Page 2 of Hidden & Held

I laugh at their antics, about to reply when someone stops at my table.

“Excuse me, can I have your salt?” I look up at a gorgeous, tall man—sandy brown hair, dark eyes, and a smile that disarms me. He’s sharply dressed, different from most of the men in town, but looks at ease. His low, smooth voice catches me off guard.

My dating history is incredibly limited. I focus far too much on my career, and the small town of Cascadia doesn’t have the biggest dating pool. Still, this man is the best looking one I have ever seen.

I try to put my eyes back in my head and reach over without looking to grab the salt.

“Sugar,” the mysterious stranger says to me.

There’s a split second where I forget what I was going to say—too busy noticing him—before irritation snaps everything back into place.

“Excuse me? Did you just call me sugar? I am not sure where you come from, but you cannot throw around these terms to women. It can be seen as demeaning.”

“Funny, I would have thought it was a term of endearment,” he replies unfazed. “But, I was referring to what you handed me, Sugar. Can I have the salt instead?

“Oh … I …” I stutter out, feeling my cheeks heat. “Of course, sorry.”

I hand him the sugar as he leans slightly against the table, like he has nowhere else to be. “You’re very sure of yourself,” he declares as he grabs the glass jar, grazing my fingers gently.

“I’m usually right,” I deadpan.

He looks at me as if he’s trying to memorize my face.

“Good to know.” He smirks.

Men don’t usually approach me. I give off something—focused, already somewhere else—that tends to read as a closed door. I push a strand of dark hair behind my ear and gather my documents.

Avoiding his eyes, I head out faster than I mean to, speed walking the eight blocks back to the firm.

Walking into my office, I’m greeted by the sight of my favorite coworker.

“Did Officer Dicks give you problems at court today?” Isabella, the sweet sixty-year-old cleaning lady asks as she pretends to dust my office that now smells like lemon cleaner and burnt coffee. In this high-stakes, cutthroat environment, her kindness is one of the only interactions in a day that gets me through.

“It’s Dickson. And yes, he didn’t want to testify about the domestic disturbance calls he repeatedly picked up for his second cousin. But eventually, I got him there.”

I won my first case before noon. I haven’t taken off the blazer. Haven’t taken off the heels, either. There’s nowhere left today that requires the armor, thankfully.

“So, did you hear the news?” Isabella looks at me out of the corner of her eye as if she’s chewing on something juicy. “A new guy is starting.”

“Really?” I arch a brow, taking a sip of another black coffee. “What is his specialty?”

“Corporate, Mergers and Acquisitions, I think, or at least that is what I gathered from Mr. Rhodes’s office while Cassandra gushed over him.”

Cascadia Legal Partners has been the top firm in the region for almost forty years—forestry law, water rights, the kind of Pacific Northwest specialties that make Portland attorneys jealous. Donald Rhodes built it with George Pierce.

“Huh, that must be what the mandatory staff meeting is about this afternoon.” I sigh, hating those things. “Cassandra still pretending she is a partner?”

“Please.” Isabella doesn’t even pretend to clean anymore. “Ever since Mr. Pierce went mysteriously absent, she thinks she built this place herself. Girl only got this job fourteen months ago cause her daddy hired her.”

Most of us went to great West Coast law schools, duking it out for our top spot. But Cassandra’s school was the lowest of the bottom-tier schools, and she still almost flunked out. Most of the associates are all type A, high achievers who work long nights to get ahead. Fortunately, I have a slightly less competitive specialty at the firm.

Isabella heads out, and I put in another three hours of legal brief reviews before my phone pings with my third reminder: a one-minute warning that I need to be in the conference room for the meeting.

I grab one last cup of coffee to power through and slip in at the last second. The conference room is already full, the long mahogany table filled with the energy of ambitious attorneys who resent being pulled from their desks. Mr. Rhodes has already started his speech.

“As I said, we are expanding at Cascadia, growing and adding a new department. We have recently hired a top-tier lawyer from Portland to start our Mergers and Acquisitions department.”

What are they merging in the small town of Cascadia? That’s not a department we expand into without reason.