“Oh God, not you too,” Connor groaned.
Cian grinned. “We should be nicer to him; he’s had a shitty morning. Lost an argument.”
“I didn’t lose!”
“You’restillangry, so Rachel definitely won.”
“Rachel?” Izzie frowned and sank down onto the yellow couch in the open foyer. Ada had picked it. If it were up to Connor, everything would be black, but his goddaughter could be persuasive. Connor and Cian each had their own offices, and there was a conference room, but these were all equipped with glass walls that darkened at the touch of a button during client meetings, so their office felt like a giant loft. “Rachel Maddie’s sister, the renowned couples' therapist?”
Good God, dideveryoneknow more than he did?
“Yep.” Cian nodded.
“Great. Maddie will be ecstatic about that; Rachel’s been away for so long. I’m not really here to chat, I just wanted to drop something off and…” She looked around, waving the folder in her hands. “Where’s your new paralegal?”
Oh, crap.
“Isn’t he here?”
“Um,” Connor said.
“I thought maybe you’d given him time off,” Cian said, surprised.
Connor snorted. “Yeah, right. He quit.”
“Oh no.” Cian dropped his head into his hand. “Connor…what did you do?”
He raised both hands defensively. “I didn’t intentionally make him cry, but…”
“Seriously? After just two days?” Izzie asked, perplexed.
Connor frowned. “I was impressed with myself too.”
“Man, Connor, at this rate, the agency won’t send us anyone else soon. And because of you, I owe Izzie fifty bucks.” Annoyed, Cian pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and counted the bills into Izzie’s outstretched hand.
“Please! He was incompetent and started every other sentence with,I saw in a TikTok video,” Connor said, defending himself. “That was totally unreasonable.”
“You know,” Izzie remarked conversationally, “some people say that about you too, Killer Whale.”
He rolled his eyes at the stupid nickname. “I never understood the comparison.”
Cian raised an eyebrow. “You mostly wear black and white and have incredibly sharp teeth. It fits.”
“I’m not up to two tons yet.”
“Yeah, you still have to work on that. But since you had to scare off our temp... Izzie, give Connor the folder with the paperwork for Teager vs. Teager. Now he’ll have to deal with the paperwork on his own.”
“Sounds fair,” Izzie said cheerfully, handing it to him. “Anything else you need from me? Should I dig a little deeper? Mr. Teager has had a few affairs, but nothing indicates he was cheating before the official separation. Unfortunately, he also seems to be a decent father. It’ll be difficult to take away his full custody.”
“We don’t want to forbid him from seeing his children,” Connor said, shaking his head and gulping down the rest of his coffee. “He requested sole custody just to piss off his ex-wife. God, I hate cases with children involved.”
“I know.” Cian stood and massaged his shoulder before strolling over to the coffee machine. “Thank God you have a crazy bet going on to distract us.”
“What bet?” Izzie asked, confused.
Oh, shit. He’d have to talk to her about that later, since he’d so freely nominated her to judge the bet. But he wasn't going to say a word about it now.
“I’ll get breakfast,” he said abruptly. He had an urgent need to leave the room.
