Free A Case for Love by Kaye Dacus

I’ll keep you in mind. With Carrie likely to pop any day now, I’ll be needing the extra help. See you in mediation.”
    “Right. Later.” Forbes reached for his Blackberry when it started vibrating against his belt. After clearing up the notes he’d written in a file for Samantha, he headed back to the parking garage.
    The overwhelming workload that Russ carried must be inordinately stressful, yet every time Forbes saw him, Russ looked like he was having the time of his life. Though Forbes enjoyed most of his cases, certain clients gave him cases that made him feel like the Big, Bad Wolf in court. He hated looking across at the plaintiffs and seeing regular people—people who couldn’t afford a lawyer’s fee many times—and knowing that because of the legal dance he was about to do, they would lose their case. Meaning they would lose the time they’d taken off work to be there, lose money, lose their homes, lose the court costs they’d be required to pay. And when they won, he hated the fact that his clients blamed it on him instead of their own, usually unethical or at least unfair, business practices.
    There was a certain glory in the job Russ did. He went to bat for the little guys. He made sure they got their date in court if their case warranted it. He helped them make their voices heard against corporate bigwigs with teams of lawyers on retainer and money to burn.
    Forbes took the stack of files Samantha held out toward him without even speaking as he walked back into his office. He paused just inside the door and took in his surroundings.
    Of course, there was nothing glorious about the dingy little office where Russ worked, with the secondhand, mismatched furniture and the strong smell of cat urine from the Siamese rescue center that used to be located in the converted house before Russ bought it for an office.
    Though his work was sometimes unpalatable, Forbes would take partnership in a prestigious firm over legal aid any day.
    ***
    Alaine tapped her thumbnail against her front teeth—but stopped when she realized what she was doing. She tried to turn her attention back to the staff meeting, but changes to the content on the Web site didn’t interest her much.
    How could she have been so stupid? The least she could have done was wait until after the interview. But no. She’d had to jump the gun and activate her Let’s Do Coffee account last night. What if LeShon Murphy knew she’d signed up for an active matchmaking account? After all, he only had twenty employees. Surely whichever one of the data entry people saw her name pop up on a new account this morning would have told Shon. In their preliminary phone chat, he’d told her that he personally handled their high-profile clients. She qualified as that, didn’t she?
    She’d just tell him it was for research purposes—that she hadn’t meant to activate the account ... or input her credit card info for the membership fee ... or click on the boxes to say she agreed to the morality clause and the terms of service and that she was seriously interested in meeting a variety of men they would choose for her based on the extensive personal profile and personality-type quiz she’d filled out.
    He’d never believe her. Besides, the truth was that she did, in fact, want to make use of his company’s service.
    She should have asked him to bring his wife—or girlfriend, whichever one he had. Getting the story on how they met would make a nice addition to the piece. She grabbed her pen from behind her ear and made herself a note to follow up with him about that. After all, if she was going to trust him with her love life, it would be nice to be sure he was happy and successful in his own relationship.
    “Alaine. Alaine!”
    Alaine looked up when Bekka Blakeley elbowed her and nodded toward the head of the table, where the news director glowered at her.
    “Yes?”
    “I’m sorry, are we boring you?”
    She could do without the sarcasm. “Just making