No one else was in the office, which given that it was just after five on a Tuesday morning, was unsurprising. Sometimes Jackson would be here this early, although he seemed to opt for spending a longer breakfast with Vanessa rather than cracking open the emails before seven since she had moved in.

I shifted the ice pack onto my right shoulder and booted up the iMac I’d insisted on, as I hated PC’s. I’d spent the evening before at the gym, boxing with Mikey, an ex pro who wouldn’t shy away from hitting you hard to make you better. My concentration had lapsed and I’d taken a hard punch to my shoulder which was going to bruise like a beast, despite all the ice and arnica I’d applied. The aim was not to wince when I moved my arm in front of my sister, Claire, else I’d be getting another lecture about giving up boxing that would take too much time from my day.

My emails opened automatically, all unread, some flagged to return to now I was in the office. I clicked on the most pressing, leaving it open while I went to make coffee. Like most of my siblings except Payton, and I wasn’t sure about Callum, I didn’t function without at least a pot of caffeine in my bloodstream before I had to speak to anyone. If it could’ve been offered intravenously, I’d have declined. I enjoyed good coffee, liked the taste, the burn of the hot liquid and smell of the beans as they were ground.

Ten minutes later, I was back at my desk, an espresso inhaled and a large mug of the best Fairtrade Kenyan coffee I’d found, topped with a small splash of cream. I looked at my screen, expecting to see an empty inbox given that it wasn’t even five-thirty, but one unopened mail sat there, looking ominous, especially when I looked at the sender.

Victoria Esme Davies.

There was only one Victoria whose surname I didn’t know that would be emailing me: the admin Historian woman with the long brown hair. Fuck.

I debated not opening it, especially if she’d set up a read report, but I’d never been a patient man. Taking a long mouthful of coffee, I clicked it open, half expecting a virus, or at least some porn to appear.

Checking the time on my watch, which hadn’t yet been replaced by my phone for that purpose, I debated whether it was too early to phone my youngest brother, Seph, or Joseph as he was known when I wanted to piss him off. The minute hand hit six and I figured the lazy ass should be out of bed by now anyway. He worked for us at Callaghan Green, specialising in employment law and he was damned good, although I would never tell him that. He was also the biggest pain in the backside Jackson and I had as he lacked common sense, was ridiculously intelligent and far too reliant on his twin sister to regulate him. He was also my littlest brother, despite not being far off thirty, which gave me the right to bully him as I saw fit.

Including waking him up half an hour earlier than usual.

“What the fuck?” Seph moaned into the phone after it had rang out for what felt like half a day. “What’s up? Is someone ill?”

I almost felt bad, as he wasn’t a bad kid, and I didn’t want to worry him. Much. “Yeah, do you remember that girl you pulled back in June? The one from The Ivy?”

“No. What? Who?” He became suddenly clearer, probably having sat up. “Can’t really talk about her—it—now. Got company.” I heard a woman’s voice in the background. “Shhh, it’s only my brother. Go back to sleep. Hang on a sec, Max.”

There was rustling, the sound of footsteps and then coffee beans being ground. “What about that girl?” he said quietly.

“Just checked the post from yesterday. She’s claiming she’s pregnant.”

There was silence. I struggled to keep from laughing.

“You’re fucking shitting me.” He finally spoke.

Laughter escaped me.

“You’re a bastard, Maxwell. You’re a fucking bastard. An absolute tool. What the fuck did I do to deserve you as a brother. Fucking dick. You’re an ass,” Seph said. I heard him slamming a cup down and laughed louder. “What the fuck do you want then? It had better be good.”

“The Assassins’ Guild at Kings need a place to meet once a week and I said you could sort them out with the room above The Grapes,” I said once I’d managed to stop laughing.

“Oh, offering my services, are you? I should tell you to fuck right off. Why? Is this something to do with you losing your shit at the university last week?” Seph said, and I debated the wisdom of pranking him when I needed a favour.

