A/N: so it seems like pretty much all of you want this to be a light fic, with any tension quickly dissolving into fluffiness. That suits me fine! I've therefore decided to make this more silly than serious…

The next morning, Matthew arrived at the office much earlier than usual. He'd not been able to sleep much, given that his mind had been running through the pros and cons of choosing Mary to go to Rome over the other candidates. Unable to reach any sort of conclusion, he'd decided to get out of bed and go into work, hoping that being physically near the desks of the candidates may somehow enable him to make the correct decision. The plan didn't seem to be working, however. Probably because there'd been no logic to it at all, he told himself.

His jumble of thoughts was interrupted by his office door opening and shutting swiftly, and an enchanting-looking Mary breezing into the room.

"What are you doing here?" Matthew asked in shock, wishing she'd stop hurrying towards him so that he could fully appreciate her form in her figure-hugging outfit. Mary was never at work this early- nobody was ever at work this early! The office had been completely empty when Matthew had arrived.

"I saw that you were here so I thought I'd take advantage of the empty office and come to visit you." She explained as she climbed into his lap, hooking an arm around his shoulders and kissing him deeply.

Taking a moment to recover from all the licking and sucking that had just happened to his mouth, Matthew leaned back to look at her questioningly. "How did you know I was here?" Mary was probably the most astute person he'd ever met- she could give Sherlock a run for his money- and he liked to find out her methods of obtaining information whenever he could.

"I went into the kitchen and saw that your mug was missing." She pointed her head towards the mug on his desk, already drained of its coffee.

"Impressive." Matthew raised his eyebrows, slightly less afraid of her capabilities now that he'd learned it was something fairly simple which had given him away.

"I am rather clever." Mary said haughtily.

"Well if you're so clever then you would have realised that I wasn't asking you what you were doing in my office, but what you were doing in the office at all." Matthew replied, equally condescending.

"Actually, that's probably your fault for not making yourself clear enough, but you're still quite new here so I'll give you another chance to catch up with the rest of us." Mary pressed on before Matthew could retort. "I thought I'd come in early so that I can get ahead with work. I figured that the Rome-selection committee, whoever it is, would want someone who's hard-working, so it seems like a good idea for me to demonstrate my diligent nature." She explained.

"That is a sensible idea." Matthew nodded slowly. It would make life a lot easier for him if Mary showed that she was in fact the ideal candidate, but in all honesty, a few days' overtime may not be enough to justify him choosing her.

"Who do you think decides?" Mary asked, as she loosened his tie (she hadn't come in here just to chat, after all).

Matthew gulped nervously. "Decides what?" He stalled, trying to think up a suitable fib.

"Decides who goes to Rome, you fool." Mary began unbuttoning his shirt.

"Oh…I don't know." There's that genius legal brain that made you partner of the firm aged 27. Noticing her give him a curious look, he quickly added, "Let's not talk about work." Smiling, he ran his hand up her leg until it disappeared beneath her skirt.

Later that morning, Matthew was sat working at his desk when he received an email alert on his laptop. Clicking on his office mail he saw that Gary's assistant - one of the rare competent assistants on their floor - had emailed regarding the work portfolios of the associates who were in the running for Rome.

Matthew rapidly skimmed over it, just enough to see what it was about, before turning back to his papers. He'd been suddenly inundated with work and didn't want to be distracted by any emails unless they were of the utmost importance. To be fair, though, he would've been able to make some sort of a dent in his workload if he hadn't spent an hour 'not working' with Mary. His forehead wrinkled in concentration as he tried to decipher the opaque legal jargon.

He looked up from his desk a couple of minutes later when there was a knock at the door. He was tempted to ignore it, but decided not to. "Yes?" He called.

Joe, one of the associates in his team, poked his head round the door. "Hi, sorry to bother you." He began.

"No worries, what can I help you with?" Matthew asked with a small smile. Joe was about the same age as Matthew, and was a genial, likeable young chap. He'd been one of the few people who'd made an effort to get to know Matthew when he'd joined the firm- everyone else either shunned him as the ludicrously young and slightly self-righteous partner (Mary had fallen into this category), or had only been nice to him because they fancied him (Toni still fell into this category).

"I just wanted to say that I'm pretty snowed under at the moment, but I'll try and get my portfolio to you by tomorrow lunchtime."

Matthew was rather startled. "How do you know about the portfolios?" He asked. The idea had only passed between Gary and himself!

"The email just went round about it…" Joe explained, wondering why his usually on-the-ball boss seemed so confused.

Panic set in. "That's fine, thanks." Matthew said abruptly, turning to his laptop and clicking on the email again. Joe took this as his cue to leave. "Shit." Matthew said to the empty room.

Dear all,

In order to assist in the decision regarding the placement in Rome, please compile a portfolio of your work at the firm thus far, disregarding your training period. Please find attached a document summarising the format and the information to be included.

Once completed, send your portfolios on to Matthew Crawley for review, preferably by close of business today.

Kind Regards,

Gary Jones.

Matthew checked who the email had been sent to- Dawn, Martin, Joe and …Mary. The message made it rather clear that he was the one who would be casting the decision. Leaping up from his desk, he bolted through his office door and down the corridor to Mary's office. He half-heartedly knocked, to maintain some sense of decorum, as he threw the door open. Dawn whisked round in her chair, expecting to see Mary in one of her fire-breathing moods again.

