Falling For The Lawyer Read online

  “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 daughte
r, 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.

  But with a start Alex sensed that she was no longer alone in the bathroom. Someone had entered and was calling her name quietly.

  It was Sophie.

  Alex stood and opened the cubicle door before emerging to see her friend’s anxious look.

  “Alex, are you all right? Jonathan McKenzie came to me saying he thought you may be unwell and could I check if you were in the bathroom. Are you sick?”

  “No, just exhausted.”

  “You look dreadful! Come on, it’s right on five o’clock. Let’s get out of here and we can go somewhere and talk.”

  Alex bit down on her lip and looked wildly at the ceiling to try and fight off the tears that threatened again. “I can’t. I have to meet Simon.”

  “Can’t you put him off tonight? You clearly need some girl therapy.”

  Alex shook her head in reply.

  “Why not?” Sophie argued insistently. “What’s so important that you need to meet Simon tonight?”

  “We broke off our engagement over the phone last night. I’m meeting him one last time so that we can deal with it face to face.”

  Sophie stared at Alex in disbelief. “You’re kidding,” she whispered. Alex shook her head.

  “What a nightmare,” Sophie murmured in a state of shock as she rested her hands on Alex’s shoulders. “No wonder you look like something out of the body snatchers.”

  “I need a favour,” Alex asked, urgency in her voice.

  “Anything,” Sophie agreed nodding.

  “I need you to go and tell Jonathan I’m not feeling well and that I’m going home. Tell him it’s just a headache. Then I need you to find my handbag and bring it back here so that I can get across to the lift and meet Simon downstairs.”

  “Well I’ll try but Jonathan was pretty insistent I bring you to his office. He’s not going to be happy.”

  But Sophie did as she was asked and Alex was forced to wait what felt like endless minutes as she paced the ladies bathroom. When Sophie finally returned she looked triumphant.

  “Mission accomplished!” she announced. “He was on the phone so I did the handbag thing first. I’ll have to go straight back now to let him know you’ve gone home. Are you going to be all right?”

  Alex nodded. “Thank you, Soph. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The two girls clung onto one another before Alex squeezed her friend’s hands, gave her a long reassuring look and then made her way quickly out of the bathroom and across to the lifts.

  Once on the ground floor she found a quiet, well-concealed corner to stand in while she waited for Simon, and she was soon thanking her lucky stars she had because JP appeared out of nowhere.

  With her pulse racing Alex watched him as he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked straight past her, across the foyer and out of the building. She could still catch glimpses of him through the revolving doors as he stood on the street outside and turned his head from side to side as though he was looking for someone, but for once his radar failed him.

  He disappeared amidst the moving sea of pedestrians outside just before Simon wandered into the building. Unlike JP, Simon saw her immediately and with a haunted look he approached her and took her in his arms. Alex sunk into them, the temptation to regress back into their familiarity and safe harbour almost overwhelming. But she quickly prised herself away. She’d done enough damage in his life already and would not play with his feelings any longer.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked as they wandered out into the heat of the early evening and paused outside. Alex looked around nervously but thankfully JP had vanished.

  “I don’t mind. Anywhere where we can talk and have a drink,”

  “Why don’t we go down to the Frog and Toad … look, isn’t that your boss?”

  Alex swung around in the direction Simon was facing. JP stood a short distance away with a hand on an open cab door as Caroline Cartwright slipped into the back seat ahead of him. He was motionless as he searched the crowded street. But his gaze bypassed Alex and Simon altogether and with that he turned and folded himself into the cab next to Caroline and slammed the door behind himself. And as he did so Alex watched on, mesmerised by the irrevocable finality of that moment, as JP’s taxi pulled out into the bustle of the traffic and disappeared.

  Chapter Eleven

  The knocking went on and on. It merged with her dreams until finally its persistence roused Alex from the deepest of slumbers. She lay there motionless, unsure where she was and struggling to put together the pieces of her life in any kind of sensible order. But as she opened her eyes and looked around she realised she was in her own apartment. Morning light was filtering through the lush garden outside her window and casting a lime green hue throughout her bedroom.

  With a groan she rolled over. The sleeping pill she’d taken the night before was drugging her every thought and movement. But with a dull ache pounding away inside her she started to piece together the night before with Simon and a renegade tear of emotional exhaustion rolled down her cheek.

  The knocking began again and Alex eased herself up into a sitting position in her bed. Then she heard a voice at the door and it was with relief that she guessed it was Sophie.

  “Alex, wake up now! I know you’re in there!” she yelled.

  With heavy legs and an addled head, Alex placed her feet gingerly on the floor and stumbling out to the front door opened it to find Sophie’s expression tense and expectant.

  “Last night you looked rung out with exhaustion. Now you look as though you’ve had an overdose of sleep.”

  “I took a sleeping pill,” Alex explained, turning around and traipsing back inside to turn the coffee machine on. Sophie followed.

  “How are you?” she asked tentatively. “How was last night?”

  “Dreadful,” Alex admitted wretchedly. “He was crying. I was crying. It was just appalling.”

  “How is he taking it?”

  “Good and bad,” Alex recounted bleakly. “He said he’d sensed something was coming, that I seemed unhappy, but he wasn’t sure whether it was just the changes at work.”

  “Was he angry?”

  Alex thought over Sophie’s question, trying to make sense of her disheveled memories. “No, more resigned,” she replied eventually. “He said he’d felt he’d been clinging on to me for some time, as though I was trying to escape. Imagine that Sophie, it must have been awful for him.”

  “I know it’s hard to get your head around things this morning but he will get through this Al. He’s an attractive guy and he’ll meet someon
e who’s better suited to him—it’s just a matter of time.”

  “He has already,” Alex admitted. She needed Sophie to know so that the news, when it eventually reached her friend’s ears, would not be a shock. “He and Monique are going to start spending time together.”

  Sophie’s hand rose to cover her mouth as she gaped at Alex. “Are you serious?” she asked finally and Alex nodded.

  “When did that start?”

  Alex turned away to steam up some milk.

  “He told me it had been creeping up on both of them for awhile. Monique had made no secret of the fact she was crazy about him and I’d been making him feel unhappy and unwanted for ages.”

  “How do you feel about it though?”

  “It feels strange but I know I’ll be fine about it with time,” she confessed, feeling a surge of relief on that point at least. “I know Monique will make him happier than I ever could.”

  “No regrets then?”

  “About breaking off the engagement—none. About the way I treated him—plenty.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You didn’t plan for it to turn out like this.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that because of me Simon’s wasted three years of his life.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t look at it that way.”

  “Then he should, because I am to blame for it,” Alex declared.

  “Alex, life’s not a machine. It doesn’t always go the way we want it to because sometimes other things take over. Speaking of which, you’ll have to hurry up after that coffee and get dressed. That indomitable boss of yours has got a bee in his bonnet about this rugby match today and your name’s on the list.”

  Alex groaned. She’d forgotten all about the match and wondered whether she would ever throw off the effects of the sleeping pill so that she could run around a sports field that morning.

  “You’ll have to be a saint to keep working for him you know,” Sophie added thoughtfully as she sipped her freshly brewed coffee. “He’s so grumpy sometimes. You should have heard him when I told him you’d left for the day yesterday … oh, I had to tell him about you breaking up with Simon, I’m sorry.”