I pushed off him and stood up, my legs shaky, my chest heaving, and blood dripping from my hands.
“Get out,” I said quietly.
I watched him roll over and push himself up, blood pouring from a cut to his temple and out of his nose. One eye was already swollen shut. He staggered to the door and just like that, the two closest people to me had shredded my heart.
I’m broken out of my tragic memories by a shrieking noise coming from somewhere close by. My head snaps toward my door because it was a woman yelling, and I listen again. I don’t hear anything but I get up to investigate, walking down the hall from where I think the noise was coming from.
Turning the corner and heading down a hallway that houses a long row of attorney offices, I hear, “Don’t you have anything to f**king say for yourself?”
Okay, that’s Lorraine’s voice and I start to walk a little faster. It’s coming from the door I have my eyes pinned on just thirty feet away.
Mac’s office.
I’m starting to reach my hand for the door when I hear Lorraine say, “You’re such a f**king screw up, McKayla!”
Rage suffuses me, not only that Lorraine would be screaming at someone, an offense I just basically told her was getting her shit-canned from my firm, but because she’s yelling at Mac. A protectiveness rises up and I throw the door open to Mac’s office so hard that it crashes into the wall and one of her degrees falls to the ground, causing the glass to break. I take in the scene in a quick glance. Mac sitting at her desk with papers scattered all around, an empty file on the floor, broken degrees looking path
etic, and Lorraine standing over Mac with fury in her eyes.
Yes, broken degrees… as in plural. Apparently, her other degree had been already knocked to the floor and lay amid a pile of crushed glass.
“That’s just great,” Mac says forlornly, looking down at the damaged proof of her graduations.
Even though I want to grab Lorraine by the neck and wring the meanness out of her, I look to Mac and say calmly, “What the hell is going on here?”
Her eyes rise to mine and she says quietly, “You broke my frame. ”
Maybe once I wring Lorraine’s neck, I’ll wring Mac’s too. She’s purposely being evasive.
Turning from Mac, I look to Lorraine. My tone is still calm, but there is a bit more anger laced in my words. “I repeat… what is going on here? I heard yelling clear down in my office. ”
Lorraine looks like she’s about ready to puke. Her face is green, and she stands there twisting her hands around one another in a sign of nervous guilt. Mac quietly starts gathering all the scattered papers on her desk, straightening them into a single pile. When she grabs one document off the floor, she looks at it and the corners of her mouth tilt upward slightly.
She hands the paper to Lorraine and says quietly, “Here’s your Order. ”
Lorraine doesn’t take the paper from Mac but rather stares at it in horror with her face blanched pale. Then I watch an interesting byplay between Mac and Lorraine.
Mac keeps her eyes steady on Lorraine, holding the Order out to her. Lorraine slowly drags her gaze from the offensive document and looks at Mac beseechingly. Mac looks at Lorraine with a hard glint for just a moment, and then she opens her mouth like she’s going to say something. Lorraine’s face goes green again.
Then Mac turns to me with a sparkling smile and a sweet voice. “Nothing’s wrong. Just a little disagreement, but we cleared it up. Right, Lorraine?”
Lorraine’s breath comes out in a massive, relieved rush, and she regains some of her color. Giving Mac a grateful look, she turns to me and says, “Right. No problems here. ”
Nice try, Mac. You little liar.
I look back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out if it’s worth my while to figure out what’s really going on here. But then I decide against it. Mac told me before she doesn’t want my help with any beefs she may have with Lorraine and, in just a few weeks, Lorraine will be gone.
I decide to let it go. “McKayla… let’s meet on the Jackson case so I can get out of here. I’ve got plans tonight. ”
Mac follows docilely behind me to my office, although she doesn’t have a docile bone in her body. I wait for her to choose which chair she wants to sit in, and then I choose to sit in the chair next to her rather than behind my desk, causing her eyebrows to raise.
It’s the closest we’ve been to each other since Monday, and it’s disconcerting. Although I’ve been coming to a slow acceptance that our time together is done, I still have an aching urge to grab her and kiss her.
Looking down at my watch, I say, “I’ve got twenty minutes before I have to leave for dinner. Bill and I are meeting our accountant tonight. ”
I told her that part about Bill and me going out to dinner tonight in an effort to give her full disclosure, since I know I f**ked up earlier in the week by refusing to tell her where I was going. Why I conceded to do that is beyond me. I don’t owe her that courtesy, yet I just gave it to her.
She responds by shrugging her shoulders, as if she could give a damn. “Not any of my business. ”
I just stare at her, pissed she doesn’t appreciate my effort.
Then she really sticks the knife in by adding on, “Sir. ”
My blood boils with anger over the fact she’s deliberately trying to get under my skin with the “sir” routine. She’s been doing it all week in the few interactions we’ve had, even once calling me “Mr. Connover”. None of the attorneys here call me Mr. Connover.
I grit my teeth and narrow my eyes at her, rising to the challenge. To hell with saying I was going to stay out of it. “I want to know what was going on between you and Lorraine. ”