“Yep,” I said. “The other room needs freeing up and the guild are in it. They’d be better in the pub anyway. It’s a Thursday evening, six till seven.”

I heard more things being moved about and the sound of a woman’s voice again, followed by a suggestive giggle and Seph murmuring unintelligibly. I figured my little brother was about to get lucky.

“Fortunately for you, I’m with Mia now, so I’ll ask and get back to you. I might be able to pull some strings,” he said. “That’s it, babe.”

“I assume I’m not the babe you’re referring to. Text me.” I hung up before I heard anything else that would require bleach to cleanse my brain and began to check the flagged emails.

Fifteen minutes later my phone pinged with a text.

I opted to not take the bait and opened Victoria’s email again, considering a response. I didn’t quite trust her intentions; she’d given in far too easily to a compromise that hadn’t been asked for, and it was a fair compromise too. It wasn’t her fault that the email I’d sent hadn’t been checked, or that I could be a complete and utter ass when I had to expend energy on something that should’ve been sorted if systems were run competently. I pulled at my beard, debating what to put.

Reading through an email three times was usually something only newly qualifieds did, or should do, but I had to check it for content and grammar, having a feeling that Victoria Esme Davies would be on me like my sisters on a shoe sale if there was the slightest mistake. I had thought about adding the letters after my own name but decided it would irritate her more if I didn’t. She was expecting me to be an ass; I didn’t have to give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right for at least a few more encounters.

My door opened and Jackson stuck his head round, peering at me like he could see into my skull. He’d had that look since he’d been about three; it had unnerved me even then.

“Oi, dick, what’ve you done to Seph?” he said, staying at the doorway. “He’s properly on it this morning, and he’s got that meeting with Tudors at nine.”

I chuckled. “Last time I spoke to him he had Mia from The Grapes about to give him head. Then he texted me about fifteen minutes later, so draw your own conclusions.”

Jackson’s face broke into a grin. “Gold. Fucking gold. Coffee’s on.”

I glanced at my diary that was on my screen. “Am I missing something?” We had no meeting scheduled and as far as I was aware, nothing urgent had come in.

“Have you not heard from Claire?” Jackson said, looking serious. “Shit. I thought she’d text everyone.” He entered my office and closed the door.

I pushed my chair away from my desk, needing room in case I wanted to stand up and move suddenly. Claire was the next eldest after Jackson, and was a senior partner, taking mainly complex family law cases.

“The case she’s working—the messy divorce,” Jackson said, resting his back to the door. “She’s staying elsewhere for the next few weeks.”

“Why? What’s happened?” I stood up, pushing the chair away with my foot. My fist was clenched and I tried to relax it.

“Calm the fuck down because nothing’s happened. Not to her anyway.” Jackson took a long breath and stared at me. “The idiot working for the other side and the same guy who broke into Mum and Dad’s cottage were in her apartment last night. They were caught.”

I nodded, thinking rapidly before I spoke. Claire had taken on a case representing a woman wanting to divorce her wealthy and prominent husband. She’d alleged he’d been abusive and she had evidence that would damage his reputation, if not put him in trouble with the law. While Claire worked on the case, we’d added a security detail, thinking something like this would happen. The husband was a nasty piece of work and held far too much power. “Where was Claire last night?”

“Staying with Killian,” Jackson said.

Killian was my best friend, my roommate from university. He was ex-Navy and now ran a security firm with his brother. He was also my sister’s boyfriend.

“I’m just getting everyone together to divide up a couple of files she’s working on. There’s nothing extra for you, but I want you to have the head’s up on who’s doing what,” Jackson said, studying me like he always had.

“Okay. Is Killian staying with her?”

“Yes. Everything’s taken care of and you don’t need to panic or go into beast mode.” He came in closer to me, his eyes almost on the same level as mine, just half an inch difference. Half an inch and a year between us. “I need you to keep everyone calm and stop the inevitable gossip.”

