Falling For The Lawyer (17 page)

“You missed a great game. A great game.” Peter Farrer effused.

JP and Peter chatted for a few minutes about the respective strengths and weaknesses of various football teams. Meanwhile, Alex began to fidget and glance around; JP had an office to run and yet he seemed completely comfortable about whiling away his time with his PA’s father so that he could discuss football!

“Hang on, I’ve just remembered something,” JP declared and reached into his suit jacket for his wallet. After fishing around within it he took out two tickets of some kind and thrust them into Peter Farrer’s hand.

“What are these?”

“They’re for the A-league match at the stadium on Saturday night,” JP explained.

“I can’t accept them,,” Peter protested. “That’s far too generous.”

Alex could tell her father was bowled over by the gesture.

“Of course you can take them,” JP insisted. “They’re corporate box seats so you’ll have a great view. Do you know anyone who’d like the second ticket?”

“Of course, but I can’t …”

“Peter, take them. Please. I’d like you to have them.”

Alex watched as her father gave JP a short, sharp male nod conveying all the gratitude and delight he was feeling. But then JP was excusing himself and without looking at Alex again he disappeared through the door behind them to the back offices beyond reception.

“At the ripe old age of seventy I may have to take back all the things I’ve said about lawyers.” Peter Farrer then turned to Alex and added, “Particularly if my daughter is going to be one.”

Alex looked long and hard at her father. Was this why he’d arrived in her office that morning—to let her know she had his support?

“Nothing’s settled yet, Dad. It may not happen.”

“Well that’s all right, too,” he replied simply. “So long as you know you have your mother and me behind you, no matter what you decide … and that goes for any part of your life.”

“Thank you,” Alex whispered croakily, guessing he was referring to more than just her career choices.

“Your mother told me you’re unhappy. She said you feel we’ve pushed you into certain things,” Peter explained uncertainly. He wasn’t adept at heart to hearts, particularly with his daughter.

“I was unfair to Mum on the phone yesterday,” Alex confessed as she wiped away tears that had sprung up from nowhere. “It isn’t her fault. None of this is her fault, or yours. You and Mum …”

“Alexandra, let me say my bit,” Peter interrupted. “I’ve been thinking and your mother and I have been talking. The thing is, you may be right. You’re a good girl. You’re mother and I are so proud. We just want the best for you. You were our miracle baby when we’d long given up any hope of children and so you became the centre of our universe. And I know we’re elderly and old fashioned. We don’t really understand the world you move in and to be honest, I think we’ve been too hard on you—pushing you in certain directions. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Alex nodded, overwhelmed at the enormity of the admission from her proud, single-minded father.

“You need to make up your own mind about who and what’s best for you. We know you’ll make the right choice and we’ll be there whatever you decide. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“You know already, don’t you Dad. You know there’s not going to be a wedding with Simon. It’s over—as of last night.

Peter Farrer nodded quickly. “You’re mother and I guessed that would happen and that’s okay. As I said, we just want you to be happy and we’re there for you—always.”

Alex wrapped her arms around her father and clung onto him as he hugged her back. But then he was shuffling off to the lift. He had said what he wanted to say from the bottom of his heart and with great love but he would linger no longer, uncomfortable with emotional displays.

Lost in troubled thoughts Alex turned and wandered through the door to the offices behind reception, and even in her distraction noticed straight away that most of the workstations were empty. She wondered where everyone was and then she heard JP’s voice; it could be very loud at times. He was leading a robust discussion in the conference room. Picking up the odd word here and there Alex guessed the topic was rugby. Plans were being made and strategies laid down for the match the following day: litigation versus commercial or in other words, JP McKenzie versus Justin Murphy. Without hesitation she walked as quickly as possible past the open conference room door. She was in no mood for office rugby matches or another run in with JP.

“Alex! I need you in here!” JP shouted above the general din. She stopped dead in her tracks before turning around and walking reluctantly into the room, cursing the radar he threw out whenever she was around.

