Sleeping With My Boss: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story) (A Dirty Office Romance) (111 page)

Nelson sighed. “I didn’t do this, you
know? I didn’t take money from those people. I don’t understand why they would
say I did.”

Nico looked at me. I took my cue and
sitting on the other side of Nelson, I said, “Campos Investments lost millions
of dollars when your father refused to sign off on the shoddy construction that
Limitless Construction Company was doing on hotels. They did their best to run
your father out of business over it, but his standing in the community was too
strong. Their only recourse was revenge. If they can get a court to convict you
of accepting bribes in order for your father to sign off on unsafe construction
sites, they can ruin your dad’s good name, and their hope is that the result
would be running your dad out of business.”

“I get that,” Nelson said in a whiney
voice, “but why me? Why not set up Dad?”

“Your father’s reputation for honesty is
what has made his company so successful. They knew that no one would believe he
had done this, so they turned to the next best fall guy: his son.” I tried to
keep the confident look on my face and in my eyes when Nelson asked his next
question,

“I was the perfect fall guy because my
reputation is the opposite of my dad’s, right?”

“We’re going to do all we can to keep your
past from being allowed into this, okay?” Nelson nodded, none too convincingly,
and I asked him, “Are you ready?” he nodded again as Nico and I stood up.
Nelson rubbed his face over his hands and looked up at us again. Looking very
much like a child, he said,

“Please don’t let them put me in jail. I
couldn’t stand being locked up.”

Although our legal team was made up of
three of the best and brightest young attorneys Hanson had to offer, none of us
wanted to make promises that we might be unable to keep. Instead, Kyla put her
hand

 
gently on his arm and said,

“Come on; let’s go get this confession
thrown out.”

********

Kyla, Nico and I celebrated our first
victory over lunch. Judge Nolan had agreed that saying
“Shouldn’t my lawyer be here?”
was a statement the police should
have explored more with Nelson. The top of Dawson’s bald little head had been
bright red with anger by the time we were through with him. I held that vision
in my head as I danced back into the office that afternoon – and ran smack dab
into Marjorie. Shit.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I
wasn’t watching where I was going.” Marjorie stepped back and looked me up and
down as if seeing me for the first time, even though we had met before. She
adjusted the lapels of her designer jacket that Adam’s money had bought and
said in an irritated voice,

“Obviously,” and then with a weary sigh
added, “But I suppose I could expect nothing less from employees of the buffoon
that runs this place. Excuse me…”

I stood dumbfounded by the woman’s
rudeness and watched her leave. I shook my head, unable to comprehend what Adam
must have ever seen in her in the first place. Maybe she was softer once, when
she was younger. Some people just find it impossible to age with grace, my
mother used to say. I had a feeling that Marjorie was one of those women. I had
been close enough to her today to notice the taut lines of her jaw and the
complete absence of any lines around her eyes or on her forehead. Adam’s money
had paid a fortune for that harsh, expressionless face. I shuddered. No matter
what she may have once been, the simple fact now was that the woman was
insufferable.

I tried to shake off the encounter and
return to my earlier pleasant state of mind as I went in search of Adam to tell
him about our victory. As I rounded the corner from the long hall that led to
the executive offices, I saw Mary, Adam’s personal assistant, closing the heavy
oak doors that led to the executive conference room behind her.

“Hi, Mary,” I said. “Is Mr. Hanson in a
conference?”

Mary smiled at me, and I couldn’t help
thinking that the smile caused Mary’s face to crinkle in all the right places,
making her look radiant. I liked her and appreciated that she was almost always
in a pleasant mood, which was definitely a breath of fresh air after my little
run-in with Marjorie.

“Hi, Alicia, yes he’s in there with Mr.
Brigham, Mr. Fritz, and a few other men from Brigham Oil Company. It’s getting
pretty intense. I was going to get some refreshments in hopes of lightening up
the room.”

