Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise

by Amy Andrews

  But Ali’s pain reached deep inside his bones.

  The need to vindicate her overwhelmed him.

  ‘What happened next?’ he asked while he battled with his keen legal mind for a modicum of professionalism. ‘You told the parents?’

  Ali nodded. ‘Yes. By this stage both Deidre and Gordon were at the hospital.’

  ‘And how did that go?’

  Ali blinked. ‘How do you think it went? I had to tell them their son was dead. It was awful.’

  Max nodded, letting her derision wash past him. He’d done some pretty damn difficult things in his job but he couldn’t even begin to imagine the enormity of having to tell someone their loved one had passed away.

  How many times had she done that?

  ‘Were they angry at you, at the hospital, at that stage? Did they threaten to sue that night?’

  Ali shook her head. ‘No, at that stage they were too … broken. They were blaming themselves, saying they should have brought him in the previous night.’

  Interesting. Max scribbled a quick note. ‘Would that have made a difference?’

  ‘Most likely not. As I said earlier the size of his extra-dural on admission almost twenty-four hours post injury was only two mm. I suspect there may have been nothing to find for many hours. Had he presented immediately I would have treated him the same—CT scan and close observation.’

  ‘Okay, good, thank you,’ he said. He held her gaze as he smiled at her. ‘I know it’s something you’ve been over and over ad nauseam. I appreciate your patience, Aleisha.’

  Ali’s gaze tangled with his as his gentle words soothed the raw wound that he’d just prodded again. It was almost as if he’d whispered into her ear. Even the way he said her full name laid gentle fingers against her skin.

  The room shrank; gooseflesh broke out on her arms.

  Breaking eye contact, she reached for her glass. ‘No worries,’ she murmured.

  Max, realising he was staring at the curve of her neck and remembering how’d she’d arched her back when he’d kissed her there, also dropped his gaze.

  A tsunami of lust fogged his vision and he shuffled the papers in front of him, hoping it looked purposeful instead of erratic.

  Was he going to want her every day of the coming weeks?

  Maybe he should have followed Pete’s advice after Tori had left and put himself out there.

  Got it out of his system.

  He was obviously suffering from an overdose of testosterone now he’d broken his very long dry run. He’d forgotten how great sex was and now he was going to have to sit next to the very woman who’d reminded him, day after day, and not be able to do a damn thing about it.

  He looked up to find the entire table, including Helen, looking at him expectantly.

  Get a grip, man!

  ‘Dr Perry, I believe you were the next one involved chronologically, followed by Dr Aimes and then the police.’

  Ali was grateful that the following three hours required very little input from her other than the odd clarification or two, even if it was disconcerting to realise that Max had barely looked at her since he’d had to during her testimony.

  In fact he seemed to be avoiding it. Even when he’d sought to clarify a point with her.

  Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  She spent every minute of the three hours wondering.

  By the time the meeting broke up she was tired and tense just about everywhere, a headache forming. Max disappeared out of the door with Reg and the other suits leaving only her and Helen in the room. She was suddenly strangely reluctant to leave this oppressively masculine space. In here people seemed to know what they were doing—things were certain.

  Out there, nothing seemed sure.

  Ali was distracted from her thoughts as Helen, whose fingers had tapped away for hours, rubbed absently at her disfigured knuckles as she packed up.

  ‘How long has your arthritis been this bad?’ Ali asked.

  Helen looked up, surprised. ‘Years … I just live with it now.’

  ‘Stenography can’t help,’ Ali observed.

  Helen shrugged. ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘Are you under a specialist?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘Just my GP.’

  Ali tutted at the older woman. ‘Here,’ she said, fishing around in her handbag for her purse. She located it and extracted the business card she was after. She stood and passed it to Helen as Max re-entered the room. ‘He’s a good guy. Tell him I referred you.’

  ‘Trying to steal the best stenographer in the business?’ Max joked.

  Helen laughed and took the card. ‘Thanks, Dr Gregory.’

