Charmed. Cole and Phoebe Guardian series. To know Phoebe is too...

Charmed. To know Phoebe is to... Chapter 3

Part 1:Better to have loved and lost

Chapter 3

Francesca was not a young or particularly attractive woman. She was into her late fifties and was always beautifully dressed but if you missed the humour in her eyes, you saw a plain woman of average height and slightly overweight who had a determined mouth and a pushy manner. She had become Cole's assistant because the partners hoped she could manage Cole and limit his erratic behaviour. The partners, Jackman and Kline who mostly felt Turner's erratic behaviour over the first 9 months of his employment was not an asset to the firm, could never quite bring themselves to fire him . Cole who had decided to stay to give himself a reason to get up in the morning and have somewhere to go, could have told them the reason they did not fire him but thought demon magic was probably not an explanation they would welcome.

Francesca, a paralegal who had worked as an assistant on some very tough cases, had been assigned to him when he had returned to work after his last "illness" 6 months ago. She had been recommended to the partners from a long career as an assistant to a recently retired lawyer in another firm. They were told she was a very tough and determined lady. Cole did not have a good record with assistants. The one called Julie had disappeared and the one called Angela had accused Mr Turner of trying to strangle her and refused to work with him.

A few other girls who had taken one look at Mr Turner's blue eyes and tall good looks and decided it would be worth the risk if he tried to strangle them, had been discouraged by the partners from working with him, for fear of sexual harassment case. Harold Carter, one of the senior partners noticing 2 female lawyers, a receptionist and a paralegal staring at Cole as he walked down the corridor had commented dryly at the meeting to discussed Cole's employment " Who will sue for harassment, him or the girl?"

Cole, if pressed said he respected Mrs Rinaldi. He was never brave enough to call her Francesca although she called him Cole, in the tone of voice school principals reserved for very naughty little boys. In fact, what he was, was terrified of her. She ruled his life. She never let him miss an appointment or fail to return a call. She made him keep records, go to meetings and read all the right papers before he went. If he was not at work by 9, she was on the phone calling him at 9 and 45 seconds. If he said he was working at home, she was checking on him every hour on the hour. He had tried to complain about her to the senior partners and was greeted by such an expression of irritation he gave it up. Somewhere in the discipline she imposed on him, Cole found a reason to keep going.

Francesca for her part was fonder of him than she cared to admit. For reasons she was not going to tell him, she admired his courage for working when he was fighting not to fall apart, for taking the shit cases, the pro bono ones and the unwinnable ones. She admired him because he did everything he could to protect the client and seemed totally unconcerned with promotion himself, because he avoided the press and seeking fame in the spectacular cases, because he offered sensible advice and she had never known him to even remotely promote his own interest over the client's

Francesca had found out what she could about him. Office gossip said he had started at the firm with big expectations, having been a top-class ADA although he seemed to have left that job under some undisclosed shadow. He had been spectacularly successful in his first three months in the job and then the erratic behaviour had started.

The gossip said the erratic behaviours had all happened when his marriage that had seemed very happy, suddenly fell apart. He had disappeared, come back to work, started acting violently, suddenly stopped working, was suspected of drinking and then disappeared again, supposedly off sick. Six months ago, he had returned to work, looking terrible, again unhappy, and the humour, which had always been a part of him, was missing for months. He was tense, always polite and distant with colleagues which was when Francesca had come to work for him.