Legal Affairs - Violation: Legal Affairs Serial Romance (2 page)

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 do not revolve around me.

When we reach Matt’s
office, he motions me in and then shuts the door behind us. I take a
seat and wait for him to take his normal chair behind his desk.
Instead, he takes the chair beside me, sitting in it with casual care
and turning to look at me. The proximity is a little disconcerting
and, I swear, I can actually feel a vibration between us.

Glancing at his
watch, he says, “I’ve got twenty minutes before I have to
leave for dinner.”

He hesitates, and
then he adds on, “Bill and I are meeting our accountant
tonight.”

I shrug my
shoulders, as if I could care less that he is making a concerted
effort to let me know exactly what his plans are. Sorry, bub…
it’s a little too late. “Not any of my business.”

Matt just stares at
me, and I don’t get the nice little jaw pop that I’ve
come to gain sustenance from, so I add on, “Sir.”

There we go…
the jaw is popping away, and I feel a peaceful calm enter into my
heart. It’s easier than fucking Yoga to find my Zen place by
antagonizing Matt.

He continues to
stare at me as if I grew a second head, and I just placidly look back
at him. Finally, he says, “I want to know what was going on
between you and Lorraine.”

I shrug my shoulders
again. “Nothing. Just a little misunderstanding, but it’s
solved now.”

“Misunderstanding?”

“Misunderstanding,”
I reiterate.

“Lorraine was
screaming at you. Just before I walked in, she called you a fucking
screw up. I don’t care what the reason was, but we don’t
talk to each other like that at this firm.”

“I’m
sorry. It won’t happen again,” I tell him with genuine
remorse.

“Fuck,
McKayla,” he says in exasperation. “Why are you
apologizing? She was the one screaming at you.”

“And like I
said… it was just a misunderstanding. No harm, no foul.”

Now he’s in
full jaw-popping mode, and his teeth are clenched. I cannot believe
how much I’m reveling in the fact that I’m getting under
his skin. Finally, he manages to grit out, “I’ll just
have to talk to Lorraine myself, I guess. Give your degrees to Miss
Anders and she’ll get them fixed for you, at my expense.”

“No, thanks,”
I say politely. “I can handle it.”

Now I can
practically hear his teeth scraping against each other, and I get
almost giddy over the thought. I give him a lovely smile, so he knows
that my non-cooperation, which is in turn causing him discomfort, is
giving me quite a bit of pleasure.

I’m so fucking
childish, but I just can’t help it.

Matt stares at me a
long moment until I see a bit of a hard glint reflecting back at me.
His jaw stops popping, and his mouth parts slightly. Finally, his
lips curve upward in a smile that says,
You’re not going to
win this one, Mac
, and a slight feeling of dread starts to creep
up my spine.

Standing from his
chair, he leans over his desk and presses the speaker button on his
phone. After a small chime, I can hear Lorraine pick up her
extension.

“Yes, Matt?”

“Lorraine…
can you come into my office for a minute?”

I can almost hear
Lorraine take a nervous gulp on her end before she says in a voice
filled with a tinge of fear. “Sure. Be right down.”

Matt presses the
button to disconnect and turns toward me. He leans back against his
desk, crosses his arms over his chest, and just stares at me with a
triumphant look.

I get a nervous
feeling in the pit of my stomach that magnifies once his office door
opens, and Lorraine steps in. Matt’s gaze lingers on me for
just a second, then he steps away from his desk and motions for
Lorraine to sit down beside me. King Connover takes his throne on the
other side.

I watch as Matt
leans back in his chair, confident and casual. My nervousness
increases because this was the pose he assumed just before deposing
the witnesses in Chicago.

Just before he
shredded them.

Oh, shit… he
is going to expose our lies. He stares a moment at Lorraine, and I
can almost feel her shudder in fear. His gaze then lazily moves over
to me, and the glow in his eyes almost takes on the look of a lion
hunting its prey. I suppress the urge to run, and stick my chin up a
little higher. I can tell this amuses him by the way his eyes
crinkle.

He leans forward
slightly, like he’s getting ready to pounce. I recognize this
move. He’s getting ready to go in for the kill.

“Lorraine…
I’d like to know exactly what just happened in McKayla’s
office.”

I can see Lorraine’s
hands shaking just a bit when she says, “It was just a
disagreement. No biggie.”

“So I’ve
heard,” Matt says drily. “But any time you scream at
someone and call them… what were the words you used? ‘A
fucking screw up’… well, I need to delve a little
deeper, you see?”