"Oh, Matthew. Was there something I could help you with?" Dawn asked sweetly, turning in her chair to give him her full attention.

Matthew narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously – she was never this polite. Oh God, he thought. It's going to be like this until next Friday, isn't it? My team sucking up to me 24/7. "Where's Mary?" He asked, seeing that her chair was empty.

"She just popped out." Dawn replied.

"Where?" He prayed that she hadn't stormed out of the office in a rage, upon reading the email.

"To the stationery cupboard…" Dawn was bemused at Matthew's urgency. He was usually so calm!

"When did she go?" Matthew realised he was coming across rather strangely, so tried to sound as disinterested as possible.

"About five minutes ago." She replied, perplexed at this entire line of questioning.

"You're in my way, Matthew." Came a disgruntled voice from behind him. He turned around to see Mary struggling to carry eight lever-arch folders in her arms. He darted out of the way, relieved to see that she hadn't yet read the email. If she had, one of those folders would undoubtedly be embedded in the back of his head by now.

"Dawn, I think Lucy said she needed help with a pro bono case that she's taken on." Matthew said. "Could you go over now and see what she wants?" He asked, knowing that, in her efforts to impress him, she wouldn't refuse. As expected, Dawn obliged, albeit reluctantly. He closed the door behind her and looked back to Mary, who was trying to settle the folders down on her desk without causing too much damage. "Here, let me help." Matthew offered, walking over to her. He positioned himself behind her so that she was in between him and her desk- which had her laptop on it. A quick glance confirmed to Matthew that the email was in fact unread. Now all he had to do was try and get rid of it…

"I didn't know Lucy was doing pro bono work." Mary said, having finally arranged the folders.

"She's not. She's not even in today. I just wanted to see you." Matthew smiled, spinning her around so that her back was now to her laptop.

"Matthew, it's only been two hours! You're like a horny eighteen-year-old." Mary whispered teasingly.

"I only wanted a kiss." Matthew pulled out the puppy-dog eyes. He wasn't lying anymore, at least- he could do with a kiss from Mary at any time of day.

Mary decided to humour him, especially as she stood to gain from it too.

Matthew tried to keep his eyes open so that he could sneakily reach behind her and delete the email, but it was pretty difficult to focus on anything else when he could feel her arms slide under his blazer, her warm body pressed against him and her delicious mouth on his. Trying to think of something wholly unsexy so that he wouldn't give into the kiss (he settled on David Cameron), he managed to send the email to her trashcan.

Wary that Dawn was likely to return at any moment, Mary broke away. "You should probably go." She said softly, dreamily gazing into his eyes.

"I probably should." Matthew was slightly unnerved at the look she was giving him- but in a good way. He always caught himself looking at her in a way that was incongruous with their whole 'casual' relationship, but he'd presumed that it was just him. Seeing her look at him in the same way seemed significant.

"Thanks for stopping by." Mary gave him one of her irresistibly naughty smiles.

"Anytime." Matthew smirked, leaning in for another kiss (which he could properly enjoy, this time).

After leaving Mary's office, Matthew made his way to the assistants' pool.

"Toni, could I ask you a favour?" He said quietly enough so that the others wouldn't hear. The young girl looked up at him with almost the same dreamy-eyed expression that Mary had just had. Swallowing uncomfortably at the girl's obvious desire for him, he asked, "If I email you a message, could you send it to Mary in a new email? And don't mention that it's from me. It's confidential and she's not meant to know its source." He explained, realising that he didn't make much sense but that Toni probably wouldn't care.

"Of course!" Toni nodded enthusiastically, her high ponytail bobbing up and down. "Is there anything else you need?" She smiled coyly.

Matthew supposed that the average boss would be taking advantage of all these people sucking up to him, but it actually made him feel quite uneasy. "No, that'll be all. I'll send the message to you now." He smiled at her gratefully before stepping away.

"OK, thanks for asking me!" Toni said stupidly, obviously brimming with happiness that Matthew had chosen her to carry out such an important task.

"Er…you're welcome…" Matthew replied uncertainly.

Back at his desk, he sent Toni the following message:

Dear Mary,

It appears that you were omitted from an email which circulated earlier today- apologies. Please compile a portfolio of your work at the firm, disregarding your training. Attached is a document detailing the required format and information to be included.

Once completed (preferably by close of business today), please leave the portfolio with me, and I will pass it on for review for the Rome placement.

Kind regards,

Toni Hunningford.

He instructed Toni to hand the portfolio in to him upon receiving it from Mary. He'd chosen Toni for three reasons- firstly, he knew that she'd willingly fulfil his requests; secondly, she wasn't his assistant so Mary wouldn't suspect his involvement; and thirdly, Mary disliked Toni enough that she wouldn't try and extract information from her about the Rome decision.

Sighing, he leant back in his chair. He didn't like messy situations.

A/N: neither do we, Matthew! I know the whole boss/employee relationship is a bit controversial, but like I said, I don't want this to be taken too seriously. I haven't decided where this fic is going yet, so it may be a while before another update. Let me know your thoughts!