Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Besides, Anders must know what his daughter is like at this point. I doubt she’s a perfect angel outside the office…
“My daughter seems extremely happy here. I take it you’re going easy on her like I requested?”
Good thing I’m facing the windows so he can’t see my smile. The question should be: is she going easy on me?
“I asked her about work last night at dinner,” he adds. “She said she likes her team and credits a good deal of that to your leadership.”
I turn back. “What about her fellow first-years?”
His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “She didn’t mention them much.”
Interesting. So she really is handling the animosity all on her own. I have to hand it to her, it hasn’t been easy these last few weeks. Though I suspect the bullying instances are lessening, Scarlett hasn’t been let into their tight-knit group yet. She still eats lunch by herself, still arrives and leaves the office on her own. I suspect there’s more. There’s no telling the ways they’re antagonizing her, but she takes it in stride. Keeps her head down. Focuses on work.
I check her billable hours at the end of every day, comparing them against her peers. She’s leading the charge, and knowing that makes something like pride unfurl in my chest. “What does her direct supervisor say? Sophie Smith?”
“Nothing but compliments, though of course no one’s going to give it to me straight for fear of offending me. But with you—” He chuckles. “I don’t have to worry about that.”
Right.
“Scarlett is fine,” I answer curtly.
His eyebrows rise. “Just fine?”
“What do you want me to say?”
He smiles. “Something more than that.”
“I don’t get paid to wax poetic about your daughter.”
I’ve done plenty of that in my head, on my own time.
He laughs, nodding now. “All right. Fair.”
I’m tempted to dismiss myself, but I get the sense that there’s something more. He walks over toward the windows, mirroring my posture from a few moments ago. He sighs and suddenly, his age shows. I wonder how many more years of law he has left in him. There will be a power vacuum after he leaves. David Hoyt retired five years ago, and we’ve only just regained stability here in the Chicago office.
“Truthfully, I don’t want her here. Maybe I never will,” Anders admits quietly. “I wish she had chosen to work with her mother. Katherine is an antiques dealer. She’s had a shop over in West Town for thirty years. She tries not to let on about it, but I know she hoped Scarlett would join her in the business one day, the way the boys have joined me.”
“It’d be a waste,” I say, truthfully. “She’s a better lawyer than Barrett.”
Anders barks out a laugh. “Jesus, you don’t mince words.”
He knows it’s true.
Barrett is fine, don’t get me wrong, but he doesn’t have the commitment level you need to really succeed in a firm like this. He travels a lot and has no qualms about leaving the office every day at 5:00. It’s obvious his passion isn’t law, at least not the way I suspect it is for Scarlett.
“Why did you ask me to take her on?” I ask, studying his profile. The question has been plaguing me ever since Scarlett’s first day at the firm.
“I respect you.”
I hum in disapproval. “Well…truthfully, I haven’t gone easy on her, and I don’t plan to.” I’m taking a real gamble here. There’s nothing and no one Anders Elwood cares about more than his kids, and I get the sense he has a special soft spot for Scarlett. “If you want someone to baby her, pull her off my team.”
He turns and assesses me with those sharp gray eyes for so long it becomes uncomfortable. I’m about to say something—to call attention to the awkward moment—but then he nods, only once. “Understood.”
And just like that, I’m dismissed.
Outside the 70th floor and the food court, I’ve seen Scarlett twice over the last few weeks, working with a boxing trainer in the building’s gym. The first time, I didn’t believe it was really her. She had swapped her work clothes for tight leggings and a hot pink sports bra. Her long brown hair was pulled up into a high wavy ponytail and she was lobbing hard punches one after another after another against her trainer’s cushion-covered hands.
I stood, dumbstruck—just like every other fucking guy in there—until she finished the round and turned to walk to the corner of the ring to get some water. She was bent over, closing the lid, when her eyes flicked up and she caught me staring.
I was going to make some joke about her picturing my head for every punch, but my words failed me. Heat coursed through me.
God she was sexy. In her work clothes, yes. In that sports bra and leggings? Criminal.