Good head clerks guided barristers through their careers, and I knew Craig was looking out for me. The problem was I didn’t give a shit about the money. I made plenty, and my father’s death had made me a very wealthy man. What I cared about was the work. I didn’t like to waste time billing clients and then chasing them for payment once I had. When the clerks had tried to bring my billing up-to-date before, they’d required me to go through each file with them and tell them which needed billing. They weren’t really doing anything. It didn’t take long for my lack of cooperation and blunt responses to exhaust them; they had plenty of other things to do that were easier. But an assistant whose only job was to annoy me might present more of a challenge. Especially someone as beautiful as Violet King. Just a few minutes as strangers with her this morning had provided too much of a distraction already. I wasn’t sure how I’d keep my mind on the job if she was nearby all the time. My time was very limited. I needed to stay focused.
“You work harder than any barrister I’ve ever worked with, and you should be rewarded for that,” Craig said.
That couldn’t be true. As Craig had clerked my father, he knew the hardest-working barrister there had ever been at the bar. I was always stunned to see the corridors empty when I was in chambers late at night. I’d assumed that all barristers worked as hard as my dad, and he was never home in the evenings. Often he didn’t make it home at all. A couple of times, my mother had brought us up to Lincoln’s Inn to drop off a clean shirt or take him to lunch. It had always felt like such an adventure—I knew my father was impressive and the work he was doing important because they were always the reasons I was given why he wasn’t at home, but seeing him in this environment proved it to me. The men in suits, the people scurrying around with armfuls of papers doing what he told them, the way everyone I met told me how talented my father was and how lucky I was to be his son—it created a craving in me and I’d known from eight years old that I wanted to be here in Lincoln’s Inn, just like him. I’d imagined we’d work side by side—maybe even share an office. He’d died before I’d been called to the bar. Our careers had never overlapped.
“You know I’m not concerned about the money,” I replied.
“Frankly, chambers will get a bad reputation for its clerking if things carry on, which hurts us all. We need to be seen as modern and dynamic to attract clients and up-and-coming barristers. All we’re asking is for you to let someone help you out.” He glanced around the room. There was paper everywhere. I liked to think it looked like a scale model of an Asian capital—tower blocks of paper heading toward the ceiling, blocking out the light. “And your filing and your archiving is completely out of control. It needs to get cleared up.”
“I’ll get to it,” I said, knowing full well that I never would.
Craig sighed. “Throw me a bone and give Violet a chance. She’s here for three months and is going to make your life easier. She’s a clever, robust American, so she should be able to put up with you.”
I didn’t respond. No one else in chambers would dare be so blunt with me. I knew the more junior clerks and admin staff feared me, which I rather enjoyed. I liked to be left alone to get on with my work, so it suited me that I wasn’t drawn into polite conversations or pestered with inane questions.
“I’m too busy to be explaining anything to anyone,” I said, turning back to my laptop, careful to avoid looking at Violet. I’d been close to kissing her this morning. She’d felt good in my arms when I’d pulled her out of the way of that rogue cyclist—as if she fit—and I hadn’t wanted to let her go. I could almost still feel her against my chest while sitting here just a meter away from her. Her smile had been so warm and open and for a second I forgot how late I was. Perhaps I’d imagined it. Unable to help myself, I glanced across at her again, and she was wearing that warm smile that seemed to direct heat throughout my body. Would her full lips be as soft to kiss as they looked? Would she fit against my body as I imagined she would?
I inhaled sharply and looked back at Craig.
“I warned you he would be difficult,” Craig said, presumably to my new assistant.
This must have been the job she was so keen to get to. How ironic that if I hadn’t shown her the way to chambers, she wouldn’t be here.
“Do what you can.” Craig sighed.
“No problem,” she replied.
I swallowed and turned back to my screen.
“I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team and then you can make a start,” Craig said. “Have a good day, Mr. Knightley.”
The door shut and I sat back in my chair. I’d always successfully resisted any attempts to organize me or to take over my billing.
Anyone else I would have just flatly refused, but I liked Craig—respected him—and I didn’t want his reputation to suffer because of me. It was true that my additional billings would reflect well on chambers and Craig personally. I also knew in the back of my mind that I wasn’t going to be able to take on bigger cases and advance my career working the way I was. There were only so many hours in the day, and I wasn’t doing much but working, sleeping, and going to the gym. So I needed to get more efficient if I was going to be the best at the bar. If only Craig hadn’t picked this woman. Something told me that she was trouble.
Four
Violet
So much for Knightley being some kind of hero from a Jane Austen novel. The picture Craig had painted in the interview was of a very difficult man, but then when he’d mentioned the name Knightley, I was delighted. I knew the person who’d rescued me at the tube station couldn’t be the ogre he described. We had some kind of history together—there was some kind of connection between us. But no. When Craig had introduced us, Knightley barely even acknowledged me. It was as if we’d never met, as if I’d been invisible. Even if he was ridiculously handsome, and turned my insides to jelly, he was a jerk.
But I had to make this job work. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass Darcy, and I needed the money. It was also my first non-waitressing job in a long time, and I needed to prove to myself that I could do something else, something more, even if it was administration.
“I warned you he was gruff,” Craig said as we trundled along the narrow, dimly lit corridor back to the clerks’ section of the building.
The place must have been a house at some point because the furniture and fixtures looked more at place in a Victorian costume drama than in twenty-first century London.
“It will take tenacity and a thick skin to make any progress with him, but you have no other duties or responsibilities. It’s all about Mr. Knightley. We need to get his billing up-to-date, shred, file, and archive his papers as I said to him. But really your job is to do anything that makes his life easier.”
I had a feeling my job here was going to be pointless. I’d spend the next three months trying to polish a turd, and probably get fired in the process. But for today, I was going to stay positive. At least at the end of the week, I’d have a paycheck. And I’d be in London.
Craig stopped before we reached his office and headed into a room with one small window at the back. “This is the clerking team.”