Five Exotic Fantasies: Love in Reverse, Book 3 (29 page)

She answered the door, and to his relief gave a brief smile before standing back to let them in. They walked into a hallway leading to a smallish living room, decorated in shades of cream and brown, as bland as Sasha’s personality. There were no CDs on show, no books on the shelves. He’d hoped to garner an idea of her personality from her surroundings, but he realised he was to be disappointed.

Sasha sat in an armchair, and Felix and Coco took a seat on the sofa opposite her. A cat jumped onto Sasha’s lap and settled, and she began to stroke it. She didn’t offer them a drink.

“I’d like to start by apologising for upsetting you during our previous meeting,” Felix said, hoping he sounded sincere. “I let my wish to make sure I uncover the truth override my need to be polite, and I apologise for that.”

Sasha nodded, but didn’t respond the way he’d expected—with a social nicety by saying something like
oh, that’s okay, I understand,
or
I’m just glad you’re trying to find the truth.
It unsettled him, and he leaned back on the sofa and studied her for a moment, trying to puzzle her out, determined not to let her get the upper hand in the conversation.

He couldn’t shake the feeling of dislike he had for her, although he still didn’t really have any idea why he felt that way. Maybe it was because she seemed so hard, or that she responded with such little humour. He relied on his charm to communicate with women, but she appeared to be immune to it, and that didn’t happen very often.

The other problem was that he was struggling to understand her and the way she thought. He could understand why she felt his previous comment about wearing clothes to attract attention had been insulting, especially if she
hadn’t
been trying to attract Dell’s attention. But he felt angry at Sasha’s indignation that her right to wear whatever she wanted to work was completely irrelevant to the case. Her feminist leanings, while understandable and even commendable, seemed to be obscuring the greater problem here—namely, had she led Dell on or not?

Coco sat quietly next to him, hands folded in her lap. He couldn’t help but notice again that although her skirt rode up slightly when she sat, it was a decent length, and she’d buttoned her blouse so no cleavage was on show. He liked her modesty, he realised. Did that make him old fashioned and sexist?

“I’d like to clarify a couple of things,” he said, trying not to spiral off into thoughts about her when he was trying to concentrate on Sasha. “Firstly, you stated that on the evening in question Peter Dell came into the workroom and asked you specifically if you could work late?”

“What of it?” she said.

“I haven’t interviewed the other secretaries formally yet, but one of the partners recalls that he was in the workroom when Mr. Dell entered. He says Mr. Dell asked the office generally if anyone was able to work late, and that you volunteered.”

Sasha didn’t flinch but looked him calmly in the eye. “It’s possible that was the case. I don’t really remember.”

“It’s quite important, Sasha.”

“It’s hardly the point,” she snapped. “What matters is what happened in his office, not how I got there.”

Felix held her gaze and refused to look away. The point was, of course, if she’d lied about what Dell had said, what else had she lied about?

Chapter Thirty-Five

Coco shifted awkwardly on the sofa as Felix and Sasha continued their staring match. She could feel Felix’s irritation—at both himself and Sasha—rolling off him in waves.

She puzzled over his behaviour as Sasha finally dropped her gaze to the cat in her lap and spoke to it softly. He must be used to belligerent witnesses in court all the time—he must have dealt with this sort of situation before. She knew part of the problem was that Sasha hadn’t responded to his attempts at being nice, had pretty much thrown them back in his face. But she could also see that deep down, Sasha’s attitude angered him, and part of that, Coco was sure, was her fault. It was all interlinked with this issue of attracting the opposite sex, and the confusion in reading signals. Felix was projecting his own frustration with their relationship onto this situation with Sasha, and Coco wasn’t sure he was aware of it.

Even though Sasha had dropped her gaze, Felix continued to stare at her, but his hard look softened and he frowned as if trying to puzzle her out. He wasn’t unsympathetic toward her, Coco decided, just confused and angered that the other woman didn’t understand his position. Sasha was angry that he wouldn’t accept her word as evidence—she couldn’t comprehend his need for proof.

