Gramma shook her head as she placed breaded chicken legs into sizzling oil in a frying pan. “You broke Reed’s overbearing rules because that’s what a mother does—anything it takes to protect her children.”
She was right.
And I’d gladly do it all over again.
Twenty-One
Ian
I jumped when my office door swung open without warning. Was it wrong I was disappointed that it wasn’t that gorgeous girl blazing through like she did a couple of mornings ago?
Especially with the irate expression Kenneth Millstrom was sporting.
Was I surprised?
Nope.
Irritated and worried and fucking itching like a motherfucker?
Hell yes.
I sat back in my chair and acted like it was any other day. “Good morning, sir.”
He stalked in to stand across from me at my desk. “Don’t good morning me.”
With a frown, I looked up at him, trying to play it off that I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re going to be. Care to tell me about the contract I saw you signed with one Grace Dearborne?”
I tugged at the tie around my neck and cleared my throat. “I’d be happy to. I was contacted a couple of days ago by the potential client. We spoke, and I felt hers was a case I could represent. One that deserved to be represented. One that will be an asset to our firm.”
He planted his palms on my desk. “An asset?”
I kept my chin lifted, refusing to cower. “Yes, an asset.”
“How the hell is going up against Reed Dearborne an asset?”
“You know the kind of recognition and attention a case like this will bring to our firm.”
“Yes, and I also know the kind of trouble it will bring. We’re talking about Reed Dearborne here. He has the entire state eating out of the palm of his hand. We go up against him, and we become the enemy.”
“He’s scum.” I tried to staunch the emotion that wanted to become a part of the word. It trembled with violence anyway.
“Maybe. But you and I both know that doesn’t matter. It’s all about perception. And his ex-wife is about to get dragged through the mud. We take her on, and we’re going to get dragged right along with her.”
“She deserves to be represented, just like anyone else in this country. If we refuse her based simply on who her case is against, we become the bad guys. And you know I’m not afraid to get dirty.”
His eyes narrowed, searching my face.
The guy was a bulldog. There was a reason he was in the position he was. I could only pray he couldn’t sniff me out.
The fact I’d been lost in all that skin and that body and that sweet, broken heart.
“Do you know she came to me the night of the gala and asked me to represent her?” he demanded.
A hard swallow and a short shake of my head. “No, I didn’t.”
“Reed Dearborne showed up that night as well. Introduced himself. You know in this world, a shake of a hand is an alliance. You understand the position this puts me in?”
“When I win this case, you won’t care about that position. The win will speak for itself. You taught me from the beginning that we don’t climb to success by taking the easy route. The easy cases and easy wins. We get there by achieving the impossible. By beating every odd. This one might not be easy, but I assure you, in the end, it will be worth it.”
A win against Reed Dearborne would give the firm an allusion of power and strength.
Tenacity.
Exactly what men like Kenneth and I were made of.
He pushed off my desk. “You better hope you win. Because if you don’t? You’re done. This loss won’t be pinned on me.”
Throat growing dry, I gave a tight nod.
I was putting myself on the line.
My career.
My partnership.
My future.
Everything I’d worked for.
But I refused to consider it a risk.
I was going to win this case. Whatever it took. This win would be the last rung on the ladder to the top.
“I won’t let you down.”
I wouldn’t let myself down.
And for the love of everything that was right, I wouldn’t let Grace down.
He moved for the door and pulled it open, pausing to look back at me. “I hope not.”
He started out, only to fumble a step, and my heart went racing when I saw her. She was dressed in some kind of goddamned skirt suit, pink and cream and gold, the jacket fitted and the skirt not quite landing at her knees.
A motherfucking vision.
“Ms. Dearborne,” he said, agitation lining his posture when he looked back at me as he held the door open for her, the guy sending me a clear and distinct warning.
Don’t fuck this up.
“Mr. Millstrom, it’s so nice to see you again,” she said as she moved into my office, standing on a pair of cream-colored heels.
I tried to remain unaffected.
To pretend like her standing there didn’t have me wanting to do crazy, crazy things.
“I only wish I could say the same,” Kenneth muttered, not saying anything else as he stepped out and closed the door.
Only thing that managed to do was shut me in with her presence. The feel of her a ripple through the room. She took a step forward, and then another, each one sending another shockwave through the air.
Hammering into my chest.
Blow after blow.
She sat in one of the two chairs that were angled toward my desk, tucking her skirt under her legs as she crossed them at the knee. “Good morning, Mr. Jacobs.”
I cleared the roughness from my throat.
Everything raw and hard.
Predominantly my dick.
“Good morning, Ms. Dearborne.” Couldn’t keep the scorn out of my voice when I uttered that name.
She let her teeth scrape over her plump bottom lip, the flesh slicked with something shiny and tinted the color of a plum.
I was going to lose my head.
“I trust you slept well.”
Translation: I pictured you all night in your bed, touching yourself while you were thinking of me. Exactly like I did.
“It was a little rough, honestly.”
“I can only imagine.” There was an innuendo there. Something I couldn’t keep out of the words.
“I’m . . . nervous,” she admitted.
The anger returned. A vat of hostility poured into my already boiling blood. A chemical reaction.
Possession and this protectiveness I couldn’t afford to feel. I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a white notepad.
Grace smirked. “No pink today?’
A soft chuckle rippled free when I thought of the whirlwind that was her child. The tornado that was her life.
“Not today. I tend to go for a more . . . streamlined and organized look.”
Maybe there was a warning there. That I couldn’t handle the chaos that was their lives. The noise and the love and the responsibility.
My mind was already screaming that I’d taken on too much. But there was something about this girl that made me want to hold it all. Her world and her needs.
God.
I had to stop looking at her like she meant something to me.
Not when she couldn’t mean anything.
Not when there was so much at stake.
I needed to put on armor. Put distance between us. Convince myself to treat this as just another case. If I didn’t, we were both going to lose, and that wasn’t a fate I would entertain.
I cleared my throat. “Shall we get started, Ms. Dearborne?”
“I think that would be a good idea.”
“Why don’t you start by telling me how you first met Mr. Dearborne.”
She hesitated for a moment, looking away, seeming to gather herself. “I was a freshman at The University of South Carolina. Reed was working on his masters. We met in the library of all places. He was older than me by six years. Good looking. Sweet. When he asked me for coffee that same night, I agreed. He was nice to me, and it was easy to fall into a relationship with him.”
Every cell in my body tensed. On edge and unprepared.
This was bad.
So goddamned bad.
I focused on taking notes rather than the urge to come unhinged.
But the thought of her touching another man had something cutting me open wide.