I separate the two of them.

  She comes, but her begrudging attitude says, Why me? Kick Mr. Blondie out instead. He sucks.

  She kind of has a point.

  “Here, have a shrimp.”

  I shut the door and sit back down at the table, trying for polite peace. “Sorry about that.”

  “You really should have her trained,” he mumbles.

  “Can you train cats?” I ask with levity in my tone as I reach for more food. “I thought they trained us…”

  “Scarlett…”

  This conversation isn’t going anywhere good, and he must sense it too because he shifts topics. “My parents want us to meet them downtown for dinner on Saturday.”

  “Oh.”

  I thought I did a good job of masking my initial annoyance, but it seems Jasper still catches it because he frowns across the table, making me feel like I need to tack on, “We just saw them. That’s all.”

  “Three weeks ago,” he admonishes. “And you cut out early from dinner, remember? My mom brings it up every time we talk.”

  I’m sure she does. I can only imagine how much shit they talk about me during their daily phone calls.

  “But Saturday won’t work though. My company is hosting a Halloween party. Did you see the evite I forwarded to you?”

  He wrinkles his nose. “I sort of thought we’d skip out on that.”

  My jaw drops. “No way. Are you kidding? It sounds awesome.”

  “A party full of corporate lawyers?” He winces like just the thought alone gives him heartburn.

  “It’s my dad’s company, Jasper.”

  It’s important for me to show my face at things like this, but more than that, I really want to go! I have the best costume. I rented it from a legitimate costume shop rather than buying something generic online. I’m going as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Moira was supposed to be the Wicked Witch of the West (hello, perfect casting), but she peed on her black hat. I have the trademark sparkly red shoes and a little basket with a stuffed Toto poking his head out. A professional is coming over to do my hair and makeup in the afternoon so I’ll have those signature ribboned pigtails as well.

  “I put your costume on hold at the shop. The lion one.”

  He reaches for more noodles. “The cowardly lion?”

  “I mostly picked it because of your hair color, not your personality,” I say with a light laugh, trying, trying, trying to get us back to our old place. Why does it just seem so hard with us lately? “If it’s not your jam, you can go down and look for something else, but with it being so close to Halloween, I wouldn’t be surprised if everything’s been picked over already.”