His gaze slid across to Coco, and for a moment they studied each other. She’d seen the look on his face when he’d appeared in her office, when she’d suddenly looked up and caught him watching her. He had feelings for her. Clearly, though, he wasn’t sure whether she returned them.

She kept her expression carefully blank, not wanting to give him encouragement. Because what would be the point in saying
Yes, Felix, absolutely I do return your feelings—I’m crazy about you and the thought of you returning to Auckland and never seeing you again is going to break my heart?
Why put them both through that? He had a life in Auckland, she had one here, with her mother and her job, and a relationship wasn’t going to work, so why voice how she felt? It would be like declaring to a diabetic that she’d baked a wonderful treacle tart.

He moved his gaze back to Sasha. “So you can’t remember whether Mr. Dell asked all the secretaries whether they were busy, or whether he asked you specifically?”

“No.” Sasha kept her gaze on the cat.

He nodded and thought for a moment. “Something else I’d like to query is related to the document you stated that Mr. Dell asked you to retype.”

“Yes.”

“You said that the office had already received a typed copy of the call logs relating to the case.”

“Yes.”

“And that you found it strange that Mr. Dell had asked you to retype it.”

“Yes.”

He tipped his head. “I asked Miss Stark to find the original file for me, and she couldn’t locate it.”

Sasha looked up and her gaze met Coco’s. Coco’s heart sped up, but she forced herself to stay calm. Yes, although they hadn’t spoken about it directly, Sasha had obviously hoped that Coco would support her in this case. But Coco wasn’t prepared to lie for her.

Sasha’s eyes narrowed as she looked back at Felix. “Then someone’s deleted it.”

Felix frowned. “Deleted it?”

“To frame me.” Twin spots of colour appeared on Sasha’s cheeks. “To make it look as if I’m lying.”

Felix took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sasha, I find it extremely farfetched to think that someone would go to all that trouble to frame you.”

“Really?” She glared at them. “You yourself told me that a man’s career is at stake here. As is mine, I have to point out. But don’t you think it’s at all possible that Peter Dell could stretch to deleting a file to cover himself? I know perfectly well what a negative outcome to this case would mean for him. It could destroy his career, and rightly so. And he would be perfectly aware of that. If I’m right, and if he’s at fault, do you not think he’d try to cover his tracks?”

Felix ran a hand through his hair, which Coco was beginning to realise meant he was agitated. Sasha unsettled him, and he didn’t like it. “Well, those are the two main points I wanted to address with you,” he said, moving to the edge of the settee. “Thank you for your time.”

Sasha stared at him. Obviously sensing an emotion he didn’t like, the cat jumped off her lap. “Is that it?” she said. “You come to my house, throw two accusations at me, basically call me a liar and then just leave?”

Although he barely moved, Coco felt him stiffen. He narrowed his eyes. “Miss De Langen, it is my job to investigate this matter, and you are not helping your case by being so hostile.”

Sasha jumped to her feet, her eyes glassy. “This is just so unfair. I’ve practically been assaulted and just because I got some details wrong, you think I’m a liar.”

“That’s not the case at all,” he said softly, as if calming a rabbit that had been scared by a loud noise, “and you really need to stop treating me like I’m the enemy.”

“I know you’re only here to prove Peter Dell’s innocent,” she yelled. “To twist the truth. You’re a company man—Mr. McAllister would have told you how important it is to prove Peter didn’t do it.”

“I’m a lawyer,” Felix said steadily. “To be honest, I find it insulting that you would assume I’d do anything other than search for the truth.”

Her lip trembled. “I wasn’t going to tell you this because I’m a private woman, Mr. Wilkinson, and I don’t like everyone knowing about my love life. But do you want to know the reason that I know there’s no way I could possibly have led Peter on? Why I wouldn’t have been sending out the wrong signals?”

Felix frowned in response.

Sasha bit her lip. “Because I’m gay.” Then she burst into tears.

