Shit, Ava thought, exchanging glances with Lusskin and Tate.
“For the five years that my client worked for Southern Pacific,” Colby continued, “she had an excellent performance record. But once she told her supervisor that she was pregnant, he began treating her differently, and her requests for time off to see her doctor were frowned upon. In short, he created a hostile work environment for her, discriminating against her solely because she’s pregnant.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lusskin protested but with less vehemence than before.
“We’re fully prepared to argue the merits of our case in court.” Colby looked Ava in the eye. “Are you?”
She bristled. “If this lawsuit goes to trial, Mr. Austin, rest assured that we’ll be ready to fight it.”
“Glad to hear it.” He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. “You know, given that Southern Pacific was recently recognized as a premier employer by Working Mother magazine and was named to Fortune’s list of ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in America,’ I’m sure the last thing you want is the negative attention of a wrongful termination lawsuit, especially if Stephanie Atwood and Dawn Everett come forward with their grievances. I mean, think about it. If the public finds out that Southern Pacific has a habit of discriminating against pregnant women…well, that could be disastrous for the company’s family-friendly image.” He smiled mockingly. “But then, I’m sure I don’t have to tell any of you that.”
Lusskin visibly tensed, a deep flush spreading across his face.
Ava clenched her jaw. “Thanks for your concern, Mr. Austin,” she said with stinging sweetness, “but why don’t you let us worry about the fate of the company’s image?”
He chuckled softly. “As you wish.”
Reaching inside his breast pocket, he removed a pen and a white business card. As Ava watched, he scrawled something on the back—the outrageous settlement ransom, she assumed—then leaned forward and slid the card across the table to her.
“Why don’t you take a few days to reconsider our asking terms?” he suggested.
Deliberately ignoring his card, Ava met his gaze and lifted her chin in challenge. “See you in court.”
A flash of humor lit his eyes.
Without another word, he rose smoothly from the table and pulled out his client’s chair, gallantly helping her to her feet.
Nodding at Lusskin and Tate, he murmured, “Gentlemen,” then turned and guided a smirking Johnae Kearse from the room.
* * *
Ava was still seething with fury when she and Tate returned to her office after escorting Bert Lusskin to the elevator. Storming around her desk, she tossed her leather portfolio onto the blotter and flopped into the chair.
“What a damn mess!” she hissed.
“You can say that again,” Tate grimly agreed, standing in her doorway with his arms folded across his chest. He was an attractive, clean-cut man in his early thirties with a head full of thick brown hair, shrewd green eyes and a trim build.
Ava glared at him, her eyes narrowed accusingly. “When you volunteered to conduct preliminary interviews, I thought that included interviewing the HR manager at Southern Pacific.”
“It did.”
“Then why the hell did I have to hear about Stephanie Atwood and Dawn Everett from opposing counsel?”
“Hey, I’m just as pissed as you are,” Tate said defensively. “No one breathed a word of their names to me during the interviews.”
“Yet somehow Colby Austin found out all about them,” Ava retorted.
Tate scowled. “His client must have tipped him off. And I’m guessing that the company’s HR manager thought she was doing us a favor by withholding the women’s names from us.”
Ava snorted. “Some damn favor. If the company has a track record of discriminating against pregnant employees, we’re screwed.”
Tate said nothing, his lips thinning with displeasure.
Gnashing her teeth together, Ava impatiently drummed her manicured nails on the desk. “I don’t like surprises,” she grumbled. “I was caught totally flat-footed in that meeting.”
Tate smirked at her. “Seems to me that you were off your game before Austin dropped his little bombshell.”
Ava stiffened, staring at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tate drawled, casually tucking his hands into his pockets as he leaned on the doorjamb. “You didn’t seem as confident and take-charge as you normally do. It was obvious to me—and to Mr. Lusskin, I’m sure—that you were somewhat rattled during the meeting. So I can’t help but wonder if you were distracted by a charming smile and a set of broad shoulders.”
Heat suffused Ava’s face. “I was not distracted,” she objected, though she knew this wasn’t entirely true. Seeing Colby again had thrown her for a loop, but once she recovered from her shock, she’d done her damnedest to remain focused on the business at hand.
“Are you sure you’re up for fighting this lawsuit, Ava?” Tate goaded.
Ava stared him down for a long moment, then shook her head with a derisive laugh. “Why don’t you just come right out and say what this is really about, Tate?” she challenged.
His smug expression faltered. “What are you talking about?”
“You know very well what I’m talking about. It’s no secret that you were less than pleased when Rainer chose me to be lead counsel. And I can’t say I really blame you. We’re both up for partnership, so I probably would have been just as disappointed as you are if the shoe were on the other foot. But our boss made the call, so like it or not, you need to accept it and move on.”
Tate’s face reddened with anger. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he spat venomously. “We both know the only reason you were assigned lead counsel is that you have the same skin color as the plaintiff. Rainer knew it’d look better to have a black female attorney arguing that the plaintiff’s white supervisor didn’t discriminate against an unwed black mother. So contrary to what you might want to believe, Ava, this isn’t about Rainer’s confidence in your superior litigation prowess. This is about him using you to neutralize the opponent’s charges of discrimination—nothing else.”