  Ali sat again as Max, who had relieved the arthritic stenographer of her load, departed the room with Helen. Her headache tightened its steely band across her forehead a little more and she propped her elbows on the table and cradled her face in her palms.

  Listening to her professional life being discussed, her every action, every word being dissected, had been harrowing and Ali rubbed at her temples trying not to think about it.

  ‘You should go home, put your feet up and relax.’

  Ali didn’t have to look up to know who it was but the deep husk in his voice ensnared her in its sticky trap, drawing her gaze in his direction regardless. He lounged in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the jamb, his jacket finally removed, his shirt cuffs turned up to his elbows, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

  ‘Headache?’

  Ali nodded. ‘Harrowing session.’

  He looked at his watch and pushed off the jamb. ‘It’s after six. Come with me—I’ve got some pills in my office.’

  After six? It had been hard to tell the passage of time with the curtains closed. ‘Isn’t pill pushing illegal?’ she said, forcing a light teasing note into her voice.

  It had been so serious the last three hours, if she didn’t get some relief from it she was going to crack up.

  Max lazed back against the jamb again and gave a half-smile. ‘I don’t think paracetamol counts. And anyway, I’m giving them to you, not selling them.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s how you get me hooked. Give me a free taste and bam, suddenly I can’t go without.’

  Max felt the breath seize in his lungs. That was exactly what had happened to him. She’d given him a taste of her and now he couldn’t think of anything else. He’d been thinking about those damn curls brushing his chest all afternoon. He’d barely taken anything in.

  Thank God for Helen and her notes.

  Ali watched as Max stilled and his grey eyes darkened to slate. She suddenly realised her words spoken in jest could be misconstrued and Max had most definitely misconstrued.

  She too stilled as their gazes locked. Where the hell did she go from here?

  Max recovered first. ‘Well, I know a good lawyer if your habit ever gets you into trouble.’

  God help her, she knew a good lawyer too. And he was leading her right into trouble.

  He was trouble with a capital T.

  It was another moment or two before Ali broke eye contact and rose from the chair. ‘Thank you, some paracetamol would be much appreciated. I normally carry some with me but I appear to be out.’

  Max breathed again as she made her way around the table. But it was only momentary. As she walked towards him he got his first glimpse of her fully clad body.

  A skirt. She was wearing a skirt.

  And not like the one she’d worn to the bar the other night, that was loose and floaty, that skimmed and hinted. No, this was one of those straight business skirts that moulded and clung and barely reached her knees.

  Perhaps if he didn’t already know in shocking intimate detail what was under that skirt, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. But he did—and now he was reminded of every inch.

  Seriously? How was he supposed to think of her as Dr Aleisha Gregory, witness, when she was wearing that skirt?

  The kind of skirt that was made to be slid up stockinged
thighs … as she straddled him … in his car seat.

  Ali felt her cheeks warm as Max’s gaze lingered on her hips and legs. When he finally dragged his eyes back up to her face they’d darkened to graphite.

  Their gazes locked for a moment. The heat from his sizzled along her nerve endings and Ali had the insane urge to pose for him. Rock one hip to the side, plant a hand on her waist, thrust her chest a little.

  Max gave himself a stern mental shake and pushed off the doorjamb. ‘Follow me.’

  The gentleman in him should have gestured her to precede him but no way was he going to expose himself to every swing of her delectable hips outlined in a swathe of black cling wrap. It had been a long day and that skirt should come with a highly flammable warning.

  Ali’s legs were decidedly wobbly as she followed his long stride through the corridors to his office. Her heart beat a little too fast, her breath came a little too quick. And the hard points of her nipples rubbed painfully against the fabric of her bra with each step.

  It was torture here in his jet stream as Max’s sex-in-a-bottle cologne mixed with his arrogant masculinity. By the time she stepped into his office she was a nervous wreck.

