Dating a Lawyer (The Dating Series Book 3)

by B. T. Love

  Speaking of Claire, she was pouting at the table and Brad was next to her, leaning into her ear. As he spoke her lips morphed into a smile and she nodded happily, whatever he was saying lifting her mood.

  As for me, I was on cloud nine. I smiled at Judge Miller and then took the Thompson file into my hand, walking with confidence down the aisle, pushing through the double doors at the end. Before they could shut back into place I snuck a peek at Brad over my shoulder. He was still sitting next to Claire, but he was looking back over his shoulder at me. His eyes were soft and his lips curled up into a smile as our gaze met. I returned the gesture, smiling with satisfaction before the doors shut back into place, cutting us off from one another.

  I took my time walking in the sunshine back to my car in the courthouse parking lot. My head tilted back and I pulled in a full breath of air just as a light burst of wind carried the scent of summer around me. It was a good day. When I got to my car I opened the driver’s side door and tossed the Thompson file over onto the passenger’s seat.

  “You don’t lock your doors?” Brad’s deep voice called out behind me.

  I smiled before turning around. “Nope.”

  As he walked the rest of the way over to me he unbuttoned his suit jacket and then stood in front of me, sticking his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “You did great in there today.”

  I crossed my arms and leaned against the side of my car. “Thank you,” I said, sincerely appreciating his compliment.

  “I’m being serious. I was really proud of you for bringing up Claire’s lie. You made the judge doubt her character. I’m sure she would have ended up with more if you didn’t do that.”

  My eyebrow cocked. “Really? You’re actually proud of me for doing that? That kind of destroyed your case.”

  “Not really,” he shrugged. “My client still came out on top in my opinion.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There’s that lawyer I know . . .”

  “What?” he laughed. “It’s true. Five grand a month isn’t too bad.”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that.” I smiled happily at him. “You know, you weren’t the big dick in the courtroom that I expected you to be. You’ve built yourself up all this time and kind of let me down when I didn’t see that side of you. I’m a tad bit disappointed.”

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you,” he said sweetly. “I just couldn’t bring myself to be a dick to the woman that I love.”

  My eyes crinkled as my smile widened; I loved him too. “It did kind of piss me off that you painted Steve in such a horrible light when you know he’s not even close to how you pegged him as.”

  He shrugged mildly. “It’s all a part of the game; you know that.”

  “Yeah, I know.” The breeze blew a trail of his cologne across my face. “You’re wearing cologne; you never wear cologne when you’re working.”

  “I know.”

  “Well why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Because I know you like it when I wear it.”

  “Oh really?” I smiled. “Are you sure you weren’t just trying to distract me in the courtroom?”

  “Nah,” he laughed, looking down at the ground for a moment. “I realized shortly after our conversation that my theory was really dumb.”

  “It was,” I agreed lightheartedly. “But like I said, the flower delivery guy was just a tiny bit more attractive than he actually was because he was wearing some, so, you had a valid point.”

  He looked back up at me, his eyes twinkling. “Well thank you, Ms. Balkner.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Hunter.”

  He took his hands out of his pockets and closed the gap between us, sliding his arms around my waist, pulling me right up against his fragrant body. “You know, you were so damn sexy in there today,” he said quietly.

  I smiled and laced my arms around his neck. “Oh really? And why is that?”

  His lips found the space below my ear and he kissed it gently, stirring up the stimulating feelings he always brought to the surface of my body. “You took control; you were confident. It was the first time I’ve seen you in the courtroom. You were just very sexy.”

  “I took control, huh?” I said with an inviting smile.

  “Mm hmm,” he said as he placed tender kisses one by one along my jaw line until meeting with my lips. I melted against him as his tongue entered my mouth with a delicate affection, the move sweet and endearing on his part, yet backed by a fire I knew he needed to unleash.

  When our lips parted I smiled up at him with a provocative gleam in my eye. “What do you say we go back to my place so I can show you how I really take control . . .”

  His eyes flickered at my invitation. “Mm, I hope you mean now.”

  “Oh, I mean right now.”

  His lips pulled back with the smile of his that I favored the most. “Well,” he admitted with ease, “I can’t argue with that.”

  What Bradley Saw

  I stared at her from across the long narrow table. She was sitting confidently in her chair, and she had just finished watching me thumb through the pile of papers on my lap. I cleared my throat and scooted forward, tapping the papers on the table to shuffle them back into a neat stack. “Well,” I broke the silence, “I’m going to take your client to the cleaners.”

  She shook her head with a scoff and looked down at her own set of papers. “A little presumptuous, don’t you think?”

  “I have reason to be. Your client is a piece of trash; it won’t be hard to get what I need out of him.”

  I grinned as her head shot up from her file. “Don’t you dare talk about my client like that,” she threatened me. “Your client cheated on him first.”

  She looked so cute when she was mad. She had a little line that formed on her forehead when she was angry; I noticed it when I first walked into her conference room. She already hated me, and she didn’t even know me.

  “Do you blame her?” I offered my reply. “I’ve seen his picture. He’s twenty years older than her and she’s ten times more attractive.”