Ava glared at Tate, wishing she could refute everything he’d said. But she couldn’t because she knew there’d been some truth to his assertions. Although their supervisor hadn’t explicitly spelled out his motives for assigning the case to her, she’d had her suspicions the moment she learned that Johnae Kearse was black. But she refused to buy into Tate’s malicious claim that her skills and experience had nothing to do with why she’d been entrusted to handle the lawsuit.
She was good at what she did. Damn good. She wouldn’t be up for partnership if she weren’t.
Reminding herself that she had nothing to prove to the likes of Tate Childress, she met his hostile gaze and said in a cool, carefully controlled voice, “Now that you’ve gotten that off your chest, maybe we can end this pissing contest and focus our energies on serving the needs of our client, which—if I’m not mistaken—is what we’re both paid to do.”
Tate blinked rapidly, disarmed by her calm, measured response.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she continued, reaching for the phone on her desk to indicate that the conversation was over, “I need to call Southern Pacific to get to the bottom of this fiasco. We can’t afford any more surprises.”
Tate faltered for a moment, his face flushing at the realization that he’d just been dismissed. Shooting Ava one last, impotent glare, he turned and stalked from her office.
She smiled inwardly as she picked up the phone receiver. At that moment her gaze landed on the black leather portfolio she’d dropped on her desk earlier.
She paused, then set the phone down, opened the portfolio and reached into the small pocket where she’d tucked Colby’s business card after the meeting.
She stared at the card for several moments, then slowly turned it over to read what he’d written.
We shou
ld meet somewhere. Call me.
Ava’s pulse quickened, and her stomach fluttered wildly.
She read the note a second time, then threw a furtive glance toward the doorway, half expecting to find Tate still lurking around. She realized that she should probably be forthright and tell him that she’d slept with opposing counsel. But she knew Tate would only use the information against her, and she didn’t want to give him any ammunition to sabotage her chance at making partner.
Besides, it wasn’t her fault that she and her one-night stand had been assigned to the same case. Given that lawyers fraternized with one another all the time—meeting for drinks after work, socializing at bar mixers, networking at conferences—it wasn’t uncommon for friends and acquaintances to end up as courtroom foes.
Now that Ava knew who Colby was, she had no intention of becoming intimate with him again. It would be unethical, not to mention dangerous.
Still, she couldn’t deny that his cryptic note had aroused her curiosity…and something else she dared not identify.
She tapped his business card against her lips, her thoughts warring with one another.
Making a decision, she reached for the phone.
She hoped she wouldn’t end up regretting what she was about to do.
Chapter 4
Colby’s thoughts were consumed with Ava Cameron as he maneuvered the snarl of downtown traffic after leaving Aldridge & Spaulding.
After days of fantasizing about his mystery woman and torturing himself with mental replays of their erotic tryst, he’d been floored to walk into the conference room that afternoon and see her seated at the table. What were the odds of them not only running into each other again, but finding themselves on opposite sides of the same legal battle?
Fate, it seemed, had a twisted sense of humor.
“Thank you for giving me a ride home while my car’s in the shop, Mr. Austin.”
Pulled out of his reverie, Colby glanced over at his passenger and smiled. “You don’t have to thank me, Johnae. It’s no trouble. And how many times have I told you to call me Colby?”
“Sorry,” Johnae said with a sheepish smile. “I keep forgetting. But don’t blame me. That’s one of the symptoms of pregnancy.”
“Forgetfulness?”
She nodded. “According to an article I just read, researchers have found a link between pregnancy hormones and memory loss. So, technically, it’s not my fault that I keep forgetting to call you by your first name.”
Colby chuckled. “Thinking like a lawyer. I like that.”
Johnae grinned, flashing dimples that made her look ten years younger. “See? I’m already learning a lot from you.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m learning a lot from you about pregnant women, which will come in handy whenever I deal with my sister.”
“Your sister’s pregnant?”
“Yup. She just found out a few days ago.” Colby smiled, remembering the joyous elation in Lexi’s voice when she’d called to share the good news with him and their youngest sister, Summer, who lived in New York. Summer had squealed so loudly into the phone, it was a miracle she hadn’t ruptured her siblings’ eardrums. And the next day at the office, Quentin had been on top of the world, whistling cheerfully as he strolled through the hallways and breaking into spontaneous little dance numbers that would make Fred Astaire proud.
“Congratulations to your sister,” Johnae said. “She and her husband must be so excited.”
“Oh, they are,” Colby confirmed, heading off the congested freeway to enter Clayton County. “They’ve been calling each other several times a day to discuss baby names. It wouldn’t surprise me if they have the nursery ready before the weekend is over.”
Johnae smiled softly. “That sounds nice.”
Hearing the wistful note in her voice, Colby felt a pang of guilt, suddenly reminded of the differences between his sister’s pregnancy and Johnae’s. While Lexi had the love and support of a doting husband, Johnae would be forced to raise her child alone simply because her chump of a boyfriend refused to man up and do the right thing.
