Legally Addicted

by Lena Dowling

  ‘Thanks.’

  She searched his face. Was he serious? Or was he exhibiting the good manners that should have been typical of the upper echelons of Sydney society, but in her experience almost never was?

  She wanted to take him to task for failing to mention that Café Macquarie was a topnotch restaurant, but she said nothing. If she hadn’t been so rushed and had read more off the internet instead of simply looking up the address, this would never have happened. Let him think what he liked about what she was wearing. At least she would get a decent dinner out of it, even if pride did mean she was going to have to insist on paying half.

  Brad signalled for a waiter to fill her glass with wine from a stand beside their table.

  ‘So if you grew up in Dockton, how did you…?’

  ‘Become a partner in one of the city’s most respected law firms at the ripe old age of twenty-nine?’

  She was about to elaborate when a woman rushed up to their table, wine glass in hand, breathless in a fitted, deep blue satin dress; a dress that, at that moment, Georgia would have wrestled her to the ground for, if she thought she could have gotten away with it. The V-neckline of the dress framed the largest polished opal, suspended as a pendant, that Georgia had ever seen. Combined with matching opal and diamond earrings and a bracelet which caught the light, refracting it painfully into Georgia’s eyes, the whole effect was seriously OTT.

  Reminded of the inadequacy of her own clothing, Georgia shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  ‘Brad, Brad Spencer isn’t it? Sorry to interrupt.’ The woman was apologising with her back to Georgia, in a move that appeared deliberate. ‘I’m Paris Walsh. Thank you so much for what you’ve done for my mother. Without you, Dad would have screwed her out of everything. No wonder you have a reputation for being the best.’

  Brad tipped his glass in Georgia’s direction.

  ‘Actually, I can’t take the credit I’m afraid. It was Georgia here who established that your mother had a case.’

  Paris turned, and rocked back on her heels taking in Georgia’s outfit, her expression briefly transforming into one of recognition, before twisting into a crooked smile that suggested pity.

  ‘Oh my God, it’s you isn’t it? It’s Grubby George from high school. I should have recognised you before, when the waiter had to chase you down for your coat, but you look so different now.’

  It had been years since Georgia had been subjected to that particular humiliating moniker. She didn’t remember Paris, but then she might have been among the younger students Georgia didn’t know so well. She had never let the other girls see how much it got to her, but now, inexplicably, she felt her bottom lip tremble.

  Suddenly, Georgia was thirteen again, forced to wear a uniform that was second- or third-hand, donated by the ‘friends of the school’ — do-gooder society matrons who had nothing better to do than collect up hand-me-downs to torture her with. Like her PE uniform, with baggy pilled shorts two sizes too big and a polo shirt that was supposed to be white but which had turned a charming shade of puce, providing inspiration for the detested nickname.

  ‘Well, Grubby, I have to thank you, both of you.’

  The woman pivoted around to refocus on Brad. She was about to say something more, but he put up his hand to stop her.

  ‘I’m sorry to break up your little reunion, Paris, but Georgia and I are off-duty now, so if you don’t mind excusing us.’

  ‘Sure, okay. I won’t interrupt you further, but thanks anyway,’ Paris said, taking the hint and slipping back to her own table.

  Georgia grabbed a menu, still fuming as her mind finally decided to jump into gear and generate a slew of witty, cutting comebacks she could have used on Paris, if she had only thought of them earlier. Instead, she had let that woman push her back through time into a stinking school changing shed.

  Brad stole a glance at Georgia as she scanned her menu. Her blue eyes had clouded over with anger and he didn’t blame her; but God she was breathtaking when she was angry.

  Breathtaking and ballsy.

  Not many women could wear jeans as an item of evening wear and get away with it, but with her low cut silk tunic showing as much as could be considered decent of her perfect breasts, and her tight jeans and boots accentuating her willowy frame, she cut the best figure of any woman in the restaurant, and that included Paris Walsh.

