Falling For The Lawyer (16 page)

“Recently,” Alex echoed hopelessly, hating herself for the effect his news was having upon her. She was engaged to Simon and this man was her boss. How could his personal life mean anything to her?

“Strictly between you and me, the original plan was that Caroline was going to head up litigation here. I was to stay in the UK and run the London office. Somehow we were going to try and maintain a long distance relationship. The fact that we believed we could do that probably didn’t bode well for the long term. Anyway, we split up a few months ago and she decided to stay in London after all so I offered to come here to get litigation on its feet. It suited me anyway because I wanted an opportunity to work with Justin and Adam.”

“I see,” Alex whispered, nodding distractedly. “How long is Caroline staying?”

But what she didn’t ask and what she really wanted to know was whether he was about to disappear back to London and out of her life as suddenly as he’d blown into it?

“I haven’t spoken to her but I’m told she wants to join the office here permanently. She’s arriving tomorrow to discuss it with my partners and me. I had no idea she would do this, Alex. Not even the other partners knew until she phoned Justin this morning. But what I really need you to know is that my relationship with her is over, no matter what you might think to the contrary.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“Of course I have to explain,” he replied, exasperation sharpening his tone. “There’s something happening between us Alex and denying it won’t make it go away.”

“Oh God, stop it!” Alex blocked her ears with her hands, her heart beating wildly as the tension mounted painfully at her temples. “You’ve let me know about Caroline and I appreciate it. But could you please leave now? You shouldn’t be standing here in my hallway like this with all the lights off.”

JP eyed her thoughtfully as he slipped a hand deep into one of his pockets. But then he shifted his stance and was reaching out for the door handle.

Alex could hardly breathe as she watched him. He was going to leave her, just as she’d asked. Within seconds she would be alone again, safe from the abyss of desire and temptation he’d been leading her inexorably towards. But then his hand stilled on the door handle, his eyes dark and fathomless, the hard angles of his jawline more rigid than ever. He leaned towards her a little and instinctively she drew back against the wall.

“First you have to tell me you don’t want me to stay.”

“I don’t want you to stay,” she whispered, her voice rasping as she basked in the heat of the desire burning white-hot in his eyes.

“Liar,” he declared. “Tell me you don’t want me to touch you.”

“No, I don’t want you to,” she replied, shaking her head quickly but then a gasp broke free from her lips as his warm hands slid around the cool skin at her waist. His eyes lowered then as he shamelessly drank in the curves of her figure, looking at her near-naked body in a way no man had ever looked at her before.

Her eyelids dropped shut as she desperately tried to shut JP out so that she could remember who she was, what her responsibilities were, and then act decisively to counter the path he was leading her down. But closing her eyes only deepened her confusion as fingertips drifted away from her waist to trace a sensual, suggestive trail backwards and forwards, just above her bikini line.

“JP, you really need to leave now,” she whispered and opened her eyes but it was too late. His other hand was now sliding decisively around her waist; he had no intention of going anywhere.

“I made a decision earlier tonight, Alex,” he whispered with a slow shake of his head. “I’m not backing off from this anymore because we belong together and you know it.”

Alex shook her head in anxious denial but his body pressed closer to hers, now shaking uncontrollably. She watched his hard, poised mouth, willing it to meet hers as she swallowed, her lips parting involuntarily as his thumb trailed across their shape in a gentle, yet proprietary gesture.

“You’ve completely done my head in, you know that don’t you?” he murmured, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable as his other hand slid up her bare back and underneath her bikini strap, a look of deep satisfaction shining in his eyes as he watched her helpless quiver at his touch.

“We can’t do this, JP! I don’t want this.”

“Perhaps you want this then.”

His mouth brushed against hers very lightly before he drew away to watch her reaction. And evidently satisfied with what he saw he caught and released her mouth again, and then over and over, tantalising her without pity.

And right then Alex knew that JP knew she’d never, ever been kissed like that before; not with such provocative ease, tempting her further and further into a black hole of sweet, heady need for what he could make her feel that night, if she would only give in to what was happening between them, once and for all.

