Players

3. Missed Me?

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“Mom, why are boys so dumb?” Madison asked as she took a huge bite of her ice cream cone. Have I ever said that the kid takes after me?

“Because all the intelligence is stored in the last arm of the last chromosome in humans and boys lack that.” Sally shrugged.

I raised a brow at her. Though it was funny, I did not encourage passing wrong information on to my little girl because... well, she is little and she might share it with her friends and that could end her up in trouble or people calling her a liar or something and I did not want that for my daughter.

“Aunt Sally is joking, love.” I corrected immediately. “Gender has nothing to do with intelligence. Boys are dumb because they are raised with the false notion that doing dumb things is cool.” I pointed out.

“Same thing.” Sally stuck her tongue out at me before the three of us went back to staring at the kids playing in the arcade.

It was six in the evening and we were done with our shopping. We planned to go into the arcade and play some games first and then get take outs and crash at my place. I did have work the next day but it was Saturday and a day off for my little girl so she would be fine. Liam’s mother and Madison’s paternal grandmother came to stay over the weekend because she adored the little girl and she knew I had leave on Friday and Sunday unlike the normal weekend holidays. Just don’t ask me how this particular settlement came to be in my and Jeremy's case.

“Okay, that’s it. Break’s over. Let’s hit the arcade!” Madison jumped to her feet, tossing her tissue paper in a bin nearby.

“Wait a minute, did you swallow your ice cream or something?” Sally turned and rolled her eyes when she saw that even I had finished my cone.

“Like mother, like daughter.” She said and then waved at the arcade. “Both of you go ahead, I will find you guys when I am done with my ice cream, which I am going to take my sweet time enjoying unlike you two who just gobble down whatever you get.”

Madison and I looked over one another and shrugged at each other, identical smirks on our faces.

“Let’s go kiddo!” I reached over for her hand before we made our way in.

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I let out a sigh as I played with my paper weight. Jeremy threw a paper plane at me, which made me give him the death glare.

“How old are you again?”

“As old as you want me to me.” Jeremy winked.

I gave him a flat look. “What have we talked about using your bullsh*t pick up lines on me?”

“I am bored.” He shrugged, tearing another page off the outdated magazine probably to make some other origami sh*t.

“You talk as if I am having the best day of my life.” I sighed again as I laid my head against the desk.

I am so tired. And I have no other work.

What exactly is a lawyer supposed to do when she got no lawsuit to play with?

Sometimes I got mad at myself for wanting some medical accident to happen just so that I have a lawsuit to deal with. But today was not one of those days – I need work. Now, people might wonder why I wanted work so bad; why couldn’t I be normal and chill during no work time?

Well, the reason was – our base salary was pretty low but we received commissions based on how severe the problem was. For example, last day’s lawsuit earned us both twenty five grand each. And now that’s what I call a good commission for talking to someone for not more than ten minutes. Not all lawsuits were this easy – especially when it reached the courtroom. When that happens, the next step is to try to lower the compensation to how much ever we can, all the while making sure that the hospital’s reputation does not go down along with it.

It was a pretty nice game to play – there was risk and it needed a lot of strategy. And I loved it.

And that’s why I was the best in the game.

And as for Jeremy, the dumb*ss might seem like an i***t but once he put on his Armani suit and Rolex watch and enter the courtroom, he was capable of making the plaintiff doubt if they were right to begin with.

While I went for soft play, poking at conscience and using sob stories, Jeremy Reed went for either direct attacks or being passive aggressive.

Ugh, he is an i***t. But I was the luckiest person because I got a partner like him in this business, which otherwise did not let women rise to the top.

He never felt threatened by me because he was completely aware of how good he was and what he was good at. And he did not belittle me because he knew what I am capable of and he had accepted my capabilities. Dr. Susannah Reed raised a good man.

Ugh, I sound like I have a crush on that dumb*ss.

“How about we go to Walter’s and get ourselves some late breakfast?” Jeremy suddenly sat up. “I am so bored that I am feeling hungry again.”

I raised a brow at him. I wonder what hunger has to do with boredom.