  “And that’s a good reason to cheat?”

  I relaxed back in my chair and brought my hands up in defense. “Hey, he cheated too. Don’t go pointing fingers here.”

  “Yeah, after she cheated on him, you idiot.”

  My smile widened. I always liked to argue, but there was just something about arguing with this woman in particular that really lit me up. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to take him for everything he has; just you wait and see.”

  Her lips pursed and she began tapping her pen over and over again on the table. “You think just because you’re from the city that you can boss your way around us small-time lawyers. And you most likely think that you’re better than me.”

  “Oh, I am better than you, Ms. Balkner,” I said with sureness. Although, I really didn’t believe that. But I had to keep my reputation strong, especially moving to a new town and needing to be sure I acquired more business for myself.

  Her pen tapped wildly. “Explain how that is.”

  I crossed my arms in front of me. “I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

  “I would respect that if you were an old man, but you aren’t. And I’ve done this my whole life as well.”

  I smiled as my eyes fell to the incessant drumming of her pen. “I graduated at the top of my class in law school.”

  “So did I.”

  “Is there a problem?” I cut in, nodding my head at her hand. It was obvious that the pen tapping was an anxious behavior of hers, one that was likely subconscious since she did it so incessantly. What she probably didn’t realize was that it showed a vulnerability on her part, which I didn’t like to see. I knew she was a strong woman and in turn a strong lawyer just by the way she spoke to me with poise and confidence. She needed to make sure her body language presented itself in the same way.

  She quickly stopped the tapping and sat her pen down, folding her arms on the table. “Yeah, you’re
a problem.”

  “You just seem nervous.”

  “Quit analyzing my behavior,” she warned me firmly. “I’m not a witness on the stand for you to cross examine.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her. She just intrigued me more than any other woman had ever before, and it just completely floored me that she was in the same profession that I was. I mean, I had argued with plenty of beautiful women who were lawyers but there was just something about Ms. Balkner that stood out differently than the others.

  “No, you’re not,” I agreed. “But let me tell you, if you were, I’d have you completely figured out. In fact, I already do.”

  “And why is that? Because you’ve done this your whole life?” she said, mocking my words from earlier.

  “Yes, there’s that. And I’ve also never lost a case before. I’m just that good.”

  She chuckled and sat back in her chair, crossing one slender, sexy leg over the other. “Liar.”

  Ooh, she was challenging me. I liked a challenge. “I’m not a liar.”

  “You would have to be to win every case you’ve ever been handed.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’ve never lied. I’m just good at persuading the court to see it from my client’s perspective. Like I’ve been telling you, Ms. Balkner, I’m very good at what I do.”

  I was very good at what I did, yes, but I would be really good at doing her as well. She just looked so good sitting across from me with her hair pulled back, showing off the contours of her high cheekbones. I imagined standing behind her and pulling her head to the side, placing my lips on her—

  “Well congratulations on never losing a case,” she interrupted my provocative thoughts. “That’s quite rare in our profession.”

  My smile shrunk with her compliment; I needed to get my big head back into the game and put away the little one, not that it was by any means little. “And what about you?” I asked. “You ever lose a case?”

  “Yes,” she admitted easily. “We all can’t be like you, Mr. Hunter.”

  “You ever win one?”

  She rolled her eyes and let out a puff of air. “Just when I thought you would sincerely take my compliment you turn around and get right back on track to offend me.” Just then there was a knock at the conference room door. “Come in,” she said as she spun around in her chair.

  Her secretary stuck her head it. “The Thompson’s are here,” she told her. “Should I send them in?”

  “Yes, Nancy. Thank you.”

  Nancy looked me over before shutting the door. I was really good at reading people, and I could tell this woman was all ga ga over me. She was a beautiful woman, sure, but she wasn’t as breathtaking as Ms. Balkner was.

  I leaned down and picked my briefcase up from the floor. “Thanks for letting us meet in your conference room,” I said as I sat it on the table and flipped the locks open on the front. “I’m still in the middle of putting my office together; it’s in shambles at the moment.”

  “Wow, Bradley, you’re actually thanking me for something?” she teased lightly. “I’m stunned.”

  “I’m a businessman as well as a gentleman,” I said, cutting my eyes up at her. “And please, call me Brad.”

  Nancy tapped on the door and then pushed it open for the Thompson’s to enter. “Here you go,” she said to them as they passed her into our room.

  We both stood to greet them. “Hello, Steve,” she said as she shook her client’s hand.

  “Hello, Roxy.”

  Roxy. It was obviously short for Roxanne. I liked it.

  I shook my client’s hand and she smiled brightly at me. This town seemed to be filled with gorgeous women and Claire Thompson was definitely one of them. But she was annoying as hell, shooting me bedroom eyes every chance she got. She was a little too desperate for my attention; she wasn’t my cup of tea at all.

  “Have a seat,” Roxy said as she sat down in her chair and flipped back the first page of the stapled document in front of her. “So I’ll start off by asking the obvious: Are you two still in agreement that a divorce is what you wish to proceed with?”

