by J. K. Coi
Bria smiled. “Then why didn’t you just tell her about the woman in the hotel room? She probably would have understood.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll either leave because of this, or she’ll leave in a year or two because I can’t play football anymore.”
“Of course it matters,” she said with a frown. “She didn’t marry you because she likes soccer. She must love you for more than your career. And if you love her, then give her a chance to prove that she’ll stand by you even if you can’t play.”
He crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze. “Should you really be advising me to get back together with my wife? You aren’t likely to get paid that way, you know.”
It had been obvious all along that André didn’t really want a divorce from his wife, but she hadn’t wanted to ask him if there was any chance for resolution because she’d wanted the case. She’d wanted the high-profile attention, the money it would bring to the firm, the recognition she’d get from the partners. She’d wanted to prove to herself that she didn’t need Leo to be successful.
But as much as she wanted to be a shark…she wasn’t a shark. She couldn’t go through with this. It might be good for her career, but helping André end his marriage wasn’t what was good for her client.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I think you need to go see Josephine and tell her what you’ve told me, and give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“What if it makes no difference?”
Her stomach plummeted as she realized that she had her hopes set on these two finding a way to beat the odds and stay together. Someone should have a happy ending. “Then I’ll find out who took those photographs, and we’ll be ready to go to court.”
…
Bria couldn’t get the conversation with André out of her head for the rest of the day. She’d encouraged him to be brave and do something that Bria herself hadn’t been able to do for her own marriage, and it had been bugging her ever since. Should she be taking her own advice? Had she treated Leo unfairly by refusing to give him yet another chance?
Her stomach clenched with guilt and sorrow. She picked up her cell phone for about the three hundredth time since he’d walked out of the office earlier. But then she remembered Nadia Foster’s hand on his sleeve and stopped. Nadia would never have advised her client to go down on his knees and beg his wife to take him back.
Her phone buzzed in her hand as she sat there staring at it, but it wasn’t Leo. She answered and said, “Hi, Mom. How are you?”
“Sweetie, I heard on the news that you’re representing that famous soccer player, what’s his name?”
She grimaced. Maybe not for long, if he took her advice. “André Cordeiro.”
“That’s right,” she said excitedly. “I told everybody on Facebook about it. They’re all so impressed. I’m so proud of you.”
“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you to be careful what you put on Facebook?” Bria bonked her forehead off her desk a couple of times in frustration. “Telling the internet that your daughter is a lawyer is not always a good idea.”
“Bah. I make sure I have all those privacy settings on my account, so the only people who can see any of my posts are my friends.” Her mother continued, “So, this big case. Does it mean you’re going to be making partner soon? You work so hard, and you’re so good at your job. They’d be crazy not to make you a partner, right?” When Bria had gotten the job at Ashton Granger Markham, her mother had decided to live out her own abandoned career aspirations through her daughter, becoming Bria’s biggest feminist advocate.
“I don’t know about the partnership position, Mom. It’s a really competitive office, and this case might not be the one,” she said, feeling a little deflated after this morning’s revelations. But she’d screwed things up royally in her own life; the least she could do was try to help André fix his instead of using him as a pawn for her own advancement. “But I’m enjoying the work, and it’s keeping me really busy.”
“That’s good, good,” her mom said, sounding distracted. Through the phone, Bria heard the sound of a male voice calling hello. “Oh dear, Frank’s home. I’ll let you go, and I’ll call you again next week,” she said.
“All right, Mom. Take care. Bye.” There were so many other things she wanted to say about Leo and how conflicted she was feeling, but Bria couldn’t talk about this with her mother. It was too close to home for her mom, and Bria didn’t want to remind her of her own devastating past experiences.
She steeled her resolve for the five hundredth time and dove into her work. She spent the rest of the afternoon reading through contracts and consoling anxious clients. She’d built a decent file list here in a very short time, and her billable hours were skyrocketing higher every day. If things continued their upward momentum, that partnership spot might still be a very real possibility even without André’s high-profile case.
She blinked up at the door when Brandon came in later. He had his book bag over his shoulder and his jacket on. “What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s way after six, and I’ve got a date tonight, so don’t even try to get me to stay any later.”
She chuckled. “I wasn’t going to. Have a good weekend,” she said with a smile.
He started to turn away, then frowned and stopped. “What did you tell André this afternoon after that meeting with Mrs. Cordeiro and your hus—” At her sharp look, he stopped himself before saying the word…and saved his job.
She tucked her pencil into the bun in her hair and glanced back down at the financial statement in front of her. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Because when he left, he asked me to forward his final account on Monday.”
She sighed. “He wants to try to reconcile with his wife. I simply wished him luck.”
He made a face. “That was our million-dollar ticket to the corner office. You couldn’t have even pretended to tell him that the grass is greener on the other side of the divorce papers? I thought you were going to be a shark?”