  Max, grateful for activity, sat in his chair and searched through a couple of drawers before he located his stash of paracetamol. He looked up.

  Big mistake.

  She was standing directly in front of his desk, her skirt at eye level. And he suddenly realised she could straddle him just as easily in this chair as she could in his car.

  No, no, no.

  Annoyed at himself for the images he didn’t seem to be able to erase, he thrust the blister pack at her. ‘Bottled water over there.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the bar fridge behind him.

  Ali blinked at his harsh tone but took the offering without comment. By the time she’d retrieved a bottle of water, swallowed two tablets and turned back to face him, he was standing at the door looking cranky and impatient.

  He was holding his briefcase in one hand and his jacket in the other. ‘Ready to go?’

  Ali could feel her ire rise. ‘You don’t have to wait for me. I’m perfectly capable of finding my own way out of the building.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he dismissed. ‘I’m leaving, you’re leaving. I’ll see you out.’

  He was pretty sure he could be trusted not to jump her in the lift.

  Ali didn’t know what had come over him but she didn’t like this Max at all. She hoped it was courtroom Max because he sure as hell was surly.

  ‘Fine.’ She strode to the doorway, her chin up, and sailed right past him.

  Too late Max realised as he fell in behind her he was about to get a close-up view of her backside whether he liked it or not. He gritted his teeth and deliberately fixed his gaze on a point in the centre of her back.

  But then the bounce of her curls drew his gaze and he remembered anew how they had felt trailing over his skin as she had gone down on him.

  They stepped into the lift in silence, each taking an opposite wall. Max pushed the G button and stared studiously at the floor. Silence grew large between them until Ali couldn’t stand it any more.

  ‘What do you think of a travel agent? They look like they lead a very glamorous life.’

  Max frowned and lifted his gaze. ‘What?’

  ‘As a career choice, after the court case?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure how you’re going to fit that in around being a neurosurgeon.’

  ‘I told you, I’m not going to do that any more.’

  He rejected the suggestion with one arrogant shrug. ‘Of course you are.’ Then he returned his gaze to the floor.

  Ali bit back a retort and reached for calm. ‘Is everything okay?’ she asked. ‘Did I not do good today?’

  Max almost groaned out loud. ‘You were fine,’ he dismissed testily, glaring at her.

  Ali blinked. ‘You seem mad at me.’

  He sighed. ‘I’m not mad at you, Aleisha.’

  He was mad at himself.

  Ali glared back at him as calm deserted her and the throb in her head intensified. She hated being called Aleisha and she’d just had three solid hours of it.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘We’re not in the boardroom now—can you please just call me Ali?’

  Max felt the waves of hostility rolling off her clash and duel with his. He jabbed his finger at the red stop button and the cab ground to a halt.

  Ali gasped as she clutched the rail behind her. ‘Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing?’ she snapped.

  Max switched his jacket to his other side and buried his free hand deep into his pocket lest he lunged for her. Which was exactly what he wanted to do. Grab her, lift her against the wall, slide his hands beneath that damn skirt and do her right here, right now.

  ‘I can’t call you Ali. Not now.’ He glowered. ‘Ali’s the woman I’ve seen naked. I kissed her toes and licked her all over. For God’s sake, Aleisha, I was buried inside you most of last Friday night.’

  He removed his hand from his pocket to rake it through his hair. ‘Ali’s the name I called out as I came.’

  Ali watched the agitated rise and fall of his chest and knew hers had followed suit. She could hear her breath roughen at the images he evoked.

  She could almost feel the heat of his whisper as he’d groaned Ali in her ear.

  Her arms broke out in goose bumps.

  He stuffed his hand back into his pocket. ‘I need to call you Aleisha. And I need to start right now. Ali is a woman I had one of the best nights of my life with. Aleisha is a witness. My client’s witness. If I slip in court, call you Ali, they’ll know. The judge, the opposing team, your hospital board—they’ll all know. Because it’ll be in my voice.’

