Fleet Street fuming. Shot in East Central London, 2011.
Image credit: Lexia Snowe © 2014. All rights reserved
Sample chapter from Lexia Snowe’s debut novel
Matthews, Vorsten and Eck LLP was officially a “leading London law-firm”. Its pinstripe cutthroats spoke four languages and were permanently ready to cancel on women and children. It took a special kind of hotshot to get to the top here. Two young rookies from Personal Injury were on course to do exactly that.
She was the first. Lara Edwards. Bohemian executive wardrobe. Face that carried a knowing smile by default and a reckless beauty she barely cared for. She’d make a quip in the elevator, but have forgotten you by the water-cooler. Give Lara silence and she’d drift off somewhere her eyes refused to map. Only her intricate coffee orders, clenched in hand at all times, seemed to keep her grounded. Or an intern with a great ass.
The second was Kyle Matisse. Gatherer build, hunter swagger. Kyle set his alarm three and a half hours earlier than everyone else because he’d calculated this resulted in an extra day of life over his peers every week. He used adjectives like “hideous” ironically, to express approval. He had the all-hours intensity of a pylon, and the sexual magnetism of a late bus.
According to the law-firm’s paperwork, Lara and Kyle were a team.
“Ah, Lara,” purred their supervisor when at last she arrived at the restaurant.
“So sorry,” Lara panted. “You would not believe the hell I had getting here.”
Kyle wrinkled his nose. “The hell you had, or walked through?”
He was right. The smell of smoke was pretty overpowering in her vicinity.
Lara shrugged. “London’s transport difficulties make for a stressful situation. It brought out the worst in others. I’m sorry if my passive smoking distresses you, Kyle.”
“Not at all.”
As Lara took a seat at the table, their supervisor ordered lunch. He was Douglas Eck, the firm’s Senior Partner in Personal Injury. He mentored them pompously, advised them earnestly and was sometimes helpful.
Thirty eminent years in their profession had given Doug an enchanting way with words. For example, he considered himself a “proportionately moderate” man. The principle of proportionate moderation was that if something was small – for example, mints, pretzels or Brazil nuts – you were able to have a lot more of it before you became immoderate. It is by the same logic that a philanderer argues one hundred acts of foreplay do not amount to infidelity.
“Cherry tomatoes, you’re quite sure?” Doug said.
The waitress affirmed this.
“Please pronounce them in the salad. Do you understand? Pronounce.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring the dough balls, too.”
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