Lovers and Madmen(Sasha McCandless 4.5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

there for eight very long
years; the entire experience seemed so removed from her daily existence of
running her own small business.
    “Sure. As long as no one’s dead.”
    Naya pulled on her coat and turned to arch a brow
at the caveat, but Sasha was serious. Her former colleagues seemed to manage to
get themselves murdered at an alarming rate.
    “Nobody died,” Naya said, running her fingers
through her short-cropped hair.
    Once Naya had left the firm and there were no old
white men to rankle, she’d traded her dreadlocks for a more conventional Jada
Pinkett-Smith style. It suited her and highlighted her large eyes and high
cheekbones.
    But Sasha had noticed that, when Naya was nervous
or anxious, she combed her hands through her short hair, tugging on the ends.
    Uh-oh, Sasha thought, bracing herself for bad
news.
    “Then spill it,” she said.
    They started down the stairs to the first floor.
    “Okay. At the firm’s holiday party, Will Volmer
announced a new development program for non-attorneys. They’re calling it the
P&T Advancement Program.”
    “Catchy.”
    Another eyebrow raise from Naya—presumably for the
interruption. “Anyway, he set up a scholarship. They’re going to send one legal
assistant to law school every year.”
    “Full ride?” Sasha asked, doubting that was the
case.
    Will was the most upstanding, decent partner at
the firm, and she wasn’t surprised that he would want to nurture the talents of
all his employees, but law school was expensive. Even though Will had cleaned
house after being appointed the chair of the firm in the wake of a scandal
months earlier, she couldn’t imagine that his partners were eager to drop
roughly one hundred thousand dollars on a three-year education that would also
deprive them of a talented legal assistant.
    “Full ride,” Naya confirmed.
    “Wow. What’s the catch?”
    They stepped out of the building and fell into the
stream of foot traffic flowing down the sidewalk. A florist’s delivery truck
idled in the loading zone. Sasha spotted piles of red roses through the window.
A woman scooted past them, her head down, as she thumbed at her phone.
    “The catch is the legal assistant has to apply to
and be accepted into Duquesne’s night division and agree to continue to work
full-time for the first year. From what I hear, most people aren’t up for that,”
Naya said.
    “No, I suppose not. That’s a huge time commitment.
It would take someone with an amazing—almost superhuman—work ethic to want to
do such a thing.”
    She glanced at Naya and grinned. It didn’t take a
Supreme Court Justice to connect these dots.
    Naya stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and
turned to face her.
    She exhaled and said, “Mac, he’s offered me the
spot. If I take the LSAT and get into Duquesne, there’s a job at Prescott and a
scholarship waiting for me.”
    Naya’s dark eyes were troubled.
    Sasha touched her arm as a muttering dog walker
swerved to avoid them, his dogs getting tangled in a crisscross of leashes.
    “Hey, let’s keep walking.”
    Naya nodded and started to move. Sasha considered
her response.
    “Listen, I’m thrilled for you. I mean, if you want
to go to law school. Do you? I thought you hated lawyers.”
    Naya gave her a long look. “That hasn’t stopped
you.”
    “I don’t hate lawyers. I did hate working
at Prescott.”
    Even as she said it, Sasha knew it wasn’t exactly
true—what she’d hated was the person she been turning into at Prescott, an
automaton with no personal life, no joy, nothing but billable hours.
     “I know what it’s like there.”
    Sasha bit back her first response. Naya may have
worked at Prescott & Talbott for a long time, it would be different, very
different, if she returned as a lawyer.
    “I’ll be sorry to see you go, but I can’t afford
to do what they can do for you.”
    “I know.”
    They crossed the short bridge connecting Shadyside
to East Liberty and clattered down the metal stairs that led