by Lisa Rayne
Unfolding from the chair, Chase stood. His tall frame towered over Michael’s desk. “Avoidance time is done. You’re coming to the meeting today. I expect to see you in the South Conference Room in fifteen minutes. If you’re not there on time, I’m going to personally pick one of the new female hires to come escort you down.”
Michael’s head jerked up. As he suspected, a mischievous smirk graced Chase’s lips. His friend had a wicked sense of humor, and Michael knew he meant it. The only thing Michael hated more than the administrative duties associated with partnership was fending off the female groupies who considered him the firm’s most eligible catch. Every year, a new bunch arrived.
Sometimes, he felt like a mouse in a house with a dozen cats. He had to be careful when he came out of his hole. The Mediterranean complexion he’d inherited from his mother gave him a perpetual tan look the opposite sex found attractive. Still, he’d learned what most interested females were the size of his bank account and the power associated with having the same surname as the firm’s founding partners. He didn’t do office relationships. He’d been there, done that, and had the battle scars to prove it.
“I’ll be there,” he finally replied. The last thing he needed was for Chase to sic some overzealous female associate on him. Chase had a knack for picking the ones with a biological clock ticking so loud it could be heard throughout the tri-state area. The last time it happened, Michael spent weeks trying to dissuade the young lady from her pursuit. In his opinion, there wasn’t a species on the planet more tenacious than a female lawyer. He doubted even a mother lioness could hold her own.
“Good.” Chase turned and exited the corner office.
Michael’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath as he rubbed his left hand through his hair. His Monday morning hadn’t stacked up so well. He’d let Chase catch him daydreaming about his mystery lady. He’d let thoughts of her distract him from the case he should have been working on.
Opposing counsel had made it clear during their last telephone conference that the plaintiff, Dexter Drug, wouldn’t talk settlement unless the deal included a full assignment of Metra Pharmaceuticals’ patent rights in its competing drug. Of course, Metra Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t agree so he needed to survive the summary judgment phase. If he did, this case might actually go to trial.
Looking at his calendar again, he noted that would put him in court right around the Fourth of July picnic. Raina was going to skin him alive. On top of that, he now had to go play mentor.
He rose from his deep black leather chair, grabbed his suit jacket, and headed for the conference room. He didn’t know why, but he had a sudden premonition his day was about to get even more complicated.
Chapter 3
Jordis Morgan stood off to the side of the half-full conference room, gripping a cup of chai spice black tea. Subconsciously, she categorized the different personality types in the room. She excelled at reading people, a skill that had proved useful during her career as a litigator.
In some ways, she was an anomaly. She had a reputation as a fierce litigator. She rarely lost and could pick apart an adversary’s case with the efficiency of a swarm of locust stripping a field of crops. Yet, her easy smile and youthful demeanor lured opposing counsel into a relaxed mood that often resulted in their underestimating her. By the time they realized under her easy-going exterior laid the heart of a predator, she’d shredded their legal theories and left their clients defeated.
While her colleagues didn’t qualify as adversaries per se, competition inevitably reared its head among the group. She lumped the women on her team into distinct categories, from hot-to-trot to damsel-in-distress to no-nonsense career woman. She turned her attention to the men, but got distracted when Michael Remington walked into the conference room. The head of every female swiveled his way and lingered longer than necessary to simply acknowledge his arrival. Jordis, too, took a few extra minutes to admire the tall, muscular dark-haired lawyer in his tailored navy Armani suit. His confident loose-limbed walk said athletic. This man didn’t simply chisel out a physique in the gym to impress the ladies; he used his body for activities more engaging than static barbell repetitions.
Michael made his way around the room, shaking hands and introducing himself. He lingered with a couple of guys whose faces became particularly animated after introductions. Jordis couldn’t hear the entire conversation, but apparently one of them had attended Michael’s law school alma mater.
The younger of the associates, Jonathan, like her was a lateral hire and new to the firm this year. The other associate, Eric Covington, was a firm veteran and the group’s egomaniac. Covington had wasted no time rubbing Jordis the wrong way. Her hand tightened around her cup as she watched him try to ingratiate himself with Remington.
When Michael Remington finally excused himself and walked her way, he hesitated a second before extending his hand. “Michael Remington.”
She shifted her cup into her left hand and shook his with her right. “Jordis Morgan.”
Up close, Jordis took note of his alluring gray eyes. She’d never met a man with gray eyes. She’d read about them in works of fiction, and now seeing the real thing, she understood why hordes of women would fantasize about having a man look lustfully at them through gray lenses.
Michael narrowed those exquisite eyes slightly as he examined her face more closely. “Have we met before?”
“No.” Jordis shook her head. “At least, not officially.”
“Not officially?” Michael, who had continued to hold her hand, glanced down when she slid her hand casually from his grasp. “How so?”
“I’ve worked at the firm for four months.” She flashed an easy smile. “Maybe you’ve seen me lurking in the halls.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jordis caught Alyson McGovern watching her with a none-to-happy look on her face.
Michael slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks while he considered her response. “Maybe, but I don’t think that’s it.”