Lawyers and PAs were gathered. There was a lot of laughing, finger pointing, wise cracks and shouting about who should or shouldn’t be on the team for the match against the commercial section of the firm. JP had a notebook in his hand and was leaning on the lectern in one corner of the room. As she entered he looked across at her with little acknowledgement.

“Okay. Alex is here so we’re up to nine,” he shouted over the light-hearted cacophony of noise.

“Who wants girls’ germs on the team? Not me!” Michael Porter, one of the junior lawyers shouted as he winked at Alex teasingly.

“Now listen,” JP announced with mock impatience, a wry smile on his lips. “Commercial think they’ve got all the endurance and that litigators are just a bunch of mangy, twenty-second sprinters. I know Alex can swim fifty lengths of a swimming pool without missing a beat so I’ll have at least one staff member who won’t keel over with a heart attack—unlike most of you blokes.” With that there was an onslaught of boos and cheers.

“Do I have any say in this?” Alex asked, just loud enough to be heard by JP over the racket. Lifting his eyebrows he gave her a stern, slow shake of the head.

Alex nodded blankly as if to say ‘I thought so’, and turning on her heel walked out of the room.

It was useless to argue.

When JP wanted something, nothing and nobody could stop him. He’d decided to make her play rugby the next day, despite what had happened between them the night before and despite the fact he would guess that rugby was out of her comfort zone. But knowing JP that was precisely why he was making her do it.

“So you’re still here!” Vera Boyd drawled with a humourless smile that clashed with the snakiness in her voice.

“Still where?” Alex shot back in irritation.

She knew she shouldn’t have gone in search of Vera, but she’d returned from lunch to find JP had disappeared from the office after his rugby recruitment drive leaving only a few jobs for her, one of which involved lengthy and convoluted amendments to Mark Jackson’s statement. She’d completed those and unable to bear sitting around and thinking about the events overtaking her personal life, had resolved to ask Vera if she needed help with anything, despite her better instincts.

“Still in Jonathan McKenzie’s office?”

“Clearly.” Alex was too tired to conceal the sarcasm in her tone.

“Well, I hope you enjoy it then,” Vera tossed at her in a bored fashion. Only then did Alex notice that all the threat had left Vera’s voice since they had last spoken. She wondered whether she should be worried about that.

“You’ll have your time cut out then. I don’t envy you. I can’t understand a thing that man says or does.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you noticed he speaks in riddles?”

“Not really. His instructions are brief but usually pretty clear.”

“And as for his handwriting, I can’t read a word of it. He’s quite impossible to work for generally, you know. He shouts out of his office when he wants something. He gets impatient if you don’t understand what he’s talking about instantly. He wants me to change everything David Griffen and I set up. I just can’t work for someone like that,” she finished primly.

“What are you saying, Vera?” Alex’s pulse was racing as once again her future seemed to be hanging in the balance. “Are you moving away from JP’s office?”

Vera gawked at Alex as if she was the stupidest person she’d ever met. “Don’t you know yet? Jonathan called me this morning. He said that in light of my expertise as a high-level PA he wanted me to work for Caroline Cartwright and settle her in.”

Alex gaped at Vera dumbstruck.

“There’s no need to look like that, Alex,” Vera went on superciliously. “You should be grateful your job with Jonathan is secure.” With that she turned back to her computer screen, giving Alex the clear signal that the conversation was over.

Alex wandered back towards her desk in a stupor.

What on earth was JP’s game plan?

Wouldn’t he have leapt upon a PA reshuffle opportunity to get her out of his office after his ultimatum of the night before? Yet moving Vera sideways to Caroline’s office and making her his sole PA didn’t seem consistent with that. She ran her hands through her hair in confusion, unable to make out what was going on at all.

Hearing JP’s voice in his office she picked up Mark Jackson’s amended affidavit and wandered in. Her eyes were lowered to the document, double-checking the formal parts on the front page, as she approached his desk.

“I thought you might want this back straight away …” she began as she looked up from the page in front of her but then stopped dead.

Perching on the side of JP’s desk was without a doubt the most stunningly beautiful woman Alex had ever seen in the flesh, and somehow she knew instinctively that it had to be Caroline Cartwright.