But she wouldn’t do that. Her mind reached out to Simon and their years of commitment that had nothing to do with the tempest of feeling and sensation engulfing her that night. But JP was watching her with such fierce intensity again she couldn’t hold a thought for more than a split second; each one was drifting away as quickly as it had arrived as she watched an unrelenting and hypnotic pinprick of light emerge from his dark eyes.

Finally his gaze dropped, moving remorselessly across her figure before his hands lifted to cradle her face, tilting it purposefully towards his. And with a barely audible groan his mouth seized hers, demanding that her own yield and succumb to his immediately. In the next moment their mouths were searching each other’s and in mindless, disembodied response Alex heard a moan rise up from deep within herself as she responded with uncontained fervour. On and on it went, an exquisite journey of discovery as their tongues met and he sighed helplessly into her mouth as Alex revelled in the power she knew she held over him.

But she was equally lost within his power too, for heat was raging in waves across her skin, plummeting like a fireball of need and desire into her lower stomach and thighs as his hips pinned her against the wall and shifted restlessly against hers. And with their mouths clinging together, his hands buried themselves in her hair as hers crept stealthily beneath his shirt to explore the depression below his broad chest muscles and the ridges of his flat, hard stomach. In the next moment she’d found the button and zipper of his jeans and was unfastening them as swiftly and decisively as if she had unfastened them a hundred times before.

And it was then Alex knew JP had found a woman within her she’d never known existed before. A woman she feared and yet understood. A woman he knew was his soul mate.

JP tore his lips from hers and cradled her head in his hands.

“Wait, Alex,” JP panted, his chest heaving with tormented desire. “I don’t want to go on with this unless you can tell me it’s over with him once and for all.”

But then they both jumped violently. Alex’s home phone was ringing out into the night like a jarring peal of accusation. They stared at each other as mutual acknowledgement seeped through their expressions: Simon.

“Don’t answer it!” JP’s hips pinned her against the wall with fresh purpose.

Alex squirmed uselessly to be free of his weight. “Please, let me go,” she begged. “It’s Simon. If I don’t answer he’ll know something is wrong between us. I can’t do that to him.”

“Something is wrong,” JP snarled. “You’re in love with me, Alex, not him. Choose between us—now.”

Was she being ripped in two? God help her but it felt like that. On the other end of the phone was a man who for years had loved the compliant, perfect Alex she’d offered up to him and the world. But in her arms was the man who saw her just as she was, complex and so very imperfect, yet he wanted her body and soul. It was then she knew that her choice was not about JP or Simon, it was about choosing herself—once and for all.

“Let me go, JP!” she cried out, unable to shift his weight and becoming frenzied as she realised Simon would not wait on much longer.

JP withdrew his arms from around her waist and stepped back. Alex rushed to the phone as it rang out and reached for the receiver. But her fingertips paused on top of it as she was struck down by indecision.

Her eyes swept in panic to JP who was standing just metres from her, his face set with grim, obdurate lines as he fastened his jeans, slowly and deliberately. They were frozen in time, the phone ringing out as his gaze searched hers savagely. Then he muttered words which she knew would chill her to the bone for as long as she lived: “If you answer that phone it’s over for us, and I won’t be back.”

But Alex’s hand had already closed around the receiver and was lifting it slowly to her ear.

The day was already heating up like a pressure cooker even though it was barely eight-thirty in the morning. Making things worse was the oppressively hot westerly wind howling up Bridge Street as Alex wandered towards her office building, exhaustion settling like lead weight into every muscle of her body. For after her torrid half-hour phone call with Simon the night before she’d had no sleep at all.

Tossing and turning all night her mind had played back the endless round of blurted apologies and explanations. Yet by the end of the phone call nothing had been resolved between them except the most serious thing of all: their long relationship was coming to an end.

They’d decided to meet in the foyer of her building after work that day so that they could go somewhere private and talk things through. But Alex knew there was no turning back.

