by Alexa Rowan
It would be so easy to lay her down on that huge expanse of a bed. Surely they could miss part of the cocktail hour without raising too many eyebrows. Couldn’t they?
Cal knew better, much as he wished he didn’t.
Reluctantly, he pulled away, breathing hard. Brenna’s lipstick had somehow remained unsmudged, but her lips were swollen from his kisses, and it made him all kinds of crazy.
“Now we’re both ready,” he said, though his pulse still raced. “Nervous?”
“A little.” She took his arm. “I’m also kind of excited. I like getting all dressed up, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a reason to.”
“I like you getting all dressed up, too,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows, covering her hand with his own.
He escorted her up to the spectacular high-ceilinged ballroom foyer, where cocktails were already being served. The mood was festive. Hundreds of formally dressed attorneys and their guests milled around, greeted each other, and made heavy inroads into the well-stocked open bar.
They found a smaller bar on one side of the room, where the press of guests was only three deep. Joining them in line were Jordie and Lara, who—to Cal’s surprise—had accompanied each other to the event. Cal was enormously pleased to introduce Brenna to them as his girlfriend.
The foursome chatted while they waited to order their drinks. When Lara was busy admiring Brenna’s new earrings, Jordie gave Cal a surreptitious thumbs-up.
Then he leaned closer to Cal. “Golden unicorn, dude,” Jordie whispered hoarsely, shaking his head in disbelieving approval.
This time, Cal refused to pass up the opportunity to ask, “What does that even mean?”
The reply was typical Jordie—surprisingly deep, overlaid with his quirky sense of humor. “Something so rare and wonderful you can’t believe it actually exists.”
Well, that certainly summed up Brenna.
Cal nodded, conceding the point. He still sometimes couldn’t quite believe they’d ended up together, or that what they had was so special.
After an eternity, they got their drinks and were free to mingle with the crowd. Since Brenna and Lara had hit it off, the four agreed to meet up again for dinner. Jordie insisted they should sit near the stage, but refused to explain why.
His reason became clear as they waited for the dessert course to be served. CMH’s managing partner stepped up to the microphone and spoke for several minutes about the firm’s key successes in the previous year and its rosy prospects for the next one. Then he congratulated all the new partners and, one by one, called them up to the stage to introduce them to the rest of the partnership.
At least Cal had some warning, since his name was at the end of the alphabet. He felt a bit bad for Tiffany Alaki, who looked both honored and charmingly shell-shocked when she crossed the stage to shake the managing partner’s hand and receive the applause of her peers, almost like a graduation ceremony. Which wasn’t a bad analogy, when he considered it further in the minutes before his own name was called.
By the time he sat down again, the eleven-piece band had struck up some jazzy background music, and dessert and coffee had been served. Cal eyed the plates in front of him and Brenna with mild alarm—the slices of cake looked very layered and very, very chocolatey.
“I wanted to wait ’til you got back before I tasted it,” Brenna said. The flirtatious undertone in her seemingly polite statement was clearly for his benefit.
“Are you sure you want to eat that?”
“It’s chocolate. Of course I’m going to eat it.”
“Bren,” he warned with a smile.
“What?” She was all innocence.
Until she slipped the fork between her full, pink lips. He couldn’t tear his eyes away as her eyelids closed sensually. She swallowed, the column of her throat gently convulsing.
Then she opened her eyes and turned to him. “Not bad. But it’s not even in the same universe as the chocolate mousse at L’Avenue.” She broke off a morsel, then offered her fork to him. “Here, you try it.”
“I’ve got my own,” he said, so she ate it herself. He bent his head to her ear and whispered, “Tease.”
She swallowed her bite of cake, then she leaned toward him. “Wait ’til we’re back in our room. I’ll show you some teasing,” she purred.
Just like that his eyes unfocused, and all the blood in his body surged straight to his groin.
“I wish you hadn’t said that. I was going to ask you to dance, but now I need to wait a few minutes.”
“You poor thing.” She patted his knee, her eyes gleaming. “I’ll try a little harder not to be so sexy.”
“That is un-possible,” he muttered.
She laughed, but it only made him want to kiss her more.
Averting his eyes from her temptations, Cal scanned the crowd and noticed Grant and his wife headed toward him. Now, there was a welcome distraction if ever he needed one.
Grant parked himself between Cal and Brenna, one hand resting on each chair back, and bent down to be heard over the music and chatter.
“Cal, you remember my wife, Beth?”
“Of course.” Cal nodded a greeting at her over Grant’s shoulder, unable to move his chair without dislodging Grant.
“No, no, don’t stand up,” Grant said. “I just wanted to say hello.” He turned to the other side. “And you must be Brenna. I heard a lot about you when Cal approached me about transferring to Boston. All good things,” he assured her with a smile.
“Bren, this is Grant,” Cal said. “I was up in Boston with him for the trial back in May.”
