My Life as Duke Starr's Assistant

My Life as Duke Starr's Assistant...[Part 24]

"So he's going to sue Duke on a case that was resolved two years ago?" Patrice asked me again. I nodded, rubbing my temples with my fingers.

This day felt like a month. It seemed like forever ago that I was sitting in Patrice's office, sipping cinnamon tea, even though that was just this morning. Now I was back. The binder was safe and sound on top of Patrice's desk. She was flipping through it now, making sure there were no missing pages.

"That's absolutely absurd! And this man claims to be a great lawyer?" she said. I nodded again.

"He is a great lawyer. I was reading through the case file. It wasn't resolved; it was just put on hold until further evidence was received. Now he wants to revive it," I said.

"The little bastard..." she muttered. I felt my jaw drop. I had never heard Patrice curse before. I always thought she was too proper to. Patrice glanced up at me and then looked back down at the binder, reading over the case.  "Close you mouth. I'm a normal person. I can curse, too," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. I blinked and sat back.

"What are we going to do?" I asked her. She let out a long breath and took her glasses off, closing the bind shut.

"You said he took this from your apartment?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said, nodding my head.

"Without your knowledge or consent?" she questioned, one of her perfectly made eyebrows twitching up. I nodded once again. "So technically, he stole property," she said. I leaned forward, excitement filling me.

"Technically, all of his evidence and pretty much his entire case was obtained illegally," I said, catching on. She nodded at me, glad that I was on the same page.

"That's where we'll get him," she said, her shoulders relaxing a bit. I smirked. He was going down.

~~~~~~~~~~

"God, you have no idea the stuff I've been through these past few weeks," I said to Denise.

When I had gotten home that night, I had found her sitting on our couch in her pajamas.

"What happened to the vase?" she asked. Her voice was flat and her eyes were staring unblinkingly at the wall across from her.

"Uhh, Neese? Are you all right?" I asked her, setting my bag and keys down and going to join her on the couch. She didn't respond. "Neese?" I prodded.

She blinked and looked at me, mustering up a fake smile. Something was wrong.

"He left," she croaked, her eyes welling up with tears. I felt anger boil up inside of me.

"Oh, Neese..." I mumbled, pulling her into a hug. "I knew that son of a bitch was going to leave again. I knew it. God, I feel so bad for saying I told you so, but I did, Neese. I really did. He's not the kind of person that's ever going to change and you deserve someone better than that. You need to man up and find someone else," I said to her, rubbing her back as she sobbed into my shoulder.

"I'm not going to go back. Never again. This time I promise. This it's for good," she whimpered.

I frowned. She had said that every other time her jerk of a boyfriend left her to go chase a hopeless career in acting. He wasn't any good. All he could really land were commercial jobs or an extra in a movie or TV show. But he thought he was amazing and he would play Denise every time he would get shunned or rejected from a big role. He would come to her, lead her on for a few weeks, and then the next time an opportunity came along, he'd ditch her without telling her. And that always left her heartbroken. I never understood why she kept going back. He was handsome, but he had the personality of a jackass. I just didn't get it.