Simon was devoted and decent but he would never be the man for her. And she would never be the woman for him. He’d fallen in love with a dream girl and for three long years she’d let him live the dream. She would never forgive herself for doing that to him because now the dream was lifting like a summer morning’s mist. But she couldn’t pretend for a minute longer that she was anything more than who she was: an ordinary girl, falling in love for the first time, longing to stop dreaming and start living—the ordinary girl JP had noticed when she was still well hidden under layers of muddy, bedraggled clothing.

Alex hesitated outside the building. Simon’s misery weighed heavily upon her spirits and she felt totally ill equipped to walk into an office dominated by JP’s phone calls, clients and staff. As always he would be like an omnipotent, inescapable presence within and it took every ounce of her willpower to step into the foyer’s perpetually revolving doors.

When minutes later she walked out of the lift at level twenty-three the last person she expected to see was waiting for her in reception. Her father sat perched on the edge of a chair looking small and uneasy amidst the elaborate décor of Griffen Murphy Lawyers.

Alex was dumbfounded.

Her parents never visited her at work, not even when they were visiting the city. She’d sometimes wondered whether they might be intimidated by the severe, corporate surroundings of her law firm. For even though her father had run a successful building business for forty years, he and Mary avoided busy, crowded places now, preferring a quiet life at home surrounded by their family.

Peter Farrer struggled onto his wobbly knees when he saw Alex walking towards him. Holding out his arms he pulled her close.

“This is a nice surprise,” Alex smiled down at her diminutive father. “Where’s Mum?” They were rarely apart.

“She’s at the dentist, poor love. I can’t stay too long.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes, yes. Just a routine check-up.”

“Oh okay, that’s good,” Alex nodded, still wondering why he’d made the effort to come in to see her. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No I’m fine. I’ve just had one.” Peter Farrer was looking around himself anxiously.

Alex bit down on her bottom lip. Something was bothering her father and she was about to ask him what it was when the lift doors opened and JP McKenzie sauntered into reception rolling an enormous trolley of folders behind him.

Alex froze, helplessly railing at herself to reel in her gaze as she drank in the sight of him, so incredibly gorgeous in his navy suit and open necked white shirt—how could she ever have thought his looks ordinary?

JP noticed Alex and an unreadable expression crossed his face. There was a hesitation in his gait momentarily but he then changed direction to move towards her and her father. At that point Peter Farrer saw him too and Alex noticed the delighted smile that spread across her father’s face.

JP held out his hand and shook Peter’s warmly, keeping his look well averted from Alex’s. It was a stab in the heart but she knew JP would be true to his word of the night before: she was history and he didn’t care if she knew it.

“Are you going to charge me for that handshake?” Peter Farrer asked, his eyes shining teasingly.

“Aye, but don’t worry. Family of staff are entitled to a discount,” JP quipped back quickly, his mouth playing with a smirk before adding, “Four hundred an hour for you.”

“Oh no!” Alex’s father responded, laughing brightly.

“I didn’t think you’d be back until lunchtime,” Alex broke in, her voice barely concealing its nervous tremor.

JP turned towards her slowly as though reluctant to expend the effort on the movement, his cutting look finally slashing a swathe of agony through her insides. “I saw the client again early this morning. I can do the rest from here. How’s Mrs Farrer?” JP turned back to Alex’s father.

“She’s well. She would have liked to have seen Alex too but she’s in the dentist’s chair.”

“Why don’t you bring her here afterwards? Have you seen where Alex works, through those doors?”

“No we haven’t but we’d better not today. We have a train to catch.”

“Maybe some other time then.”

“That would be terrific,” Peter replied before changing tack and asking whether JP had seen the soccer on the TV late the night before, a mutual passion they’d discovered when JP had been at his home.

JP flashed the briefest of blue-eyed looks at Alex who could feel the blush spreading up her neck, through her cheeks and into the roots of her hair. “Ah … no,” he began hesitantly. “It wasn’t on until after midnight and I was … fully occupied at that time.”