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I hated how his compliment made me feel. My entire life, I’d been called many things—beautiful often being the most used. The old me would have preened over things like that, but now, I cringed at how compliments made me feel.
“The money is good enough,” I told him, “and the work is interesting.”
“You find transcribing law arguments interesting?”
My brow rose as I looked at him. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“A little bit,” Ezra admitted. “Most girls who come here from the Midwest are looking to be famous.”
I snorted and shook my head looking down at the notes I’d started scribbling across the top of my notebook. “The last thing that I would ever want is to be famous.” The very thought of having my face and or name splashed around the city or anywhere else, made every single hair on my arm stand straight up.
Ezra cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, as he organized the few files on his desk. “It appears that you and I have that in common.”
I found this hard to believe considering that Ezra’s name had been all over the city, especially after he went after Marco Blanchi. That trial hadn’t ended the way it should have—with Blanchi in jail–but Ezra had become known as the cutthroat prosecutor who had taken on the mob and nearly won.
“I don’t think you are doing a good job of trying to stay out of the public eye.”
“I said that I wasn’t interested in being famous, not that I’m not famous.” His eyes were intense as he looked at me, and I did my best to suppress a shiver. If any other man had spoken those words, they would have sounded ridiculously cocky, but when Ezra spoke to them, I knew that he was just being correct.
Before I could say anything additional, Ezra’s phone rang. “Ah,” he said, reaching for it. “It must be the food.”
I got up from my chair, fully prepared to go and get it. “You stay,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
He was walking towards the door taking his phone and wallet with him before I could say anything else.
Sighing, I continued sitting in my chair. I felt like I had experienced whiplash. This day wasn’t going the way that I’d assumed, not even slightly.
* * *
It was nearly midnight by the time I got home. My feet were killing me, and my eyes were heavy with exhaustion, but I also felt slightly exhilarated.
Though things between myself and Ezra had started very tensely, by the end of the night, we’d been laughing at some of the more ridiculous cases that had been sent Ezra’s way.
“Where have you been?”
I jumped at the question, letting out a small scream at the question as I squinted in the darkness. “Jesus, Julia.” I pressed a hand to my fast-beating heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”
A small light illuminated Julia’s face as she flipped it on. “Clearly,” she said.
“What are you doing home?” I asked, throwing my bag on the kitchen floor. Our apartment was a one bedroom that we were able to afford because we split the space. Julia was kind enough to give me the room. She said it was because she was often with her boyfriend, but I thought it was because she knew the door would make me feel more secure.
“Shouldn’t I be asking the questions?”
I reached out and turned on one of the few table lamps we had in the house. “I had a late day at the office.”
I padded over to the kitchen. My cheap tights had holes in the toes that I’d tried desperately to patch, but my big toe was starting to push through the thinning material. I sighed. It was another thing that I was going to need to replace soon enough, and another thing that I didn’t have the money to cover.
“You don’t normally work this late.”
I sipped the lukewarm water that came out of the tap. My stomach was so full from the mountains of Thai food Ezra had ordered that I felt bloated and drowsy. It was the first time in a year I’d felt this full, and it was delightfully uncomfortable.
“I’ve been given a new position,” I said, reluctantly. Julia was going to have a field day with this information. She thought Ezra Wright was incredibly hot, and she’d be begging me to go for it, even if I wasn’t interested.
“Oh?”
I said nothing as I finished the rest of the water. The last thing that I wanted to talk about was Ezra Wright, but Julia was the only friend I had, and she was also the most tenacious person I knew. She wouldn’t let this go.
“I’m Ezra Wright’s newest secretary.” It felt odd to say aloud, especially considering that I was doing work that went way beyond my normal secretariat duties.
