by Megan Jacobs
THE BEACH HOUSE
Clearwater Bay Series
(Book 4 of 5)
MEGAN JACOBS
Copyright © 2020 by Megan Jacobs
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Welcome!
Welcome to Book 4 of “ The Beach House” in my Clearwater Bay Series.
I hope you’re enjoying Alyssa’s journey throughout the series as things start to get more complicated than she expected in the coastal town of Clearwater Bay!
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Description
Life at Clearwater Bay and the tentative relationship Alyssa is exploring with her gentle, handsome and intense handyman, Liam Carter is so much more than Alyssa would ever had dared to hope. In fact, she might even be slowly realizing she's falling in love with him.
But Liam's lawsuit with the villainous Felicia De La Croix is looming. Will it destroy their happiness? Will Alyssa be able to prove her beloved Liam innocent? Or will her nemesis defeat her once more?
In the fourth instalment of "The Beach House" series, tempers run high, old memories rear their ugly heads, and Alyssa is forced to choose what's important to her.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Other Books by Megan Jacobs
About the Author
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Chapter One
I stared in horror at the sight before me. My biggest competition in New York was now haunting me while I was out of town too. Veronica Martinez stared me down with an icy glare from where she was standing, shoulder to shoulder with her client.
“Anything more you have to say to me will be said with my attorney present.” De La Croix gestured at Martinez, who flipped open the cover on the tablet that she was holding.
“That is your right, after all,” I said.
Martinez's fingers flew over the keyboard that had popped up on the tablet's screen as she documented what I said. She was being eerily quiet, and it put me on edge.
“Indeed it is. Would you like some tea?” De La Croix asked.
The sudden topic change threw me for a few seconds, but I recovered quickly and shook my head. At my response, the older woman sashayed over to a small, knee-high table that was against one of the walls, and picked up a golden bell, ringing it twice.
“Yes, ma'am?” The butler had appeared from out of nowhere.
“Tea, please, Toby.” It was an order, not a request.
“Very good, ma'am,” he said, and bowed stiffly before leaving the room.
De La Croix started walking, and Martinez and I followed her into the sitting room. Once there, she seated herself demurely in one of the armchairs, and blinked innocently up at me. Martinez took her place at her client's shoulder.
In the brief silence before the older woman said anything, I found myself contemplating how I'd gotten into this ridiculous situation. Without a doubt, all the trouble had started when that fateful manila envelope turned up on my desk in my law office, telling me I'd inherited a house. Then I made my way down to the sleepy coastal town of Clearwater Bay where the house desperately needed some attention, so I called in a handyman.
Calling Liam was where the trouble intensified. He was handsome, with a magnetic pull that my emotions seemed unable to ignore and coincidentally, he'd needed a lawyer, so I stepped up to the plate, albeit reluctantly at first.
Which is how I'd found myself driving angrily across town to confront this ostentatious woman and her lawyer, only to have the wind knocked out of my sails when I found out who her attorney was.
I wasn't invited to sit down, but I did so anyway. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see ornate mahogany bookshelves and expensive sculptures. There was a Ming vase on a pedestal off to my right. On a squat table to my left was an old Remington typewriter with a sheet of paper in the roller. A few tiny letters were typed on the page, but I couldn’t see what they were.
“Now, what were you saying about false accusations towards your client?” asked Martinez.
“My client has never, and will never be, a danger to society.” My confidence came flooding back as I argued Liam's innocence, just like I had done for a hundred clients before him.
“He is a danger to society if he's running amok supposedly ‘repairing’ houses but is instead making things worse.” There was a dangerous glint in De La Croix's eyes, and an unsettling smirk trying to play its way over Martinez's lips.
They knew something, and they weren't sharing it.
At that moment, Toby arrived with a tray of china cups and tiny cocktail sandwiches.
“Your tea, ma'am,” he droned, before setting the tray down on the coffee table between my chair and De La Croix's. “Should I pour?”
“Thank you, Toby, but that'll be all,” said De La Croix.
Toby nodded and left the room as quietly as he had arrived.
“It's so hard to find good help these days,” De La Croix sighed. “Luckily, I've found the best. Tea, Ronnie?”
“Yes please.” Martinez clasped her client's shoulder briefly before letting go when the older woman leaned forward for the teapot.
“You see, Ronnie and I are more than just client and lawyer.” De La Croix daintily tapped two sugars into the teacups in front of her. “We're friends.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and raised an eyebrow. “Are you now.” It wasn't a question, and my voice dripped with polite indifference.
“Indeed. Who knew that a chance encounter at an exclusive restaurant in New York would lead to the effortless divorce from my seventh husband, and a friendship that could last through the ages.” She turned to Martinez and handed her a cup of tea, before offering a sandwich from the tray.