  Paris, the daughter of Ruby, the mistress who Douglas had since lived to regret making his second wife, obviously rated herself, but her’s was a surgeon sculpted, make-up enhanced, bleached blonde sort of beauty. In a cheaper dress she would have looked just as at home on stage gyrating against a pole. Georgia’s was a natural understated beauty, made all the more alluring by the fact that she didn’t seem to appreciate how damned attractive she was.

  But why hadn’t he noticed just how bitchy some women could be before? Miriam had been spot on with her advice. Georgia could do with a Sir Galahad. She had achieved so much on her own that she deserved some support. Instead she had women like Caro, and now Paris Walsh, constantly having a go.

  ‘Another?’ Brad asked, poised to pour the pinot he was holding over her glass.

  Had she really drunk the first glass that fast? The wine tasted of raspberries and something deliciously cool and herbaceous. After the run-in with Paris she needed something to take the edge off.

  ‘Mmmm, yes please.’

  ‘So, you were about to tell me how, against the odds, you made it as a successful lawyer?’ Brad said, refilling her glass and demonstrating his attentiveness by returning their conversation to where they had left off.

  ‘Having someone take an interest made the difference. I was lucky to have people who intervened.’

  Brad’s eyes sharpened and he nodded thoughtfully and deliberately, as if something she had said resonated with him.

  ‘I was going to ask you about that? Who helped you out?’

  ‘A couple of teachers; one at primary school and then another one at secondary school, who coached me for scholarships in their own time. I got the Morton Scholarship to Rose Bay Girls’ Grammar and then the Ellen Maree Award to the University of New South Wales.’

  ‘You got an Ellen Maree? My father made that endowment. Ellen and Maree are my mother’s middle names: Evelyn Ellen Maree Spencer — one of his many grand gestures after mother found him out. After a while, flowers and jewellery weren’t enough for the job.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Georgia felt awkward, like she should thank him or something, but in the circumstances of how the award came to be, it seemed a bit off.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. It’s just great to see Dad’s legacy making a difference.’ Brad raised his hand in the direction of the waiter as he continued, ‘See — sometimes having money isn’t such a bad thing after all. Not when it helps someone like you.’

  Helping someone like you.

  Georgia toyed with the idea of bringing up the addiction centre proposal. Brad had been positive about supporting it at the shelter, but support was one thing; three million dollars was something else. Things were going well, but it was so new between them. They were still getting to know each other. Even positively affected by the wine, Georgia managed to summon enough clarity of thought to realise that it would be better to wait until their relationship had a firmer foundation before asking Brad for the money.

  They gave their orders and when dinner arrived, it was amazing, living up to the promise provided by the sleek and shiny surroundings of the restaurant. Conversation over their meal came easily as she found they had plenty to talk about, trading legal war stories of cases won and lost, and settlements nailed down against the odds. Despite the huge differential in the quantum of the settlements, she and Brad found plenty of common ground in the legal issues and emotional responses of the clients.

  ‘What now?’ Brad said when, at the end of the evening, the waiter returned to their table, delivering the bill in a leather folder.

&nb
sp; ‘We split the bill,’ Georgia said, reaching for the folder.

  He didn’t try to stop her.

  A thousand dollars?

  Georgia looked at the three zeros before looking again. She wondered if the wine was causing her to see double.

  No, the figure hadn’t changed, it was still a thousand dollars.

  What the hell had they been drinking? There were times, like at the beach house, when she had paused to wonder if maybe Brad’s wealth didn’t matter so much, but then something like this happened and it hit her just how wide the gulf was between them. When she thought how far a thousand dollars would go providing meals at the shelter, there was no forgetting that Brad still came from that same sector of society that she had grown up despising. If it wasn’t for the addiction centre proposal, all freshly typed by Miriam, now sitting in her handbag, waiting for the right moment to make her pitch to Brad, she wasn’t sure if she could put all of that aside to be getting into this relationship business.

  Relationship.

  She shivered just thinking about the word.

