by Amy Andrews
Max shook his head as he remembered that time. He’d been so one-eyed over the whole issue. He should have known then that she didn’t want the same thing.
‘I gave her a couple more weeks and brought it up again. She wanted more time. Six months. A year. So I waited. Six months. A year. Two years. Three years. Then the arguments started. That I was crowding her, pushing her, she needed more time.’
Ali waited for a long time for Max to continue. The silence stretched like a giant deserted highway between them. Eventually she asked, ‘Did she … did she ever say she didn’t want a baby?’
‘No, she just kept saying, not yet, I’m not ready yet.’
And he’d bought it because he’d desperately wanted to believe that one day she would be ready.
‘To be fair she was the least maternal person I knew. I don’t think she ever even picked up any of her nieces and nephews. But, I don’t know … I just thought that would all change when she was pregnant with our baby.’
He’d hoped anyway. He’d hoped like hell.
‘That’s understandable,’ Ali murmured. ‘I wasn’t the most maternal female on the earth either but suddenly, overnight, I became this baby-obsessed nutcase.’
Max smiled. Somehow he could imagine that. Ali, her belly big with child, glowing with health and anticipation, poking her nose into every pram that passed her on the street.
He felt his abdominal muscles tighten as an image of them together, his child in her belly, wormed into his brain.
He pushed it firmly away.
‘And then I came home one night and she’d gone. Her wardrobe was cleared out, her toiletries gone from the bathroom, her car missing from the garage. She left a note saying she’d met someone else and was leaving.’
Ali blinked at the neutrality of his voice. But he couldn’t fool her. She knew how deep a betrayal like this cut. ‘I’m so sorry, Max. That’s awful.’
Max snorted at the understatement. He’d been gutted.
‘We met a few days later to talk things through. She told me she’d fallen in love with another lawyer from her firm, a new guy, she’d already moved in with him. She said she’d … never wanted a baby.’
Ali felt the sudden rawness in his voice right down to her toes. She’d seen the damage in his eyes at the bar last week but his subdued voice murmuring straight into her ear was far more potent.
‘Did she say why she hadn’t come clean years before?’ Ali asked, her voice soft, gentle.
‘Because she’d loved me and she thought she’d grow to want what I wanted. To want a baby. But she hadn’t and she couldn’t live a lie any more.’
The irony was not lost on Ali. She’d wanted her man to want their baby and he’d wanted his woman to want his.
In a perfect world they’d be perfect for each other.
But there was a world of ache in his voice and she wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t still a little in love with his ex-wife.
She waited a beat or two before asking. ‘Do you still love her?’
Max gripped the phone. Tori’s betrayal had cut too deep to feel anything other than contempt. Surely she knew that? Or did she still love Tom despite all that he’d done to her? He was suddenly damn sure he didn’t want to know the answer to that and he was just plain weary of talking about the past.
‘I think that’s enough with the questions for one night, Aleisha.’
Ali shivered as his low husky tones feathered down her neck. He sounded so close he could have been in bed beside her.
Was that a yes?
‘Get some sleep. I’ll see you at prep tomorrow.’
The phone clicked in her ear.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO weeks later Max was chatting to Reginald Aimes in the cavernous atrium of the courthouse the opening morning of Cullen v Brisbane Memorial when the aroma of warmed baked goods enveloped him in a cloud of intoxicating sweetness.
Despite his hearty breakfast his belly rumbled and he turned his head to identify the source just as Reg said, ‘Ah, Aleisha, how are you, my dear?’
Ali, pulling close to the two men, grabbed Reg’s outstretched hand and presented her cheek for his fatherly peck. ‘Ready,’ she said.
And she was. This thing had been hanging over her head for so long now, like a cancer. She was ready to finally be able to do something about it. To fight.
‘Good.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’ll all be over in a couple of weeks and Max is confident we’ll win, aren’t you, Max?’
Max dragged his gaze back from his search and smiled at her. ‘Absolutely.’
She looked good. Tired, but good. He was pleased to see she’d taken his advice and dressed conservatively in dark trousers and jacket, flat shoes and minimal make-up.
Her hair was still a wild array of butterscotch curls that were utterly feminine and completely distracting but, short of asking her to cut them off, he was stuck with them.
Both in this world and the more elusive, erotic world of his dreams.
A mobile rang. Reg patted his pocket and withdrew the ringing gadget. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to take this.’
They watched Reg move away and Max indicated for her to follow him. Ali tagged after him, out of the main foyer area and along several carpeted corridors. She felt surprisingly calm as each step took them further into the bowels of the old, yet still imposing building.
She suspected it wouldn’t last. No doubt the second she walked into the courtroom she’d be a blithering mess. But for now, Ali felt good.
‘In here,’ Max said.
Ali waited for him to unlock a door and preceded him into the room. It was nondescript and boxlike with cheap grey vertical blinds covering the only window. Six chairs surrounded a small oval table, a far cry from the monolith in Max’s boardroom back at the firm, and she noted that Max’s laptop and briefcase had already claimed a spot.
She turned to face him. He hadn’t moved from the doorway and she quirked an eyebrow at him.
