Legally Addicted (3 page)

His good opinion of her could, therefore, be of no consequence. His staggering lie by omission was something she intended to take up with him privately, and as soon as she got the chance.

Georgia gave in to the urge to scowl at him.

‘I’ll have to look at my case list and get back to you. I’m not sure I need any more clients.’

Llewellyn gave a cough, his face turning a pinkish colour.

‘I, we, I mean John and I, couldn’t help but notice, how well — that last night — well, you and Georgia seem to know each other, outside the office as it were. That won’t be a problem, will it, Bradley?’

Brad leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully pressing his fingertips together. Then he looked up in Georgia’s direction.

‘I can’t speak for Georgia, but it won’t be a problem from my side — Georgia, what about you?’

She averted her eyes.

‘Er, no. It won’t be a problem from my side either,’ she lied.

It was a problem, though.

A big one.

Chapter Three

Georgia sat at her desk with her head in her hands. Before she left the partners’ meeting, and once she got over the shock of learning that their two firms would be merging, she had managed to pull herself together enough to say something lame like, ‘Congratulations, Brad, welcome aboard’. She shook hands with him, and then escaped back to her office.

Then it hit her. As a full equity partner, Brad Spencer would have an influence over the partnership equal to that of Dayton and Llewellyn, effectively making him senior to her. So, extrapolating on that, last night she may as well have gone and shagged her boss.

Well, as good as.

‘I assume from that pose of utter jubilation you’ve heard that we’ll be moving?’

The voice was Miriam’s. Georgia sat up and folded her arms. Her secretary held a clipboard with some sort of checklist pinned to it.

Georgia realised she should have seen this coming. There were only three corner offices in the triangular shaped building rented by the firm, and
the
Brad Spencer could hardly be asked to work in a cubicle and meet with his glittering client list in the shared conference room.

‘I don’t suppose we can expect the famous Brad Spencer to slum it out in the open-plan, now can we?’

‘No, not really. Sorry, Georgia.’ Miriam’s face had screwed up in an apologetic expression that was part sympathy, part trepidation, as if she was expecting Georgia to explode. But there was no point taking her frustrations out on Miriam. It was a backwards step for her too. Not that she had an office, but she would no doubt have preferred to keep her current spot right outside Georgia’s door than be pushed back out into the middle of the open-plan.

‘But if you look on the bright side, Georgia, having Brad Spencer around will give us girls something decent to look at. He’s going to raise the attractiveness profile of the men around here by quite a bit.’

Until now, there hadn’t been a man in the office capable of distracting Georgia. Dayton and Llewellyn would be hitting retirement in a few years, and the only other men consisted of a group of middle-aged lawyers who had all but given up on making partner and were working on enlarging their middle-aged spread instead. Aside from them, there were just two spotty part-time clerks who were both still at uni.

Georgia stood up and looked around the spacious office, wondering how much longer she had left to enjoy her workspace. Compared to the cubbyholes out in the open-plan, the office she had only recently moved into was positively palatial.

‘How soon is the shift?’

‘Pretty much straight away — the movers are coming in to do the job overnight.’

Georgia sighed.

‘Oh well, I had better enjoy the view while I can, I guess.’

Miriam didn’t reply; she was already striding away like a guided missile locked on to her next task.

Georgia turned towards the wall-to-ceiling window and braced herself against it with the heels of her hands, as if she hoped to affect a tranquillity transfer from the cool glass.

At least the view out across Sydney city never failed to inspire her. It was a metropolis equal to any in the world, and yet Sydney had been erected out of nothing, in little over two hundred years, on the backs of convict and poor immigrant labour. It was uplifting, and in many ways it mirrored Georgia’s own spectacular rise. She sucked in a breath. Sydney was still a city where anything was possible.

‘Are you okay?’

She hadn’t noticed Brad slip into her office, and now he was standing at her side looking out at her incredible view.

Scratch that.

He had slipped into his office, and was looking out at his incredible view.