Rumored to be the hottest guy at the firm, the firm’s future managing partner had a reputation as a chick magnet. A die-hard workaholic, associates rarely saw him outside his office. She’d joined the firm shortly before Labor Day, and until today, she hadn’t met the man in person.
She didn’t put much stock in rumors or innuendo, but she had to admit, the talk didn’t do him justice. He didn’t have a classically handsome face in a pretty-boy way. His features leaned towards the rugged. Square-jawed with angled cheekbones and full brows below a balanced forehead, he had a straight nose that gave nice symmetry to his face. His brown-black hair had been shaved short around the sides and back of his head, but left full in the top. With his athletic build and those compelling features beneath a smooth olive complexion, he exuded an animal magnetism hard to ignore.
Before he could make another comment, Chase called the meeting to order.
“After you.” Michael stepped aside and motioned her towards the conference table.
A voice interrupted their parting. “Excuse me, Mr. Remington.”
Michael looked down to see Alyson smiling at him.
A petite woman, Alyson stood about a head shorter than Jordis, making her look delicate next to Michael. “I’m going to top off my cup of coffee.” Her sweetly reticent smile suggested a shyness contradicted by the offer in her eyes. “How about I get you a cup?”
“No thanks, Alyson. I appreciate the offer, but I’m good.” Michael motioned Alyson to the coffee service. “Why don’t you hurry and freshen your cup so we can get started.”
From her spot at the conference table, Jordis watched Alyson’s smile turn into a frown once Michael could no longer see her face. After topping off her coffee cup, Alyson moved to the conference table and placed her cup in front of her seat before adjusting the wide leather waist belt on her red designer shirtdress. Alyson glanced at Jordis and gave a fake smile. Jordis returned the smile in turn, internally pleased at the disappointment masked on Alyson’
s face.
Jordis didn’t have time to examine why the interchange between Michael Remington and Alyson pleased her so much because Michael surprised her—and Alyson—by walking over to the coffee service and pouring his own cup of coffee. Jordis discreetly caught the expression on Alyson’s face as the woman took notice of the gesture and the silent message it sent: she wouldn’t turn Michael Remington’s head easily.
Ms. Hot-To-Trot would have to up her game if she intended to make a play for the sexy partner. Why this pleased Jordis, she’d have to examine more closely later.
* * *
“Okay, the last order of business,” Chase stated, “is to select this year’s litigation pro bono case.” He flipped open a file folder in front of him. “Each of you has a copy of the synopses for the five potential cases selected by the Pro Bono Review Board. The matter is now open for discussion. Recommendations?”
Michael looked casually around the table. He covertly evaluated this latest crop of lawyers, trying to determine who’d likely have a long-term stint at the firm and who’d likely be gone by the end of the fiscal year. Good grades and high test scores were important, but they encompassed only a small part of what it took to be a great lawyer. He believed in recruiting from the top ranks of prestigious law schools, but intangibles such as drive, discipline, empathy, and integrity meant as much as academic success. Talent alone was never enough. When they got lucky and found associates with the triple combination of academic talent, emotional intelligence, and those amorphous intangibles, then he knew they’d hit pay dirt.
He lifted his cup of now cold coffee and tried to focus on the discussion. He was having an unusually hard time paying attention to the various topic. He sat at the opposite end of the table from Chase, and the long-legged associate with the unique name sat two chairs down on his left. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, though he made sure to be discreet. Where had he seen her before?
Maybe he had passed her in the hall, but the thought didn’t ring true. He’d noticed her immediately upon walking into the conference room. Something about her posture and body language as she’d stood alone surveying the room had tugged at the recesses of his memory.
When he’d introduced himself, her striking eyes had taken him off guard. The swirls of browns, golds, and greens mixed together to make an alluring tapestry of color more intense than any hazel eyes he’d ever seen before. She wore minimal makeup, but her eyes appeared large and seductive. Combined with her light caramel skin tone, the exotic eyes gave her a stunning appeal that would make any man look twice.
High cheekbones graced an oval face enhanced by perfectly arched eyebrows. She’d pulled her straight hair back and secured it at the base of her neck with a flat barrette. Its chestnut brown fullness fell between her shoulder blades against a gold-colored blouse she’d paired with a pencil skirt. The skirt stopped decorously right above her knees, but the cheetah print pumps she wore accentuated her shapely length of long legs.
To his chagrin, when she’d walked away to take her seat, his eyes had dropped to the sway of her hips. He’d looked up to find Chase watching him with a questioning look. Michael had taken a quick glance around to see if anyone else had noticed where his eyes had strayed. No one had seemed the wiser.
He angled his conference chair to the left and leaned back in the comfortable black leather swivel rocker. With his right foot propped over his left knee, he kept Jordis Morgan directly in his line of vision. Every once in a while, she flicked her left hand and rubbed her left wrist. She wore no watch. He wondered if she’d forgotten to put one on this morning and subconsciously missed it.
She had nice hands with long fingers and soft skin. A French manicure in beige instead of white tipped her nails. Her hands kept busy, either casually fingering the rim of her cup or fiddling with her pen. The constant movement fascinated him. He could imagine those hands trailing languidly across his naked body. The place on his anatomy he’d most welcome her touch twitched at the thought. When she opened her mouth to lobby for the landlord-tenant matter of a single mom in a depressed neighborhood, he squashed his wayward thoughts and shifted his awareness of the discussion from the back of his multitasking brain to the forefront.
