Page 4 of Big Daddy

Traces of sandalwood and fresh pressed laundry tickle my senses as Big Daddy glares down at me, a fleck of gold near his pupil glittering with his anger. His nostrils flare as his chest expands, righteous indignation written all over his stupidly handsome face. Brielle doesn’t give him lip, so I’m thinking my attitude is lodged right up his ass.

Good.

Big Daddy is a pain in the ass to Brielle almost always. He can take it if he can dish it. I poke his chest, my core quivering at the way my finger bounces back from the hardness. “Go. You filled the fridge, now go.”

He opens his mouth, and I think he’s going to tellmeto go. Or yell at me. Or tell me how he pays for this apartment, and he can tell me who stays or goes. Or something equally sexist and disturbing.

But he doesn’t.

His eyes rake over me one more time before he closes his mouth, turns in his fancy dress shoes and hoity-toity lawyer suit, and slips out of the apartment, using his key to lock it behind him. Locking me in.Safely.

Flopping back down onto the couch, the fear and depression in my chest still linger as my failure lulls me into my first nap of the day. Out of a job or otherwise, I now know that Big Daddy is a silver fucking fox.

But a smile quirks my lips as I drift off, because I got under his skin, and that, for today, feels like a win.

chapter two

quincey

“This is it?”I toss the stapled sheets of paper onto my desk, then drop my hands, palms down.

Suzanne sucks her bottom lip under her teeth, nibbling at the corner of her mouth the way she always does. There very well may be a hole in her lip, as much as she chews at it.

“Quit eating your face and speak,” I shout, causing the veins in my temples to throb. I already had a headache, but suddenly it’s much worse. Incompetence will do that.

“That was all there was in the email,” she stammers, shifting on her feet. “Th-there were just those two pages, I checked twice.”

My eyes drop to the papers on my desk, precisely on the word “continued” on the bottom right. I drop my pointer finger to the word. “What does this say?”

She twists her head slightly, honing her gaze on the singular word. Her eyes come to mine, watery. “It says ‘continued’.”

“Continued,” I repeat. “Meaning, there are more pages.” I shake my head. “I can’t work with you anymore.”

Suzanne blinks at me for a moment before lifting her chin and clearing her throat. “A good boss would teach me how to do it instead of screaming at me all the time then firing me.”

I deliver a charming courtroom smile. “You don’t have a good boss, you haveme.” I hand her back the half-printed memo. “You’re fired.”

We stand there for a moment, just staring at one another. She is likely letting reality settle in, and me? I’m waiting. Waiting to feel bad, to reconsider, to feel a kick of pleasure at her demise. Waiting to feel something.Anything.

But nothing comes, and nothingness always breeds anger. Heaps of it.

“I said you’re fired, Suzanne. So unless you need to addfiredbeneathcontinuedon the list of words you don’t understand,” I hiss, leaning in to bring my fiery words nearer to her face, “then get out of my office. Now.”

As she turns, my partner Davis Pen strolls in, hands shoved into his pockets, stupid bolo tie hanging from his neck. His blonde hair is slicked back, and even though he’s one of the sharpest litigators I’ve ever known, he looks like someone who’d sell you stereo speakers out of the back of a van because his boss “ordered too many.”

Davis’s gaze follows Suzanne right out the door before volleying back to me, full of shock.

“Another one?” He strokes a hand down his poorly grown, spotty beard. “I liked Suzie.”

I’m 99% sure she asked specifically not to be called Suzie, and that sums up Davis Pen, in my opinion.

“She can’t print a memo without making a mistake,” I say, immediately regretting my decision to engage in conversation with Davis. The less contact, the better. He’s a great partner because he manages to lock down huge clients, and he never loses.

But god, I can’t stand him.

“Ah, well, you could’ve sent her my way. I would have given herprivateprinting lessons,” he says, dancing his eyebrows to send home the not-so-subtle subtext that he would’ve sexually harassed my assistant.

“You need a harassment suit like you need a hole in the head.” I nod toward the chair in the corner, where a stack of files rests. “She was going to bring those to the file room, but since she’s gone, send your girl in.”

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