Falling For The Lawyer (7 page)

“Alex, what are you doing lolling all over the desk when you were supposed to meet me at the lift ten minutes ago?” Sophie was at her side and looking down at her, her hands resting on her hips in irritation.

“Soph, I’m so sorry! I completely forgot about the shopping arrangement.”

“Did you skip your swim this morning? You know how flaky you get when you do.”

“No, I didn’t miss my swim. And I’m fine Sophie, I’ve just had a run in with Vera and Jonathan, that’s all. Do you mind if we take a rain check on our shopping?”

“Yes, I do mind,” Sophie replied without hesitation. “If you’ve had a run in with Vera and the boss then the last thing you should do is mope around here all lunch time. Come on. Let’s go.”

“But I’m not in the right frame of mind for choosing clothing.”

“Don’t worry about that. I am. I’ll choose everything for you. All you have to do is dress up.”

Sophie grabbed Alex’s bag off the back of her chair and strung it over her friend’s shoulder. And it wasn’t long before Alex was admitting to herself that she did feel a lot better for escaping the office for a while.

She spent an hour trying on outfits as Sophie draped her in clothing and accessories. Before long she had a pile of gear on the shop counter and her credit card was running through the machine.

“I just hope I have a job next week to pay for it all,” Alex said to Sophie as the two of them wandered back into the foyer of the building amongst the lunchtime throng. But when Alex saw JP emerge from the lift and unknowingly begin to walk straight towards her she stopped dead in her tracks.

Her next set of instincts told her to turn and run but she was unable to move. A confusing cocktail of anxiety about the outcome of that morning, irritation with him for not allowing her to explain herself and a deeply disturbing desire to be in his company again was coursing its way through to every nerve ending in her body.

Unaware her friend had stopped behind her, Sophie had continued on into the lift, chatting cheerily to the now empty space beside her. Behind her in the crowd, Alex remained rooted to the ground.

JP’s eyes swept over her and then back again, his lips pressing together as his gaze drifted over her figure in the powder-blue suit. And as he approached she waited for the rebuke, yet JP didn’t seem to have any particular interest in launching into a tirade of chastisement. He stood close to her as the crowd jostled them a little, his hands deep in his pockets in his characteristic stance.

Alex lifted her chin to face him. There was no way she would apologise. She’d done nothing wrong. If he wasn’t prepared to listen to her side of the story then that was just too bad.

“Well?” he began finally when she maintained her stony silence.

“Well what?” she grated.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“It’s a bit late now. I’m sure you’ve already had Vera’s take on what happened.”

JP smirked humourlessly as he absorbed the hostility in Alex’s voice. “As a matter of fact, I have. Now I’d like your take.”

“What would be the point? I’m just Vera’s assistant. Why would you take my word over hers? I suppose she’s blamed me for everything that happened this morning.”

“She has.”

Fury and indignation coursed through Alex like floodwaters. “How dare she! Short of going around to every lawyer in the office to beg for the files back there was nothing I could do to get your work done. I wasn’t about to humiliate myself like that just because Vera pulled rank and took them all away from me.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“So why are you so angry with me?” he queried, raising his eyebrows.

“Because you didn’t give me a chance to explain.”

“Perhaps you should look at this from my point of view. I leave an important meeting to find out whether or not my PA’s done the things I asked her to do, only to hear her blabbering unintelligible monosyllables.”

“I was getting to the point when you cut me off!”

“I didn’t have time to wait for you to get to the point!” he dismissed her hotly.

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t jump to conclusions!”

At that point JP rolled his eyes to the heavens and dragged a hand through his hair in exasperation. He appeared to be trying to compose himself before he lowered his gaze to her again and began to speak. “Alex, do you have any idea how much I’ve got on my plate?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“Can you understand how I feel when I find myself dragged out of a meeting to deal with a demarcation dispute between my two PAs? Can you understand I might have trouble finding the patience to allow you ten minutes to give me your side of the story?”

