Falling for the Lawyer

chapter Two


“Oh … my … God!” Sophie declared, deliberately pausing for emphasis between each word as she took in Alex’s new outfit.

Sophie Reynolds, Acting Head of HR at Griffen Murphy Lawyers was resting her elbows on a workstation partition. She was deep in conversation with one of the senior PAs but her eye had been caught by her best friend wandering into the office as she’d never looked before.

Alex put her finger to her lips to hush Sophie before the entire office was alerted to the fact she was wearing a new outfit. Sophie nodded and winked at her conspiratorially, peeled herself off the partition and marched at breakneck speed around the office furniture to meet her friend at her desk. She grabbed Alex’s hands and lifted her arms up to take in the full view of her new suit.

“Is that what I think it is?” Sophie demanded to know.

“Clothing?”

“Very funny, Alex. I know obscenely expensive designer clothing when I see it. Which bank did you rob to buy this?”

Alex laughed. “Nothing so drastic. It’s just a second … floor stock … something like that,” she repeated JP’s words of earlier that morning, awash with another wave of relief as she reminded herself he would never have an opportunity to make her feel that way again, for a woman should never feel that way about any man when she was engaged to marry another.

“Can I borrow it sometime, Al? No, on second thoughts don’t lend it to me. It would be just my luck to spill tomato sauce all down the front.”

“Soph, you can borrow it anytime you like. In fact you can have it. In the circumstances it might be better if you do. I’m not sure wearing an outfit bought for me by …” But then Alex bit down hard on her bottom lip. Sophie was her best friend but what possible good could come of her trying to explain the strange events of her morning. Unfortunately she’d stopped herself too late because Sophie’s all-seeing green eyes were already searching her face like a roaming spotlight.

“Okay Alex, what’s going on?” Sophie asked in her best interrogatory tone of voice as she perched on the edge of Alex’s desk. “You’re flustered and flushed and fidgeting with your hair in that way you do when you’re really on edge. Something’s happened to upset you this morning hasn’t it?”

Alex bit her bottom lip as she lowered herself onto her chair, her handbag still hanging uselessly from her shoulder. She was wondering whether she could give Sophie a boring potted version of what had happened on her way to work that morning which would not bring on too many questions. But Alex wasn’t sure how to condense her morning into that format. And Sophie’s eyes were huge and expectant and Alex didn’t have the heart to mislead her.

“So let me get this straight,” Sophie began quizzically as Alex wrapped up the account of her morning. Her friend had been listening quietly with a knowing look but listening was at an end. “You get covered in mud. Some perfect stranger whisks you off to the most expensive designer boutique in the city, organises you into a new outfit and then says ‘have a nice life’.”

“Exactly!”

“No, no. You don’t fool me. You’re not telling me something.”

“I promise I’ve told you everything.”

“So he goes by the mysterious name of JP and you don’t know where he works.”

“No idea.”

“And he doesn’t know your second name or anything about you.”

“He knows where I work but …”

“Ah huh!” Sophie declared victoriously and pointed a long, fire engine red fingernail at her friend. “He’ll phone you.”

“No Sophie, it wasn’t like that. He has no intention of phoning me. And please don’t suggest it anyway, it makes me feel more uncomfortable about all this than I already do.”

“Alex Farrer,” Sophie grabbed Alex’s hand, resting it in her own and patting the top of it patronisingly, a wicked glint dancing in her eyes. Alex was desperately trying to think of something she could say to stop Sophie from blowing her meeting with JP out of all proportion, but her friend was already half way out of the barrier and was never one to be reined in once she’d made up her mind to sprint towards the finishing line.

“It’s time we had another one of our little talks. You know, about life and the way it really is—not the way you think it is. Okay. Here I go,” Sophie began in a singsong voice as though she was recounting a fairy story for a small child. “A red-blooded, I’m guessing quite attractive male, meets attractive young woman on side of road in distress. He rescues her from job loss by buying her four-figure outfit to wear to work. Then says ‘have a nice life’ and lets her walk away because he has done all of it out of the goodness of his heart.”

Sophie finished her account breathlessly, raising her eyebrows at Alex expectantly as though waiting for an answer before shaking her head slowly. Alex couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s exaggerated school prefect expression.

“Okay. Now I’ll give you life as it really is. Attractive man meets wet and bedraggled but nevertheless alluring young woman on side of street in distress. Talks to her for a few minutes and then discovers he actually finds her extremely attractive and wants to get her into bed as soon as possible. Has more money than he knows what to do with so buys her an expensive outfit to woo her because he’s already found out where she works and will be calling her later that day to ask her out on a ‘pre-getting her into bed’ date.”

“Sophie, stop! It wasn’t like that at all. Anyway, you’re forgetting one show-stopping detail in this fairy story.”

