If you haven’t read the Prologue, check it out.

Chapter One

A Sign From Above

Two Years Later

“How did you manage to get this space and so quickly?” Janine Miller asked Trent Davenport.

“I know people,” he said, laughing.

He’d unlocked the door on Friday morning. The Friday before the Fourth of July weekend. His new law practice would officially be open for business next Wednesday and his one and only employee, Janine, would start full time now that he’d coaxed her from her last job to come work with him.

“This is a brand new building though,” Janine said. “They are still taking tenants and yet you get into a space that was already done?”

“A business backed out at the last minute. Actually, they realized they didn’t need the amount of space they signed the lease for. My sister, Raina, was talking about it last month with Megan.”

“Megan is your future sister-in-law, correct?”

“Yes,” he said. “I know it’s been a year or so since we’ve worked together. I’ll try to fill you in as we go. But yes, Megan is engaged to my brother, Jonah. Both Raina and Megan work at Fierce Engineering. As you know, I’d decided months ago to leave the law firm but was still working it out in my head.”

He’d wanted to leave for close to a year, but it was scary as all fuck going out on your own when you had a stable job and income.

He just couldn’t stay where he was another day. Not with the way the partners and managers treated their staff.

When he’d heard about this space, he felt like it was a sign from above and the wheels started to move.

“I’m glad you contacted me,” Janine said. “I didn’t care for where I was but was too lazy to look for another job. It never looks good on your resume when you move around too much.”

Janine had been a great paralegal and the two of them worked well together. But she’d had a bad year with her teenage son getting hurt and needing surgery and care. Then months later her father was diagnosed with cancer and she was the closest sibling and managed his care.

The firm they worked for didn’t like giving time off and terminated her, saying she was falling behind in her work when he’d seen no signs of it.

He’d been pissed and went to bat for her and all it did was get him on the shit list.

“No need to worry about that now,” he said. “I hope I’m not too horrible of a boss, as we both might be going by the skin of our teeth here.”

He’d never run his own business before. He didn’t know the first thing about a lot of that stuff.

His mother was going to do his books until he got things squared away, just like she did for Jonah when he opened his gym years ago.

Hell, even Megan offered to help and since she had more experience in what he needed than what his mother did, who worked in risk management at a bank, he might take his future sister-in-law up on that offer and figure out how to pay her for her time.

“You’re going to be great,” Janine said. “Show me around. This place is pretty big.”

“It is,” he said. “Bigger than I need, but I hope to bring on another attorney at some point and more staff.”

He was starting small, just the two of them. He had to hustle now to get clients, as he’d handed off his caseload last week when he’d walked out the door of the first job he’d been hired at out of law school.

He had enough money in the bank to get him through a year and hoped to hell work started to come and he’d be stable long before that. He wasn’t going to be fussy. He’d take any clients he could and not specialize in anything. He just wasn’t going to take frivolous things. That wasn’t him and never would be. He’d close his doors before he did that.

“Is this space mine?” Janine asked. There was a wide-open space when you walked in. A reception area. They’d been lucky that the contractors could come in and split the space down the center and add an entrance from what the previous leaseholders had. 

“For now,” he said. “As we grow, we’ll get someone up here and you can have your own office.”

“Yay me,” Janine said. “But I’m good anywhere.”

They moved through the four offices, the tiny gallery kitchen, then a conference room and finally a file room. He hoped to fill this baby right up in time.

“The office furniture should be arriving soon. They said between nine and twelve. They are putting the desks together too. You and I can get everything else we need set up. Make a list of what you want or need and we’ll start ordering.”

“I can work with bare bones,” Janine said. “As long as I’ve got a computer.”

“In my car,” he said. “Laptops for both of us. The Wi-Fi is good to go. I’ve got someone I contacted coming in to set our computers up this afternoon once the desks are ready.”

“This is so exciting,” Janine said. “Will you get mad if I want to hang some artwork up?”

“No,” he said. “We need this to look welcoming and it’s not.”

“At least it’s not plain white walls,” Janine said. “I like the soft blue. It’s relaxing.”

Trent was thrilled he’d been able to pick the paint colors and went with the blues and grays. They felt neutral enough. The flooring was already put in and he was fine with it. Sturdy gray vinyl plank that looked like hardwood. It’d be easy to clean.

