A/N: another fluffy little story that I thought of while watching Wimbledon (I am still unsure how the two are connected). This may stay as a one-shot, or I may write another little chapter to follow on, depending on how I feel and what people think.

Mary looked up from her desk over to Dawn, the senior associate with whom she shared an office.

"Do you know whether Michael Hargrove is still a shareholder of Piper & Co?" Mary asked. "I need to try and get the stock transfer forms done by this afternoon."

"No idea, sorry. I haven't done much work for that company." Dawn replied, her eyes still on the computer screen and her fingers still typing away. "Why don't you ask Matthew about it? He's the one who deals with them personally."

Mary huffed. "I'd rather not, thanks. You know I don't like asking him for help." Her boss took great pleasure in making her feel rather silly whenever he could. She probably made herself a target by being so smart-arsed with him, but still. He was insufferable.

"I don't see why you dislike him so much." Dawn laughed, finally looking away from the screen. "He's so nice to everybody! Sophie's daughter was upset at school the other day and he let her go and pick her up and told her she could spend the rest of the afternoon working from home!"

"What a hero." Mary said sarcastically. "Well, he's not very nice to me. He's a patronising little git, in fact." She stood up, collecting her file from her desk. "I'm going to go and ask one of the paralegals to find out for me."

"Only Annabelle's here today. The other one got sent over to the litigation department because they're so busy."

"Oh thanks, litigation. Thanks very much for leaving us with the incompetent one." Mary ramped up the sarcasm as she moved to leave the room.

"You're not in a very good mood today, are you?" Dawn, like most of the corporate department, had grown to find Mary's bad moods quite amusing.

"No, I'm not. My day is jam-packed and nothing is going my way." Mary replied on her way out of the door.

Mary scanned the pool of mini-cubicles in the centre of her office floor. The cubicles housed the department's paralegals and the PAs to the partners. Unable to see Annabelle, Mary asked one of the PAs where she was.

"She's in Matthew's office." Came the response.

Mary closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Was the universe out to make her life one big struggle today? She collected herself before walking over to Matthew's office. She knocked on his door firmly and entered, not waiting for an answer.

Matthew's eyes darted to her, startled. "Oh, I'm sorry, I must have not heard myself call you in." He said seriously, although his eyes revealed a teasing glint. Mary was not amused. She looked to Annabelle, who was standing nervously next to Matthew's desk; she'd always found Mary rather terrifying.

Deliberately not giving Matthew the satisfaction of acknowledging his obnoxious comment, Mary turned to the paralegal. "Annabelle, could you find out whether Michael Hargrove is still a shareholder of Piper?"

Before the girl could answer, Matthew cut in. "Why don't you just do a Companies House search? It's a fairly simple solution, I'd have thought."

She wanted to slap that condescending little smirk right off his face. "I seem to remember someone telling me not to trust Companies House with important information because the company may not have updated its entries." Mary reminded him of his own advice to her.

"That person sounds very wise. But I think we all know that Piper are quite reliable. If you're really that doubtful of their ability to send an email, however, I'm sure Annabelle can check their Register of Members." Matthew replied.

Mary scowled at him. "Come on Annabelle." She summoned the girl to follow her as she turned the leave.

"Oh and did I see a delivery of flowers arrive at your desk this morning?" Matthew called before she could leave.

"Yes, you probably did." Mary said frustratedly. Why couldn't he just leave her to get on with her job?

"I think it's highly inappropriate to have admirers send you flowers at work." Matthew said firmly.

"I know you aren't used to people finding you attractive, so I'll explain how it works- those flowers were sent to me without my prior knowledge. I didn't ask for them to be sent here." Now it was Mary's turn to be patronising.

"Maybe you should tell your suitor not to do so in future." Matthew tried to hide his smile. Mary's annoyance was always quite entertaining to him.

"I'm not making any promises." Mary said drily as she left his office.

A few minutes later, Mary glanced over the information Annabelle had given her. She'd made a mistake. Mary sighed as she stomped out of her office and over to the paralegal. She stood behind the mini-wall forming one side of the cubicle, peering over the top of it.

"Annabelle, could you re-do this please?" Mary asked as politely as she could.

"What's the problem?" Mary heard the familiar male voice approach her from behind. Not him again. She had smelled him before she'd heard him, however.

"Don't you ever wear a different cologne?" She asked, not bothering to turn around to face him.

"Is there something wrong with it?" Matthew challenged, knowing that Mary wouldn't outrightly insult him in front of so many people.

"I like that Cologne, Matthew. It's gorgeous!" Mary glared at the young PA, Toni. She was always flirting with Matthew, boosting his ego to unmanageably titanic proportions.

"Thank you." Matthew smiled at the blonde girl. "Now what were you complaining about, Mary?"

"I was just saying, Annabelle, that you forgot to-" Mary froze momentarily as she felt Matthew's hand grope her bottom. Panicking, she looked around the cubicle pool. She realised that nobody could see anything below her chest, thanks to the cubicle wall. Swallowing, she tried to continue, "You forgot to write down how many shares he owns and-" She paused again as she felt his hand stroke up and down her buttock, before splaying his fingers and squeezing her.

Annabelle evidently misread Mary's hesitance as her trying to calm herself down because she was so angry. Flustered, the young girl immediately reached up to take the papers away from Mary. "Of course, I'm really so sorry. I'll get it back to you as soon as possible."

Matthew's hand removed itself from her rear end, giving Mary the chance to clear her head. "That would be helpful, Annabelle, thank you."

"Mary, I was wondering if I could speak to you about those transfer forms in my office, for a moment?" The voice behind her said, cool as a cucumber.

