Problem was, I just couldn’t get my mind off Mr. Parker. I’d been up to his office twice again that day, collecting from or delivering files to him, and each time he inexplicably got better looking and sexy, so much so that my thoughts were a jumbled mess by the time I exited his office. Seriously. One time I returned to my desk and couldn’t even remember what I’d been doing.
I had to admit I wasn’t above surreptitiously checking his desk for pictures, seeing if maybe he was married or had a partner of some kind. After all, there was no way a man like he could have been single, right?
But my sneaky glances revealed nothing. From the firm’s intranet, I’d learned he’d graduated from USC’s law school after getting his undergraduate degree at Michigan State. I knew he had been skydiving, and that he’d participated in something called a ‘Spartan Race’ on behalf of the law firm where he and his team took sixth place. His relationship status was a big blank, though.
I was devoting way too much energy to thinking about this man when my stomach grumbled and I checked the time. Damn. Already clocking overtime on my first day… which was a good thing, right? Those divorce legal bills were not going to pay themselves.
I stood up to stretch and realized I was the only one left in my section of the office. The others had split I didn’t know how long ago, probably to attend to their families or social lives.
Me? I had an apartment I rented through an agency so that my ex-husband couldn’t find it after he got out of jail, an old Toyota I wanted to dump because it used to be his and I knew he could track it, and bills to pay. So, ignoring the hour, I kept typing, doing my best to push thoughts of Mr. Parker out of my mind.
I finished up another set of verbal notes and hit print on my computer, retrieving the pages from the printer closest to my desk. I filed my pages and shoved the binder back in the case box.
With a grunt and trembling biceps, I carried the box back to the file room, no longer fazed that it bore an uncanny resemblance to the aisles at a Costco. I just knew that my file box belonged about halfway down the back aisle, and that I was going to have to put the box on a shelf nearly as tall as my head.
When I’d pulled the box two hours prior, it had been difficult enough. But now I was tired and the box was heavier. I wobbled in my high heels holding the box overhead, trying to shove it back into its tight spot. But just as it began to slip from my hands, pulling me over with it, someone caught me with one hand and shoved the box into place with another.
And scared the shit out of me. Hadn’t I been there alone?
“Whoa,” a masculine voice, supporting me until I was solidly on my feet again. “We’ve got step stools for these things, you know.”
My heart was pounding, partly as a result of my near-wipeout, and partly from someone having sneaked up on me, when I looked up and set my sights on a devilishly handsome man wearing round wire-rimmed glasses and a mop of hair on the long side for a typical lawyer. While I had no idea why the hell he was in the file room or where he’d come from, I figured he was probably from the IT team, burning the midnight oil like me.
Regardless, it was becoming clear the ATZ law firm seemed to breed gorgeous people. I had not seen one person who wasn’t attractive. Further, how the fuck did I slip through the HR screening on that? While I might have been down selling myself a little, my mind wasn’t wrong on the guy. On a scale of one to ten, this Adonis was an easy twelve and a half. He was maybe a year or two older than I, three at the most… but someone I could easily look at all day long.
Like Mr. Parker.
“Oh. Hello. Thank you,” I said, righting myself. “It’s my first day. I didn’t think to look for a stool.”
He leaned against the shelves with one hand, all casual and sexy, one corner of his mouth turned up. “First day? And you haven’t been fired yet? Wow.”
When he saw my face fall, he patted my arm. “Kidding. Sorry. Guess that wasn’t so funny.”
Jerk.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I said in my best fake jovial voice, slapping my thigh to further prove I had a sense of humor.
“So why are you here so late?” he asked. “Do I need to have a talk with someone?”
“Someone? Like who? No, never mind, you do not need to do that,” I said quickly.
Last thing I wanted to do was attract attention to myself, much less get anyone in trouble.
“I’m still learning, and Mr. Parker told me it was okay to clock overtime. You’re here late too. Do you work overtime a lot?”
He pushed his hair off his handsome forehead. “Yeah, I guess I do. And you’re fine. I just wanted to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of on your first day. We like it when people come back. You know, at least finish out the week.”
“Oh I’ll be back. So… you’re not from the IT team?” I asked, trying to figure out who he was.
“Glad to hear it. I’m Jason Stevens, one of the junior partners.”
Huh. Interesting. Not only did he not have the hair of a buttoned-up attorney, but when he extended his hand, some pretty colorful tattoo ink peeked out from under his cuff.
But my burning question was, what the hell was he doing in the file room?
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4