Chapter 4
JASMINE
“I swear, I’m just a high-paid secretary,” I mumbled as I shuffled papers around at my desk. “Guess being a paralegal looks a lot different nowadays.”
I got the files arranged in order by date, just how my boss liked them. My desktop dinged with another email, and I quickly switched tactics. There was always so much to do.
Too much to do.
I swear, my boss had to hire a secretary.
“That’s why he hired you,” I said as I tilted my head side to side with a wrinkle in my brow, “Miss Paralegal Wannabe.”
I slammed one of the drawers of my desk closed a little too hard and gasped. I whipped my head up, looking around in every direction before I sighed softly. Good. No one saw that.
The last thing I needed to do was lose this job because of a bad attitude.
Sure, this wasn’t quite what I thought a paralegal for one of the most prestigious law firms in the area would be.
But it beat my last job by a mile and a half.
My pay was doubled. My benefits were outstanding.
If I could just keep at it for a couple more years with this place, with my head down and a smile on my face, I’d be debt-free.
Free from the confines of the burden I carried around because of my father.
Fucking drunk.
I sighed heavily as guilt washed over me. I shouldn’t be so hard on my father. He worked hard so that I could grow up in the kind of environment he’d never had. He married the love of his life, and then lost her when she had me.
I could only imagine what that did to him, looking at me after all that.
Maybe that’s why he drank so much while I was growing up.
I yawned as another ding on my desktop told me that I was ignoring emails. Fuck, I was staring off again.
“Pay attention, Jasmine,” I grumbled to myself as I abandoned the files and wiggled my mouse.
The screen of my computer came to life and it wasn’t just one email that I had, it was four. My goodness, I swear, these things multiplied like rabbits right in front of my very eyes sometimes. I groaned as yet another email I was copied to ran through.
I double-clicked the first one and skimmed it before hopping over to my boss’s schedule.
“He’ll be happy to know that’s cancelled,” I said breathlessly to myself.
I scrolled through the emails, one by one, responding as necessary and adjusting my boss’s schedule accordingly. Usually emails were either ‘I need a meeting’ or ‘I need to cancel a meeting.’ Every once in a while, it was emergent. But if someone needed my boss instantly, they called.
And of course, my phone rang at that exact moment.
“Langley, Pierceson, and Dahl, this is Jasmine speaking, how may I direct your call?”
This was the shit that made me feel like a secretary. I was supposed to be the paralegal for everyone on the top floor, helping to deal with their most high-profile cases. But when we weren’t working on something like that?
I answered phones.
I listened to the man on the other line with my polite ‘uh huhs’ and ‘of course, sirs’.
I took down the request, telling the man that I would get it to my boss the instant he got out of his meeting.
As a paralegal, it was my job to make sure that all the I’s were dotted and all of the T’s were crossed before court ever happened with one of my clients.
However, one of my ‘side jobs’, as I liked to call them, made sure that when the firm had a financial board meeting, everyone was there.
Even if I had to take my boss’s driver to go pick up someone.
Like I had to do this morning.
“Jasmine!” my boss barked.
I jumped up at the sound of his voice, ripping the headset off my head. “Yes, Mr. Langley?”
His beady little stare zoned in on me. “I need one of the financial portfolios from the last meeting. Where is it?”
I dipped down. “Right here, sir. I can put my hands on it now.”
He paused. “I’m waiting, Jasmine.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I pulled the drawer of my desk out, immediately zoning in on all of the colorful folders that denoted the quarterly earnings reports that he always wanted to go over with the financial board.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” I said as I pulled out a yellow folder with last quarter’s dates on it, “I could have sworn I placed one right there at your seat when I came in this morning.”
“You did,” is all he said.
I wanted to question why he needed another one, but then that would just get me yelled at. I clicked over to him in my heels, holding out the folder for him.
He snatched it from me without so much as a thank you. Just a head nod before he disappeared back into the meeting.
That was my silent cue to get back to work.
“Gotta question for ya, miss.”
I flinched at the sound of the brusque voice behind me. I whipped around softly, not even realizing the fact that someone had come up behind me. I found a man standing at my desk with what looked like a bandana wrapped around his face. It concealed everything from his nose down.
He stared at me with bright green eyes.
“I, uh…” I nodded softly before I quickly returned to my desk.
I eased myself down into my chair so that I was closer to the knife my boss allowed me to keep at my desk, just in case I ever needed it.
But when the man turned and coughed, his hand coming up to his mouth just over the mask, I relaxed a bit.
Oh.
That made more sense.
I put that trained smile on my face. “My apologies for the wait, sir. How may I assist you?”
“Well, miss,” he said as he leaned against my desk, “I’ve been all over high hell in this building, basically level by level, trying to find someone that can help me.”
I tilted my head. “Well, sir, let me see if I can give it the good ol’ college try. What do you need help with? If all else fails, this would be the kind of thing I could interrupt my boss’s meeting for, so either way, you get advice before you leave here today.”
I could tell that he smiled beneath his mask. It crinkled his sparkling eyes. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
He turned and coughed again, and I reached down beneath my desk toward the mini-fridge I kept underneath there. I opened it up, slid out a small water bottle, and handed it up to him.
“Here, I hope that helps,” I said.