“I couldn’t do it, Brandon.” Absently, she reached for a pencil from the cup on her desk and tapped it in her palm. “I told him I’d still be here if it didn’t work out, but I guess we’re just going to have to find another way to snag the partnership spot.”
He groaned, but smiled. “How did I get stuck working for the one lawyer with a conscience?”
She chuckled. “You’re welcome to go try your luck with Nadia Foster.”
He shuddered. “Screw that.” He turned to go, then paused with a hand on the door and looked over his shoulder, his characteristic irreverence softened with approval and respect. “You did the right thing.”
Bria smiled, glad someone could see it. “I know. Now get out of here.”
After he was gone, she settled in with every intention of putting in a late night. If she wasn’t going to knock the partners’ socks off with the André Cordeiro case anymore, then she needed to make up for it in other ways.
By around eight thirty, her stomach started grumbling. She tried to push through, but having skipped lunch earlier, too, the hunger became distracting fairly quickly.
Just as she was trying to talk herself out of raiding the employee refrigerator, a text sent her cell phone buzzing across the desk in front of her. She glanced down, curious. It was Leo.
I have dinner. Let me in.
The words didn’t completely register at first. What are you talking about? Where are you? she typed.
You’re still working, right? I figured you would be and brought food.
Here? He was here?
She checked the time and realized she’d completely forgotten that tonight was one of their scheduled evenings. Bria shot up from her desk and ran around to the door of her office. She craned her neck and peered down the darkened hallway toward the reception area. Sure enough, despite the low lighting, through the glass wall between the office and the elevators stood a
tall, broad, Leo-shaped figure holding up a brown paper bag.
She’d doffed her jacket and kicked off her heels hours ago, and now padded down the hall in her stocking feet, glancing nervously into offices as she passed them. All of them were deserted, and most were clean and tidy with clear desks, while hers always looked as if a paper explosion had gone off in her space.
Thank God nobody else was still around. Since it was Friday, even the maintenance staff had cleaned up right after closing to be done with it early, and had been gone for an hour or so. Only she had absolutely no plans and was still working.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open, but didn’t let him in. She stuck her head out instead. He was dressed in sweats and a hoodie with worn cross-trainers on his feet, which meant he must have just come from the gym.
Which meant all those endorphins were still running through his system.
She swallowed hard, remembering exactly what that would have meant for her if everything were normal between them. “I would have come home—” she started. “Wait, is that Mr. Russo’s garlic bread I smell?”
He held up the bag with a smile. “Made special just for you with lots of butter,” he said. “I had a feeling you would skip dinner tonight, so I brought you something.”
What he didn’t say was that he’d suspected she would skip dinner to avoid him, but for once, that wasn’t exactly the truth.
When she hesitated, he held out the bag for her to take. “Come on,” he said. “It’s your favorite.”
“Thank you.” Slowly, she reached for it, and he turned to go. “You’re leaving?”
He paused. “I thought maybe you were avoiding me, but you actually look busy, so I won’t interrupt. I’ll see you later.”
She bit her lip and looked back over her shoulder into the empty office. As he pushed the button for the elevator, the stellar advice she’d given her own client this afternoon came back to haunt her, and she swore. If nothing else, they deserved to go away from this marriage as friends, and friends could share a meal with each other, right? “Wait,” she called. “I’ve been working for hours and could use a break. Do you…do you want to come in?”
Her breath caught when his big body filled the entrance in front of her. She held the door open for him, and his arm brushed against hers as he slipped by to come inside.
She cleared her throat. “Come with me,” she said, leading the way back to her office. The bag of food was making her dizzy with hunger, but Leo’s presence was making her stomach do somersaults of anxious uncertainty. It was a disconcerting combination.
She shut the door, wishing there were an actual wall facing out into the hall instead of just glass on one side and windows on the other. She felt super vulnerable, even though they were completely alone. In fact, maybe that’s why she felt vulnerable.
He paused and waited for her to sit behind her desk before he took one of the plush seats in front of her and crossed his heel over his knee. His leg bounced as she emptied the bag, proving he was still jacked from his workout. A Leo with adrenaline pouring through his system was a horny Leo, and for her, it was like a triple orgasm just waiting to happen. Her body read the signs and was just as ready to go.
Her blood pumped; her breathing thinned; her skin heated.
She forced herself to focus on the food. It smelled divine. Garlic bread, Caesar salad, and a big Styrofoam bowl of steaming minestrone soup, complete with cutlery and napkins, and even a bottle of water. Her stomach growled so loud that Leo chuckled. “Aren’t you glad now that I came?”
She jerked her gaze up. Just like that, the teasing smile on his face shifted into something deeper, less casual, more intimate.
After a loaded moment during which she couldn’t look away, he simply said, “You better eat that before it gets cold.”
