Chapter Twelve
Claire
“These are the sections we’re going to be focusing on, so read the whole thing, but you need to memorize this part, do you understand?”
I nodded along to what Simon was saying, looking at the documents in my hands. I wondered if I’d received the full document or if he was keeping parts of it away from me. I’d skimmed several pages before stopping where he’d highlighted, and a lot of the info seemed strange. Or maybe he just didn’t want to reveal all his cards to me, yet. I was a little surprised that he was treating me as an actual partner and not just a lowly assistant. If he were just treating me as an assistant, he’d get me to do all the research and do the more important parts himself, but he was including me in everything.
It didn’t stop me from being suspicious, but it did lower my guard a little bit.
“We have a while until the next meeting, so read up. There’s some research material at the end of the document that you should also look into. I’ll be doing my homework, and when we meet up again we can compare notes then, all right?”
“It’s fine,” I murmured.
I picked up a pen to put a mark at a few points. If this were going to need a lot of research, it would be a serious pain. But if ever there was a time to take a job seriously, this was it. If I failed this, I might as well say goodbye to my job.
There was a knock at the door that made us both look up. Simon gave a heavy, annoyed sigh.
“Who is it at this time of night?” he muttered, moving to get up.
“I can get the door,” I said quickly, moving to stand up.
“It’s fine,” he said, waving me off. “It’ll just be a moment. We’re not completely done for today yet. We still need to close this meeting.”
He opened the door, and I leaned forward to try and look around him at who was at the door.
“Excuse me, sir,” the woman standing in front of him said. “There’s someone looking for Claire.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. Someone was looking for me? Then my eyes narrowed. No way…it couldn’t be Rogue, could it? I hadn't told him where I worked, to begin with, but this was the first time someone had come looking for me at work.
Simon looked around at me, frowning a little, and I smoothed my expression into an apologetic one.
“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up. “Who’s looking for me?”
“She says her name is Ms. Brent?”
I frowned. I didn’t know someone by that name. And I didn’t know a lot of people, to begin with so it wasn’t like I could forget.
“Simon…” I said, turning to him.
He sighed. “We can take a break right now, go see whoever it is. Come back as soon as you’re finished, don’t take more than ten minutes. We still have to close this meeting. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to take this job seriously, right, Claire?”
“Of course, sir,” I said.
I followed after the woman as she led me down to my floor. She pointed the woman out to me, but she was standing by my desk, so it was hard to miss her regardless. I eyed the woman up as I walked closer to her, and she did the same to me. We were dressed more or less the same in pantsuits; only hers was a solid color and mine was navy with thin white stripes. She had dark hair that she’d left loose to fall down her back.
She looked like the no-nonsense kind of person I liked because they wouldn’t waste my time.
“Hello, Ms. Brent,” I said, reaching my hand out for a shake. “I’m Claire. I was told you were looking for me?”
“Yes. I’m here regarding your step-brother, Rogue.”
That surprised me, but I knew better than to let it show. What did she want from Rogue? She didn’t look like the kind of woman he would go for, so I didn’t think she was an old fling of his or anything.
“Why don’t we sit down?” I offered, waving at the seat in front of my desk, and rounding it to sit in my chair.
As we sat down, we were both still sizing each other up.
“What can I help you with, Ms. Brent?” I asked.
“I’m Rogue’s new parole officer,” she said.
My eyebrow jumped up. “Oh? Kathleen quit, then? Did you come here to speak to me about Rogue, then?”
“No,” she said plainly. “I just came to see who you are.”
I was shocked that Kathleen had quit. I didn’t blame her, after all. Rogue acted like an ass to a lot of women, so he got dumped quickly if he didn’t do the dumping first. But she was his new parole officer, so she was at least supposed to care a bit about him, right?
“Why do you think we don’t need to talk about Rogue?” I asked slowly.
“Well, I’m sure you know that better than I do, yes? Rogue is in a bad way, Claire. Not to say that I’ll neglect my duties in any way, but if you have any sense, you will throw that man out so he can go to jail. Him outside is doing no one any good.”
I frowned at her blunt answer. “Excuse me?”
“He’s a lost cause, Claire. I’ve seen many guys like him. He won’t change. He’s going to do something stupid that will violate his parole, and he’ll be going back soon enough. You doing this will just be helping him along, you know. It would be better for everyone involved.”
I fisted my hands underneath the desk. I also tried to control my expression before something leaked out, though I wasn’t sure myself exactly how I felt.
True, in the beginning, I felt the same about him. Rogue was an annoying, selfish bastard who didn’t put anyone ahead of himself. I didn’t think he’d do well outside of prison, either. Who knew how he managed to get out early on good behavior. I didn’t doubt that he’d find a way to send himself back there.
After less than two days, though, those thoughts had changed. Yeah, he had been annoying yesterday, but at least he’d tried to be considerate. And I had seen him show emotions that I didn’t believe he was capable of, which meant the real him was buried underneath the asshole still.
There wasn’t any choice in this.
“I won't kick him out,” I said with as much confidence as she’d spoken.
“It really would be for the best,” she said. “It would certainly save me the trouble of having to babysit him when he’s not going to change and it will mean just filling in more paperwork. Seriously, I could do without the hassle.”
She was annoying me. She knew nothing about Rogue or me. Then again, she’d made it clear that she didn’t care. All she was worried about was the paperwork.
“In the first place, I’m not even doing this for Rogue. Whatever he does, in the end, it's up to him, but I’m going to at least try to do something. It’s for the sake of his dad, Richard, he’s sick...otherwise, I wouldn`t bother.”
Ms. Brent sighed as if she was disappointed in me in some way, and I scowled at her. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my decision, but she seemed to think I lacked in some way, and I didn’t like that.
“You're too kind, Claire,” Ms. Brent said. “Just because his dad is sick, doesn’t mean he’s going to suddenly change, you know? He might just go further off the rails. And besides, according to the hospital’s records, Rogue’s only been to see him once briefly and seems to be spending the rest of his time drinking. I’ll be seeing you around, Claire.”
She walked away, and I just watched her go, holding back the urge to hit her. We were a lot alike, but that pretty much just meant we were guaranteed to dislike each other. And she was just pointing out things I’d wanted to ignore myself.
Shit.
I headed back up to Simon’s office. It hadn't been ten minutes yet, but Simon was already sitting there, looking over a bunch of documents.
“Claire, you’re back,” he said, getting up in what felt like slow motion as he was struggling to get up.
I held back a wince. We were still in the middle of the meeting, but it had been two hours already, and I didn’t know how long it would take for him to finish. I had to do a lot of begging to be let off, calling a family emergency, until he allowed me to leave work early in exchange for another meeting bright and early tomorrow.
I hurried out of the office, barely remembering to pick up all the documents I would need. I knew Simon would ask tomorrow if I’d looked over the documents at all so I’d need to do some work at home tonight.
I needed to see Rogue and speak to him. It only just occurred to me, but he and I hadn't had a real conversation since he came to stay with me. It was about time we did and it would start with me apologizing for being an ass when he’d cooked dinner and I came home late.