Lucky Break

Prologue

Prologue

Casey Alexander was at the top of her game, working at the prestigious Harp and Maddox law firm in downtown Chicago. She was sitting in her small office, as a junior associate, preparing a brief to present to her boss later that day. She was just printing it out as her assistant popped her head in and told her that everyone was heading to lunch.

"Thanks, Alyson but I think I'm gonna pick something up and bring it to James." She said with a smile.

Casey and James had been dating for nearly seven years and had been engaged for two of them. They had met their freshman year at Northwestern and had immediately hit it off. He had played lacrosse and she had ran track. He was smart, funny, and caring. They were both lawyers but James had taken a chance and started his own small firm on the East Side of the city. Casey had been invited to become a partner there but she couldn't refuse the offer she had been presented with right out of college. After all, she did like to play it safe. 

Dropping the finished brief on her desk, Casey grabbed her coat and keys then headed out.

On her way to James' office she stopped at their favorite Italian place and picked up lunch. She had just pulled into the parking garage of her fiance's workplace when she spotted him. About three cars down was her fiancé. She wondered what he was doing sitting in his car when she had texted him saying she'd meet him in his office for lunch. She grabbed the bag of food and walked towards his car. His head was thrown back, mouth open, and the car was rocking.

"What the..." Casey walked closer and then she saw it, or rather her. Jessica Daniels, his firm's partner, going down on him. "No...no...." Casey stuttered, not believing what she was seeing. "You bastard!" She screamed hurling the containers of food at his window. The glass was instantly stained with spaghetti sauce and the redness continued to run down the side of his precious BMW coupe. James' head shot up, clearly shocked that he had gotten caught. Jessica shot up as well, looking amused? He stumbled out of the car, quickly zipping his pants.

"Baby, this isn't what it looks like! I promise." He walked quickly towards her, and the closer he got the quicker Casey fled.

"Stop, just fucking stop. You lying, cheating, bastard. I came to bring my fiancé lunch and this is how I get repaid. Don't try and justify it, James." She shouted, her Irish blood quickly rising to a boil. "How long? How long have you been fucking her behind my back?"

James looked at the ground, as if ashamed of his actions, but Casey knew better. He was just upset he had been caught. The asshole had thought he could maintain the best of both worlds.

"Just a few times Cas, just a few. And they didn't mean anything, you were always just so busy..."

"No, don't you try and pin this on me. Don't you fucking dare. You're a piece of shit, James, and I never want to see you again." She said angrily, "Seven years! I wasted seven years on you. I'm a fucking idiot."

Casey tossed her engagement ring at him and glared at him. James caught the diamond encrusted band just barely before going back to groveling.

"Baby, please! I love you! We can fix this!" He pleaded, but Casey had heard enough.

She rushed into her car, slammed the door shut, and punched down on the gas. As fast as she could, she got out of there. She drove around the city for awhile before returning to work. She could feel tears streaming down her face, most undoubtedly ruining her makeup. She just couldn't believe it. The man she had loved for seven years, the man she gave everything to had broken her. He had taken her heart and shattered it.

Once she got back into her office, she had fixed her makeup and was determined to make it through the day as if nothing had ever happened. She grabbed the brief she had prepared earlier and brought it to Mr. Maddox.

"Ah Miss Alexander, please come in and have a seat." He said ushering her into his office, shutting the door behind them.

"So I have the brief done for the Nicholas Case, there are some interesting details about his finances in there that I think you might want to take a look at. Oh, and also..."

"Casey, I'm sure everything is prepared wonderfully." He said cutting her off. "You have done an incredible job and I hope you understand the next thing I'm going to say isn't personal."

Casey now squirmed in her seat. She had watched this man through the most difficult cases and never once had he looked as uneasy as he did now.

"I'm afraid we're gonna have to let you go. The firm is not doing so well, and we need to make some major cutbacks. We are only going to keep the partners and two assistants..." He continued to speak but she didn't listen.

Just this morning, she had the perfect fiancé, the perfect job, and now she had neither. She was slowly losing it. She took a deep breath and smiled at her boss. "I understand, thank you so much for this incredible opportunity and I've really enjoyed my time here." She said, extending her hand to his. He shook it firmly but still looked uneasy.

"Well, that isn't all I'm afraid. There will be no severance packages as we just can't afford it, and the apartment. Well, we leased out the units for our executives early on but we are gonna need to cut the housing we had offered. I know you had signed to stay for the rest of the year but we can't cover the payment that long. The amount due for you to stay there is around $3000 a month, I'm afraid." He explained, handing her the lease for the apartment.

There was no way in hell she could afford that. She made a more than decent living as a lawyer but she had student loans to pay off and monthly rent that high would not be do-able. "And I'm assuming you'll need the company car back as well?" She asked, standing from her chair, heels just a tad shaky on the tile floor.

It was all just over, just like that. All she had worked towards was gone. Her cushy job, luxury apartment, sports car. It was all just gone in the blink of an eye. She cleared her desk, dropped off her car keys and lugged all her belongings to the L-Train she planned to take home.

Her apartment was empty but the smell of James was enough to make her sick. She kicked off her shoes and went straight to the wine fridge. This day was plenty enough to justify her drinking a bottle alone, so that's exactly what she did.