"I could spare a literal moment. I'm quite busy today." She replied, still avoiding eye contact.

"Excellent, come this way."

Mary only turned once she heard his footsteps lead away. She followed him into his office, just about resisting the urge to slam the door behind her.

"What the hell were you thinking?" She cried. "That was so distracting!"

Matthew grinned as he wrapped his arms around her and lowered his head to her neck. "So I'm not allowed to touch you up anymore? You had no objections last night." His voice was low and teasing.

Mary felt herself flush- at the feeling of Matthew's mouth eagerly tasting her neck, and at the memory of what they'd done on his sofa the previous evening.

"Besides," Matthew said in between kisses, "if you don't like it, you shouldn't wear such flattering skirts to work."

Mary's head was starting to spin from Matthew's attentions. She was only just aware that he had said something. "What?" She asked breathily. Feeling Matthew chuckle against her neck, she realised that he'd managed to distract her yet again. "I hate you." She complained softly.

Matthew lifted his head to look at her. "That reminds me, could you please refrain from telling everyone in the office that you hate me?" He knew he probably deserved it, from the way that he spoke to her in front of their colleagues, and he liked the contrast between their public relationship and private relationship, but he didn't want people's good opinion of him to be swayed by Mary's hate-mongering.

"I've never told anyone that I hate you." Mary responded, her face the picture of innocence.

Matthew raised his eyebrows at her. "Martin said you told him that you hoped I made a mistake in my work for the Argentinian bank and got extradited there."

Biting back her laughter, Mary replied serenely, "That doesn't necessarily mean I hate you. Martin's always jumping to conclusions." She affectionately ran his tie through her fingers.

A knock on the door prevented Matthew from responding. "Come in!" He called, breaking apart from Mary.

Toni, the air-headed PA, breezed in clutching a parcel. "This just arrived for you. Jimmy's on a coffee break so I thought I'd bring it in to you. I didn't want you to miss something important!" She giggled (at what, Mary had no idea) and batted her eyelashes at him.

"Great," Matthew smiled at her before setting about opening the parcel, "thanks, Tina."

Mary stifled her laughter at the poor girl's crestfallen face. After Toni closed the door, she informed Matthew what her name was.

"I know," Matthew said, glancing up from the masking tape that he was wrestling with, "and I also know that you dislike the amount of attention she gives me." He winked at her.

Mary wanted to show him how much she appreciated his intentional faux-pas, but stopped herself when she heard him curse under his breath.

"What is it?" She asked.

"This is the bundle of documents that we posted to court. It's got sent back to me." Matthew ran a hand through his hair. "Bloody Jimmy must have written the wrong DX number on it again." He walked around to his desk and pressed a button on his phone.

Mary listened to him sternly address his PA, asking him to visit his office at once. Unbeknownst to Matthew, this side of him really…turned her on. He was always known for being kind and good-hearted, a rarity among the partners in their firm, but it was the stronger, more assertive aspects of Matthew's personality that Mary found most alluring.

The complacent PA came swaggering into the office. He was only a year younger than Matthew, and felt it was beneath him to 'serve' someone his own age, as Mary had overheard him say when he was asked why he took so little interest in his work. Either that, Mary thought, or you're just shit at your job.

"Jimmy, I asked you to send these out yesterday." Matthew explained, holding up the papers. Jimmy took a moment to recognise what they were, then nodded. "You addressed them incorrectly. As I explained to you, these are really important documents- they need to be at court today. You need to arrange for a courier to take them over. Now."

"Yeah, sure." Jimmy said nonchalantly, clearly not understanding why it was such a big deal.

"And can you please be more careful next time?" Matthew asked, knowing that this conversation probably wouldn't make any difference to his PA's enthusiasm towards his job.

"Yeah." The young man shrugged as he took the bundle from Matthew and left.

"I can't believe he managed to get a degree." Matthew shook his head in disbelief as the door closed. He didn't notice Mary eyeing him up until she walked over to him, a naughty look in her eyes. "What do you want?" He smirked, thinking he could probably guess the answer.

"You." Mary said seductively, slipping one arm under his blazer as the other rested on his chest. She began slowly kissing her way from his neck to his mouth.

"Mary!" Matthew exclaimed in mock-outrage. "Not in the office, surely?"

Mary rolled her eyes as she continued her exploration of his throat (if only that damn collar wasn't in the way). She knew Matthew was absolutely in favour of fooling around in the workplace. Their very first tryst had been in his office, in fact. As had their second. And third. "I think you're forgetting that you're the one who groped me in public, minutes ago." She mumbled against his jaw.

Matthew grinned. "By the way, did you like the flowers?" He asked, his hands stroking her back.

"Yes, they're beautiful, thank you. I didn't appreciate you reprimanding me about them in front of Annabelle, however." Mary narrowed her eyes at him as she pulled back. His mischievous smile set her back on course, though, and she leaned in to kiss him while her hand moved down his chest, over his stomach, and slid below his belt buckle…

Matthew grabbed her hand before it could reach its intended destination. "Woah, Mary. What's gotten into you?" Mary was never the one to initiate hanky-panky in the office; she was a fairly new associate, whereas he was a partner (and was therefore more indispensable). If they were caught and the firm decided to take any action, it would most likely be her neck on the line.

"I want you." Mary replied simply, pushing her chest against him in the way she knew aroused him, and gazing into his eyes in the way she knew he couldn't resist. She inwardly congratulated herself on her victory as Matthew extricated himself from her arms, quickly ran over to lock the door, and turned back to return to her as he shrugged his blazer off.

A/N: fairly pointless, I know, but I felt the urge to write it. Also, I'm actually currently training to become a City solicitor myself, but I tried not to mention anything too boring/confusing in the story!