“I’ll give you an amount you can spend to decorate,” he said. “I’d like an area rug up here at the very least around the chairs. We need them too. As much as I want clients right away, we’ve got to get this place set up.”

“I can start browsing now while we wait,” Janine said. “I can do that on my phone.”

He laughed. “Let me go get our laptops. I’ve got the Wi-Fi password and we can do that together while we wait for the network guy.”

He left Janine to wander around the office space and take measurements. He’d pointed her to where the bathroom was on the second floor. They didn’t have a private one and he didn’t care.

When he returned, Janine was typing on her phone. “I’ve got measurements for the conference room so I know how big of a table and chairs to order. We should be able to find something basic that will let you add more chairs as we go.”

“Good idea,” he said. He knew Janine would be a huge asset and was glad he’d been able to convince her even though he most likely wasn’t paying her what she was making at her last job.

She’d said she didn’t care. This was closer to her house and she wanted a hand in building something from the ground up.

They were sitting on the floor with their laptops an hour later. Janine was purchasing decor and he was shopping for office furniture, both of them showing the other for their opinions and making sure everything went well together.

His corporate credit card was going to take one hell of a hit today.

He looked up when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye in the hall through the glass door.

“Trent,” Grant Fierce said. Garrett was standing there with him. “Welcome to the building. Is this some kind of new trend to see clients on the floor?”

He laughed and stood up. “Hardly,” he said. “I couldn’t wait to get in and am shopping for everything now. Janine, meet Grant and Garrett Fierce. This is their building.”

“Sort of,” Grant said.

Trent knew the situation. The Fierces found the building but had partners in with them. Olson Law Firm, McCarthy Construction and Kennedy Construction. He knew all the players from when he’d signed the lease and who he’d had to talk to about things.

He was positive he was getting a deal on the rent because the other business had incurred most of the construction costs, but he wasn’t going to complain.

When it came down to it though, the Fierces were running most of the show since it was their brainchild. 

“We’ve got something for you,” Garrett said. “Raina designed it, so if you don’t like it, you can take it up with her.”

Garrett had a big envelope in his hand and pulled out a sheet with a design and vinyl lettering on it. 

“I know what this is,” he said. “I had a feeling Raina was doing something.”

His sister was a drafter for Fierce Engineering and currently was finishing up her degree in engineering nights at Duke.

“You need to have a name on the door,” Grant said.

“I was going to take care of that last week and Raina told me to hold off. She’s not good with secrets. I just figured it was from her.”

“Nope,” Garrett said. “It’s from us. Do you want the honors?”

“Sure,” he said, taking the sheet and then going to the glass door. The design for his name and logo was exactly what he wanted since Raina had been helping him create it. All he’d had to do was send the file to someone to get it printed, but his sister wouldn’t release it to him and now he knew why.

“That looks great,” Janine said. “Feels final.”

He looked at the door that now said Davenport Law. It was a dream come true earlier than he’d thought in his career.

Maybe if his last employers weren’t such assholes he might never have done this.

“It does look great,” Grant said. “I’m assuming you’ve got business cards already? Want to hand some over? We’ll make sure Roni gets them. All businesses have their cards here for people to come in and see.”

He knew there was a property manager on the first floor of the building. Ronnie someone or another. He’d forgotten the last name, but the dude was who he’d go to if there were problems in the building for tenants. Or whatever else had to be done here.

“I’ve got them right here,” he said, moving over to the box he’d brought in with his laptops. He pulled out about twenty cards and handed them over. 

“Thanks,” Grant said. “We’ll get these down to Roni on our way out.”

They turned when a guy opened the door. “We’re here with your furniture if you can sign.”

“I’m Trent Davenport,” he said. 

“We’ll let you get set up,” Garrett said. “Don’t work too hard this weekend.”

“I’ll be here all weekend and Monday I’m sure,” he said. There was too much to do and this was his life now. It’s not like he had much more going on and didn’t want to even think of it either.

“Now, now,” Grant said. “You’re young yet. You need to have a life outside of work.”

“I’m good,” he said. He knew where this was going and wasn’t going to get sucked in like his sister and brother had. 

Nope, he was onto the Fierces and had no time in his life to be part of their matchmaking scheme.

“What was that about?” Janine asked when the twins left.

“What was what?” he asked.

“The looks between them and you about not working too hard?”

He laughed. “They think they are being sly, but they aren’t. Let me tell you a story about this meddling matchmaking family.”