"You can check that," he says. "It's all right."
"Sorry," I say as I pull out my phone and read the text.
It's from my brother, Kyle. He says, "Where R U?"
Oh crap. I forgot I'm supposed to spend the evening with him, hanging out, before he and his girlfriend leave for their spring break vacation tomorrow morning.
"You need to go," my Brit says.
Wincing, I say, "Yeah. It's, um, a family thing I forgot about."
"May I know your name?"
"Elena." I get an idea, and rummage in my purse until I find an old Starbucks receipt and a pen. I scribble numbers on the back, then hand the paper to him. "Here's my number."
He smiles. "Thank you, Elena. I'm Chance, by the way."
The man I just had sex with is called Chance. Maybe my luck is changing. I try not to read too much into his name, since chance is a roll of the dice, not a good omen.
We both get up.
He kisses my cheek. "I'll ring you tomorrow, if that's all right."
"Yes, I'd like that."
I allow myself one last look at his blue eyes, then I walk out of the stairwell and take the elevator to the lobby. When I get home, Kyle is waiting for me with two pizzas and a six-pack of beer. We have fun watching action movies until two o'clock, but when I fall asleep, I dream of the sexy Brit.
Will he call me?
As it turns out, no. My luck hasn't changed at all.
Chapter Two
Elena
I arrive at the offices of Raisa Volkov & Associates on Monday morning feeling surprisingly good, despite having spent the weekend at the office working overtime without the overtime pay. This is the life of a paralegal. I no longer feel like a loser who had a quickie in an elevator and never got a callback. Definitely not like the girl who had face-planted on the bar, or the girl who counted to twelve in German. No, I'd left that idiot behind. Locked her in the hotel basement, actually.
Still, my sexy Brit had liked the silly things I'd said. At least, he seemed to like them. Maybe he was pretending to, so I'd have sex with him. Whatever. I'd wanted a fling, and I'd had one. Yay, me.
I sit down at my desk in the cubicle zone and resolve to never think of Friday night again. My large, steaming latte from Starbucks calls to me, so I take a swig. Mm, yummy goodness.
A memory of the sexy Brit's face pops into my mind. Oh yeah, yummy goodness there.
Stop that, I command myself.You're a strong, capable woman who has a freaking job to do.
Yes, I do. My job sucks in every way imaginable, but I will do it anyway. Straightening in my chair, I take another sip of my latte and log on to my computer. Like the other paralegals and the interns, I have a crummy chair inside a crummy cubicle. My coworkers named all of us the plebs, a term taken from ancient Rome, which means we're the dirt Empress Raisa scrapes off her shoes. Other attorneys work here, but she has no partners. That would give somebody else a measure of control and a financial stake in the firm. Raisa Volkov does not share authority.
The most annoying part of all is that I still admire her. She built this firm from the ground up and made a name for herself, not only in New York, but around the country.
Yeah, I'm a pathetic fangirl.
"Elena!"
Oh great. Her Royal Highness is summoning me. I rotate my chair toward her office door and smile politely. "Good morning, Raisa. What can I do for you?"
"Why don't I have the Caldwell case file? Someone didn't put it on my desk this morning."
"Someone" hadn't gotten out the file because another someone hadn't said she needed it.