Max stood, statue-like, suspended in a cloud of sponge cake and warm croissants, unable to breathe for a moment.
It was her?
She smelled like a patisserie?
He gave an inward groan at the unfairness of it all as the overwhelming urge to nuzzle her neck surged like a symphony in his blood.
As if she weren’t good enough to eat already.
Max gripped the knob hard. ‘Sit.’
Ali frowned at his tense request. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he dismissed, stalking to the table and sitting down as the door clicked shut.
Ali pulled out one of the chairs and sat, aware of a small twist of tension bunching her neck muscles. ‘So, should we go over the procedure for the day again?’ she asked.
They’d already been over it several times, including just yesterday, but Max didn’t think you could ever be too prepared.
‘Good idea.’ Max nodded, launching into his spiel as he tapped his pen against the desk.
Ali tried to take it all in but the set to his jaw was making her nervous and she wondered if he knew something, some development that she hadn’t been privy to.
‘Is everything okay, Max?’ she interrupted.
Max nodded and ploughed on, still tapping his pen. Ali was first on the witness list and he fully expected her testimony to take two days. And although he’d warned her, he didn’t think she fully appreciated how gruelling it was going to be.
The last thing he needed was for her delicious scent to be screwing with his concentration. Which it was—big time! It was stirring a hunger in him that had nothing to do with his belly.
He stopped mid-sentence as another waft of her actually made his mouth water.
He threw down the pen. ‘What are you wearing?’
Ali stared at him nonplussed. She looked down at her clothes. ‘You said conservative. You said no skirts.’
‘No, damn it,’ he growled. ‘I mean your perfume.’
Ali blinked
. ‘Vanilla oil?’
Vanilla. That was what it was. That was what was making him want to lick her neck.
‘Kat gave it to me. It’s supposed to be good for relaxation.’
‘Is it working?’
‘Yes. Or at least it was until you got all tense and cranky.’
‘I’m not cranky,’ he denied, but one look at her incredulous expression made him reassess. Max rubbed his forehead. ‘Sorry, I … ‘
I, what, big boy?
I want to bury my face in your neck? I want to see if you taste the same everywhere? I want to throw you on this table and nibble you all over?
‘You … don’t like the perfume?’
Max stifled a groan. He rested his chin on his palm and stared at her for a moment. ‘I think the problem is I like it a little too much.’
‘Oh,’ Ali said, her frown building and then slowly slipping as realisation dawned. ‘Oh-h-h. You like it.’
Max gave her a grudging smile. ‘I find it very … distracting.’
‘Oh-h-h,’ she said again, but fainter this time as his gaze strayed to her mouth and her breath seized in her chest.
They’d done well the last couple of weeks putting their first inauspicious meeting behind them. They’d both worked hard to keep things strictly business, to hack off the persistent, cloying tentacles that had attached themselves after their explosive night in bed together.
Max had even reneged on his offer for her to ring him after that first phone call had strayed into dangerous territory. He’d thought further phone contact would be unwise. That it blurred that line the case had drawn between them. And she’d agreed.
But suddenly she was back in his bed, under him and her pulse seemed to pick up the rhythm they’d set that night. She sucked in a breath as the air between them seemed to vibrate.
Max watched as her olive eyes darkened and her glossy lips parted slightly. He remembered every detail of that mouth. How it tasted, how it felt against his, where it had been.
Ali swallowed as his gaze fixed on her mouth. She vaguely heard the slow steady drum of his fingers against the table as if he was weighing up his options.
To kiss or not to kiss.
It would be easier if she knew herself which way she wanted him to jump. But she had the feeling if he pounced—ethics aside—they’d be late for court.
Very, very late.
She licked her suddenly parched lips and instantly wished she hadn’t as his nostrils flared and his fingers stopped drumming. ‘I could … not wear it again … ‘
Max pulled his hand back and tucked it safely under the desk. It was too close to temptation above it.
There was just too much temptation all round!
He considered her proposal. The case could conceivably run for two weeks—could he face that intoxicating aroma attached to her delectable skin knowing how badly he wanted to taste it, day after day, for potentially a fortnight?
Without going insane?
But if it was helping her to relax then he couldn’t argue with that. It was going to be a stressful couple of weeks and if vanilla oil helped then he didn’t have the right to ask her not to wear it.
‘No, it’s fine,’ he dismissed, his tone gentler. ‘I need you relaxed. Whatever it takes.’
Even if it was going to have the opposite effect on him.
The door opened abruptly then, admitting Reg and two other board members along with Max’s co-counsel, Gemma Ward, and Don Walker, a representative from the hospital’s insurer. Max quelled the urge to spring back from Ali. They weren’t close and they hadn’t been doing anything wrong.
Not really.
But he was grateful for the horde’s timely arrival anyway.
Twenty minutes later Judge Veronica Davies swept into the courtroom and called the case to order. Max was pleased to have scored her. He’d been in her courtroom many times and her reputation for being tough but fair was well respected.
Max straightened his notes as the judge went through the preliminaries. Reg and Don sat on his right. Gemma sat on his left. Across the centre aisle sat Deidre and Gordon Cullen and their lawyers.
