Barefoot Kisses (The Kisses 7)

“Why didn't the attorney I had assigned to this find these?” she asked, holding up a file from her desk. I recognized it as the file I had delivered to Calvin earlier in the day from Alexa.

“I'm not sure, ma'am,” I said quietly. Ms. McDonald's sharp green eyes flashed up at me. She didn't believe me. She tossed Alexa's thin file down on her desk and picked mine up again, evaluating the contents.

“Why didn't you bring this to Calvin? I don't usually have paralegals bringing me their findings directly.” She turned a page and looked it over. I really hoped I hadn't missed any spelling errors.

“He isn't here and he didn't answer his phone,” I said carefully. I didn't want to get him in trouble, but Kathryn McDonald deserved to know the truth. Her eyebrows raised slightly and displeasure flickered across her green eyes. Calvin was going to have a bad day tomorrow. “I thought the discovery was important enough that it should get to you tonight. Before you meet with the clients in the morning.”

“You're LTM5?” she asked, pointing to my initials at the bottom of the page. The computer automatically printed the user's initials on everything. It made figuring out who had done what research more effective and the billing department could then bill appropriately.

“Yes, ma'am.” I nodded, doing my best not to nervously fidget. I realized I was bare foot in her office.

“I see your initials on most of my cases. I thought for sure you were an attorney.” Ms. McDonald set my file down on the desk in front of her and smiled at me. She went from scary intimidating to attractive when she smiled. “Thank you, Lena. This is excellent work. You were right to bring it to me.”

I let out a nervous breath I hadn't realized I was holding. “Thank you, ma'am.”

Ms. McDonald looked up at me and gave a short nod before turning back to her original reading. I stood there for a moment before I realized that I had been dismissed. As quickly as I could without tripping over my feet, I hurried out of the office.

My heart was fluttering as I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to go down. Once the doors closed, I started to laugh. It was more of just a release of nerves than actually finding the situation funny, but it still felt good. I leaned against the wall, giggling as I tried to figure out if today had been good or bad. I didn't get my raise and I had to stay late and miss dinner with my sister, but in exchange, the big boss had complimented me and I had gotten a handsome man to carry my books and buy me dinner. Just thinking about him made me smile.

Good day I decided, stepping into the spot I had stood earlier in with Aiden. Aiden had made it a very good day.

Chapter 5

The Chicago sky was a steel gray that threatened to bring rain or snow later in the day. A cold wind whistled between the buildings and whipped at my hair with angry fingers. I pulled my coat tighter and sipped my coffee as I hurried into the lobby of the skyscraper that housed the McDonald, Smith and Ward offices.

The lobby hummed with conversations as people piled into elevators on their way to work or waited for coworkers under the lofty marble columns. Darcie waved as soon as she saw me, hurrying across the lobby to join me. Since she had helped me put my leftovers in the fridge, I had a sneaky suspicion she would be joining me for lunch and eating most of it.

“You get that guy's number yet?” Darcie asked, bumping my shoulder with hers in friendly greeting.

“I wish,” I said, taking another sip of coffee. My coffee pot was still broken, so I was enjoying a latte from the coffee shop on my way. “I'm not one hundred percent certain he wasn't just a figment of my stressed out imagination.”

“Oh, he was real all right,” Darcie assured me. “And so were those potatoes last night. I think they must have used real cream to get them so good.”

I laughed, shaking my head. Books and food were that girl's passions. Together we stood in line to get on the elevator up to our respective floors. “I'm fairly sure they put crack cocaine in them to make them that good—oof!”

A man in a black leather jacket ran smack into my shoulder, knocking me off balance and spilling coffee down my arm and across his sleeve.

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” the guy snarled, turning to stare me down. He was bigger than I was with mean features and cold eyes.

“I'm so sorry...” I stammered. “I didn't mean to...”

“Damn right you didn't,” he growled, getting into my face. “Do you know how much this jacket cost? ”

I looked down at his jacket to see the last of my coffee running off it. My own arm was soaked with latte and I was just glad that it had cooled enough that it didn't hurt. I had no idea how I was going to fix this. I shrunk back, unable to meet his angry gaze. “I'm so sorry...”

The man puffed up his chest. People were starting to stop and watch. I had the sick feeling in my stomach that I was about to get pummeled.

“You ran into her, jackass,” Darcie interjected, stepping into the shrinking space between the man and me. She had her “touch me and die” face on. “I suggest you keep walking.”

The man looked her up and down once before deciding that she really would cut him if he tried anything. Darcie wasn't big enough to be intimidating, but she made an angry cobra look like a kitten when she was mad. He took a step back and rolled his shoulders before walking away like that was his plan all along.

“Thanks,” I said quietly as I pulled my coffee-soaked jacket off and hung it over my arm.

“The guy was a jerk,” Darcie said, flipping her blonde hair back over her shoulder. “You okay?”

“It's just coffee. It'll come out in the wash. At least it wasn't hot. I really should watch where I'm going.” I shrugged.