Ego Maniac(10)

“No. That extra twenty-five dollars is mine. For every hour you bill him, you can take it off of what I owe you. I figured out that my bill for eight hours yesterday is fifty-four hundred dollars—I pay the standard rate, of course, not Mr. Patterson’s inflated rate—so if you could bill Mr. Patterson for a few hundred hours, that would be great.”

Drew chuckled. “There’s the spitfire who attacked me with her mad Krav Maga skills a few nights ago. Your lack of tenacity had me concerned yesterday.”

“I was arrested and almost thrown in jail.”

“I’m heartbroken. You had such little faith that I would get you off?”

“That woman was out for my blood at first yesterday. What did you say to her to get her to change her tune anyway?”

“We made a deal.”

I squinted. “What did you have to give her in return for lightening up on me?”

Drew looked me in the eyes. “Nothing important.”

The office phone began to ring again behind me. “Do you want me to…”

He waved me off. “The answering service will pick it up. Come on, I’ll show you your furniture.”

“I thought it would be in the lobby.”

“Tom thought he was helping, so he had them set it up in my office.”

I followed Drew down the hall, and he opened the door to the large office next to the file room I’d been working in. The other day when I was here, it hadn’t been done—moldings and trim still needed to be hung, and everything was covered by tarps. The contractor must have worked all day yesterday to get it finished.

“Wow. It looks beautiful in here. Except…” I thought better of sharing my thought and shook my head. “Nothing. It looks beautiful.”

“Except what? What were you going to say?”

“The office is beautiful. It really is—tall ceilings, wide crown moldings, except…everything is white. Why didn’t you paint any color? It’s kind of boring all white.”

He shrugged. “I like things simple. Black and white.”

I snorted. “Good thing you came back when you did, then. I’d already picked out a bright yellow for your office. Copy room was going to be red.”

My beautiful desk actually did look amazing in his giant office, even with the boring white paint. The top was a thick tempered glass, and the bottom had dark mahogany legs shaped like a workhorse. I wasn’t generally a modern furniture person, but the desk was so beautiful and serene-looking that I had to have it.

“The furniture company wouldn’t give me a time, but they’re supposed to come today to pick it back up. They wanted to charge me a forty-percent restocking and pickup fee. Took me an hour on the phone with a manager to explain they’d violated their own delivery contract by letting an unauthorized person take delivery.”

“You’re good on the phone.”

“I worked as a customer service rep for a printer company through college. I remember what made me really listen and bend the rules for a customer after a long day of complaint calls.”

Drew’s cell phone began to ring again. He looked down at it, then decided not to answer.

“Take it. I’ll get out of your way. God knows I’ve taken up enough of your time. And you seem really busy.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need to answer it.”

“Is it just you in this big space all alone?”

“I normally have a paralegal and a secretary. But my secretary went out on a few months of medical leave two weeks ago, and my paralegal decided to go to law school out of state.”

“Sounds like you’re going to be pretty busy.”

His cell phone rang again, and this time he said he needed to take the call. He told me to make myself at home, but…there wasn’t really anything to do. Drew went into the file room and sat down at the table I’d been using as my desk, and I went back to the lobby. After removing the rest of the plastic from the reception desk, I found some cleaning supplies in the bathroom and wiped it down before setting up my laptop.

In between catching up on emails, I answered the office phone and took messages.

When Drew came back out an hour later, he looked annoyed. “My cell phone died. Could I borrow yours for a few minutes? My cordless is in storage with the rest of my crap, and I was almost done hammering out a settlement. I don’t want to give the attorney time to reconsider all the stupid things he just agreed to.”

I lifted my phone. “By all means.”

Drew took a few steps away and stopped. “What’s the password?”

“Ummm. Fuck.”

“You don’t want me to know your password?”

“No. My password is fuck.”

Drew chuckled. “Girl after my own heart.” Then he typed it in and was gone again.

By the time noon rolled around, my stomach was growling since I woke up late and hadn’t eaten any breakfast. But I couldn’t leave the office and chance missing the furniture delivery company again. When I heard Drew take a break from talking on the phone, I ventured to the file room.

“Do you usually order lunch? I’m afraid to go out and miss the delivery.”

“Sometimes. What are you in the mood for?”

I shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m not picky.”