Aleisha sat on the first row of seats directly behind him but still her delicious vanilla essence reached out. It curled seductive fingers into his gut and squeezed tight. He gripped the edges of his notes harder and prayed for patience.
He concentrated instead on Aleisha’s reaction to Nathaniel’s mother’s contemptuous look. It had devastated her and his drive to vindicate Aleisha trebled. Every day she’d come to the prep session proposing a new profession and it had become a standing joke. But Max knew that Aleisha was serious.
If things went badly in court she would never return to medicine. Hell, he was beginning to believe that she probably wouldn’t even if they went well.
‘Mr Sherrington?’
Max looked up from his deathlike grip on his papers. He smiled at the judge and rose. ‘Yes, Your Honour.’
‘Call your first witness.’
Max felt a moment’s trepidation—unusual for him. He never felt anything but one hundred per cent in control in a courtroom.
But no case had ever felt this personal before.
‘I’d like to call Dr Aleisha Gregory.’
And so began two punishing days of questions about that awful night. Every second was dis-sected—every movement examined, every decision scrutinised.
Nothing was off limits.
Not her thoughts or her notes or her state of mind or her personal life. As Max had predicted, her break-up was trotted out, her miscarriage tossed around by the opposing side. She was stripped bare before everyone until Aleisha felt like a skeleton sitting in the chair, all her flesh torn away, exposed right down to her bones.
And then after they were done taking pieces from her on the stand they spent the remainder of the week and three days into the next taking pieces from her through other people.
As if she weren’t there.
I’m right here, she’d wanted to scream. I’m sitting right here in the first row.
The Cullens said she and the hospital were negligent.
Max argued they weren’t.
And on it went. Days of hearing from endless witnesses involved in the incident that night, their view of the events put under a microscope.
An army of expert witnesses dissecting her every action, half supporting the claim of negligence, the other half refuting.
Going from home to court, from court to home utterly wrung out from doing nothing at all. Just listening to her life, her career, her hopes and dreams slowly being dismembered.
Max was her only sanity. Every morning he’d tell her she was doing well and she clung to that like a buoy in a storm-tossed ocean because the legal argument was too intense and too intimidating to believe for a moment that she might actually be winning.
And she had to win. She just had to.
‘I’m thinking air hostess,’ Ali said into the phone. The court case was expected to wrap up tomorrow and she knew she wasn’t supposed to ring but she was feeling particularly edgy tonight.
Max, who had dozed off surrounded by paperwork, glanced at the clock. ‘It’s almost midnight.’
‘Sorry. Can’t sleep.’
Max heard the strain in her voice as several ways to get her to sleep very unhelpfully reared their ugly, suggestive heads. ‘It’ll all be over tomorrow,’ he murmured. ‘And we’re going to win.’
Ali nodded, wishing she could feel more confident. ‘Right.’
‘So … a trolley dolly?’
Ali shrugged. ‘Why not? I could indulge my love of travel.’
‘We’re going to win, Aleisha.’
‘And I love their uniforms.’
Max shut his eyes as a picture of Ali in a tight skirt, stockings and high heels slithered into his mind. She was leaning over him, her cleavage on display, serving him a drink and calling him sir. And then he was following her down the aisle, into the staff amenities, shutting the door, slid
ing her skirt up …
God. This was torture.
‘So do I.’
Ali heard the unspoken in the low saxophone timbre of his voice. A delicious tingle spread from the hand holding the phone all the way up her arm. ‘You have a thing for skirts, don’t you?’
‘Not usually.’
Ali gripped the phone harder as his meaning hit home. This phone call had careened quickly out of control. Maybe it was the end result of being forced to spend day after platonic day in his company when her body was craving something else entirely. When it remembered in fine detail how good they’d been together.
‘Maybe you should see a doctor about that?’
‘I am.’
Ali swallowed against a surge of desire thickening in her throat. ‘Is he good?’
‘She is.’
Ali’s breath became choppy. ‘Doesn’t sound like she’s cured you yet.’
Max’s body tightened as the magnified sound of her rough breath brushed over his belly like a siren’s call. ‘Maybe I don’t want to be cured?’
Ali’s toes curled. ‘I guess there are worse things to be hung up on.’ Even if she couldn’t for the life of her think of a single one.
Max couldn’t agree more. Like vanilla and butterscotch curls and big, beautiful breasts. But this conversation was heading in the wrong direction—fast. For God’s sake, there was just one night to go—he’d nearly made it. He had to pull it back.
‘I think it’s time we said goodnight.’
Ali stilled for a moment, a stab of disappointment mingling with relief. She should be happy he was bringing them back from the edge. It was a completely inappropriate conversation to be having with her lawyer.
But with her body humming like a tuning fork it was hard to concentrate on anything else. ‘Wait,’ she said, dragging her body back from the edge. There had been a purpose to this phone call—sort of. ‘How well do you know the judge?’
Max frowned at the phone. ‘Why? Are you suggesting we bribe her?’
Ali laughed and felt some of the tension ooze from her pores. Kat, who had just come in from work, poked her head in the door and smiled at Ali. Ali waved her in and Kat flopped on the bed.