My head nodded of its own accord. “I can do that. I’m in court later…”

“Yep. Business as usual.”

I followed him into the meeting room, grabbed a cup of coffee that Jean handed to me and sat down with my game face on.

My brothers and sister were all smiling as we left the room half an hour later. Order was resumed; Claire’s cases were being handled by other fee earners and our stepmother, Marie—who knew the cases thanks to Claire’s over-organised manner and determination to forge a team as opposed to being competitive, which could be a negative feature in our industry. I sat back down at my computer and saw my inbox with ten unread messages.

Opening it, I knew there was only one sender I was looking for and she didn’t disappoint. I clicked to open and started to read.

I found myself rereading it and laughing quietly, causing Jean to look at me as if I was going slightly insane when she came in with letters for me to check and sign. As I read through the other emails that were starting to mount up, I debated whether or not to respond. There was no need, except to confirm the dates for the use of the room and to try to make her laugh like she’d made me.

Nerves at sending an email was not something I was used to and I didn’t think about analysing why. I wanted her to reply: I needed a distraction from worrying about Claire and something other than work-related emails floating into my inbox, usually with a sting in the tail. And when I was lying in bed for the past few nights I’d thought about her; how she’d almost launched herself across the desk to physically tear me a new one, her quick words and answers for everything and that fucking glorious hair. I’d noticed her tits immediately—along with legs they were usually my favourite part of a woman—but behind her glasses she’d had the biggest brown eyes, like milk chocolate. It had been a good few weeks since I’d last hooked up with someone and that had been a casual but careful one-night stand with another lawyer from a firm in Manchester when I was there on business. I was busy shifting between considering possibilities and starting to dictate an advice to a client when my inbox pinged with her name.

My first thought was bullshit and the second, fuck. I did not like the idea of her knowing Seph and didn’t want to think about how she might’ve known him, or his friends. Nor did I want to consider the possibility that she might’ve met Callum who was the biggest manwhore in London.

“Joseph!” I yelled out of my door, down the corridor to his office, which wasn’t much more than a glorified broom cupboard with an ancient desk that he’d taken a liking to.

“You politely called,” he said, sticking his head out. “Make it quick; I’ve got this meeting.”

I resisted the urge to tell him not to fuck it up, but I’d already messed with him enough for one morning. “Do you remember a Victoria Davies? History student, has a PGCE? About Payton’s height, really long brown hair?”

His expression remained stoic. “Decent tits?”

“For fuck’s sake, you can’t say that when other people can hear. At least try to be politically correct.”

He shrugged. “There’s no one to hear apart from Jackson. Yeah, I remember her. She was at a law ball years ago with a friend or her boyfriend or someone. His dad was a judge. We talked about King’s and she knew Cassie.” His ex-girlfriend was rarely mentioned for fear of him dwindling back into the pit he’d landed in when she’d finished with him a few months ago.

“Who was her friend’s dad?” It hadn’t occurred to me that she might not be single. It was bothering me that she might be attached, which was new.

Seph shrugged. “I was plastered. It was a law ball. I only remember her because she was telling me about Cass before she realised she was my girlfriend.” Seph’s eyes darkened.

“What did she say about her?”

“Just that she’d seen her coming out of one of the rooms. It doesn’t matter, does it? It was years ago. Why are you asking? Is she the admin girl?” Seph said, his expression changing like magic.

“She might be,” I said cautiously. “When’s your meeting?”

He checked his watch. “Shit. Better go. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about this!”

Another email was waiting for me when I got back to my desk. In fact, several were, but the first one I opened had nothing to do with work.

At which point Jean ran into my office with a glass of water, mistaking my laughter for a choking fit. I tried to muster some dignity, failed miserably and went in search of coffee, needing to take my mind off a history lecturer with far too much banter and knowledge of inappropriate emoticons.