Page 12 of Behind Frenemy Lines

“Wait,” I told Rosalind. I ducked under the desk to fumble in my bag for my headset.

Rosalind kept talking, ranting about the Maltese Head of Legal and her various deficiencies of personality, intellect, and appearance.

“Rosalind,” I hissed. “You can’t use that language. I share an office now!”

“Oh? With who?”

“With, um—” Where had I put that damn headset? It had to be in my bag somewhere, underneath the layers of crap it turned out I’d been carrying around. How many packets of tissues did one person need? “With, you know, another lawyer.”

“Male or female?”

“Why does it matter?” My fingers closed around the plastic band of my headset. I yanked it out of the bag, scattering forgotten receipts and Boots vouchers all over the floor.

Charles was sat straight-backed at his desk, pretending to be engrossed in his screen.

“It’s a bloke, is it?” said Rosalind knowingly. “Is he attractive?”

“He canhear you,” I said.

“Ask him to give me his number if he’s between the ages of twenty-five and sixty-five,” said Rosalind, undeterred. “I haven’t dated a lawyer in a while. He can Google me to see what I look like, I’m on LinkedIn. My cousin took the photo. She did Photoshop it, but you can tell him I got fillers after the shot was taken, so it’s 99 percent accurate.”

We were both laughing by now. Even Charles was grinning, his ears pink.

I plugged in my headset. “Thanks for that. Turning to the email…”

I ended up talking to Rosalind for an hour and getting a new instruction from her: I was to get our US colleagues to provide a note of advice, to help persuade her stakeholders over the pond that the protocol did not conflict with the laws of their jurisdiction.

I’d have to be careful telling Arthur about it. He got dog-in-the-mangerish about new instructions, even for work he wasn’t remotely qualified to undertake. But so long as I could figure out how to handle Arthur, being able to pass on business to my new colleagues at Swithin Watkins was a good thing. It would help establish me as a desirable addition to the firm.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Charles, taking my headset off. “Rosalind’s incorrigible.”

“Long-standing client, I take it.”

“Yeah. She’s a real character. I apologise in advance for all the boundary-crossing conversations you’ll be overhearing.” Ihesitated. “Actually, is there somewhere I can go to take her calls? Rosalind can go on for a bit. I don’t want to disturb you.”

Charles reflected. “There are meeting booths, but they’re always in demand. I wouldn’t bother. The point of having an office is so you don’t have to worry about taking calls.”

“It was your office first, though.”

“And now it’s yours as well,” said Charles. “I’ve got noise-cancelling headphones. I can put them on if I need to.”

“OK. Thanks. Just let me know if it gets too much,” I said. “I promise I won’t take it the wrong way.”

Charles smiled, shaking his head. The smile made him look totally different from his usual forbidding self—sweet, a little goofy, a little vulnerable.

Kawan Baik didn’t seem so bad. Maybe this office-sharing business was going to work out.

I was returning to my emails when Farah came into the office.

“Hello, Kriya, how are you? Settling in? Good.” She looked over at Charles. “Charles, what’s the rest of the day looking like for you? From, say, two p.m.?”

Charles checked his computer screen. “Relatively free now Marcus has cancelled our three o’clock. I’ve got that note for DLP to finalise, but the client’s said tomorrow would be fine. Why?”

“I’ve got a favour to ask.” Farah paused. “Kriya, would you mind closing the door?”

I glanced from her to Charles. “Should I go out?”

“No, stay. I don’t want gossip spreading, that’s all.” Farah leaned back against a filing cabinet, sighing. Her shoulders slumped.

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