He nodded as he took it from me. “Thank you kindly.”
I watched him crack it open before he coughed and cleared his throat. He turned his back to me just so he could take a sip of the water, and I had to admit, I was curious as to what he looked like beneath it.
Was his jawline as striking as his eyes?
Get a grip, Jasmine. You’re at work.
My boss’s voice rang in my head, and I cleared my throat softly. I let the man take his time with the water while I typed a response back to the last email that had flooded my inbox at the drop of a hat.
Only to see two more pop up.
Like a friggin’ hydra, these things are.
“All right, sorry about that,” the masked man said.
I quickly returned my attention to him with a polite smile on my face. “No apologies necessary. I have fall allergies, too. My sinuses already sense the change in the seasons.”
He chuckled. “Don’t I know it.”
“So,” I said as I gave him my undivided attention while I sat there at my desk, “set your troubles at my desk and let’s see if I can help.”
It had been a while since I flexed my paralegal status, and I was itching to give some advice.
Even if the advice sent him on his way to another law firm, at least I’d be able to pull that information from the recesses of my mind.
Sometimes I wondered if going to law school was worth being taken seriously as a woman in this profession.
Then again, was any woman ever taken seriously in any profession where men ran the world?
“Well, here’s the thing,” he said as he leaned back against my desk, “I was discharged from the military for a reason I can’t necessarily say that I agree with.
I was hoping to challenge it with the military courts, at the very least. But since my discharge officially went through a few days ago, the military police on my former base will no longer work with me. ”
I nodded. “I see.”
“I hoped this was a law firm that took on military veterans who want to sue their branch of the military for wrongful discharge.”
I gasped softly. “You believe you were wrongfully discharged. Medically? Dishonorably?”
He shook his head. “Neither. It wasn’t a medical discharge, but they said they did it for a medical reason.
After this last deployment, I had some evaluations done.
Evaluations they won’t allow me to get my hands on.
They won’t give me benefits for a medical discharge, but they used medical reasoning in order to make sure I wasn’t allowed to re-up. ”
My jaw dropped. “That’s awful, especially since it’s clear you still wish to serve your country.”
He just shrugged. “Does that sound like something you guys take on? Or am I just barking up the wrong tree?”
I hated that he worked so hard today only for the answer I was about to give him. “Unfortunately—”
He held up his hand. “I already know where this is going.”
I sighed as I stood. “Sir, I can—”
He shook his head as his hand lowered, and I noticed that he had those fingerless leather gloves on his hand.
His fingertips were scarred, too.
I wanted to help him so badly.
“There’s a law firm down the road that I can recommend, however,” I said.
That got his attention. “Oh?”
I nodded quickly as I hunched down over my desk, scribbling down the information.
“Canley and Hobbs are on the other side of this downtown area, to the west. Most of our work is in-house with businesses. Most of the lawyers we have on staff are hired on as in-house counsel. However,” I said as I tore off the information and gave it to him, “Mrs. Hobbs over there is a veteran’s wife.
If there’s anyone that can help you, it’s her. ”
His eyes crinkled, and even though the mask didn’t allow me to see his smile, I just knew it was brilliant. “Thanks, doll. You’re a peach.”
Usually when men used pet names with me, I dismissed them with a tight smile and a wave.
But the way the word ‘doll’ rolled off his tongue…
Focus! What kind of paralegal are you!?
My boss’s voice ripped me out of my trance inside of my head. “If you want, I can call ahead and let them know you’re coming, Mr…?”
He slipped the address and phone number into his pocket. “That won’t be necessary. Thinking of getting food first before I continue my journey. Don’t want them waiting on me.”
“Are you sure?” I asked as I picked up the phone. “Because I could tell them—”
“No.”
I quickly placed the phone down and nodded. “All right then, sir.”
He sighed heavily. “I didn’t mean how that came out. Just a long day already.”
“I can only imagine, sir.”
“Jasmine!” my boss barked, causing me to flinch as I whipped my attention toward the door that banged open. “Get me my—!”
My boss looked over at the masked man and gave him the ol’ one-two with his eyes.
“Who’s this?” he demanded.
The man in the mask turned his head and coughed, making my boss take a step back with a wrinkled nose.
“Just a prospective client,” I said, trying to quickly explain the situation, “a veteran needing help.”
My boss continued to look at the man with his wrinkled nose. “We don’t take military clients. Not our specialty.”
I nodded. “That’s what I told him, sir.”
“You should send him to Hobbs across town.”
The man pulled the piece of paper back out of his pocket. He held it in between two of his scarred, gloved fingers before he said, “she did.”
My boss nodded. “Good. Hobbs’ll take great care of you. She works with a Mr. Canley. Good people. You’ll be taken care of.”
The man in the mask nodded. “’Preciate it.”
My attention volleyed between the two of them before I focused back on my boss. “You needed something, sir?”
He drew in a short breath, like he was pulled out of his own trance. “Yes. I need you in here. Come.”
I smiled up at the masked man as I slipped out from behind my desk. “I hope that your day gets better. And seriously, go see Mrs. Hobbs. She’ll be able to help.”
I quickly slipped past my boss to get into the room where they were holding their quarterly financial board meeting.
He probably wanted me to take the minutes or some shit like that.
I swear, I need to go to law school.