Thanks holderoftheheart, your reviews very much appreciated. Glad you were laughing by the end. :)

Here's chapter fifteen.

Important realisations

Eventually the moment passed and the day at Mia's office ended. In many ways the day had been a sad one in that Maya had finally found out what happened to her mother. Mia had also explained her plan of discovering whose fault it was; she'd already tracked Grossberg down and Redd White was in progress; but proving a little more difficult to find.

"Well Maya, I've actually had a pretty good day, I was a bit bothered about you coming here but you've been no trouble at all." Mia said to her sister, as she turned around to lock her office for the night.

Maya laughed, "Yeah, no trouble at all except for looking through all your case files, knocking over your tea and eating all your biscuits."

Mia couldn't help but smile at this, while it was true that Maya had done quite a few things that had annoyed her slightly it had been wonderful to spend the day with her sister, despite her messy tenancies and clumsiness . "Okay, true but we still had fun right?" Mia asked as they walked down the corridor, both of them smiling..

"Of course, if you forget all that stuff about Mum…" Mia now saw Maya's smile fade a little.

"I know…I'm still sorry you found out like that. I was just so unsure of how to tell you and trying to get my head around it at the same time." Mia glanced up and nodded as Robert Hammond passed them quickly, his briefcase swaying back and forth in his haste. He acknowledged her too with a small nod which she returned.

Neither Mia nor Maya said anything for a moment, Mia knowing it was inevitable that Maya would instantly ask who he was once they were out of earshot.

Maya did not disappoint with her next question: "So who was he?"

"He's just an attorney who works here. I don't even know him that well, we only met this morning." She replied, knowing Maya's next question would be an immature one asking if Mia fancied him or not.

"So, do you like him?" Maya asked her, once again not disappointing Mia's expectations. "You've gone red."

"Of course I don't Maya! Like I said, I barely know him." She chose to ignore Maya's comment about her cheeks. Especially as they'd only turned that colour because of the area his eyes had darted to this morning. "Oh and he's a colleague!" she added in a professional manner trying to nip Maya's rather inappropriate comment in the bud.

"Ooooh, sure." Maya said before turning and doing a rather obvious wink "You turn red for no reason."

"Who's turning red?" a voice from behind butted in.

"Mia is!" Maya said turning round to face Mr. Armando who Mia could only assume had been listening for a while but had chosen to not make his presence known.

Typical, she thought, he would turn up in the middle of a conversation like this one. Mia stopped and chose not to turn around as her cheeks grew redder (if that was possible).

"Who's an eve's dropper now?" She asked, with a hint of smugness coming through, though she knew it would not bother him. After all, it would be awfully hypocritical of him to mind.

"How do you know that it wasn't a rhetorical question for myself? It seems you're the eve's dropper for answering." Diego replied, not even trying to hide how pleased he was with himself.

"Ha, very clever. You just walk around asking "Who's turning red" to no one, obviously. Silly me." Mia said, shooting Maya a look for laughing at his comeback. "You got me, I guess." She now grabbed Mia's arm not wanting to prolong the conversation. If Maya's giggling was anything to go by, uncomfortable questions would be asked once she and her sister were alone again.

He grinned boyishly at them both as the three of them stood out of the pavement of the law firm in what had now become rather sunny weather.

"Of course I do…Well except the fact I was eve's drooping so go on, what's your sister blushing at?" he asked Maya, despite Mia's presence.

"Robert Hammond walked past and her cheeks went red." Maya replied smiling back up at him. "You know…I swear I've heard his name before."

Silently cursing Maya's betrayal in her head Mia now glanced at her sister realizing she'd the exact same feeling when meeting him. "Thanks for that Maya, and I had that feeling too…"

"Perhaps you both frolicked with the gorgeous Mr. Hammond in some perfect dream you both had? He is the most dreamiest of lawyers, after all." Diego suggested, one eyebrow raised, clearly enjoying this.

.

"Yes, very amusing and helpful." Mia added, restraining her laugh. She couldn't possibly let him know she found his cool sense of sarcasm amusing at a time like this.

"Well, the chances are-" he began "-You heard about some case where he defended. Yes, that's right: Not only is he a fine specimen of a man" he said, shooting them both a significant look, "but also a rather excellent attorney. I mean, I can't say I particularly like his, but he's good at his job. He did…let me think…SL-5, DL-2, DL-6, though these are just cases off the top of my head."

"Wait, DL-6?" Mia asked, ignoring his sarcastic comments "He was the attorney for that case?"

Diego, noticing her tone and dropping the sarcasm replied, "I'm pretty sure he was, yeah."

Mia's eyes unfocused as the relevancy of this occurred only to her. Maya had likely forgotten the name of the case where her mother had channelled. Mia however, had not. Deciding not to show her emotions at this point, she looked over at Maya.

"We've really got to get going okay?" she said, but to both of them. "I'll see you tomorrow." Mia directed at Diego, fighting the urge to run back inside and see if she was in fact correct. Could the man who'd hand she's shook only this morning, be the same man who'd ruined her Mother's life? How could he look her in the eye after doing that?

Except he didn't, a voice in her head corrected her. This was entirely true she realized; as soon as he'd learnt who she was his eyes had flashed to her chest. That's no better really though is it? The voice said again, also rightly. She looked down, her eyes skirting around the collar of her shirt before moving across to- My Magatama she thought, He wasn't looking at my chest; he just recognized it after seeing my mothers all those years ago.