Coco sat mutely next to Felix in the taxi as it wove its way through the Wellington afternoon traffic. He hadn’t said a word since they left Sasha’s house, following an awkward five minutes in which Sasha had sobbed, Coco had attempted to comfort her, and Sasha had promptly asked them both to leave.

What was Felix thinking? He sat looking out of the window, his elbow resting on the sill, his fingers touching his lips. His gaze seemed lost in the distance.

Had he been convinced Sasha was lying up until her revelation? Because clearly she wasn’t. Felix must now be convinced that Peter Dell’s assurance that Sasha had approached him and declared her affection for him must be wrong.

Had Christopher McAllister told him to make sure that Peter was found innocent? Coco found it hard to believe, but it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. She liked Christopher, but he hadn’t got where he was by being a soft touch, and he wouldn’t want the company he’d spent years building to crumble over what he might have thought was one stupid mistake by his co-founder. Also, it was entirely possible that Christopher wasn’t aware of Peter’s continual indiscretions, and that he thought the incident with Sasha was a one-off.

She risked another glance at Felix. He didn’t seem like the sort of man who would do what he was told by his superiors and ignore the truth of a case. She couldn’t imagine that he ignored the facts in the courtroom just because it would win him a trial.

The taxi pulled up just down from their building, but for a moment Felix sat listlessly, not making a move to get out. A wave of pity swept over her. He was a good man who’d been unravelled by the strange, socially awkward Sasha, who’d accused him of being sexist, something he would obviously never normally consider himself at all.

She reached across and took his hand. “Would you like to go grab a coffee?”

He looked across at her then, surprise lighting his features, and a smile curved a corner of his mouth. “Sure.”

He paid the driver, getting a receipt for expenses, and they exited the taxi and walked across to
Bella’s
. They took a seat, ordered a latte each in a mug, and then sat looking at each other.

Coco studied his calm brown eyes, wondering what he was thinking. He must be spectacular in court, she thought. He had the sort of personality that would win juries over with the least amount of effort. Plus he looked hot as sin in his slate-grey suit, white shirt and silvery-grey tie with a faint red stripe. His dark hair looked just the right amount of ruffled, and he wore an expensive-looking tie pin and cufflinks. He exuded taste, style and sex.

“What made you want to be a lawyer?” she asked, trying not to think about sex.

He looked down and played with the sugar container for a few seconds before looking back up at her. He seemed embarrassed.

“I…ah…was a miscreant in my youth,” he said.

She laughed. “You? Mr. Idealistic?”

His lips twisted wryly. “I wasn’t always this perfect.”

“Really?” She smiled.

He played with the sugar again and sighed. “When I was at school, I got in with the wrong crowd. My older brother, Matt, was the perfect student, and my younger brother, Toby, was the cool one. I didn’t know where I fitted. I rebelled and bunked lessons, played up in class. Most of the boys I was mates with were the same as me, restless, typical teenagers, looking for fun and fed up with school. But a couple who were friends of friends were nasty pieces of work.”

He sat back as the waitress delivered their coffees, then took a sip from the mug before he continued. “One evening I had a cold and didn’t feel like going out, so the guys went out without me. They were messing around on the school grounds. An old guy and his dog passed them, and the boys started taunting him. They threw things at the dog, and one of the objects hit the old guy. He walked over and gave them a mouthful. The rest of them would have run off, but one of the nastier boys stood up to him and started pushing him around.”

Coco stared, horrified. “Oh jeez.”

“It gets worse. They beat him badly. And the worst thing was that afterward, he went to the police, but he couldn’t identify the boy who beat him, and the others covered for him. A bunch of the kids were taken to court, but the main guy was the son of one of the board governors, and he paid for an expensive lawyer who got them all off. I changed after that. I couldn’t bear to be near those kids. I threw myself into my schoolwork and turned things around. I hated that lawyer, for defending those kids who he knew must be guilty. I was determined to be the opposite—to fight for the innocent. And I’ve been fighting ever since.”