Chapter Three
Sorry. I misheard you.” Pepper forced a laugh even as her stomach rode a high-speed elevator straight to her toes. “It sounded like you just said that I don’t have a job.”
The HR administrative assistant’s polite smile died a slow death. Two faint lines emerged between her brows. “Pepper Knight, is it?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” She took out a tube of gloss and smoothed it over her dry lips. In another minute or two, she’d chuckle about the misunderstanding, once the dust cleared and she signed her hiring documents.
The woman tapped on her keyboard before making a series of henlike clucks. “Oh. I see. Oh dear.”
“What?” Pepper pressed two fingers against her sternum. The last thing she wanted to do was play “heartburn or heart attack?”
“My boss left me a note before going to Myrtle Beach.” Another cluck. “Your offer was withdrawn. I was supposed to follow up, but the notification went into my spam folder. Hand to chest, this computer upgrade is making me crazier than a one-legged cat in a sandbox.”
“Withdrawn?” Pepper’s heart accelerated from third to fifth gear. Her neck muscles tightened. In pressure cooker situations some people became carrots, limp and lifeless. She was an egg. Hot water hardened her. She focused on the woman’s name placard. “Listen, uh, Maryann.” The struggle for a smile was real. “Let’s be reasonable. Of course I have a position. One that I applied, accepted, and, most importantly,relocatedfor.” Pressure built in her skull. She’d jumped at this clerkship rather than holding out for a more desirable location in Boston or DC because it was a guaranteed bird in the hand. Asafechoice.
“What can I do to make this work? A background check? A drug test? I can pee right now. Right here. Well, nothere, here, of course, but—”
“I’m sorry, darlin’. This one’s out of my hands. The position is revoked.” Maryann unscrewed her Diet Coke and took a long swallow before leaning forward, her voice a confidential whisper. “You didn’t hear it here, but this decision came from up the food chain, see. The judge’s mama is a long-time friend of Senator Haynes,theSenator Haynes, chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee, who called in an emergency favor. His oldest grandson has gone wild and needs discipline.” She straightened and resumed her loud voice. “But a pretty, smart thing like you? Why you’ll land on your feet in no time at all.”
“No.” The walls closed in like an Indiana Jones movie. The floor dropped out like a sinister Tower of Terror. “This. Is. Not. Happening.”
She’d entered a wormhole. This office was a portal to a parallel universe, a nightmare land where darkest dreams come true. Nothing was as terrifying as the HR assistant’s sympathetic expression.
Pepper went to reapply more protective lip gloss, but the tube slipped from her trembling fingers, hit the floor with a clatter, and rolled under a nearby desk.
Looked like the universe had indeed given her a sign this morning. Her hopes and dreamswereat a dead end.
“My job offer was rescinded.” Hot electrical currents zinged through her spine. “Regifted to a member of some back-scratching boy’s club?”
“What’s the thing all you lawyers say?” Maryann held up her hands. “Time to plead the fifth. I said too much already.”
“But this is straight up sexist, nepotisticbullshit!” The final word burst out as the beige and cream office decor faded behind a scarlet haze. How many years had she worked her butt off (or rather, grown it through midnight Chips Ahoy stress eating sessions)? NYU engendered a culture of extreme anxiety. Sleep deprivation, tension, and the dream of a social life someday were her constant companions because there was a future payoff. She needed this—no, scratch that—shedeservedthis job and all that went with it. Stability. Security. A chance to build a future on a rock solid foundation capable of weathering any of life’s storms.
She earned this.
Her body moved before her brain could register the fact. She slammed out of the Human Resources office, the door reverberating off the stopper with a satisfying thud. At the end of the hall, gold leaf calligraphy spelled outTHE HONORABLE A. HOGG.
“Honorable?” she seethed. “Ha!” Judge Hogg didn’t know who he messed with. He was tangling with the person who came in top of the class in oral arguments.
“Miss? Miss!” Maryann shouted in the distance. “I wouldn’t go in—”
Pepper stepped into the waiting room. A middle-aged woman in a lavender twinset and pearls glanced up from a file open on her mahogany desk.
“I’m here to see the judge.”
The forthright demand garnered a lemon-sucking face. “He isn’t to be disturbed this morning.”
“Trust me.” Pepper clenched her hands into patriarchy-fighting fists, heart pounding like a war drum. “He hasn’t seen disturbing.”
That’s right. Time for justice to be served.
The assistant arched her overdrawn eyebrows in a “your funeral” gesture before shoving on a headset and hitting an intercom button. “Your Honor?” A pause. “Yes, I do, and I apologize. But there is someone out here insisting on speaking with you. A woman, sir.” Another pause. “Name?” she snapped.
“Pepper. Pepper Knight.” This woman wasn’t getting her vote for Employee of the Year.
The assistant repeated the name and nodded. “Yes, I see. Loud and clear, sir.”
“Well?” Pepper shouldered her laptop bag as the assistant hung up.