“Oh really? What’s that?”

“Wet and bedraggled girl is engaged.”

“Yes I know that but Sir Lancelot doesn’t,” Sophie retorted. “What’s more, he has no idea he’s just gone to all that trouble and expense over you for nothing. Poor guy!” Sophie declared, her eyes shining bright with incredulity. “I can’t believe this has happened to you of all people. You’re the last person who would go looking for it.”

“Do you mean people go looking to be covered in mud on their way to work?” Alex replied, deliberately obtuse.

“You know what I mean. You’re not exactly forward when it comes to winning attention from the opposite sex yet here you are, fresh out of the clutches of the original knight in shining armour.”

“Have you ever thought that perhaps I’m not interested in that kind of attention from the opposite sex because I’m engaged?” Alex offered in ironic understatement.

Sophie scoffed and Alex immediately regretted raising that impediment; her engagement was one of Sophie’s favourite hobbyhorses.

“Even if you weren’t engaged to Simon you wouldn’t look for attention from men. It’s not your style. Anyway, you’ve been engaged to Simon for so long I bet you don’t remember what attention from men feels like.”

“Of course I do. Three years is not so long.”

In fact three years felt like yesterday. One minute Simon was tinkling a spoon against a champagne glass to make a toast for her twenty-first birthday party and the next he was proposing in front of a gathering of more than a hundred family members and friends.

She’d been so stunned she’d simply nodded and smiled, desperately trying to conceal just how staggered she was that he’d ignored her point of view that they were too young to get married. But he had ignored it, adamant there was no need to wait. A long engagement would sort out any concerns she had, he’d said—and in a way he was right. She’d been surprised at how easily she’d slipped into her new status as an engaged woman, especially with family excitement and expectation wrapping around them both like a warm, comfortable cloak.

“How are the wedding plans going by the way?” Sophie’s demeanour was mischievous. “Booked the church yet? The reception venue?”

“You know we haven’t Sophie, but we’re going to organise it soon.”

“How about I take over the planning for you?”

Alex couldn’t tell whether Sophie was winding her up or not. “No, that’s very kind of you but …”

“I’m just kidding. No need to panic, Alex. I’ve no intention of bringing this wedding on before you’re ready.”

Sophie was right. Simon had been keen to get the wedding underway for quite some time by that point, and she had been dragging the chain on the wedding preparations. But it was so obvious to everyone that she and Simon were destined for one another there didn’t seem any need to rush things.

She couldn’t remember a time when Simon was not a part of her life. They were the original childhood sweethearts. Their families had been friends for years and they’d played together in the backyard as children. To say her parents adored him was the understatement of the century—Simon was the son they’d never had—and his family adored her too. They’d grown up in the same neighbourhood, gone to the same school and mixed within the same social network of families and friends all their lives. Their engagement had been a fitting together of two final pieces in a very large jigsaw puzzle that extended way beyond their two individual lives.

“What does Simon think about the upheaval within your office?” Sophie asked curiously.

“He doesn’t know.”

“You haven’t told him?”

“Well nothing’s happened yet … and I don’t think he’d care too much if I lost this job,” Alex confessed as she swivelled absentmindedly from side to side on her chair, her heart sinking as she heard herself utter a near truth she found unsettling.

The actual truth was that Simon would be ecstatic if her ties at Griffen Murphy were severed. He wanted her to start concentrating on the wedding and their future home life. As he’d said last time they were together, she was in a go-nowhere job paying chicken feed. Why would she bother with a career at all when his business was going gangbusters?

There was just one problem—Alex loved her job.

“That’s right,” Sophie declared mercilessly as though she could read Alex’s mind. “No need for the little wife to work when she’s going to marry Mr Megabucks.”

“It’s not that. We want to start a family as soon as possible.” Alex could hear Simon’s so often repeated words echoing in her own voice. But Alex knew she was wasting her breath. Sophie had been raised amidst the expectation that career opportunities should know no limits. It was pointless to try and explain that the expectations swirling around her own life like mountain mist were so very different.

“Yes, well you are getting on,” Sophie teased. “That biological clock is starting to tick pretty fast at twenty-four. Better get on with it.”

“Stop it, Soph!”

“Stop what?”

“This … this thing that you do about my engagement.”

“Well someone has to try and gee you up! You’re the most unenthusiastic bride-to-be I’ve ever met!”

“I’m not unenthusiastic,” Alex argued as she felt self-conscious heat rise in her cheeks. “But when your fiancé lives overseas most of the time it’s hard to plan a wedding. And work has been busy …”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll stop.” But Sophie wasn’t half trying to conceal her look of concern as she regarded Alex. “Anyway, when do you think Jonathan McKenzie’s going to arrive? You could cut the air with a knife in here this morning.”