  She composed herself, hoping that her shock hadn’t showed, before slipping her credit card into the folder and sliding it back across the table to him.

  ‘Have it your way,’ he said, placing his own platinum card inside the folder. ‘What do you say, Ms Murray, shall we go for a walk around the quay?’

  Despite her misgivings about where this thing between them was headed, the suggestive twinkle in Brad’s eye still had the power to undo her.

  If they walked the promenade around Circular Quay, they would end up at the door of Spencer Towers.

  He was trying to make this easy.

  Far too easy.

  Chapter Ten

  Brad woke up with the sun, which was streaming through a chink in the blockout blinds. He had turned off the alarm so as not to wake Georgia. This was the second time he had woken up with the bewitching Ms Murray still beside him, and he loved watching her sleep.

  When she was awake, even now, after she had shared something of her past with him, there was still the residue of a protective guard around her, but asleep he got to see the real Georgia, her lightly freckle dusted face completely at ease, the tiny creases in her forehead ironed smooth, her sweet rabbit-like nose twitching occasionally. As she shifted position, hits of the distinctive fruity-floral scent she wore wafted up from the bedclothes. For the first time in his life, despite all his wealth and privilege, he felt like a lucky man.

  But after their first couple of encounters he wasn’t taking anything for granted. Georgia, he had realised, was always ready to run. He had seen it in her eyes on the street outside the homeless shelter, and even in the complete safety of Café Macquarie, when the maître d’ surprised her, chasing her for her coat. She had backed away from him, taking in her surrounds like a cornered animal, as if she was weighing up whether to stay or turn tail and leg it out of there.

  Given her background, it made sense, but he hoped that with time he could make her see that at least with him she had nothing to fear.

  Jeffrey slipped noiselessly into the room with his morning coffee on a silver tray. He set the cup down on the nightstand and handed Brad a card.

  Damn.

  The Spencer Corp board secretary had organised an extraordinary meeting. The message noted the reason.

  Spencer Corp Boardroom. 7.30am. Agenda: Issues at Spencer Resort Samoa. Breakfast provided.

  He had been putting it off, but the issue of the falling occupancy rates in Samoa now obviously demanded his attention. It wasn’t a crisis, yet. The resort was still generating a profit — barely — but he needed to ensure that strategies were in place to protect Spencer Corp margins so they weren’t eroded any further.

  He heard the shower running in the ensuite moments before Jeffrey emerged from the attached dressing room to lay out his clothes for the day. It was going to be an early start. Sleeping Beauty was going to have the bed to herself.

  ‘Tell me you didn’t wear jeans to Café Macquarie,’ Miriam said, part way through the interrogation about her dinner date with Brad, and before her assistant would hand over her messages or her coffee order. Georgia suspected that the placement of the coffee on the opposite side of her secretary’s workstation and out of Georgia’s reach had been a deliberate strategy.

  ‘OMG. You did, didn’t you? You thought Café Macquarie was a café. You really have got to get out more.’

  Georgia bristled, sensing her assistant building up to another lecture about working too hard, but then Miriam’s phone rang.

  ‘Don’t move a muscle, I want details,’ Miriam said, pushing the answer button on her phone, taking the call through her headset.

  ‘Dayton Llewellyn Murray, Georgia Murray’s office, how may I help you? Yes, Mr Spencer.’

  Georgia automatically looked over in the direction of Brad’s office, but it was empty.

  ‘Sure, I can check her diary for you.’

  Georgia mimed ‘give the phone to me’ hand signals, but Miriam carried on talking.

  ‘Yes, Georgia’s weekend is free.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Spencer, I’ll check.’

  Miriam pressed the mute button on the phone.

  ‘He wants to know if you can go away with him for the weekend.’

  ‘I don’t know, Miriam. Tell him that I’ll have to think about it.’

  Going away for the weekend was a significant step along the path of seriousness. She would have to chew it over before she could commit to something like that.

  Miriam released the mute button and recommenced speaking, ‘Georgia says she would love to.’