De La Croix must have been paying her lawyer pots of money. The Martinez I knew and hated would never stand being controlled by someone old enough to be her mother. Or possibly grandmother.
De La Croix sat back in her seat, nibbling on a sandwich and sipping tea gracefully, before flashing me a fake smile. “Look, dear, I don't know why you even came here. You obviously haven't formulated a proper argument and quite frankly, I'm not interested in anything you have to say about the ’perfect’ Liam Carter.”
Martinez ducked her head to hide a smile of amusement. I clenched my jaw and looked away, refusing to react to the blatant show of intimidation and power the two women were putting on for me.
“We shall see you in court, where I hope, for that poor man's sake, that you'll do a better job than this. Otherwise, who knows what will happen?” De La Croix's lips curved in a dangerous smile before she leaned forward and rang a bell I hadn't noticed sitting on the coffee table.
“Ma'am?” Toby was back, this time at my elbow, and I repressed the urge to jump in surprise at his silent arrival.
“Do show our guest out.” Once again, it was an order, not a request, and the butler bowed before taking me by the elbow and tugging me roughly out the door.
“We hope you enjoyed your visit, do come again soon.” His voice was flat and unwelcoming, the exact opposite of his words.
“One second …” My words fell on deaf ears as the front door slammed shut on my face.
That did it. I had to beat these two, no matter what it took.
*~*~*~*~*
I thought up a strategy as I drove back to the hotel. Knowing now who I was going up against in the courtroom, I could properly prepare for it. Martinez's modus operandi was to gain a key piece of evidence early on in the case, and then reveal it when it would hurt the most. I had to make sure, first thing tomorrow morning, whether Liam was keeping anything from me. I didn't think so, but I would rather be safe than sorry.
When I reached the hotel and locked my car, I made to go straight up to my room for the second night in a row. I looked over at the door to the room Mary usually sat knitting and felt a pang of guilt. I had been neglecting the one surviving connection, that I knew of, to my family.
It felt like months ago that I first met Mary when I first arrived on the coast, but in reality, it had only been about a week and a half. She knew who I was the second she laid her extremely perceptive eyes on me. I had gone to her with all my thoughts and worries in the past, and she'd done her best to try and help.
“I was wondering if you'd forgotten about me.” The soft, yet regal voice echoed in the small room, almost as soon as my foot crossed the threshold. Mary was knitting something, as always, but this time the wool looked much softer, her needles were thinner, and the colors were pastel. If I were to hazard a guess, she was knitting something for a baby.
She noticed my gaze, as always. “It's a sweater for my newborn great grandchild.”
“Congratulations.” She inclined her head in thanks. “And no, I haven't forgotten about you.” I walked over to take a seat on the perpetually empty rocking chair by her side. “Life has just been busy.”
“That's what all the young people say these days.” My elderly friend's eyes twinkled with mischief, while her hands clicked the needles like they were possessed.
“I wish it was only an excuse.” I felt like a witness in a courtroom, defending myself. “Renovating the house is going well, so that's one thing I don't have to worry about too much. But in the meantime, I've taken a case, Liam's case, and to top it all off, I think I may be developing feelings for him.”
“Don't forget that you went to Peabody, Peabody & Peabody.”
“How did you..?”
Mary lifted a finger and pointed at my chest. My hand automatically closed protectively around the dolphin pendant that sat over my heart.
“Your mother's necklace.” Her words were simple, yet her eyes shone with pride and no small amount of grief. “Did you know Grace and I helped your father pick that out?”
“No, Peabody didn't mention anything like that.”
“Well of course not, that whole family of lawyers are incompetent imbeciles,” Mary replied hotly, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I told Grace not to go with them, but no, she just had to. Stubborn to the core, until the day she died.” She pulled a handkerchief from the bag of wool at her feet, and blew her nose, honking like a goose. When she looked over at me, tears were shining in her eyes.
I'd been so focused on myself, and the connection I had with Grace and everyone else in this town that I never took the time to actually see the effect Grace's passing had had on those closest to her.
I reached out and took Mary's hand in mine. It was wrinkled, but as soft as a well-worn blanket.
“I'm truly sorry for your loss, Mary.” I patted her hand and she nodded and sniffled, before squeezing my fingers in her own.
“Thank you dear. We hadn't spoken much before she died, but I always hoped that we'd go back to being as close as we were in the good old days. But now she's gone, and there's no hope of that. At least, not on this earth.”
She looked out of the window, watching the setting sun glitter on the gentle waves, and sighed deeply.
“Have you ever heard of Felicia De La Croix?” My voice was quiet, but I still regretted breaking the silence.
“Oh, yes I have.” She looked at me, and the usual feistiness mixed with mischief was glittering in her eyes again. “What number husband is she on now, the ninth?”