I smiled back at her. “If anyone can do
it, it’s you, Mary. I can see why Mr. Hanson has kept you at his side for so
long, you keep him sane. Would you mind asking him to call or come by my office
when he’s finished? I have a case I’d like to discuss.” It wasn’t really a lie.
I did want to talk to him about the case. I also wanted to kiss him. My face colored
at the thought, as if Mary could read my mind. I would be so happy when Adam
and I could stop pretending. Stretching the facts during the course of a case
to save a client didn’t bother me much, but telling an outright lie to someone
I considered a friend went against everything I had been raised to believe, and
it seemed like I’d had to do that a lot lately.

Once I got back to my own desk, my
receptionist handed me a pile of messages. “Thank you, Carla.”

“You’re welcome; how did court go?” she asked
as she followed me into my office.

“Great!” I told her with a smile. “We got
the confession thrown out. Without that, the rest is all hearsay and should be
easy to discredit.”

“Good!” Carla said with real enthusiasm.
“Mr. Dawson called a few minutes before you walked in. He gives me the creeps a
little, but anyways, he said he urgently needed you to call him as soon as you
walked in.”

“You know what?” I told her with my lip
curled, “He gives me the creeps, too. I’ll call him…in a while. Thanks, Carla,”

“You’re welcome Ms. Winston. Let me know
if you need anything.” Carla closed the door as she left, and I sat down at the
desk to begin sorting through my messages. Most were from clients who were
anxious to discuss one aspect of our case or other. As I sifted through the
rectangular squares of pink paper, a familiar name caught my eye. The message
said,
While You Were Out—Jack Grant
called
.

I did a double take at the name. It was
one that I hadn’t seen or heard in a message for quite some time. Jack and I had
been very close friends since kindergarten. As we grew into adulthood, we had
ultimately gone from being friends to being lovers. It was great for a while
and I had felt blessed that my boyfriend was also my best friend. The
excitement of it fizzled out quickly, though, and eventually, we both had to
admit that we were better as friends than we were as a couple. We had managed
to stay friends, and once I moved to the States, I had really meant to keep in
touch and maintain our friendship, but life interrupted my plans.

I had heard most recently about him from
my mother, who told me that Jack was in a relationship with a woman from the
Country Club her and my father had been members of for decades. She said it
seemed serious. I remember her telling me that with a frown. She’d been most
disappointed when he and I had stopped seeing each other. He came from old
money. His parents were very active in the community and my mother and his
worked together on many of our charity projects. The Lady Winston had high
hopes that I would one day be Mrs. Jack Grant.

I snapped out of my memories and back into
the present looking back at the slip in my hand, the number was a local one –
not in Europe but right here in New York. I reached to pick up the phone just
as it began to ring. I picked it up without waiting for it to roll over to
Carla.

“Alicia Winston.”

“Alicia, darling, it’s Robert,” came the
sleazy little voice from the other side. Feigning ignorance for the sake of
insulting him and no other, I almost felt a little ashamed of myself as I said,

“Robert?” with an obvious question mark at
the end,

“Dawson, Robert Dawson!” he said,
obviously offended. “Surely you haven’t forgotten me already.”

“Oh, Mr. Dawson, I’m so sorry. Of course I
haven’t forgotten you. Your first name just threw me off. How can I help you?”

“I want to throw out an offer for that
juvenile delinquent in a man’s body your firm is representing. What say we meet
for a drink and talk about it?”

I almost laughed aloud, but I caught
myself. For the sake of Nelson and the other clients I represented, I couldn’t
afford to insult him outright.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dawson, but I have a full
plate this afternoon. Perhaps you can tell me what you are offering and I can
pass it on to my client.”

Dawson cleared his throat and the tone of
his voice changed to borderline hostile as he said, “I suppose you big time
corporate lawyers fancy yourselves better than the average lawyer, too good to
slum it with the prosecutor who could maybe make your life easier if you gave
him the chance.”