  ‘Miriam, I can’t believe you just did that!’ she said, as her secretary ended the call.

  ‘Well, someone had to save you from yourself. You need to stop working so hard, Georgia. Just relax and give this thing with Brad a fair go. I’d jump at the chance to fly by corporate jet to the Spencer’s Samoan Resort for the weekend. You know you want to.’

  Miriam folded her arms, leaned back in her chair and tilted her face upwards towards Georgia in a silent challenge.

  ‘Is that what you just agreed to on my behalf — a trip to Samoa?’

  ‘You can bet your sweet life I did, or you might have said no, and as I was just saying less than five minutes ago, you need to get out more.’

  ‘Can I have my messages and my coffee now please?’ Georgia said, exhaling huffily through her nose as she snatched the coffee and the pile of handwritten notes as soon as Miriam retrieved them from the other side of her desk.

  Georgia’s first thought was to call Brad back and cancel, but the more she considered it, the more a tropical island resort seemed to be exactly the sort of environment most conducive to gaining his financial support for the addiction centre before she found a way to gracefully extricate herself from the situation she had gotten into.

  This time when she had woken up in Brad’s apartment, with its over the top décor and the butler fussing over her, only hours after the hideous encounter with Paris Walsh at the restaurant, she finally realised how much she had been kidding herself. There was no way she belonged in Brad Spencer’s life

  She would play along for as long as it took to get the financial backing she needed for the addiction centre. After that, all bets were off. She was never going to fit into Brad’s world, especially if meant Caro and Paris and their clones were always around to rub her nose in it.

  Later that afternoon, when Brad sent a limo instead of a taxi to take her home to pack before ferrying her to Sydney Airport, her view of where their ‘relationship’ was headed cemented further to a foregone conclusion. She had allowed herself to get carried away but now she had to be realistic. She would never mesh with Brad’s glitzy lifestyle. This situation could only ever be temporary; a pleasant distraction until her mission to get the addiction centre off the ground had been accomplished.

  Once she arrived at the airport, Brad was waiting for her onboard the Spencer corporate jet
with a glass of champagne. She hadn’t expected him to be out of business wear, and in jeans and a white t-shirt that clung to his sculpted chest; he looked hotter than ever. But as the jet sped down the runway and pitched into the air, Georgia felt an exhilarating sense of being freed from the shackles of her conflicted reactions to Brad. At least now she had a legitimate reason for being with him that had nothing to do with her crazy messed up feelings, and she was sticking to it.

  The cabin light glowed green indicating that the pilot had completed take-off, and Brad unclipped his seatbelt, dragging a briefcase out from beneath his seat.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve got a stack of paperwork.’

  She drained the last of her glass. Bubbles jiggled over her tongue, releasing a delicious sweetness of fragrant apricots and peaches.

  ‘What is this? It’s delicious. What? Oh yes — paperwork, that’s fine.’

  ‘You seem to be something of a fan of Dom Perignon,’ he said, taking her empty glass.

  No wonder the restaurant bill had been so high. Brad’s taste in wine clearly ran to the exorbitant. Her unease at the wastefulness of spending so much on a bottle of wine, however, was stifled as he returned with a refill. She didn’t need to feel guilty. She was on a mission after all. A fierce jolt of turbulence swayed him on his feet, forcing him to steady himself with a hand on her shoulder. His touch sparked through her every nerve ending, sending her thoughts tumbling forwards in anticipation to finally being alone with Brad at the resort. It was a dirty job, this schmoozing for the good of the shelter, but someone had to do it.

  ‘I have some work to do as well,’ she said, grateful for the diversion.

  But she only managed to review a handful of documents before the combination of two late nights in a row and the sedating effect of the champagne caused her eyes to grow heavy, and her head to sink deep into the soft quilted headrest.

  ‘We’ll be landing soon,’ he whispered, gently stroking her hair.

  Drowsy, she opened heavy lidded eyes, but Brad was already at the front of the cabin leaning into the cockpit, speaking with the pilot.