First You Fall

Chapter 1

Did anyone's day ever go well without coffee? Maisie Dalton's sure didn't. Walking through the streets of downtown Los Angeles in six inch heels was always an adventure but without the promise of a large cup of coffee in her future, it was positively horrifying. She'd grown accustomed to the disgusting cat calls from construction workers as she walked by, some days she wondered if these men had ever been in the presence of a female before. What woman was honestly going to respond to, "Hey Baby, lookin' hot today. Wanna ride me home?"

Unbelievable.

She curled her fingers around the cold steel of the handle on the huge glass door to her office building. Some days opening that heavy ass door was harder than others. This day was definitely the latter.

Before she'd taken two steps into the lobby she had a large cup of something shoved into her face while her assistant, Grant tried to help get her coat off. Maisie breathed a sigh of relief as she lifted the cup to her lips,

"You're a lifesaver."

Grant opened his mouth to protest but was quickly silenced when Maisie gagged. She looked up at him, her mouth twisted in confusion,

"What the hell is in this?"

"It's tea. The coffee maker in the lobby is broken and the nearest Starbucks is a block away. I didn't think I'd get back in time."

Maisie shoved the cup back at him and shook her head as they made their way to the elevators,

"I don't drink tea. My grandmother drinks tea. Do I look like my grandmother?"
"No ma'am."

Maisie hated being bitchy to Grant. He was the best assistant she'd ever had. Fresh out of college he practically slept in front of her office door until she agreed to give him something to do. She relented, finally allowing him to fetch her coffee and do menial tasks around the office. He'd taken the bull by the horns, however, and taken it upon himself to organize client files the first week he was there. Truly a feat in itself considering Maisie and no one on her staff could fathom looking at the files much less organizing them.

She handed him her purse, pulling her brunette hair to the side as she finally stripped off the other arm of her coat once they'd made it onto the elevator,

"Schedule?"

Grant nodded as he looked down at his phone,

"Meeting with Janina about her raise. Conference call with Tucker Cranston's people about the nude picture scandal. Your lawyer needs to talk to you about Kyle's arrest. Lunch with Mere. And dinner with Steven at eight."

Maisie frowned, a fun filled day for sure.

Being in business for yourself had it's good days and it's bad days. Most of them were good, Maisie couldn't complain. But when days like today popped up, she wondered why she hadn't just stayed with her old boss at her old firm and let someone else handle the particulars.

Margaret Clarice Dalton, Maisie, was 23 years old. And her entire life, it seemed, had been a series of cleaning up messes. So when she graduated UCLA with a degree in criminal justice she thought for sure she'd end up at the FBI or the CIA investigating important government dealings. She hadn't even come close.

Esmerelda Bernard had changed Maisie's direction the moment they'd met at a job fair on UCLA's campus one sunny afternoon a week before graduation. Esmerelda, Mere (pronounced Mary) as she liked to be called, was a Fixer. Had she not looked like she'd just stepped off the pages of Vogue when she approached Maisie, she might have been told the banal sounding job wasn't for her. Maisie didn't do tools. However, no one in six inch heels and a body conscious Michael Kors dress from his latest spring collection was grabbing anything out of a tool box. Not a literal one anyway.