Alex looked around the litigation section of Griffen Murphy. There was a general buzz as people mooched around and chatted. No one could concentrate and few lawyers or PAs had started any work for the day.

Everyone in litigation had been on tenterhooks for weeks as news of the new partner had spread like wildfire through the office. Yet the day of his arrival was upon them. Just last Friday night they’d celebrated David Griffen’s retirement as litigation partner and with a slightly sore head Alex had come in the day after to spring-clean the office in readiness for his replacement—Jonathan McKenzie, aka ‘The Grim Reaper’.

“Who knows when he’ll be here,” Alex replied. “And we really shouldn’t be so negative about him. He might not be the ogre everyone says he is.”

“I’d love to share your optimism but where there’s smoke there’s fire. I told you my friend Megan has a cousin who worked for him when she was in London a few years ago. He won’t hesitate to get rid of staff. If lawyers don’t bill their hours they’re gone. If they don’t market the firm and bring work in they’re gone. And as for PAs …”

“Yes I know. No more than one PA per lawyer and that includes partners,” Alex recounted the gossip as it had been spread around litigation.

It made her sick with dread because Jonathan McKenzie’s arrival simply had to be the sounding of the death knell for her position at Griffen Murphy. Then when her job was gone Simon and her parents would swoop. Not that he and her parents didn’t want the best for her—they did. But they would look on a break in her employment as a great opportunity to navigate her towards marriage and family life. And without a rebellious bone in her body, Alex knew she would be the last person to rise up against a three year escalation of family hope and expectation. The fact that all she wanted was an opportunity to stop loving her job as much as she did before giving it up for her life with Simon was irrelevant.

“You never know, the new boss might make you the exception and keep you on,” Sophie offered soothingly. But given that Sophie was Acting Head of HR, if she’d had any information to suggest Alex was not about to be sacked she would have thrown her that life line of hope already.

Alex shook her head in a gesture of rebuttal. “With Vera Boyd as senior PA to David Griffen these last twenty years do you really think the new partner’s going to throw her over for some twenty-four year old junior PA? Face it Sophie, I’m toast.”

“Don’t be such a Gloom Hilda. No one knows for sure what his plans are. You’re a smart cookie—you might land on your feet. And with any luck he’ll soon see you can run rings around Vera.”

Alex didn’t share Sophie’s confidence about that. For a start Vera Boyd treated Alex like the village idiot in front of the partners at every opportunity. More importantly, Vera was an experienced and impressive PA. She’d been running David Griffen’s practice forever. If Jonathan McKenzie sacked her five minutes after David Griffen’s retirement there would be a stampede of clients from the firm. There was no way he would risk that.

Alex settled in at her desk and brought up the precedent files on her computer. She continued her ongoing work on the formatting but it was impossible to concentrate. Friends and colleagues were wandering past and wishing her luck for the day, yet their good wishes only served to make her more agitated.

Finally a ripple of excitement passed through the office. A rumour was circulating that the new partner was on his way down the corridor. The whole office became artificially quiet as everyone feigned industriousness.

“Good morning!” A male voice boomed across the office space. “Where are you all hiding?”

Alex’s heart reared up in her chest and took off at a wild gallop, for that husky mellifluous voice was breathtakingly similar to the one still ringing in her ears from earlier that morning. But she immediately dismissed the notion that her knight to the rescue was now walking into her office in the form of her new boss. Fate had toyed with her enough that day when it decided to shower her in mud. There was no way it would throw her knight back at her in the safe confines of her own workplace!

Rising slowly to her feet Alex strained to catch a glimpse of the owner of the voice. Other members of staff were also rising from their chairs to approach and greet the new partner and a slight shift in the crowd finally offered Alex a clear view.

She’d doubted her ears but her eyes couldn’t lie.

For there he was. Her knight in shining armour and the man she’d spilled her guts to about the Grim Reaper arriving at Griffen Murphy that day was at that moment wandering through the office and about to take up his position as senior litigation partner.

Alex sunk down into her chair and fought for breath as a cold sweat broke out all over her body.

He was moving along the corridors. Every now and then he stopped to be introduced to members of his staff but he was inexorably edging towards her like the tide washing in. And although she’d known that day would be difficult she’d never dreamed it would turn out to be the worst day of her life.

That voice again. It was asking every staff member in litigation to join him in the conference room. She’d had a reprieve for a few minutes and could breathe again, for now.

When most of the staff had filed in behind JP, Alex followed. She was reluctant to face him but there was no way she was going to miss what he would have to say to his new staff after the morning spent with his new PA and her bad case of verbal incontinence.

Alex sidled in behind the crowd of gathering staff. The conference room was packed with bodies and she was able to take up a position behind two of the tallest male lawyers in the section, declining their invitation to move in front so that she could see the man of the hour.