Lorraine nods her
head but doesn’t say anything. Matt leans forward a bit more
and places his elbows on his desk, steepling his fingers as he stares
at her. “Let me see if I can put this together… you had
a hearing this morning?”

Lorraine dutifully
answers, “Yes.”

“And you
couldn’t find the Order the judge was supposed to sign?”

“Yes.”

“And you
assumed that McKayla had failed to draft the Order and put it in the
file?”

“I couldn’t
find it while I was in court—”

Matt holds his hand
up to cut her off, and her mouth snaps shut.

“Yet the Order
was, in fact, in there?”

“It appears
so,” Lorraine grits out.

“So, you went
into McKayla’s office and slammed the door shut, causing one of
her degrees to fall and break?”

“Yes.”

“And then you
screamed at her for failing to draft the Order?”

“Yes.”
she says, her voice now a whisper.

“And then
yelled that she was a ‘fucking screw up’?”

“Perhaps I was
a bit hasty—”

Matt holds his hand
up again, and Lorraine snaps her mouth shut for the second time.

I feel like I’m
in the Twilight Zone. I had dutifully kept my mouth shut about what
had happened between Lorraine and me because I’m not a rat and
I can handle my own battles, yet within just a few minutes, Matt has
Lorraine spilling her guts.

He’s amazing.

Matt stands up from
his chair and looks down at Lorraine with determination. “I’m
going to honor the deal we made with each other Monday night, but I’d
like you to go ahead and pack up your stuff and leave now. I don’t
condone that type of behavior in my business.”

Lorraine looks sick
to her stomach, and I can’t help but blurt out, “What?
You’re firing her?”

Matt walks to his
door and opens it, motioning for Lorraine to leave. “That’s
right. Effective immediately.”

Lorraine stands from
her chair and smoothes her skirt down. Then she turns on me, and her
eyes are blazing in fury. “You fucking bitch, you just had to
rat me out.”

What
? I did
no such thing. “Lorraine… I never said a word.”

“Save it,”
she spits out, and yes, by spit I mean I get hit again with her
saliva. I reach up to wipe it off my cheek, even as she leans toward
me to sneer. “You’re fucking him, and you have him
wrapped around your finger. All he talked about Monday night was
‘McKayla this and McKayla that’. And now you have him
doing your dirty work for you.”

I’m so stunned
by what Lorraine is saying that I can’t even think to defend
myself. But apparently, I don’t need to because Matt’s
voice is deadly dangerous when he says from the doorway. “You
need to leave right now, Lorraine, before I change my mind about
sticking to our deal.”

Lorraine spins on
him, and her voice is icy. “Try to go back on your word, and
I’ll sue you.”

“I’d
like to see you try that, but I’m giving you to the count of
three to get out of this office… or I’ll have security
escort you out.”

I just watch this
interplay with my jaw hanging open. I have no clue what’s going
on. But that’s a good way to describe my overall feeling since
I met Matt Connover.

I’m freakin’
clueless.

Lorraine looks at me
once more and growls, causing me to shrink back just a little in my
chair. Then she stomps out of the office. As soon as she’s
gone, Matt closes the door and walks back over to his phone. He dials
an extension and says, “Please go to Miss Cummings’
office and watch her pack up. Do not let her on her computer and
escort her out of the building. Get her key before she leaves.”

He hangs up and sits
down in his chair with a sigh. “I’m sorry you had to go
through that.”

“Sorry I had
to go through that?” I blurt. “You just fired someone
because we had a little fight. You’re an asshole.”

I can’t help
myself. I’m not just angry he fired someone so quickly. I’m
angry at everything Matt has put me through the last two weeks. I’m
pissed he seduced my body and mind, I’m pissed he doesn’t
want anything but sex, and I’m pissed that he has secrets that
keep me in the dark.

An idea strikes me
though.

“Wait…
you didn’t fire her out of some misplaced sense of obligation
to me because we were having sex, did you?”

Matt’s eyes
narrow at me. “Absolutely not. While I enjoyed your charms
immensely, I don’t make business decisions based on how good my
last fuck was. And watch who you call an ‘asshole’. I
just fired someone for practically the same thing.”

I reel as if he
slapped me in the face, and I can see the regret already forming on
his face. His words are softer… gentler, when he says. “Look
Mac… I didn’t fire her because of you. Lorraine had been
exhibiting some very bad behavior the last two weeks. She’s
been yelling and screaming at the staff left and right, and she’s
pissed off a few of my clients to the point they’re threatening
to fire our firm. She’s not a good fit here.”