I knew how she felt. At thirty-four I was young to have this sort of role, managing and directing an extremely profitable and noteworthy law firm, and I needed encouragement. Trying to make your way somewhere was difficult for everyone. I got that. The need to underline that you knew what you were doing.
“Sounds like you have a handle on things already. How about staff? I hope Kirsty’s been accommodating.”
Vanessa’s eyes dropped to my chest and I couldn’t resist the urge to very slightly flex my muscles. Her cheeks grew redder and I smirked. It was nice to be able to impress in other ways too.
“It’s different for her. She’s not used to someone else directing. But she’s got a decent skill set and it’s a case of trying to develop her a little more so once we’ve finished you’ve got a good employee.”
This confirmed some of my concerns about Kirsty. “Vanessa.” I didn’t even bother with the formality of calling herMs Moore, partly because she could be married, partly because I had enough stuffy clients to be uber-polite to. “Here probably isn’t the best place for this conversation and I probably smell of planes as well as sweat. How about we get showers and I’ll spot us breakfast? We can discuss your ideas and how they align with the brief so far. And probably introduce ourselves.”
“I can do that,” she gave me a slight nod. “I’ll leave a note for Kirsty to let her know I might be running a few minutes late to meet her.” There was a smile that turned into a grin, with, God forbid, a dimple. “I have a huge appetite, by the way, and I don’t do prissy food.”
“Noted.” I shot back a smile back. “I don’t do prissy anything. See you in reception in – thirty minutes?” I wondered how much time she needed to shower and dress. My experience of women was that they took an age to get ready, especially my sisters.
“Sure,” she nodded, her eyes drifting down to my chest again and I struggled not to preen. She headed to the changing rooms and I tried to casually walk away, my mind conjuring up images of her naked in the shower with water pouring over those tits and all the ways I could help get her clean.
And then dirty again.
I showered quickly, turning the temperature onto Baltic cold to get rid of any lingering hardness in my cock. I needed to focus on work and getting involved with a contractor was not good business practice. Yes, she was beautiful and probably intelligent given she ran her own business but she was off-limits. So why the fuck was I taking her to breakfast?
I hated mornings. It wasn’t that I struggled to wake up: I just didn’t like other people first thing. Other people irritated me, like little insects creeping over skin; never biting or stinging, just there, itching. Mornings for me were like gaping wounds that really should’ve been covered. Before I’d drank my body weightin coffee or had the early morning company of a good woman, I was a nasty fuckwit of a human. I didn’t believe in having to try to be polite to other people before nine in the morning, unless I was dealing with an especially important client. It was an area my siblings were trying to get me to improve on, along with about fifty other things.
That was the benefit of working with family: you always knew your areas for improvement.
It was three weeks since I’d seen any of my family and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever gone longer without one of them pestering me in person. It didn’t mean I hadn’t heard from them: I could’ve been in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean in a dinghy with no Wi-Fi and one of them would’ve found a carrier pigeon with the stamina of a camel to get in touch somehow. I had no chance of escaping them in New York, not that it was a vacation. I’d landed two hours ago and rather than go home to my apartment like a normal person would, I had headed to the offices instead, hoping that the building, and possibly the law firm that we shared, would be still standing.
I finished in the showers and headed up to the first floor. “Morning favourite brother,” I heard my sister, Claire, call from her office. I paused, firstly because my intent was to log in to my emails. Secondly, and most importantly, because Claire being here at this time on a Thursday morning meant that something, somewhere, had been well and truly fucked up, or her personal life was on one of its habitual downward spirals.
“You want to tell me now or after I’ve had coffee?” I hollered, inhaling deeply and wondering which of my wonderful siblings – Max excluded because he’d been perfect since the day he came out of the womb – might need digging out of a deep, shit-filled hole.
“After coffee is fine,” she said back, her voice tuneful and far too fresh for this time of day. That worried me.
“What time did you get here? Did you go home first?”
Claire was like me in that way, she had no formal body clock, working completely to her own time, but the fact she was coherent, polite and present before six am was odd.
“Bad date,” she said and I heard the sounds of a keyboard being hit with gusto. “And a new case I need to speak with you about, but after you’re caffeinated.”
“Anyone you need me to hit?”
“No. Not quite. Although he could do with a referral to your tattoo artist. He has a shit tattoo that badly needs correcting.”
“My tattoo artist is too busy for someone you’re not going to see again.” I opened the door into her office. Her head was down, she was focused, reading and she reminded me of what I could remember of our mother: studious, involved. “You okay, sis? Everything ticked along alright while I was gone?”
She looked up, smiled, although the ends of her mouth didn’t reach the side of her glasses. “Jacks, you worry too much. Everything is under control. Have more faith. Max has been great.” Maxwell was our big brother, but only just as we were close in age. He was a huge beast of a man-bear who was obsessed with law, more so than I had ever been. With a ridiculous beard.
I could see Claire looked tired but there weren’t any lines around her eyes so I was less concerned. Claire had always marched to the beat of a very unique drum that no one else could hear, except whichever minion she knocked the beats into.
“I had a date, which was let’s say – uninspiring – and coming here and working was less hassle than tubing it home.” Claire looked up from her keyboard and gave me a tired but genuine grin. “It’s fine, Jackson. Tell me about New York. Any wild, romantic encounters?”
“You need to stay out of my love life,” I said, avoiding eye contact. My sister was the devil when it came to me andMaxwell’s bachelor statuses. She was obsessed by the idea of family and tradition, and told us regularly that she couldn’t wait to have nephews and nieces. Her interest in our family extended to where she had become the role of archivist and extracting our DNA, sending it off to various companies to find out where we originated from. Agreeing to have our mouths swabbed was by far the less painful option than listening to Claire discussing family trees and heritage and other shit I’d deposited to my mind’s dustbin. “Everything’s fine. How’s the marketing consultant been? I’ve just met her downstairs.” Given that my father was officially leaving the company in a working capacity in a few weeks it seemed like a good time to rebrand.
Claire stretched then poked her glasses further up her nose. “She’s good. Vanessa is nothing but a perfectionist. You know she’s already got Dad’s retirement ball pretty much organised.”
I flinched, not wanting a reminder of something I’d been trying to avoid for several months already. “She’d better be a fucking genius, Claire, with the amount her company’s charging.” Vanessa was a contact of Claire’s and, along with her portfolio, Claire’s word had got her the job.
“She came in on Monday. Kirsty’s face looked like a slapped baboon’s backside by the end of the day.”
“Hopefully Kirsty will learn a few things so we don’t need to hire an outside company again.” I hadn’t been impressed with what Kirsty had done so far. “I really hope Vanessa’s as good as you say she is.”