The atmosphere was electric as voices became hushed. Then that self-assured, sonorous voice with its dulcet Glaswegian tones cascaded into Alex’s ears again.

“Good morning everyone,” he began, “thanks for this impromptu meeting. I won’t keep you long. I’d like to have a formal meeting with you all at a later stage to discuss planning for the office and I’ll get around in the next couple of days to meet you all individually. I just want to say I understand this is a challenging day for all of you. I know many of you worked with David for a long time and it’s difficult to change track. I ah …” JP paused momentarily, “I’ve been told many of you regard my arrival here as bringing gloom and doom. I must say I’m extremely sorry to hear that. That’s why I’ve called this meeting—to try and set the record straight.”

Alex tried to make herself tinier behind the bodies shielding her from the man she now knew was JP McKenzie. For she, Alex Farrer, Assistant PA and all-round office minnow, was undoubtedly the source of the senior litigation partner’s information about his own self-confessed unpopularity. It had to be a bad dream yet unlike a bad dream she didn’t seem to be waking up at the worst part. But perhaps the worst part was still to come!

“In fact …” JP began again, “I understand I’m affectionately known around here as ‘The Grim Reaper’.”

A guilty titter passed through the room. Meanwhile, Alex thought her head would implode with the pressure crushing her temples.

“Anyway, labels are neither here nor there. The fact is I’m here to do a job and do it well. I’m not going to mince words with you: this section is under-performing compared to other parts of the firm and litigation sections in other firms. I know we have a quality client base because I’ve looked at it. I’ll also be bringing a very large client base to add to this. Having said that, I’m confident I’ve got good staff here and I intend to use what I’ve got. Rest assured though, there’ll be changes made. Those who have capacity will have to take on additional tasks or leave. I’ll be making these changes quickly as I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the staff and the work here. I already know most of you better than you think.”

The hair at the back of Alex’s neck stood on end as she wondered what he already knew about her, apart from the fact she was the most indiscreet employee of the firm.

At that point a young lawyer up the front of the room asked a question.

“I’ve been asked what the criteria will be for deciding who will lose their job,” JP began again. “I should say I haven’t made any decisions about anyone losing their job but I’ve found in firms of this size there are always a few who are determined to continue to do things their own way and not mine. Those people may as well start to look for alternative employment. What I’m looking for is dedication, loyalty and teamwork. I’m looking for people who believe in me and what I’m going to do here. If you’re all those things you’ll have nothing to fear but be warned, I can pick those who are not on my team at a thousand paces.”

Alex was dizzy. Lowering herself into a nearby chair she wondered whether she should just shuffle out of her office and the building right then and there. What kind of future could she possibly have at Griffen Murphy? If her conversation with JP that morning was not evidence of a lack of dedication, loyalty and teamwork then nothing was. She probably wouldn’t even last the day once he caught sight of her.

“Anyway,” JP continued, “I hope you leave this room with the view that my arrival here is a great opportunity for the development of your professional careers. I’m sorry I’ve had to start my role here on this negative note but I was disturbed by the information I received this morning about your perceptions of me. I’ve been accused of many things in my time but I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being unfair. However I’m going to have to leave things there for now as I was due in a meeting five minutes ago.”

JP was swallowed up by a crowd of people as he made his way out of the conference room.

Alex wished she could be swallowed up too, preferably never to be seen again. Her new boss had felt compelled to call a meeting with the whole of his litigation team and all because she’d blabbed her head off to a perfect stranger an hour ago. She’d undermined his first day and his expectations of their loyalty to him. He wasn’t sure who he could trust and it was all because of her.

Alex sat motionless as her colleagues milled about her. They were chatting in hushed tones about JP’s first meeting and the portent of his words. ‘The jury’s still out,’ they murmured amongst themselves. ‘No one can be sure whether jobs are at risk or not. He doesn’t seem to be suggesting indiscriminate sackings of staff, only those not pulling their weight, or those who are not team players. That doesn’t seem unfair but can he be relied upon to stick to it?’

As the conversations died away and people moved out of the room Alex rose reluctantly to her feet. She wandered out to her desk where she sat down heavily in her chair and threw her head down on her folded arms and groaned.

Was it actually possible her day could get any worse?

But then Alex sensed she wasn’t alone in her workstation. A quiver rippled down her spine. She lifted her head a little to see a strong male hand resting on the desk next to her arm. She could feel breath in her hair and smell the fresh scent of male deodorant. It was disturbingly familiar.

Alex turned her head ever so slightly to try and confirm her fears were not being realised but before she could take her companion in with her eyes, her ears were already confirming the worst.

“Nice outfit, Alex Farrer.”

Alex stopped breathing. By the time she’d started again JP McKenzie had vanished.