“What the hell are you wearing?” he’d roared on seeing her outfit of Lululemon white tights and sports bra.
Nakia didn’t move from her hands and knees position on the exercise mat and didn’t miss a beat in her fifteen leg-lift reps to respond to him. “What does it look like?” She was so busy rocking to her favorite singer, Usher, that she hadn’t heard him approach. Usher’s “Dive” played silky smooth from the speakers in the gym. Putting her in just the right groove to keep her vibing in R&B bliss.
“It looks like you don’t have enough damn clothes on.” He stood over her and glared at the other men in the room, who were openly admiring her curves.
Nakia saw and ignored them. She had first jogged on the treadmill and had immediately been flanked by two other male attorneys on the adjacent treadmills. Knowing that the men had already been on the treadmills and had been getting ready to leave the gym but turned back when she arrived, Nakia wanted to laugh at their lecherous behavior. Instead, she’d set a pace on the treadmill that she knew they’d push themselves to match. And now an hour after running the fastest three miles of her life, she was trying to stretch her already aching body when Justin had walked in. Thank God he hadn’t come in while she had still been on the treadmill. She had no doubt he would’ve been even more pissed.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Ragnarson?” Nakia went down on her forearms and stretched out her spine in perfect rhythm to Usher’s beat.
Justin growled.
She looked up at him in surprise. His gaze was glued to her behind. She looked back wondering if the tights were torn or if he could see the outline of her thong. The Lululemon tights always molded her round ass to perfection, so she didn’t understand what his problem was. Was her ass too big? She’d always been a runner, and her shapely ass had gotten more than its fair share of male attention. Knowing that his gaze was still on her, she lowered her chest further to the ground and gave him a deliberate blatant view of her apple-shaped ass. Let him say her ass was too big and she’d smack him.
He groaned gutturally.
“You said something?” she asked innocently.
Justin muttered something under his breath and stalked out of the room. He returned moments later with a large towel. And ignoring the handful of coworkers around them, who were busy pretending that they didn’t see a senior partner being a little too attentive with one of them, Justin draped the towel over her body.
“What the hell?” Nakia whispered fiercely, mindful of the stares people were trying hard to hide.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you—”
“Don’t argue with me, Nakia. I’m not playin’.” Justin wasn’t trying to be quiet or discreet about his feelings.
Nakia thought he either didn’t care or didn’t realize how obvious his interest in her was. When she stood before him, he devoured her with his gaze as though he couldn’t bear to look away. She would’ve felt sorry for him if she weren’t in the same state of mind.
He ushered her out of the gym and lectured her the entire drive back to her flat on dressing more conservatively when going to the office gym. When she pointed out that all the women wore similar clothes, he simply scowled at her and told her that she wasn’t other women. Of course, she didn’t let him get away with that. And to settle the argument, he insisted on coming to the gym with her whenever she had to go. He also bought her a bunch of baggy sweats.
In the weeks that they’d been working out together, she didn’t think that the sweats helped his situation one bit. He couldn’t hide the blatant outline of his arousal in the soft gym pants whenever he was around her, and she didn’t try to hide her desire either.
They were a sorry pair, and now that they worked together, they spent hours in each other’s company.
They had just finished interviewing a potential client, who was looking for a divorce attorney. A meeting that was supposed to last for an hour had turned into an entire afternoon. The woman was married to a very influential judge, and they had two children under the age of ten years. She had almost been hysterical with concern over the possibility that she could lose custody of her children despite her husband’s repeated infidelity.
Apparently, the good judge had threatened her with that possibility to keep her in line. And the wife had taken years of physical and verbal abuse before she was brave enough to finally seek a divorce. The physical assault on their young son had pushed her over the edge, and the woman came to Justin for help.
“We’ll explore every legal avenue we have at our disposal to help you, Linda,” Justin was now telling her as they were wrapping up the meeting. “However, you should know that the chance of proving the judge’s abusive nature is slim given the lack of evidence. You were never treated by any doctor for injuries, and even the attack on your son has no evidence. You didn’t take him in either, unless you’re willing to do that today. Which probably won’t help your case, as his attorneys will argue that this is manufactured evidence because you spoke to us first.”
“Charles wouldn’t let me take Michael to the doctor or get any kind of medical help.” Linda started crying again. She was almost inconsolable.
Nakia knew that she shouldn’t get personal with a client, but she couldn’t help sitting next to Linda on the sofa and hugging her.
Justin looked at her first with surprise and then with almost resigned indulgence. She returned his gaze sheepishly, not looking forward to his scolding again. This was not the first time she’d hugged a client when they became emotional. He had warned her that getting emotionally invested in a client would hurt her in the long run and would also limit her capacity to give the client the best legal representation. Nakia had really tried to follow his advice, but she somehow always ended up on the sofa hugging distraught clients.
“I have no source of income,” Linda sobbed against her. “I can’t pay your fees. I came to you because a friend told me that you do pro bono work.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Mr. Ragnarson will make the judge pay and get you your divorce,” Nakia soothed. She tried mopping up the woman’s tears with Kleenex tissues Justin’s secretary kept on his desk. “Just leave it to us.” Nakia helped the woman to her feet and started ushering her out the office. After all, there wasn’t much else they needed to hear or go over with her. They had already gone over the woman’s allotted time by three hours. “We’ll contact you in a few days to get you out of there.” Linda kept trying to interrupt Nakia with another observation about how the judge would restrict her movement, but Nakia was already twirling ideas around in her head on how to use the law to get Linda her kids and a decent alimony. There weren’t many options, but damn if she wasn’t going to try to take the judge down.
“Do I have a say in what Mr. Ragnarson can and will do?” Justin asked as soon as the door closed behind Linda.
Surprised by the irritation she heard in his voice, Nakia turned to look at him. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Oh no. You just promised a woman that’s married to an appellate court judge that I, the lowly law partner, am going to get justice from this guy’s bosom buddies. And, of course, there’s no chance in hell of that happening.”