“I have to go to work, baby,” she told her daughter sympathetically. “But I’ll ring Grandma, see if she can come and sit with you today. That will be all right, won’t it? Grandma will take good care of you.”
Lily looked up at her with big eyes, her thumb in her mouth, and nodded slowly.
Jilly put down the phone. Surprisingly, her mother had agreed to come with only minimal persuasion, but the very thought of leaving her daughter like this, sick and miserable, and going to work for the entire day, made her heart break into a million pieces. Working when her daughter was well was one thing. But working when she was ill was quite another. As she pulled her cardigan over her shoulders and kissed her daughter goodbye, she was racked with guilt.
Although her parents didn’t live very far away, Auckland’s nightmarish morning commuter traffic meant it took her mother a while to arrive. Which meant Jilly was late leaving. When she walked into the office, seven minutes late, it felt like all eyes were on her. And they probably were, she conceded. Here, rocking up late for work was quite the scandal. Janice glared at her over her glasses, the other office staff looked condescending and superior, even Vanessa raised her eyebrows and tapped her watch, silently berating her. In many other jobs, seven minutes could be easily excused. It wasn’t a very long time, after all. But not in this one. Even in the job interview, Mr. Hutchings, the senior-most partner of Hutchings & Associates, made it clear tardiness would not be tolerated. At all. In fact, he took it so seriously that repeated tardiness fell under ‘serious misconduct’ in the employment contract and was grounds for instant dismissal.
These people were stuffy—Vanessa was right. Years of having to turn up to court on time, she supposed. It wouldn’t look very good if court had to be adjourned because the lawyer hadn’t shown up yet, would it? Her face flaming, Jilly sat down. Fortunately, all the lawyers were holed up in their offices and most likely had no idea she hadn’t arrived on time but still, she felt bad. Anyway, she knew it would get back to them, thanks to Janice. Janice would make sure her tardiness didn’t go un-noted.
Heavy footsteps on the carpet behind her made her want to sink through the floor. She’d only heard him walking a few times, but already she knew who it was.
“You are late, Miss Watson. Care to explain why?”
Inwardly, Jilly groaned. No, I really don’t, her inner voice snarled. I want you to go away and leave me alone and stop drawing attention to me! You’re not my boss, you weren’t the one who hired me, you’re not the one in charge of HR. I don’t owe you an explanation at all! Instead, she straightened her shoulders, or tried to. She felt too embarrassed to straighten them properly and all that really happened was she squirmed uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “My daughter was sick in the night and I had to wait for my mother to arrive to babysit. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” he growled, but as he said the words, he squeezed her shoulder in a way that she knew was meant to be comforting but instead, confused her. Why was he being both kind and mean? What purpose could a comforting gesture possibly serve when he’d just told her off in front of the entire office? Why not just report her to the senior partners, as Janice would do, for her to be dealt with through the appropriate channels?
Angry tears burned at her eyes. She’d never been more humiliated in her life! Or for a long time, anyway. Who did he think he was, speaking to her like that? She remembered defending him to Vanessa yesterday. He seems nice. I like him. Well, she’d been wrong. Turns out Vanessa’s assessment of him had been far more apt.
For the rest of the morning Jilly kept her head down and worked, stopping only briefly at morning teatime to use the bathroom and grab a quick cup of coffee, which she brought back with her to her desk. She’d work through the rest of her break and for part of lunch as well, to make up for the minutes she had been late that morning. I bet Janice won’t notice that though, she thought bitterly. Or Matthew.
When she heard Matthew’s footsteps approaching again she froze. He was the last person she wanted to see. But the footsteps sounded closer and closer. What did he want this time? Hadn’t he done enough damage?
“Miss Watson.”
She looked up. He held another stack of papers out to her. “I need these photocopied urgently,” he commanded, his voice brusque. “Bring them to my office when you’re done, please.”
The kindness in his eyes as he smiled at her was in stark contrast to the gruffness of his tone, but she didn’t return the smile. Instead she stood up and took the papers from him, noting again the way he’d organised them with sticky neon flags and big paperclips. To look at the documents, he was organised, meticulous. But when she looked at him, with the scruffy hair that was a fraction too long for The Establishment, his tie slightly crooked, and the shirt that hadn’t been crisply ironed to standards expected of a high-powered lawyer, he didn’t look organised and meticulous at all. On closer inspection, his cufflinks didn’t even match. They were both silver, but that was where the similarities ended. One looked to be a skull, the other was a disc. Oh, well, he’s halfway there, she conceded, and the thought nearly made her giggle.
She bit back the giggle before it had a chance to even make her smile, and looked at him just long enough to not
