Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,152
arrival, the doors sliding open with a smooth motion.
His dark hair is styled back, and his expensive suit is tailored to perfection. Lifting his eyes from whatever he’s reading on his phone, his brows tug together in confusion.
“Where’s Lacey?”
That’s exactly what I’m standing here to tell him.
“She quit.”
A bark of laughter bursts from his throat. “No. She didn’t quit. Lacey can’t quit. We pay her too damn much.”
Immediately, he starts tapping out a text on his phone, but I lay a hand over it, stopping him.
“Which is exactly why she could quit. We’ve paid that woman more than the associate attorneys, and she’s saved up a nice nest egg to fall back on. After her vacation, she sent me her resignation and said that the time off gave her a moment to think about her life. She’s done, Tanner.”
His jaw tics, and he shifts his posture. Rage simmers behind his eyes, his nostrils flaring just before he stabs a finger at my face.
“And this is exactly why I said no vacations! See what you did? You gave her time to evaluate her life and realize I’m a fucking asshole.”
“She didn’t need time to figure that out. It’s not like it’s a secret.”
“Fuck off, Gabe.”
He storms past me en route to his office, his voice booming through the small hall. “Now what the hell am I going to do? Who the fuck is going to fill her place?”
“Calm down, I already hired someone as your new assistant. She’s in her office filling out the paperwork now.”
With a roll of my eyes, I follow him into his office and take my usual seat in a chair opposite him. Tanner tosses his bag on a small table before storming to his desk and dropping his weight onto the chair.
For several silent seconds, we stare across the expanse at each other.
“Who the hell did you hire?”
My lips tilt into a frown.
“Well, that’s the thing. Unfortunately, you have a reputation among legal professionals, so I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find someone willing to work for you, but Alice is a nice woman, and she’s eager to learn, so I’m sure she’s trainable. It just might take a little while.”
His stare pins me in place, a muscle jumping at his temple.
Only seconds later, a high-pitched voice sounds behind me, the deep Southern accent of Tanner’s new assistant reminding me of Luca when she can’t disguise where she’s from.
“Well, good morning, Mr. Caine. I’m happy to see you finally arrived at work. I mean, you are a little late, but I can forgive you for it.”
Tanner’s eye twitches, his gaze sliding past me to watch Alice waltz into the room.
“I’m a fucking partner. I own this place, in case you happened to miss my name on the fucking door when you walked in this morning. I show up when I want.”
“Language,” she admonishes with a singsong voice. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing when his brows crash together.
“My mother would have washed my mouth out with soap for saying that, and maybe I should bring some into the office to teach you the same lesson.”
“The fuck?” Tanner’s brows shoot up his head.
I cover my mouth with a fist, my eyes closing and opening again as I sit as still as possible.
Alice doesn’t react to the outburst, she merely walks deeper into the office, a plate in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
“One of the other girls told me that you prefer coffee alone for breakfast, but where I’m from, that’s a guarantee of having an empty belly and a foul attitude. I plan to fix that, so I brought you some poached eggs to get the brain working. I hope you like them.”
Tanner’s eyes are round as saucers, his furious stare locked on his new assistant.
“But don’t you worry,” she says, unconcerned with the murderous look she’s getting, “I promised everybody in the office that I would fix you up within a few weeks. Teach you a lesson about why not to be such a grumpy jerk.”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his eyes widen more, his brows shooting so high they’re disappearing beneath his hairline.
Oh, my God. Hiring this woman is the best decision I’ve ever made...
Approaching Tanner’s desk, she moves to set the coffee down, but the heel of her shoe catches on the rug beneath his desk, her body launching forward as the eggs spill off the plate. They