Jeremy’s eyes flicked down to my arms—or more likely my chest—before sliding them lazily up to my face again. “Adam, Rob, and I had talked about it and decided it was for the best. Particularly after she mixed up three appointments last week and gave Rob the wrong file for his case on Monday.”
“She’s nice enough, though.” I found myself defending Carly, even if she really was the worst receptionist in the history of receptionists.
“We don’t pay for nice. Well, not just for nice.” Jeremy lifted the lid off the file box and peered inside. “Whatcha lookin’ for? Maybe I can help.”
The last thing I wanted was Jeremy’s help. It would only end with us bickering and me walking off in fury. I closed the box and shoved it back on the shelf. “It’s nothing. I just wanted to have a look at an old case file—”
“Is it for the Palmer case?” Jeremy asked, squeezing past me into the tight space and pulling a box from the highest shelf that I would never have been able to reach. I could see his muscles bunching and straining beneath his blue cotton shirt. The man had some amazing shoulders. Broad and thick. I momentarily imagined my hands spanning across them…
“Can you back up, sweetheart? I don’t want to knock you over with this thing.” Jeremy looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes full of amusement.
Realizing how close we were standing, I quickly backed up. “Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling silly. He knelt down on the floor and found the file in question in a matter of seconds.
“Here you go.” He handed me the file as he straightened up and I tried not to stare at his chest. His cut, muscular chest…
“Thanks. It would have been easier to find if you guys had kept my filing system,” I couldn’t help but snap.
Jeremy glanced around the tiny room. “It is a mess in here,” he admitted.
“You think? It’s like I never straightened anything up. What did you guys do? Come in here and play mix up the boxes?” I held the file to my chest as if I needed a barrier between us. The air always felt too full when we shared space.
Jeremy smiled and I pretended I didn’t feel butterflies all the way to my toes. “We’ve just been lost without you is all.”
He was such an incorrigible flirt. The butterflies were immediately extinguished as I thought of how easily he turned on that charm for anyone with an XY chromosome.
“Well, thanks for this.” I patted the file and quickly turned on my heel, leaving him alone in the storage room. I hurried to my hole in the wall office at the far end of the building. I sat down and laid the paperwork out on my desk.
I had only been officially working for the law firm for two weeks, but I had hit the ground running. Adam, Rob, and Jeremy had handed over several cases they didn’t have time for given the increase in work that had come their way. This case involved Deacon Palmer, an administrator at the department of social services who had been charged with embezzlement and had reportedly funneled over ten thousand dollars into a private account.
Deacon had hired the firm to represent him when the case went to trial. He was up on felony charges with significant jail time on the line. Deacon swore up and down he hadn’t taken the money, that it was a clerical mix up, but it wasn’t looking good for him. Particularly given that he had been accused of mishandling funds when he was a volunteer at the local homeless shelter years before. It was these earlier charges that I wanted to look at given Adam had represented him before and had gotten him off. I would have talked to Adam directly, but he was out of town with Meg for the next three days.
Looking at the facts of the previous case, it seemed Deacon hadn’t misplaced any funds, but the director sure had. In fact, the director had been siphoning off money from donations for the past ten years. Adam, through some pretty smart sleuthing, had found the paper trail that blew the whole thing open. But what were the chances that this particular man was being accused of the same thing twice? Was he simply a good patsy for those who need someone to pin their crimes on?
A cup of coffee appeared in front of me and I almost moaned with appreciation. Looking up, my mood soured instantly at the bearer of the gift.
“Trying to butter me up for some reason?” I snapped, sipping on the coffee, not wanting to tell Jeremy how good it was. Because damn it, it was so, so good.
Jeremy, without an invitation, took it upon himself to sit down in the only other chair in the room. Given that I was at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole, I had the tiniest office in the joint. Not that I was complaining. I had a great view of the park and a nice ergonomic desk chair. But with Jeremy’s massive presence, the room felt stifling.