I was silent. I was sorely tempted to give
this nasty little man a piece of my mind. How dare he try to suggest that I
would even consider trading favors with the likes of him? When I didn’t reply
after a few moments, he said, “But anyways, tell that little rich boy you
represent that I am offering five years if he pleads guilty to misdemeanor
accepting a bribe.”

“Five years? Are you serious?” I asked,
almost certain I had heard him wrong or he had made a mistake.

“He can get ten if the jury convicts at
trial,” Dawson said.

“He can get nothing if we get an
acquittal,” I said with confidence in my voice. “I think we’ll take our
chances.”

“Okay, but don’t forget to offer it to
your client. He might want to save himself and his family some embarrassment
and skip the trial.”

“Oh, I won’t forget, but don’t lose any
sleep waiting for me to call you back on it. My client didn’t do anything
wrong. He doesn’t want to plead guilty to anything, and he won’t accept any
jail time. You have a nice day, Mr. Dawson,” I said, emphasizing the “Mr.” to
make sure he knew we were more foe than friend. After my conversation with
Dawson, I was no longer in the mood to call Jack for a reunion chat. Instead, I
buzzed Adam’s office.

“Yes?”

“Hi, are you busy?”

“No, just unwinding after that awful
meeting.”

“I take it all didn’t go well?”

“I don’t know. Brigham seems to think we
are miracle workers, instead of lawyers. He wants us to run off the press and
calm the politicians. Alex is working his magic on the politician angle for us,
but I’m not sure what to do about the press at this point.”

Alex was Alex Fritz. He was Adam’s best
friend from college and currently one of the front runners for the Democratic
seat that had recently opened up in the House of Representatives. Alex was
strongly connected in the political community and even had ties to the White
House. He was helping Adam to connect with the people involved in the scandal
over Brigham being one of the President’s lead campaign funders. He was also charged
with the task of severing the ties between the currently offending oil company
and the presidential campaign.

“Anyways, how did your morning in court
turn out?” he asked me.

“It was great! The judge agreed that the
confession was bogus since Nelson had mentioned his attorney and threw it out.
Then, just a few moments ago, the world’s sleaziest prosecutor called and
offered us a deal.”

“Great! Was the deal something you think
Nelson will consider?”

“Absolutely not, he’s offering five years
if Nelson pleads to conspiracy to accept a bribe. Nelson will never go for it.
But, it does mean that Dawson is nervous. He knows that without the confession,
his case is on shaky ground or he wouldn’t have offered anything.”

“True,” Adam said thoughtfully. “He could
get ten years or more if we do convict, you know.”

“Yes, I do know that. I won’t play games
with his life, but I won’t see him locked up for five years for doing nothing
more than being a spoiled little rich boy.”

“I respect that,” Adam told her. “By the
way, are you free for dinner?”

“With you? Always,” I said with a grin.
“Your place or mine?”

“How about Romaletti’s?” Adam said,
surprising me.

“Romaletti’s, really? Is this a business
dinner?” I asked suspiciously.

“No, it’s an ‘I’m tired of pretending, too’
dinner. The hell with Marjorie and the hell with her lawyer, I want to take my
gorgeous girlfriend out for dinner. That is, if she’d like to go with me.”

“I would love that, thank you!” I told him
with real enthusiasm,

“No, thank you,” he said. “I realized
today after another exhausting and volatile conversation with Marjorie that
you’re right. She's probably not going away any time soon. I’m going to try
like hell to stop letting her get in the way of my life, of our life.”

I was ecstatic to hear it. We made plans
to meet in Adam’s office later since we both still had piles of work to do. I
called Nico and a paralegal named Sarah into my office and we spent the rest of
the day working on Nelson’s case. Kyla came in later after I finished prepping
for a real estate case I was working on. The message from Jack was put on the
back burner of my things to do list as I shuffled through motions and briefs
and looked forward to my first public dinner with Adam that was not work
related.