She turned to face him, his annoyingly high cheek-boned features and brooding black eyes sending her mood plunging back to the new low it had found after Dayton and Llewellyn’s bombshell announcement.

‘Since you asked, I’m not okay, actually. I’ve just found out that this office, which I worked for — no, make that slogged for — is going to be yours, and I’m back out there in the office mosh pit.’

She stabbed a finger in the direction of the open-plan area in the middle of the floor rented by Dayton Llewellyn, where phones rang constantly, and even hushed conversations between colleagues were a constant distraction.

Georgia had coveted her ascension to this particular piece of office real estate ever since she joined the firm. Having made partner she felt like she had reached the summit, and now, all thanks to Brad, she was slipping back down as if she had grasped a greasy pole instead.

‘Not that you’d have any appreciation of what it is to have to slog for anything, Mr Silver Spoon.’

Brad’s head jerked back as if she had given him a quick poke in the eye. Then his eyes narrowed.

‘Actually, I think I do. My parents might have paid my way through law school, so I didn’t have to take out a loan like most students, and granted it was easier for me, not having to worry about money, but they don’t give coursework credits for upfront payment. I studied my arse off, same as you. And my parents never gave up trying to entice me into the family firm.’

‘Poor little rich boy encountered resistance from mummy and daddy. My heart bleeds.’

Brad shook his head, but otherwise didn’t rise to the jibe.

‘Believe me, I had no idea Roger and John planned to give me your office. You stay where you are. I’ll take one of the others — problem solved.’

He said it like he was Mr Reasonable and she was a toddler, kicking her legs in the air, having a tantrum. All that magnanimity in the face of her best efforts at provocation, fully justified provocation in her opinion, did nothing to improve Georgia’s humour. He could be Mr Reasonable all he liked; it wasn’t going to help.

‘There are no other offices. Well, nothing bigger than a stationery cupboard that is, and if I don’t give this office up to you, Dayton and Llewellyn will accuse me of being unco-operative.’

‘I am sorry about that, Georgia, but I’d be happy to take up the issue of renting more space at the next partner’s meeting, so it should only be temporary.’

Brad yanked at his tie, pulling it loose, and Georgia took some satisfaction in noting that playing the cool and composed better man was taking its toll. The friction at his neck, however, had the effect of releasing a whiff of his woody aftershave that sent her mind rattling backwards in time.

Woody.

Crass, Georgia, real crass.

But for goodness sake, why did this man have to send her mind to places it had no business going in a professional setting, which reminded her…

‘Why the hell didn’t you mention this merger last night?’

‘I didn’t want to steal your thunder. That party was for you. You earned it. Dayton, Llewellyn and I all agreed we should hold off announcing the merger until after the party. If news of it had gotten out, well, you know how it is.’

Georgia knew only too well how it was. A small boutique firm like Dayton Llewellyn merging practices with a celebrity divorce lawyer, and a Spencer to boot, would have completely usurped her own partnership celebration, but she wasn’t letting him off with that. That was only half the story, and he knew it.

‘You didn’t have to tell the whole world, but you sure as hell could have told me.’

Brad’s mouth curled at the corners, spreading out into a grin.

‘And where would we have ended up then?’

She glared at him, speechless. He knew precisely where it would have ended up, and there wouldn’t have been a super-king size bed involved.

‘Exactly my point,’ he continued, not even waiting for her to reply. ‘And it was spectacular, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t have missed it. Would you?’

She could hardly refute his logic. It was difficult to have any regrets about what had happened. They were both consenting adults, they’d been responsible with protection, and the sex had been so hot it was a wonder they hadn’t left singe marks on the sheets. Still, she wasn’t going to let him off the hook entirely.

She stared at him.

‘You should have told me.’

‘I did plan to tell you, this morning, so that at least you heard it from me first before you got in to work, except when I woke up you were already gone.’

Trying to deflect away from his own bad behaviour by bringing up her slightly shabby conduct in doing a dawn-flit was a good try, but she wasn’t about to be diverted. However, good the sex might have been, at best it had occurred with her labouring under a misapprehension and at worst, under false pretences.