Not unlike Colby’s own father.
The thought made his gut tighten and his hands flex on the steering wheel as an all-too-familiar anger surged through his veins.
Clenching and unclenching his jaw, he glanced over at Johnae, who was absently rubbing her swollen belly as she peered out the tinted window of his Escalade. She was only a few years younger than Summer, and at times she even reminded Colby of his impetuous baby sister, who didn’t always use the best judgment where men were concerned. The thought of Johnae raising a child on her own strengthened Colby’s resolve to do whatever it took to get her the financial settlement she rightfully deserved.
As if she’d read his mind, Johnae turned from the window and asked quietly, “Do you think we’re gonna win the lawsuit?”
“I do,” Colby said without hesitation.
Johnae eyed him wonderingly. “You sound so confident.”
He slanted her an amused look. “If I weren’t, would you want me representing you?”
She grinned. “Well…no, I guess not.”
They both chuckled.
Sobering after another moment, Johnae prodded, “Do you think we’ll have to go to trial? Or do you think they’ll agree to our asking price?”
This time Colby didn’t answer right away, recalling the steely glint in Ava’s eyes when she’d told him, See you in court.
Ava had struck him as a tough, shrewdly intelligent woman who didn’t back down easily from a fight. Even though she’d been clearly blindsided by Colby’s revelation of the other two former employees, he knew it’d be foolish to underestimate Ava’s determination to win on behalf of her client.
“You have a very strong case, Johnae,” he told her. “If you didn’t, I would have told you so. You were wrongfully terminated by your employer, and I’m going to prove it. You have my word on that.”
Johnae nodded, seemingly mollified by his response. As the SUV slowed for a red traffic light, she said casually, “I think that female lawyer is attracted to you.”
Colby shot her a surprised glance. “What makes you say that?”
Johnae smiled enigmatically. “Women’s intuition.”
“Ah. Of course.” Colby knew he should come clean about his affair with Ava, then let Johnae decide whether she still wanted him to represent her. It was the right thing to do. The ethical thing.
But even as guilt pricked his conscience, he kept silent.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” Johnae asked casually.
Colby hesitated a long moment, his mind flashing on an image of Ava—face flushed, eyes slitted in ecstasy, lips parted as he thrust into her.
He cleared his throat. “Sure, she’s pretty.” Which, of course, was an understatement of seismic proportions.
The knowing gleam in Johnae’s eyes told him she wasn’t fooled, either. “Uh-oh,” she intoned. “Should I be worried that you and the other lawyer are attracted to each other?”
That sobered Colby at once.
“No,” he answered, directly meeting Johnae’s gaze. “You have nothing to worry about, Johnae. My number-one priority is winning this lawsuit for you, and that’s what I intend to do.”
He meant what he said, though that didn’t stop him from glancing down at his silent cell phone and wondering if Ava would call.
Chapter 5
He was waiting for her when she arrived at Piedmont Park just after dusk that evening.
Perched on the hood of a gleaming black Escalade and munching on a bag of chips, he could have been a tailgater at an Atlanta Braves game.
After pulling her Avalon into an empty spot near the end of the small parking lot, Ava climbed out and made her way toward Colby. As the spiky heels of her red Louboutins sank into dusty gravel, she wished she’d had the sense to change her shoes before she left the office.
As she approached Colby, she noticed that he’d shed his suit jacket and tie. The top three bu
ttons of his shirt were undone, the sleeves rolled to strong, muscular forearms. He looked so sexy, so potently male, that her mouth watered and her pulse went haywire.
What am I doing here? she wondered for the umpteenth time since setting out for the Midtown park. Why, oh, why am I playing with fire?
Though Colby didn’t turn his head to watch her approach, she knew he was keenly aware of her presence. When she reached him, he drawled lazily, “I was beginning to wonder whether you’d changed your mind about coming.”
“I should have,” Ava muttered.
He chuckled softly. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
Ava didn’t respond to that. Gesturing toward the sprawling park, she said wryly, “Couldn’t we have met somewhere less…” Picturesque? Idyllic? Romantic?
Colby eyed her expectantly. “Less what?”
“Public?” she finished.
A wicked gleam lit his eyes. “Would you have preferred someplace more private? My apartment, perhaps? Or our favorite hotel?”
Ava’s face flamed at the memory of what they’d done to each other at said hotel. “Never mind. The park is just fine.”
Colby laughed, the husky sound sending ripples of pleasure through her veins.
She impatiently shifted from one foot to another. “So, what did you want to meet about?”
Instead of answering her, Colby crunched into a barbecue potato chip, then offered the bag to her.
“No, thanks,” she declined. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Suit yourself.” He popped another chip into his mouth, then set aside the small bag and licked the salty crumbs from his fingertips as Ava watched, trying not to remember the velvety stroke of his tongue between her thighs as he’d eaten her into a toe-curling, mind-blowing orgasm.
“Mmm-mmm,” he intoned appreciatively. “I love barbecue potato chips. They’re the best, hands down.”
Merry Sexy Christmas Page 22