He got up from the chair and walked to the window, and Bria could breathe again. She popped the lid off her soup and breathed deeply before scooping a hearty spoonful into her mouth. It was heaven. Warm and comforting. The bread satisfied all her carb cravings, and the creamy salad gave the illusion that she was eating healthy.
When she was done, she watched him for a few minutes, finishing her bottle of water. His profile screamed to her of strength, focus, and success, all the things she should want.
And she did. She wanted those things, but it wasn’t enough.
He turned to her with a smile. “Did you know that you can see your old building from here?” he asked.
“What building?”
“That run-down place you had when we started dating.”
“Really?” That had been almost four years ago. God, they’d come so far since then. She stood and joined him at the window. She hadn’t taken the time to examine the view yet. It had been more important to keep working, stay busy, so she wouldn’t stop and think about what she had done to her career and her life in the heat of the moment.
He pointed out to the left. “It’s about four blocks that way.”
She peered out. “Where? How can you tell? It’s so dark, there’s no way you could see it.”
He moved behind her and leaned down to get to the same eye level. His chin touched her shoulder, and he lifted his arm in front of her and pointed again. “Right…there. See? You can just catch the corner of that blinking pepper sign from the all-night grocery store next door.”
Sparks raced across her skin at his nearness, his touch, his warm breath on her cheek. It was a conflagration of sensation she hadn’t prepared herself for and didn’t have the strength to fight against.
“Remember how that used to drive you crazy?” he said.
She saw it, too. The red, green, and yellow lights shaped like three different-colored bell peppers, with the words Fresh Mart arching above them and Guaranteed in a half circle below. That place had been a dump, but he’d never complained when she suggested hanging out there instead of his fancy apartment. When it came to money, Leo had always been several lengths ahead of her. As part of his Plan, he’d decided he needed to be rich, richer than an average lawyer’s salary could make him, and so he’d learned everything he could about investing. By the time his firm was doing well enough to net him six figures personally, he’d already made way more than that on his own.
She groaned. “I can’t believe it didn’t drive you crazy. That stupid sign was right outside the bedroom window, and it was on all day and all night, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, even Christmas.”
“Well, at least at Christmas, the colors kind of blended into the rest of the street’s holiday lighting.” He chuckled, his wide chest rising and falling against her shoulders. “Besides, with those things on and Mr. Dees’s son’s stereo going all night, I never had any need for candles and romantic music to woo you.”
Although the reminder of all their history put a lump in her throat, she had to laugh. The single father who’d lived in the unit directly below her had worked the night shift most weeks, which meant his fifteen-year-old son had enjoyed a lot of freedom. “Your memory is failing if you think Randall’s rap music was romantic. Do you think Mr. Dees knew that his son had his girlfriend in the apartment with him every night while he was at work?”
“He told me one time when I was on my way up those endless stairs to see you”—the apartment had been a walk-up, with Mr. Dees and his son on the third floor, and Bria on the fourth—“that since the kids were going to find a way to be together one way or another, he’d rather know that they were safe in his house than out there somewhere on the street.”
Leo moved back and braced his hip against the window ledge with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles.
His profile took her breath away. As his gaze swung the length of her office, she could breathe again, but her racing heart didn’t seem to know that, and her overheated flesh didn’t seem to care.
He faced her. “How are you doing here? Are they treating you right?” he asked gently. She recognized the genuine concern in his voice, and he
r throat tightened. From the moment they’d met, there had been an intense chemistry between them that had sizzled, crackled, and popped. They’d jumped into a whirlwind relationship.
Bria hadn’t ever known Leo without the hard-core sexual component being a factor, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been softness, too, and that they hadn’t been friends as well as lovers…before.
She bit her lip. “It’s not exactly what I thought it would be,” she admitted. Part of her didn’t want to say it aloud, especially to him, but it wasn’t the same working alone, without Leo by her side tag-teaming the files. She wanted to be the hard-core career woman who made partner before the age of thirty and was defined by something other than her husband’s success and her child-rearing abilities, but she was starting to fear that she might be too soft to do it on her own.
She hated this weakness, this doubt and fear…and oh God, the wanting. She still wanted Leo so bad, it was a hard ball lodged in her gut.
She sucked in her breath and moved as far away from the window as she could, which put her pretty much at the office door.
The air thinned as Leo straightened again and followed. Like a slow-moving, heat-seeking missile, he closed the distance between them. “I’ve missed you so damn much,” he murmured. “This agreement has been torture. Pretending we’re just two people passing the time before going our separate ways.”
She swallowed and couldn’t stop looking at his mouth.
She blamed the food for making her complacent, the intimacy of the deserted offices for her waffling determination. Bria knew all the reasons why she needed to maintain the distance that she’d put between them, but right now, none of those reasons seemed as compelling as the warmth of his hand sliding up her arm, or the flutter in her belly as he pulled her flush against his hard body.