‘Well, don’t think I’m going to apologise for that now. And lucky for you you’re not a lousy lay, or this could have been a very different conversation.’

‘Fair enough.’ He laughed, a warm hearty chuckle. ‘I guess I had that coming.’

It had been obvious when they were talking at the cocktail party that they shared a similar sense of humour. It was one of several things, along with his looks and the professional, rather than sleazy, compliments men usually paid her, which had attracted her to him in the first place. Now she pursed her lips rather than allow his amusement to become contagious and undermine her determination to give him the bollocking he deserved. She was pissed off and, for the time being at least, she wanted to make damn sure she stayed that way. It was a far more preferable alternative to having to work with a Brad Spencer she wasn’t furious with.

‘I meant what I said, Georgia, about passing over some of my client list. If you’ve made partner this young, you’re obviously an excellent solicitor.’

She wrinkled her forehead and willed the corners of her mouth to behave. Brad Spencer might have been handsome, funny, and charming, but he was firmly in the doghouse; accommodation he should get used to, since she fully expected him to be there for some time. He wasn’t going to win her over with a few spurious compliments.

‘Okay. I’m happy to look at them. But don’t think you’re using this as an excuse to dump your black files onto me.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

He paused, raking his fingers through his thick hair.

‘Look, can we agree to be professional from now on, at least when we’re around the office, irrespective of what might be going on with us?’

Her stomach did some sort of weird circuit she couldn’t control. He had said ‘us’ and ‘going on’ in the present tense as if there was still some level of intimacy to their relationship above and beyond the fact that they were now workmates.

‘Fine with me.’

‘Good. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.’

And every day after that.

Despite the strange things being around Brad Spencer did to her insides and other places, it looked like she was just going to have to get used to it.

‘Fine, whatever.’

It might not have been the most mature response she could come up with, but it was the only thing she felt like saying under the circumstances.

Brad didn’t respond, initially turning to leave; but then he stopped, making no move to advance any further towards the door. Georgia craned her neck to discover the reason. Miriam stood in the doorway, holding a jar of coins and a card divided into a numbered grid.

‘Want to put in for the sweepstake on the name of Josie’s new baby?’

‘Who?’ Georgia asked. She wasn’t sure she knew a Josie.

‘You know, Josie, in commercial litigation — the paralegal, who has been getting progressively bigger the last nine months?’

Georgia vaguely remembered one of the secretaries had been looking pregnant lately and reached for her purse, but Brad strode towards the door like he meant to exit whether Miriam got out of his road or not, forcing her to make a deft sidestep.

‘No thanks. I don’t go in for that sort of thing. Once you start with that, you’ve got your hand in your pocket all the time. Excuse me.’

Miriam flopped down in a client chair opposite Georgia’s desk.

‘What got up his bum? Like a Spencer can’t spare two dollars.’

Georgia found the requisite gold coin and skirted around the desk to hand it to her assistant.

‘That’s my fault. I wasn’t too rough with him, but let’s just say he’s under no illusions when it comes to how I feel about losing this office, and one or two other things.’

Her secretary’s features pinched up tight.

‘Georgia, what did you say?’

‘Nothing. He just knows how I feel, that’s all.’

Miriam waggled a finger at her.

‘Dayton and Llewellyn won’t like it if you let your personal relationship with Brad interfere with work.’

Georgia gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

‘There isn’t any personal relationship, and even if there was any chance of that before, there definitely isn’t now. So there’s nothing to worry about is there?’

After work, Brad swam the length of the heated rooftop pool he’d had enclosed in a glass atrium, to allow for swimming all year round. He was grateful to be able to cool down. Georgia had sent his internal heat level soaring from the moment he found her in an enticing brace position against the window in her office.

It was all he could do not to lean in and nuzzle her neck and run his hands up under her skirt, and when she had turned around to tackle him about losing her office, her bright eyes had burned a dazzling blue, like titanium passed through fire.