  Claire puffed out a laugh of air. “Are you kidding me? Why would I want to stay with this cheater?”

  “You cheated on me first,” Claire’s husband Steve fired back from across the table.

  “Can you blame me? I mean, look at you. You can’t even get it up for me anymore.”

  “That’s quite enough,” Roxanne cut in, putting an end to their argument. I liked seeing her put her foot down like that.

  I cleared my throat. “What my client is trying to say is that her husband was no longer able to satisfy her.”

  “What?” Steve asked with desperation. “You wouldn’t ever let me touch you. It was a chore to try to get you into bed with me. I had to buy you something before you would touch me.”

  “That’s your side of the story,” I said.

  Roxanne looked down at her paper and made a poor attempt at hiding the rolling of her eyes. “And I assume this issue was discussed between the both of you before you came to the conclusion that you wanted to leave him?”

  “Well, yeah,” Claire said, her voice quieter than the moment before.

  “That’s not true,” Steve said. “You never talked to me about anything.”

  “I knew that already from our discussion before,” Roxanne said, looking at Steve. “I just wanted to see how she was going to answer the question.”

  “Are you trying to harass my client?” I asked.

  “Yes, I am,” she answered as she looked up at me. “But that’s only because I’ve learned from sitting in this room with you for the past fifteen minutes that you are going to be harassing my client as much as you possibly can. I mean, within a few minutes of sitting down you basically threatened my client by saying you were going to, what was it, take him to the cleaners?”

  “And I wasn’t lying,” I said with my most confident of smiles.

  Roxanne actually glared at me after this comment was made. She would be disheartened to know that her glare actually lit me up inside and intrigued me; it didn’t at all intimidate me.

  “So is that what you want?” Steve asked his wife. “My money? Is that what you married me for to begin with?”

  “No,” she scoffed in reply.

  “You’re lying,” he said softly.

  Roxanne closed the page she was looking at and leaned over to Steve. “Yes, she is lying. And I think the judge will see that.”

  “The judge will see a neglectful husband,” I cut it.

  “A neglectful husband?” she repeated in disbelief. “And what evidence of neglect did your client give you exactly?”

  “I’d be happy to share it with you,” I said as I pulled my notes out of my briefcase and sat them down in front of me. “On January seventeenth of last year my client suffered a miscarriage. Her husband provided absolutely no consolation whatsoever, which made my client feel that she had no support in the situation. She became depressed and turned to alcohol to comfort her in her time of need.”

  “And obviously another man,” Roxanne added.

  I looked up from my paper. “Turning to another man was something she did because she was under the influence, and she was under the influence because your client was emotionally void during a serious emotional matter.”

  “From what I understand, your client was flirtatious with men long before the miscarriage happened.”

  “That doesn’t matter. She didn’t have an affair until after she was denied emotional support.”

  “I didn’t know what to do or say,” Steve told his wife from across the table. “I mean, did it ever occur to you that I was suffering too? I lost a baby just as much as you did.”

  Claire leaned forward and pointed her finger at him. “You didn’t care one bit about our baby. You were just glad that I wanted a baby because it gave you security that I would stay in your life.”

  Steve looked like she had just slapped the life out of him. “How cou
ld you say that?”

  She crossed her arms and sat back in her seat. “Because, it’s the truth,” she said as her right eye twitched. “You used me just as much as I used you. You never supported me through anything.”

  I could spot a liar from a mile away. And Claire Thompson? Yeah, she was definitely a liar. I had questioned her over and over again and every time she lied her right eye would twitch, giving her away in an instant. It actually became a fun little game of mine, one I would play just to get a kick out of her habitual habit of lying. It passed the time.

  I dug back in my briefcase for some of Steve’s financial documents that Claire had provided me with. “Well, my client has supplied me with documents that prove your client’s net worth, income, and expense information—“

  “Yeah, I asked my client for his wife’s financial information as well,” Roxanne interrupted me. “But seeing as though she didn’t do anything to contribute to the household income I kind of came up empty-handed on that one.”

  “I contributed,” Claire defended herself. “I cleaned the house.” Her right eye twitched; another lie.

  “No you didn’t,” Steve argued. “I worked all day, then I would come home and pick up after you. All you did was lay out at the pool all day and get tanned, or go to the beauty salon and get your hair and nails done. You never had to lift a finger. I even hired someone to cook our meals so you wouldn’t have to do it.”

  “And I paid you back by sleeping with you.”

  “You paid me back by sleeping with me? How does that make sense? You are my wife; sleeping with me isn’t supposed to be something you do to repay me for something else. You should want to make love to me.”

  “That’s enough,” I interrupted them. Claire had a bad habit of saying too much, which wasn’t good for our case. “We’re getting off track here,” I said. “The fact of the matter is that my client felt deserted in a time of need and she committed adultery under those conditions. She is entitled to a portion of your client’s assets.”

  “This is the most ridiculous discussion I have ever had,” Roxanne said as she grabbed her pen and began tapping it on the table.