“Oh!” She twisted in her seat, offering her hand for him to shake. “You must be the boss. I guess I should thank you. I don’t think Cal and I would have met, if it wasn’t for you.”
Grant raised his bushy brows. “The boss, eh? I like it.” His head swiveled back to Cal. “Well, I don’t want to keep the two of you from your dessert. Beth and I will see you on the dance floor later, right?”
“Absolutely,” Cal said.
Grant shifted over two seats to Cal’s right and leaned down to schmooze with Lara and Jordie, leaving Beth standing beside him with good-natured patience.
“They’re so cute,” Brenna said, turning to Cal. “His pocket square matches her dress.”
He glanced to the side. So it did. “I could try to do that next year, if you wanted.”
“Maybe. I kind of liked surprising you though,” she said with a coy smile.
“Then maybe you could buy the matching pocket square.”
“Okay,” she agreed, evidently pleased with the idea.
It thrilled him to talk so casually with her about the future, as if it was a foregone conclusion they would be together. They’d still have to work at their relationship, of course. But it was reassuring to know that at least they shared the same intention.
The band started playing a cover of Norah Jones’s “Come Away with Me,” and Cal knew the time was right. “Have you had enough of your inferior chocolate dessert?” he teased. “I want to dance with you. We’ve never danced.”
She set her fork down and briefly pressed her napkin to her lips. “It’s hard to say no to you, when you’re so eager.”
He’d have to remember that.
He stood, then pulled out Brenna’s chair as he helped her to her feet. They were only a few steps from the dance floor. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to waltz, by any chance?”
“I took social dancing for a semester in college,” she said dubiously, “but that was a long time ago…”
“Excellent.” And he swung her expertly around to face him, her left hand coming to rest on his right shoulder.
Her eyes locked on his. “Oooh, you know how to do this. I can tell.”
“I know how to do lots of things,” he said with a mischievous smile, before guiding her into the first steps of the pattern. She was very responsive to his lead, he noted with pleasure, as he swirled her around the dance floo
r as if they’d been partners for years.
Everyone applauded the band when the song ended. “That was wonderful!” Brenna told him, clapping her hands. “You were already off-the-charts amazing even before I knew you could dance. You just earned so many bonus points.”
He was about to respond when someone a few feet away from them shouted Brenna’s name. They both turned. Waving madly at them was a woman Cal didn’t recognize, dragging along a bemused-looking man Cal knew—Doug, a corporate partner in the Boston office whom Cal had reached out to several weeks ago, before his transfer.
“Brenna, it’s so unbelievable you’re here! You look gorgeous, by the way. And the way the two of you danced, wow! I thought I was watching Dancing with the Stars,” the woman gushed. She turned to Cal. “Hi, I’m Julie, Doug’s wife.”
“Cal Wilcox.” He shook her offered hand.
“Welcome to Boston, Cal.” Then, like a swallow in flight, Julie turned the conversation again. “Doug, this is Brenna, my new massage therapist. She is the best. Brenna, this is my husband, Doug.”
“Nice to meet you.” Brenna nodded at Doug, who hadn’t managed to get a word in edgewise.
“I didn’t know your boyfriend worked at CMH,” Julie said. “That’s such a coincidence!”
Brenna arched a brow. “It is indeed.” She turned to Cal, her tone dripping with exaggerated surprise. “Right, honey?”
Luckily, she waited to commence her interrogation of him until after Julie had dragged Doug off to “dance to her favorite song!”
Hands on hips, Brenna drawled, “So you’re the ‘Mrs. Truesdale’ who bought those gift certificates, I presume?”
“No…”
She frowned at him, awaiting an explanation of his unspoken “not quite.”
He ’fessed up. “Well, I kind of borrowed my sister Megan’s name.”
“Ha!” Then she blinked. “Let me get this straight. I broke up with you, and three days later you dropped a thousand dollars on gift certificates for Serenity Massage. That’s just…wow.” She shook her head. “What if we hadn’t gotten back together?”
There wasn’t really a good answer to that question. So he shrugged and said with a cocky grin, “I’m an optimist?”
“Cal,” she said, lengthening his name exasperatedly. She wasn’t done grilling him, either. “So the energy bars weren’t actually my first present then, either.”
“Yes, they were.”
“But you bought the gift certificates the day before I got the energy bars.”
“I don’t consider the gift certificates to be a present. They were for Serenity Massage. Everything else was for you.”
Her brow crinkled adorably. “You bought Serenity Massage a present?”
He considered her question. “I suppose you could think of it that way. You’d said you wanted someone who supported your career and cared about your business. So I tried to do that. I gave the gift certificates to people I thought might be good additions to your clientele. I figured, you know, maybe some of them would become repeat clients or tell their friends, or something.”
“They did.” She paused thoughtfully. “Your present has already been more successful than some of my formal marketing campaigns. It’s really making a difference.”
Pride swelled warmly in his chest. This was ten times better than making partner.
Brenna rose onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips across his. “Thank you, sweetie.”
