Page 75 of Love In Hiding

Noelle’s face flushed. He knew she was eager, but this was just wasted work and time on her part and London’s.

“I know you’re new,” she said, “but I don’t appreciate a staff attorney tearing my work down. Especially when it’s all draft form.”

“Drafts are meant for changes though,” Noelle argued.

She opened her mouth and he needed to stop this before it got out of hand. “Noelle, you and I will meet about this after. I sent you the file to read over so you could get an understanding of what we did and what we observed while we were there.”

“I would have thought after seeing that information,” she said. “That you would have gone back through the old procedures, policies, workflows, and distribution cycles to see where things had been knocked out of line. That is what I’ve been doing for the past few days.”

“I didn’t know I needed to do that,” Noelle said. “Spencer, you should have told me.”

He swallowed his sigh. “It’s all part of the learning process. Now you know how your time might have beenbetter spent and it will make you more prepared in the future.”

Noelle kept her lips sealed for the next thirty minutes, an immature pout on her face while he and London went over everything.

Braylon came in and they repeated a few things to keep him up to date.

“I’m going to review everything and start making suggestions and changes,” Noelle said. “In the next few days for everyone to look over and see if they agree or not.”

It was exactly what he’d told hernotto do.

“I hadn’t been aware you took that active of a part in this. That’s great,” Braylon said.

He could almost hear London’s teeth grinding. Maybe his were right there with it.

“We are all set with you for now, Noelle,” he said, dismissing her back to her desk. “Shut the door on the way out.”

Noelle got up and smirked at him as if she’d got the final say, then pulled the door shut, yelling, “Bye, good working with you. Talk soon.”

“I’mnotdealing with her,” London snapped. “Nope. Not happening.”

His breath escaped so hard he might have seen his laptop shift. “I’ll talk to her.”

“You talked to her here in that calm, patient tone of yours and the minute Braylon came in, she all but shoved it down your throat for her to get her way.”

“What am I missing?” Braylon asked. “London, I’m used to you, but I haven’t seen Spencer wound up before. I hope you’re not rubbing off on him.”

He fought damn hard not to have a flush fill his face. Heexplained what had happened, how he had handled it, and why London was so annoyed.

Though it seemed like it took little for her to get that way. At least today.

“I’ll talk to her again. I’ll be firmer for you, London. She’s being given this shot, but she only has one more or she’ll go back to what she’s been doing. I’m not going to tolerate those games. Bryan is more than willing to take on more, but he’s green yet.” The other attorney under him.

Braylon grinned. The guy normally had a smile on his face. A lot different from what he’d been used to dealing with at his last job.

“She’s under you because she likes to rile people up. I didn’t have too much of a problem with her until Kenzie came on board.”

“She obviously gets jealous easily,” she said.

“She does. She was threatened once she found out Kenzie had her law degree. She thought Kenzie was just a clerk. And when it came out Kenzie was seeing Nelson, even worse.”

“Married to Nelson,” she said, laughing.

“As we know, that came out later. Still. There isn’t a reason to terminate her, yet,” Braylon said. “But I won’t tolerate much more of this. I would have thought she’d gotten the hint separating her and Kenzie without putting too much pressure on Kenzie’s back as the reason.”

“Seems to me she can handle herself,” she said.

He’d talked to Nelson’s wife a few times. He’d rather have her on his team but knew that wasn’t going to happen as long as Noelle was around.