Alex stared at him. Although she still felt annoyed she couldn’t dismiss his point of view. She opened her mouth to make this concession when she was suddenly given an unintentional shove from someone in the crowd behind her and was hurled straight into JP’s arms.

Instinctively she threw her own arms around his neck for support but he was already bearing her weight. His hands were at her waist, warm and strong underneath her suit jacket. She lifted her face to his and was bathed in a white heat radiating from his cobalt blue eyes. They were gleaming very brightly with a need she’d never seen in a man before, a predatory gleam that was at once exciting and terrifying.

He could have let her go then. She was steady enough to stand on her own two feet. But he didn’t. For three long seconds that felt like hours he held her against him, his body heat mingling with her own, the subtle aromas of his musky aftershave filling her senses.

How Alex wished she could explain it away. How she wished she could dismiss it as a meaningless hesitation to act on his part. But JP’s eyes were locked with hers the whole time, confirming the treacherous swing bridge of possibilities that had been thrown up over the canyon dividing them—a canyon more vast than he could ever begin to imagine.

“Are you hurt?” he whispered huskily, urgently.

“No, I’m okay, thank you,” she murmured back and then with a sickening lurch of her stomach she remembered who she was and the promises she’d made to another—Simon.

Somewhere in New Zealand Simon was working hard for their future, unaware that his fiancée was lolling about in the arms of her new boss, her body moving into nothing short of primeval overdrive at his touch.

A deep, all pervading rush of shame swept through her as she extracted herself from JP’s supporting hands to put distance between them.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered quietly.

JP watched her intently, his expression taut with self-restraint. “Don’t be. You liked that as much as I did.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well if that’s what it’s like to hold you when you don’t want me, I’d love to have you in my arms when you do.”

“Don’t JP … please. You’re my boss,” Alex implored, mortified by the all-consuming physical urges that still held her in their grip.

She was at a loss as to how to ward off the effect he was having upon her, ignorant until that moment that men and women could feel for each other what she was feeling for JP. She’d always been sceptical of those chick flicks where couples were almost out of their minds with desire for one another. She’d always assumed they were so far removed from reality it was almost laughable. Yet there she was, in touching distance of a man who she could hardly think straight around, who seemed to reach for a woman inside her no one had ever known before—a woman she hadn’t even dreamed existed until that moment.

“You’re right,” he said after a seemingly interminable silence. “Those comments were unforgivable. I apologise.”

“Let’s just forget it happened,” Alex suggested quickly.

JP nodded in response and his eyebrows drew together. “We need to talk about how we’re going to manage the work allocation from now on.” He straightened and shrugged his shoulders as though that would put the required formality back into their exchange. “I can’t have a situation arise again where I don’t know what’s going on in my own office but I think I have a solution.”

“What is it?”

“Not here,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’m out now for a few hours but I want to talk to you when I get back. Will you wait?” He was pinning her down with his eyes and she couldn’t refuse him anything when he looked at her like that.

“I’ll wait … but this afternoon …”

“I’ve been in the office for the last hour so there’s more work on your desk,” he replied immediately, reading her thoughts. “If by any chance it’s been removed again I want you to call me—but I don’t think that will be necessary.”

And right then Alex knew she wouldn’t have to explain the trouble with Vera that morning. Somehow, JP understood what had happened between his two PAs. He knew she was blameless in the whole affair, despite any account Vera may have given him to the contrary.

JP continued through the foyer then and out of the building into the bright afternoon light as a strange possessive longing for something she needed or wanted surged up in Alex’s chest.

Simon. That was what she needed.

He’d been away too long and she was missing him. That was why her head was scrambled. If she could just see him again she knew her confused feelings for JP would disappear. But seeing Simon was impossible and so she reached for the next best thing.

Alex hit the fast dial button on her mobile phone. After a few rings a familiar voice greeted her from the other end.

“Hi Hun,” Simon’s up-beat voice reached her from thousands of miles away.

“I just wanted to ring, to hear your voice and make sure everything’s okay.”