As he gazed at her with nothing short of adoration, it was right on the tip of his tongue to tell her he loved her. He didn’t really know why he was still holding back at this point, and it would be hard to find a more perfect moment than this one. Or, for that matter, a more perfectly memorable occasion, dressed to the nines under the scintillating chandeliers of the Waldorf’s Starlight Roof.
But he’d barely moved up to Boston a month ago, and it still seemed too soon. Besides, Brenna had only ever made that one, offhand reference to loving him—she’d never said the actual words. He didn’t want to put pressure on her to say it back to him if she wasn’t ready. And honestly, he wasn’t sure he was ready to put that particular label on his feelings, because even though things were going really well, he’d never felt this way before, and what if he jinxed them—
She looked up at him with shining eyes and, thankfully, took the choice right out of his hands. “I love you, Cal.”
“I love you too, Bren. So much,” he told her, imbuing his words with every ounce of the emotion brimming over in his heart.
Right there in the middle of the dance floor, in front of three hundred of his esteemed colleagues and their guests, Cal kissed her—long, and slow, and chocolatey sweet.
And he didn’t give a damn who saw them.
THE END
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You’ve just read Winning Her Over, the first book in my sizzling-hot BigLaw Romance series, which portrays smart, ambitious heroes and heroines struggling with realistic conflicts as they seek love, success, and that elusive work-life balance. The next book in the series is An International Affair—keep reading for a sneak peek!
EXCERPT FROM AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR
“OI. SHANE.”
Shane Tracy didn’t even have to look up from his monitor to know who that grating voice belonged to. “Just a sec, Mark.”
Didn’t matter that it was Shane’s first week at the most prestigious international law firm in Sydney, Australia. Or that he was in the middle of reviewing an asset purchase agreement for a partner he wanted to impress. Because it wouldn’t do to keep his paragon of an older brother waiting overlong.
Shane continued scanning the document, but sure enough, his office door still closed with a gentle thunk. No, You look busy, I’ll come back later. No, Sorry for interrupting. Just an expectation that he’d drop everything because whatever Mark had to say was more important.
Suppressing a sigh, Shane glanced over to where his brother’s flabby arse now rested against said door. Mark was a partner in the firm’s real estate department, and Shane, unfortunately, owed his presently elevated circumstances to his brother’s largesse.
The morning sunlight glinted off Mark’s glasses as he stepped farther into the office. “I just wanted to check in, see how you were going.”
Check up on him was more like it. But Shane pasted on a smile—one of those charming ones that usually got him what he wanted—and said, “Can’t complain. I like my colleagues so far, the office has a fantastic view…” He paused then, tilting his head backward toward the panorama of Sydney Harbour and the Botanic Gardens spread out behind him. “And John Gallagher’s got me working on a two hundred million dollar deal of his.” So let’s wrap this up so I can get back to reviewing John’s agreement, shall we?
“John. Huh.” Mark’s eyebrows rose, chasing his receding hairline.
God, Shane hoped he didn’t look like that when he turned thirty-five. At least he still had seven more years before he hit that particular milestone. Luckily, he’d also inherited their mother’s thick, dark hair instead of their father’s thinning strands. Not that Shane had anything against bald dudes—some guys really made the look work for them.
Mark removed his glasses, then brandished them at Shane for emphasis. “I guess I don’t need to tell you how important it is that you stay in John’s good graces if you want
to succeed in the corporate department at Carter, Munroe and Hodges.”
Shane wondered if his brother practiced sounding that pretentious. But he knew where this discussion was leading now. Maybe he could still head it off.
“Look. I know I screwed up. I shouldn’t have hooked up with Brooke, but we’re consenting adults, and we were both into it. Carleton’s doesn’t have an anti-fraternization policy, so there was no legitimate reason to make me resign.”
“You still don’t get it.” Mark pulled a cloth out of his pocket and started polishing his lenses. “You weren’t fired because Carleton’s managing partner caught you sticking your tongue down his niece’s throat—in public. You were fired because pashing the managing partner’s niece—who was also a summer law clerk at your firm, I might add—demonstrated poor judgment. Extremely poor.” He pointed his now-clean glasses at Shane again. “If your work at Carleton’s hadn’t been impeccable, I wouldn’t have bothered sticking my neck out to bring you here.”
The unexpected compliment surprised Shane into thinking he’d gotten off easy. But his brother wasn’t done berating him.
“She was barely twenty years old, for Christ’s sake. What were you even doing with a girl that young?” Mark shook his head, then tucked the cloth away and put his glasses back on. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Just keep it in your trousers here, all right, Shane? I’m not bailing you out a second time.”
“Yes. Of course, Mark.” Like getting canned for something so trivial wasn’t enough of a learning experience. “Trust me, I will never hook up with a girl from work again.”
Shane’s computer chimed and his phone buzzed, signaling that he had a new email message and hopefully a way out of this conversation. He nudged his mouse, waking up the monitor.