She had the peaches and cream skin that only women of the highest northern latitudes could retain. Her hair was platinum in colour and hung like silk to her shoulders. She was tall and slender in her fitted silver-blue suit and she looked across at Alex with opaque grey eyes, regarding her with the quiet composure of a cat.

JP was standing very close to her; the two of them had been talking in hushed tones. Alex was mortified she’d disturbed their private moment.

“I’m sorry,” she gushed, feeling herself turn pink. “I didn’t know … I didn’t realise …” But she couldn’t finish her sentence. She had to take a deep breath to steady herself before she lost her cool completely.

JP straightened. Both he and Caroline were staring at her and Alex had never felt more self-conscious in her life.

“Alex, I’d like you to meet Caroline Cartwright. Alex is my PA—for the time being,” he added gratuitously, his expression remaining stony and distant.

“Hello,” Alex responded.

“Hello, Alex,” Caroline replied pleasantly.

She had the voice of a woman who’d been raised with every privilege life could offer. It was lilting, with a musical, unhurried cadence and Alex suspected it had commanded the attention of prime ministers and royalty alike.

“It’s Mark Jackson’s affidavit,” Alex explained, approaching JP just close enough to reach out and hand him the document. It was quivering a little with the tremble in her hand and he flashed a knowing look at her as he took it.

“Thank you,” he acknowledged quietly, searching her face before she turned and rushed towards the door. But Caroline Cartwright’s tinkly, amused comment reached Alex’s ears before she was barely through it, “Funny little mouse!”

With that Alex covered her mouth and ran towards the ladies bathroom. She thought she might be torn apart by the burgeoning ache in her chest as she finally burst into a cubicle, locked the door and lowered herself onto the closed toilet lid, fighting for breath.

Oh God, to have a woman like Caroline hand down such a contemptuous judgment of her, and in front of JP too. A funny little mouse: Alex had never been so humiliated in all her life.

And burying her face in her hands she promptly burst into tears, the unbearable pain lashing her like countless whip strokes that she couldn’t escape, no matter how much she twisted and turned.

All day her insides had been coiling up into a taut spool of unhappiness, self-blame and despair. And now her life was crashing down around her.

Simon was gone, devastated by her sudden demolition of their long relationship. Her parents too, deeply hurt by her professed unhappiness, had set her free and withdrawn. Next it would be JP who would vanish from her life—just as he’d promised the night before.

She’d finally found the freedom to be who she wanted to be, only to discover that she was about to end up lonelier and unhappier than she’d ever thought possible. She hardly knew herself, cut loose as JP had said from everything that had anchored and defined her until that point.

Fighting back deep, painful sobs Alex bit down on her knuckle to silence herself, swaying backwards and forwards in repetitive motion. Gradually, the searing agony of total emotional breakdown eased and an eerie quiet calm replaced the tumult. Little by little clear, rational convictions began to fill the vacuum that heartache had carved out within her.

For so long she’d been immersed in being someone’s daughter, fiancée or employee she’d hardly ever thought of herself as someone with an independent existence. And yet there she was, sitting in the ladies’ bathroom of all places, facing the life-changing revelation that the person she should have been looking to all along for the strength she needed to be herself, was herself.

Caroline’s stinging belittlement had simply been the straw that had broken the camel’s back. But Alex vowed she would never again rely on anyone else to distinguish her. She would rise or fall on her own merits and on her own terms. In every part of her life she would be true to herself.

She sighed resignedly then. But for JP her old life would not have splintered around her. He’d pushed and pushed until finally she was forced to see that everything she’d built around herself was a house of cards. She wished she could feel angry with him but she couldn’t. She could only ever love him for seeing her for what she was and not accepting anything less from her. He believed in her, more profoundly than she’d ever believed in herself—until that moment.

And with that belief came the realisation that she had fallen in love with JP McKenzie.

She loved the way he could read her like a book. She loved that he laughed at her when she was getting far too serious. She loved the way he made her feel when he held her, when he looked at her with those incredible eyes. But most of all, she loved that she finally knew what it felt like to want to spend the rest of your life with one person.