“Everything’s fine, Al. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. We just haven’t spoken for a few days, that’s all.”

“I know. I know. I was going to call you last night but got caught up in a meeting.”

“That’s okay. I know you’re really busy.”

“How’s everything with you? Has the Grim Reaper arrived?”

“Yes,” Alex said, but hoped the conversation wouldn’t centre on the very man she was desperately trying to put out of her mind.

“How’s he going? As bad as everyone expected?”

“No, not exactly,” Alex replied, flailing around for neutral responses as she ran a trembling hand through her hair.

“Well, if I have my way you won’t have to suffer him for too much longer.”

Alex tensed, knowing Simon was leading up to an announcement of some kind. “What do you mean?”

“Just business. Nothing you need to trouble your pretty little head about.”

Alex hated herself for the irritation that prickled her skin. She was sure Simon didn’t mean to be patronising when he dismissed her like that. Normally it didn’t bother her too much that he wouldn’t discuss business with her—and he never did—but it rankled her today.

“You know how I hate surprises, Simon,” Alex replied with a strong hint in her voice that she wanted to be told what was going on.

“You’ll know soon enough,” he resisted, oblivious to her meaning.

Alex gave up. He’d stopped listening to her on that subject and she knew it would be useless to press. “Are you looking after yourself?” she asked, preferring to change the subject.

“Pretty much, probably a bit too much fast food. But when you’re in and out of meetings you can’t always sit down to a proper meal. Let’s just say I’m looking forward to some of your great home-style cooking—almost as good as my mum’s you know. Oh, that reminds me, guess who was in Auckland and rang me.”

“Who?”

“Your cousin, Monique. She’s been travelling around the North Island.”

“Really, I didn’t know she was over there,” Alex replied, glancing at her watch to see that the afternoon was heading for two o’clock.

“Nor did I. Anyway, it was great to see her. She was staying in an apartment and cooked a meal for me.”

“That was nice of her.”

“Wasn’t it,” he agreed chirpily.

“Simon, I’m sorry this is a short call. I just wanted to say ‘hi’ but I’d better go now, I’m late back from lunch.’

“Okay, no problem. I’ll be talking to you sooner than you think anyway.”

Alex paused on the other end of the line. “Will you? How come?” she queried again at his thinly veiled reference to a change of plans but it was too late. Either the call had dropped out or he’d rung off thinking their conversation was at an end.

Despite the mystery boxes he’d thrown at her Alex was glad she’d called. It was reassuring to hear his steady, self-assured voice on the other end.

She felt back on track again and that was how she was supposed to feel: calm and together and not as though she was on an emotional precipice. Why on earth would she be feeling on a precipice anyway when she had everything a girl could want or need: a devoted fiancé, a loving family and a job she enjoyed, at least in the short term. And with that thought lingering as she headed back to work, Alex felt ashamed of having wondered whether what she had might never feel like enough again.

Alex had a lovely afternoon.

Vera stayed out of her way and she had plenty to be going on with. JP had left a stack of files on her desk adorned with countless yellow post-it notes containing cryptic instructions in his scrawling handwriting.

One thing that did strike Alex as a little strange was that the work he’d left for her involved more drafting and research than she’d ever done before. It was not really work which a PA would ordinarily do. She could only guess that Vera had been left to type JP’s letters, manage his diary and take his telephone calls but Alex wasn’t about to go in search of her to find out.

The afternoon disappeared in a flash. Before long, other PAs were turning off computers and organising their desks for the following day. There was still no sign of JP but Alex didn’t mind. It gave her more time to steel herself for their next meeting. And she’d resolved that once that was over she would find a way to do her job and keep her distance from him at the same time. Some brief exchanges at her desk or in his office were all that were necessary. If she could stick to that then their conversations could be kept short and business like.

With those thoughts churning in her mind she worked into the early evening. By that time she was confident she’d scaled and conquered her fears about the effect he was having upon her, so it was with dismay that she found her pulse leapt out of the barrier as soon as she heard his voice across the office.