“She mentioned a seventh when I spoke with her earlier.”
“Old news.” Mary waved a hand dismissively. “Ah, Felicia. She was a few years younger than me and Grace at school. I remember her, with pigtails, braces and freckles. Come high school, however, and she decided that her hair needed to be blond, her freckles needed to be gone, and makeup had to be plastered onto her face.”
“That explains the turban,” I murmured, and the older lady nodded.
“She dyed it to death, and had a different boy trailing behind her every week from the moment she hit puberty. It was disgraceful, and it wasn't much of a surprise when she went out and married the richest man she could find the moment she was eighteen.”
“What did she do with the husbands once she was...” I shuddered as I said the words “...done with them?”
“Divorced them, sued them for all the money they were worth. Apparently they abused her, but Felicia, our dear Felicia, is a mistress of manipulation.”
I had already figured as much. “Perhaps we can catch her out at her own game,” I mused quietly to myself, but Mary heard every word.
“I'm half inclined to tell you to stay away, but I know you can handle yourself.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “All I ask is that I get to see the look on her face when you catch her.”
“It's a deal, Mary.” I felt a huge grin creep slowly over my face. She'd just given me the perfect ammunition, and by the look in her eyes, she knew exactly what she'd done.
Chapter Two
The next morning, I was surprised to find Liam at the house already. I stopped the car beside his pickup truck and got out. The gravel crunched under my feet as I walked the short distance up to the house. As I nimbly picked my way over the steps leading up to the front door, Liam appeared in the doorway. He wrapped me in a hug that warmed me from my head down to my toes before he led me into the house, where a coffee was waiting for me on the kitchen counter.
“Good morning.” He smiled fondly and handed me the coffee.
I walked forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good morning.” I took the coffee and tried a sip, sighing in pleasure at the taste of the rejuvenating liquid.
Liam sat on a chair and patted the seat of the one beside him, inviting me to join him. When I was settled, he took my free hand in his own.
“I assume everything went well yesterday as I didn’t get a call from prison to bail you out for murdering someone.” His thumb traced soothing circles on the back of my hand.
“I'm your lawyer, I should be the one saying things like that.” I tried not to be distracted by the gentle roughness of the callouses on his finger drifting gently over my skin.
“Would you like to tell me what happened?” He leaned forward, and the intensity in his gaze, once again, took my breath away.
`“Okay, well, after you left...” I filled him in on the trip there, the ridiculous butler, the ostentatious surroundings, De La Croix's over-the-top entrance, and the revelation that Martinez was Felicia's lawyer.
“What's the big deal about this Martinez woman?” he asked, after taking a sip of his coffee.
“Oh, well.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “She's only the first lawyer I've ever lost against, but otherwise, no big deal.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but the hitch in my voice betrayed the fact that getting over the whole experience was not a walk in the park.
“It is a big deal.” He peered at me worriedly. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes. I can win this case with my eyes closed. It's only a little civil suit, I've dealt with much more complex issues.”
“I'm not talking about the case.” The protective streak in his voice gave me the
shivers. “I'm more worried about you, and how this woman could hurt you.”
“I'm not going to let her hurt me again.” The fierceness in my voice took me by surprise, and I tried to believe it. Liam wasn't fooled though, and he smiled crookedly at me.
“If you say so, Lyss.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping our drinks, before something occurred to him.
“So, what exactly happened between you and this Martinez woman, if you don't mind me asking?” His voice was gentle, and he'd taken my hand in his own again.
“I was going to tell you anyway, since you need to be prepared for anything. Her strategy is to hit where it hurts at the worst possible time. For example, I had a slam dunk case. Her client was guilty, I had witnesses, I had evidence, I had everything I needed to make the jury convict. The last part of the puzzle was my final witness. I put him on the stand, and he answered all my questions to perfection. I was winning, I could see it on more than half the faces of the jury.”
I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes. Liam reached up and started rubbing soothing circles on my shoulder.
“Then it was opposing counsel's turn, and Martinez stepped forward. She had a yellow envelope in her hands, and she took the contents out and slapped it down in front of my witness. They were photographs of him in a compromising position with his secretary.” I looked over at Liam, whose gorgeous blue eyes were wide open in shock. “I might add that he was a family man, his wife and twin daughters were sitting in the court.”
Liam whistled and shook his head in amazement. “This Martinez woman doesn't mess around, does she?”
“No, indeed. She absolutely destroyed my one, credible witness and made everything that came out of his mouth seem like total lies. I lost the case, and I have not been looking forward to facing off against her since. And with such an important case like this...” I bit my lip and fiddled with the necklace around my neck.
Liam took my restless hand, and pulled me against him in another hug, and it was comforting and calming. I couldn't help but melt against him with a sigh.
