Page 6 of Apparently, I’m A B!tch

Really though, the thought of Harvey dictating to Kelly made my skin itch. He didn’t deserve her.

Kelly was an amazing paralegal. She went above and beyond case by case, researching until her eyeballs bled, handing Harvey insights that could pull his case from a loss to a win. She was the one and only reason Harvey could take time to himself on weekends. Harvey should’ve felt bad about how hard he made her work. But he didn’t.

Instead, because of whatever crush Kelly had on him, he was contentedly coasting on easy street while I worked my ass off trying to find ways to get my clients off for their small-time crimes.

We made it to our glass doors and I opened mine, stepped in, and shut the door behind me while Harvey was mid-speech. He was the son of one of the founding partners, but I didn’t care. Harvey was a coat-tail-riding prat and didn’t deserve the wins he brought to the firm each month. Those wins were on Kelly, not him. It grated on me that she always sat back and let him take the credit while I was stuck with a paralegal who could barely tie his own shoelaces.

I set down my handbag and coffee using a wooden coaster on my pristine and almost bare desk as I booted up my desktop computer. My office was a lot plainer than everyone else’s. I didn’t feel the need to bring in pictures of my family, or trophies that didn’t relate to my career as a lawyer. I had a place for my clients to sit, a dictation table for Jake, and an extremely well-organized filing cabinet that I was particularly proud of. What else could I have possibly needed?

A knock sounded on my door and I rolled my eyes, knowing that if it was Jake, he was only here to beg off another day from work for some illness he didn’t really have.

“Come in.”

I leaned into my chair as the door opened a crack, and Maggie Kirin slid in, the better half of L&K. I straightened and smiled. Maggie was my mentor, a master of criminal law. She was where I wanted to be someday; a ferocious but down-to-earth partner who made being a lawyer look as glamorous as it could possibly be.

But today, she didn’t come in with a smile of her own. Instead, she let out a sigh as she swept her gaze over me, holding up the memo I left on her desk yesterday.

She waved the note and said, “Nikki, you know you can’t keep doing this.”

I dropped my smile, straightening as she rounded my desk and sat across from me, dropping into one of my uncomfortable leather guest chairs.

“But Maggie, it’s completely unfair–”

She held up a veined hand with perfectly manicured red nails. “It’s up to Kelly to come to us with complaints about Harvey, not you. You can’t claim that Kelly is working too hard, or that Harvey is using her expertise so he can coast by. That’s up to her to say.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Maggie would not find that entertaining. “But she won’t say anything about how hard he makes her work because she has a thing for him. You should’ve heard him in the elevator today, Mag. He was going on and on about starting a family. The way Kelly’s eyes lit up, like she could be the wife he was talking about, my gosh, she was like the midnight strip in Vegas.”

Maggie shook her head. “Still, there’s nothing that I or Harvey Senior can do about it. If this is their arrangement and it works for them, then you and I cannot get involved.”

“But what if it’s coercion?” I asked, knowing it was a long shot.

Maggie cocked her head. “Coercion?”

“Yes, what if he’s coercing her into working overtime by promising her some kind of… opportunity in the future? What if he’s manipulating her? If he so much as hinted that the reason he couldn’t date her was because of how busy he is, she’d jump at the chance to free up his schedule.”

I watched as Maggie struggled to hold back her laughter. “It’s such a shame that the others in the office don’t get to see this side of you, Nikki. You’re hilarious.”

My shoulders dropped and I let myself smile. “Okay, okay. I get it. It’s between them, and I can’t interfere.”

“Good. You can’t keep complaining about the paralegals, Nikki. They’re trying their best.”

Fighting eye rolls was always really tough to do in front of Maggie. Still, I tried. “Well, Kelly is trying her best, but Jake–”

“Jake is exhausted and scared to death of you. Maybe if you hadn’t told him that you had two other paralegals fired in the last year, he’d have some confidence in his work.”

Jake. Ugh. Maggie liked Jake because he was such a kiss-ass. He brought her gifts once a week, then stood in her doorway uselessly gabbing about her family and friends, wasting work time while I did the legwork for my cases. He was my worst paralegal yet, but he seemed to have such a hold on Maggie that she wouldn’t give me the okay to let him go.

I should’ve been more concerned that Kelly was talking openly about our cases with my ex-best barista friend up the road, but I was more focused on the fact that one day my paralegal might screw up so bad that I’d actually lose a case.

I stifled a yawn and looked down at my already empty coffee cup, wishing I could leave the office and go back to Extra Shot.

At least, there, we all knew how to do our jobs.