"Hello?" Pt. 1

Jasmine

Unedited.

This wasn't how I was going to write this chapter, but it is what it is.

Sarah, xx

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Jasmine was still banging on and on and on about something or nothing- I'm no longer sure; I stopped listening about an hour ago- when the lift finally stopped on my floor. With my early morning coffee in hand, I rushed out of the lift and started speed walking towards my office. My office, a corner one on the ninth floor, was at the other end of the carpeted hallway, and I could see Evelyn already busy with her work. I smiled as I approached, thinking that finally I'd have someone on my side rather than just having Jasmine berate me for everything that's gone wrong in this world. 

Trailing behind me, I could still hear Jasmine tell me that it's my fault that we have global warming. I'm not sure what logic she'd used while coming to this conclusion, but I certainly wasn't about to argue the matter with her. If I did, I'd probably get blamed for world hunger, too. 

I blindly walked towards my office, missing the way Clara charged at me, knocking into me. Warm coffee spilt down my front, staining my white shirt. I groaned in annoyance as the liquid dripped down my forearm, soaking into my suit jacket, making me wish that this day was over before it had barely even begun. With the coffee cup still in my hand-minus the lid that was now four feet away- I didn't have time to react when I felt someone's hands all over me, undoing the buttons of my shirt.

"What the-"

"Oh, hell no!" Jasmine cut off my question as she stepped in front of me and pushed Clara away. Jasmine, all five-nine of her, shoved me to the background and came face to face with the blonde. "You need to back off. You do not put your hands on another woman's man without permission, especially if said man is my best friend's man. Now, run along little girl."

Clara looked taken aback momentarily but she recovered well enough that she smirked at Jasmine. "Look, dahl-ing, I'm not sure how things are done in the old colony but here, on my side of the great blue ocean that thankfully separates us, we don't get all up in each other's faces and think oneself superior to another."

"Look, honey," Jasmine returned Clara's patronising tone of voice, clearly not one to sit back and allow someone to speak to her like that. "Calling my country an old colony is thinking of oneself as superior to another. I'm not sure how things are done on this side of the pond, but back in the US of A, we don't sit back and let social climbers like you get to the highest rung. Just to be clear, you're posher than I am, but don't you dare think for one second that I can't squish you under the heel of my Jimmy Choo. You don't know anything about me, including who my daddy is, but if I were you," Jasmine steps closer to Clara, speaking into her ear so that only those closest could hear. "I'd sleep with one eye open."

With that, Jasmine pushed passed Clara and stomped her way down the remainder of the hallway, turning left into my office when she saw the nameplate on the door. Throwing my now-empty coffee cup in the nearest bin, I pulled my suit jacket over my stained shirt and quickly marched into my office. Jasmine had already made herself comfortable on the sofa that was pushed up on the wall opposite my desk, the contents of her work bag strewn across the mahogany table the separates the sofa from the two matching arm chairs. 

My office is rather masculine in style and is in contrast to most of the other offices that were in this building. I had modelled mine on my grandfather's home office, a room I had spent years in as a child. The office has a large mahogany desk, several book cases filled with law publications, a few pieces of artwork that hung on the grey walls as well as the matching upholstered seating. There was an internal door just behind the main one into my office, where my private bathroom was situated.