  Ali was stunned by his diatribe. He hadn’t moved any closer, he was sticking firmly to his side, but she felt skewered to the spot by the barely leashed desire she saw burning in his graphite eyes.

  Deep inside, her muscles contracted.

  Max watched her watch him. He was mesmerised by the way the buttons of her blouse strained as she sucked air in and out of her lungs. He pushed his butt against the lift wall a little harder.

  ‘Look, the truth is I’m very attracted to you and I haven’t been attracted to anyone for a long time. God knows that damn skirt’s driving me nuts and I’d like nothing more than to pin you against that wall—’ he jabbed his finger in the direction of the wall she was leaning against ‘—and have my way with you. And if it wasn’t for this … ‘

  Ali swallowed, her throat suddenly dryer than a fallen autumn leaf, her pulse roaring through her ears. She looked at him for a moment or two seeing the possibilities, the fun they could be having, if the court case weren’t between them.

  ‘Yeh.’ She nodded. ‘If it wasn’t for this … ‘

  Max regarded her for a moment. ‘So please, for the love of God, can we just stick with Aleisha?’

  ‘Okay … Godfrey.’

  There was silence for a moment, then Ali watched as his frown slowly slipped, his dimples flashed and he laughed. It slid between them as it had on Friday night and dissipated the tension to a low sizzle. She found herself laughing too.

  ‘Touché,’ he murmured.

  Then he punched the ground button again and the lift lurched back into working order. The doors were opening at their destination ten seconds later.

  ‘Go home,’ he said, striding out of the lift. ‘Get a good night’s sleep.’ One of them might as well. ‘Tomorrow is a full day of prep.’

  Ali followed him at a slower pace. Home wasn’t that appealing. Kat was on a date with Pete and she didn’t feel like being alone. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy getting a drink. Maybe a bite to eat?’

  Max stopped abruptly and turned. His eyes raked her up and down. ‘In that skirt? I don’t think so.’

  Ali blushed. ‘I didn’t mean … it wasn’t … I’m not coming on to you.’ Surely they could temper their attraction for
each other in a restaurant full of people?

  Max gritted his teeth as her ‘coming on to you’ had a predictable effect in his underpants. The still-open lift doors beckoned.

  ‘I just thought maybe we could talk about the case away from the formality of your office,’ she clarified. ‘Like we did at Cha’s.’

  ‘I know. But I don’t trust myself around that skirt. Here,’ he said, reaching for his wallet and pulling out a business card. ‘This is my mobile and home phone numbers. If you want to talk outside the office, I think we’d better stick to the telephone.’

  She took the card from him and noted how studiously he avoided touching her. He looked so serious it was hard to imagine, despite the pulse of sexual awareness prickling between them, that they’d ever been intimate.

  ‘Anything I need to know in particular for tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ he grouched. ‘For God’s sake, don’t wear that skirt. Ever again.’

  And he turned on his heel and strode away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS she had feared the apartment was lonely when she opened the door brushing raindrops off her hair.

  Kat had marched in with her bags a month after Tom had moved out and completely taken over. Ali had protested at the time, had wanted to be left alone to lick her wounds, but now she couldn’t imagine her two-bedroom flat without Kat filling it with chatter and laughter. Making it feel like a home.

  Ali flicked on the television so the house didn’t seem so silent. She poured herself a glass of wine to chase away the last of her headache and then forced herself to eat some of the leftover pasta that Kat had cooked the night before and she hadn’t been able to eat because she’d been too wound up.

  Another advantage to having Kat around—she was an amazing cook. Ali had never eaten so well.

  Then she took a quick shower, dressed in her pyjamas, poured herself another glass of wine and slid a DVD into the player in her bedroom. She turned out the light and pulled back the covers of her bed and snuggled down to watch the action film Kat had borrowed from the video shop on the weekend.

  Action films weren’t necessarily her thing but there were worse ways to take her mind off things than watching Bruce Willis running around all shirtless and macho.