Page 20 of Partner Pursuit
Jake
Surveying the pile of legal disclosures, she laughed. It didn’t seem like he was dating the woman from breakfast if he was sending her flowers. Putting on pop music, she shimmied over to her desk and opened up her laptop to finish the research forMalaburn.
Chapter Eight
To:WinnieChu
From: Audrey Willems
Date: Tuesday,August 24
Re: Whitaker retirement party
I called HR and they’re not planning a party for Whitaker(!), so I volunteered to organize it. They gave me a budget and the names of the various vendors. I just need to fill out a sheet for the cafeteria to cater it and order flowers. How’s Texas?
To: Audrey Willems
From:WinnieChu
Date: Tuesday,August 24
Re: Texas
Isn’t that too much to add to your plate? Texas is hot. But all I do is go from the hotel to the office, review documents, and go back. Hotel food is good. Only four more days until I’m back home Friday.
To:WinnieChu
From: AudreyWillems
Date: Tuesday,August 24
Re: Texas
I couldn’t NOT do it. He’s often grumpy and very demanding, but he takes the time to mentor young associates. I vividly remember his welcoming speech about how we’re all thoroughbreds and they want to train us to be the best possible lawyers. I need to do the invite list too. It will be fine. (I know, I know, I keep telling myself that.) That’s all there is to it. And finding some people to give nice speeches about him (in addition to me). Do you have any good stories?
As she clicked send, Malaburn knocked on her door. It was like being haunted by a ghost. The ghost of her pastfailures.
He marched in and said, “We won the pitch. The client just called me. Let’s meet this afternoon in my office.”
Her stomach sank. He knew the rules about going through the assignment partner, and he wasn’t following them. She had to be moreforceful.
“That’s great news that you won, but I can’t meet this afternoon. I have meetings already on my other cases. As I mentioned before, I don’t have the time to give this case the attention it deserves. I have to talk to the assignment partner first. My other two cases are really busy rightnow.”
“I extolled your research abilities to the client,” he said. “We need you specifically. I’ll talk to the assignment partner. How about tomorrow? Does 11 a.m. workforyou?”
So, he presumed the assignment partner would support him. On the plus side, she seemed to be back in his good graces. But she’d like to stay there, which was why she didn’t want to work on this case when she couldn’t do her best because of her current workload. But she was loath to tell the assignment partner she couldn’t handle more. She was damned either way. He was standing there, waiting, staring at her, his eyesnarrowed.
She said yes to 11 a.m. Malaburn whipped aroundandleft.
She sighed, rubbing her forehead to ease the tension headache gathering there.
To: Audrey Willems
From:WinnieChu
Date: Tuesday,August 24
Re: Horror Stories,yes