“Look, sweetheart, I feel for the little inner-city single mom as much as the next person,” Eric Covington said to Jordis with barely disguised superiority.
Michael’s right hand, which had heretofore absently twirled his pen atop a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, stopped abruptly. Did he just call her “sweetheart” in the middle of a business meeting?
Michael looked at Chase who slowly raised an eyebrow, confirming for Michael he hadn’t imagined the inappropriate appellation.
“However, we have the opportunity to be the legal face of a major patent dispute that could lead to some historical legal precedent. Here,” Eric tapped the folder of his preferred case, “we have an everyday guy whose brilliant innovation was ripped off by a major corporate conglomerate.” He leaned forward in his chair, getting into his pitch. “It’ll be great PR. We’ll be touted for fighting for the underdog. We shouldn’t pass that up for a case that could easily be handled by Legal Aid.”
Jordis leaned back in her chair and simply stared at Eric. Michael watched a slow smile creep across her face. He’d swear he’d seen the same look on the face of his uncle’s favorite tomcat right before he took out a family of rats. He thought to intervene, but something about Jordis’s relaxed poise made him bide his time.
“Excuse me, studly, but I thought the point of the firm’s Pro Bono Program was to make a difference in the community, not to select cases with the intent of improving the firm’s PR profile.”
Eric glowered at Jonathan, to his right, who came down with a sudden coughing fit at Jordis’s use of the word studly.
“Legal Aid is a charitable organization with a finite annual budget,” Jordis continued. “There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to take on this woman’s case, at least not immediately. If the patent case has such promise, I’m sure some other firm will be more than happy to take it on a contingency fee basis. Besides, we already have a high profile intellectual property case on the firm’s docket. Using the Pro Bono Program to add another smacks of personal hubris not community service.”
“Jordis, I can understand wanting to fight for the social underdog.” Eric’s voice held a slight edge of condescension. “But let’s look at this logically.”
Jordis lifted an unopened water bottle from the table, twisted the cap off, and took a sip. Setting the bottle back on the table, she slowly swiveled her chair to the right, crossed her long legs and responded with a quiet air of nonchalance. “Logically?”
Eric grinned his pretty-boy grin, expecting his charm to carry the day. “Exactly.”
Jordis smiled back, not with joviality, but with the look of someone who recognized an insult and intended to pick up the gauntlet thrown down before her.
Michael watched the foot Jordis dangled in the air bob twice. He tried to keep his eyes on her ankles, but they were drawn to her shapely calves and beyond, to where her black pencil skirt had ridden up her thighs. His thoughts wandered to what she might be wearing under that skirt. A vision of Jordis uncrossing her legs to plant her cheetah-pump shod feet wide enough apart to give him a peek flashed through his brain. The image hit him hard and shocked him with the instant hardening impact on the muscle between his thighs.
Looking up from Jordis’s thighs, his eyes met those multi-colored orbs he found almost as entrancing as her legs. Her eyes shifted color. Her facial expression remained neutral, but she’d noticed where his attention had been focused. He dropped his foot to the floor and turned his seat squarely under the table, needing to be discreet about his lap’s abrupt change in appearance.
Dammit. He couldn’t believe he’d been caught, not once but twice, during a rare flare of female gawking. He didn’t usually ogle woman, particularly not at the office. He had a strict personal policy against
fraternizing with associates or any firm staff. He’d learned the hard way while a junior associate working with his father and grandfather that having the Remington name on the building and on his driver’s license made him a target for schemers and gold diggers. If they couldn’t coax him into marriage or trap him into fatherhood, they weren’t beyond claiming a consensual encounter constituted sexual harassment.
“So,” Jordis replied to Eric Covington, shifting her attention back to the discussion at hand, “are you saying I didn’t use logic when evaluating the case the first time or you simply think I’m incapable of making a logical, coherent analysis without your assistance?”
Eric’s smile faltered at the edges. “I didn’t say anything like that. All I’m saying is we need to look beyond personal biases and analyze each possible pro bono matter objectively.”
Michael leaned forward in his chair. He didn’t like the direction the discussion had taken. He was about to put a stop to it when Chase warned him not to interrupt with a subtle shake of his head. Michael accepted the warning and held his tongue. It didn’t sit well with him, but Chase had shepherded the group alone for the last few months so he would defer to Chase’s judgment for the time being.
Jordis’s direct gaze never wavered from Eric’s face. “Ah. So you feel I’m biased and unable to be objective in this matter.”
Eric held up his hands in a gesture of truce. “Jordis, there’s no need to get defensive. Let’s not make this personal.”
The corner of Jordis’s mouth lifted in a half smile. “Oh, let’s,” she replied with a lilt on the last word. “Eric, why don’t you explain to us exactly what personal biases I might have towards this potential client?” When Eric didn’t reply immediately, she pressed him. “Is it the fact she’s a single mom or that she lives in the inner city? Or, is there some other connection you believe we have?”