Chapter 67 Adeline
Adeline's POV
I waited until the hallway was clear and walked straight back to my office.
My hands were shaking, but it wasn't from intimidation. I was angry, really angry at the nerve of her to look down on me just because I wasn't born into a privileged family.
An hour later, Vanessa strutted into my office without knocking, holding a tablet in one hand and an iced matcha in the other.
"Adeline," she said, smiling coldly. "Working hard?"
"Always," I said, leaning back in my chair. "Can I help you, Vanessa?"
"Actually, I’m here to help you," she said, stepping into my workspace. "I was just speaking with some of the senior partners. Everyone is so thrilled you’re taking on TechStar, but we know how overwhelming this level of corporate law can be when you haven't put in the traditional years as a junior. Especially with all your wedding planning."
"I’m managing just fine," I said evenly.
"I’m sure you are, but Percival's reputation is on the line here. So, as a favor to him, I’m going to be conducting a standard compliance review on your master files before the final presentation on Monday. Just to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed." I swear she only called him by his full name to annoy me. "Did you hear me?"
She was boxing me in. I couldn't say no and give her a legitimate reason to file a complaint against me for insubordination, the bitch.
"Of course," I said, forcing my lips into a polite smile. "The files are on the secure server. I welcome the feedback."
"Fantastic," Vanessa beamed. "Don't stress yourself out, Adeline. We’ll make sure your work is up to Royal and Associates standards."
She turned and walked away.
I watched her go, the anger that I thought had settled coming back in full force.
She thought she was going to review my work to find my mistakes, then I had to make sure my contracts were so bulletproof she would break her teeth trying to tear them apart.
The rest of the week blurred into a grueling marathon of unending coffee, highlighters, and staring at white sheets. By Friday evening, the usual energy that kept my office floor bustling had dwindled out. The silence was absolute and broken only by the clicking of my keyboard.
I was exhausted. My eyes burned from staring at the screen for ten hours straight, and the dull ache in my lower back was a sharp reminder that I had skipped lunch, but I couldn’t stop. Not yet.
Monday morning was the final TechStar presentation. The board of directors would be sitting in the main conference room alongside Percy, the senior partners, and Vanessa. I was going to be the one standing at the head of the table presenting the final merger agreements. I could not afford a single grammatical error, let alone a legal one.
I scrolled down to page 142 of the master file. Section 8, Paragraph C: This particular clause was the heartbeat of the entire deal. It could either make or break my case, so I had spent the last two days rewriting and looking up precedents and exceptions just so I wasn't caught by surprise. I had crosschecked it multiple times to make sure it was correct. When I was done reading it for the nth time, I hit Save and let out a long exhale and rubbed my tired eyes.
"You're going to burn yourself out, you know."
I jumped slightly, spinning my chair around to find Percy leaning against the glass doorframe of my office. His suit jacket was slung over his shoulder and his tie loosened around his neck.
Even as obviously tired as he was, he was the most devastatingly handsome man I had ever seen.
"I didn't hear you come in at all." I said and tried to calm my heart.
"You were completely zoned in," he smiled, stepping into my workspace and resting his hands on the arms of my chair. He leaned down to press a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead. "You've been staring at that screen since 7:00 AM, Adeline. The TechStar executives are going to love the contract. The partners are going to love it. Now, put the laptop away so I can take my fiancée home."
I looked up at him, my heart squeezing painfully in my chest. He believed in me so completely. He didn't see the drama that had been going on around me. He just saw the woman he loved doing a job he knew she was brilliant at.
If I told him right now what Vanessa had said in the kitchenette, I had no doubt he would fire her on the spot. He would burn her career to the absolute ground without a second thought just to protect me, but I couldn't let him do that.
If Percy fired her, Vanessa would become a martyr. The entire office would believe her narrative that the boss’s girlfriend got intimidated by a real lawyer and had her removed. I would spend the rest of my career at Royal and Associates as the woman that was untouchable but disrespected.
The only option was to beat her at her own game.
"Give me five minutes," I told him, reaching up to trace the sharp line of his jaw. "I just have to upload the master file to the secure server for the compliance review."
Percy frowned slightly. "Compliance review? It’s a standard merger, Adeline. I’ve already reviewed your preliminary drafts. You don't need a senior associate to hold your hand through the final formatting."
"Vanessa offered," I said, keeping my tone casual. I turned back so he couldn't see how I really felt about her. "She said it was standard firm protocol for high acquisitions. I don't want to step on any toes by bypassing the chain of command, especially since she just got back and is eager to jump in."
"Vanessa offered?" Percy repeated, sounding mildly surprised but pleased. "That’s good of her. She’s usually incredibly protective of her billable hours. See? I told you she was a team player once you got to know her."
"Yeah," I murmured sarcastically, but he didn't catch it. "A real team player."
I dragged the finalized, bulletproof TechStar document into the shared folder. A green checkmark flashed on the screen, letting me know that my upload was complete.
I quickly drafted a brief email to Vanessa to notify her that the file was in the designated folder and ready for her sign-off before shutting my computer down.
"Alright," I said, grabbing my purse and standing up. "I’m all yours."
Percy smiled, taking my hand and pulling me flush against his chest for an unexpected hug. "Good because Tiny has the car waiting and I am ordering enough Italian takeout to feed a small army the second we walk into the penthouse."
As we stepped into the private elevator and the doors began to close, my phone vibrated in my coat pocket. I pulled it out to find an email notification from the firm’s internal IT server. Percy had given my account administrative tracking privileges weeks ago so I could monitor the secure files related to Mason's case, but it applied to all firm directories I owned, and he just never revoked my access.
The mail told me V. Sterling just accessed and opened the file I just uploaded.