“Reed, if you get on my nerves any more than you already have, I will make sure that you won’t be able to eat anything for at least a week.” I said flatly.

He pouted at me, doing his stupid puppy eyes that nobody ever falls for.

“You look like the donkey from Shrek, you dumb*ss.” I chucked the paper plane on the desk back at him.

“His name is Donkey.” He pointed out.

No, it’s not. I wanted to tell him. He is simply called Donkey, I wanted to tell him. But if I told him how invested I was with stuff like Shrek, then this man child will never let me hear the end of it so I swallowed back what I really wanted to say and then gave him a flat look. “Do I look like I care?”

Jeremy did his donkey pout once more and then got back to littering our office.

There was a knock on the door and we both turned towards it at once.

“Were you expecting me?”

What the f*ck is this dude doing here?

“Ho ho ho ho!” I looked over at my partner and glared at his excited face. Was he my partner or this i***t’s?

“I am sure you are here to have a talk with her.” He got from his seat and the other i***t nodded, turning towards me with a smirk on his face.

“Yep.”

Jeremy grinned like the Chesire cat he was and picked up his planes and flowers and outdated magazine and left the room.

“Missed me?” Dominic Grant asked as he took Jeremy’s seat.

“What do you want?” I asked, leaning against my chair.

“Is that how you treat visitors and clients?” He waved his hand at me.

“You are not my client. I am a representative of this hospital. My clients are the hospital authorities.” I gave him my fakest smile, and he knew it was fake.

“You know I could always talk my mom into filing that lawsuit, right?” He laughed

“Aww… I forgot you were Momma’s boy.” As he said, he could really do that. It was obvious from my first encounter with Mrs. Grant that she did not have the worldly knowledge that the two other men did. So it was only natural that she would believe whatever her husband and her son would say, and as I have maintained from the beginning, the patient or the legal guardian can file a case against the hospital.

But that did not stop me from being rude to him. Why?

No, it’s definitely not because I am this bad*ss b*tch with no care in the world.

It is because when all is said and done, I am arrogant, egoistic and the dumbest creature that I know.

“I have a proposition for you.” He said.

I knew it. I knew that him flirting with me had nothing to do with physical attraction even thought the both of us were two attractive people. He needed me in his team because I had impressed him with my way of handling the situation even though he did not appreciate being on the receiving end.

“I knew you were impressed by my work!” I said, giving him a crooked smile. said, giving him a crooked smile. “Though you pretended to be annoyed.”

“You are a dirty player.” He laughed, running his fingers through his perfect black curls. Damn it. “And I like that. In the business world, you need to play dirty to survive.”

I gave him an unimpressed look. “You are asking me I should ditch this job where I rarely have to work and come to a corporate office which will be under scrutiny every single minute?”

“You get paid accordingly.”

“I am too happy with my life right now to even pretend to be interested.” I shot back. We can play this game the whole day but I was not going to change my mind. I was just like any other normal person – I loved money, but I knew to what extent I should like this money. I did not want to bite a portion too large for me.

The life I lived right now was extremely blissful for me to even think about anything else.

“The perks-”

“I have my own apartment, car, health and all other insurances that I might need in my life. Oh, and I get an all paid for vacation every single year.” I cut him off immediately and listed out all the perks that I had thanks to my job and my years of hard work.

“I am pretty sure we will be able to provide more.” He said, his facial expression not changing.

“I am a very frugal human being. I don’t need too much of everything. I am happy with what I have.” I said. Not really. When it comes to my career, I don’t settle for anything but the best but when it came to money and luxuries, my take on it could not be changed by anyone.

“You are going to spurn any kind of offer I give you?” Dominic Grant looked even more curious, and excited – as if I was some kind of a prize he needed to win. This is exactly why I am still single.

“I am.”

“And I am not going to admit defeat.” He smiled, got up and left without another word.

I was very confused about his character – one minute he was getting mad at me as the son of the patient whom I was dealing with, next moment he was flirting and now he wanted to win me. Ugh, I will never understand men.

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