Off Limits

by Clare Connelly

  It was too hard to work here, and especially too hard to work for him. Fortunately, she no longer needed this job.

  “I was actually hoping not to see you,” she said. When she’d noticed him and his partners walk into the bar, she’d been quick to leave, so he wouldn’t see her there with her friends. She’d always been very careful to keep her private life private from everyone else at the firm. Most especially from him.

  He sucked in a breath as if she’d struck him. “I’m surprised you’d admit that.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Which had been rude. Too bad she was such a lightweight that one glass of wine had lowered some of her inhibitions. Like now, when she looked at him again and heat rushed through her body. His eyes were so blue. Why did he have to be so good-looking?

  “What do you mean, Bette?” he asked. “Why are you here? You need to give me an answer.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “This is why I came when I knew you wouldn’t be here,” she said. “I didn’t want to be caught.”

  “Damn it,” he cursed. “I didn’t expect this from you—of all of Street Legal’s employees.”

  She could understand that. Some people, ambitious people, would kill to work at Street Legal. Other people—like her—didn’t want to be associated with such an unscrupulous firm. Two years ago she’d had no choice; she’d needed money to be able to live in the city and to pay back her student loans. Now she had a choice. She reached for the note she’d left—unsigned—on his desk. Her name was just a line across the bottom.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, and with her hand trembling, she passed the letter to him.

  He glanced down at the paper. As he began to read it, his brow furrowed. He must have been confused because he murmured, “What the hell is this?”

  Her heart continued to beat fast and hard. “It’s—it’s my letter of resignation.” Which she had hoped to leave on his desk without running into him. Of course he would show up. Over the past two years there had been no escaping Simon Kramer. He even showed up in her dreams—dreams that left her with tight nipples and a pulsing clit. Not that she had a crush on him or anything.

  In fact, there was very little she liked about Simon Kramer, except how he looked. But that was more a curse than a blessing—for her and all the weak-willed females he’d seduced. Not that he would seduce her or even try. She’d seen the women he dated: models and actresses—beautiful women. He had no interest in her. Just as she never looked at him, he never looked at her, either.

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand.” And his brow was still furrowed with confusion. “Why are you quitting?”

  She’d kept the resignation letter short and sweet. This is official notice of my resignation. My last day of employment will be...

  Two weeks from now. Or hopefully sooner if he got mad and just fired her, and that was what she was hoping for. She doubted anyone had ever dumped Simon Kramer before—personally or professionally.

  Thank you for the opportunity.

  Thanks but no, thanks. She wanted no part of Street Legal anymore. No part of their high-profile cases. No part of sending flowers to their jilted lovers. No part of fielding the pleading calls from those same lovers.

  She hadn’t said any of that, though. She’d given no reason for leaving—because she hadn’t had to.

  So predictably he asked, “Why?”

  Nonconfrontational by nature, Bette could only shrug. She was the one who apologized when someone else bumped into her on the street or jostled her on the subway. And that wasn’t just the manners instilled with her Midwestern upbringing.

  “You must have a reason.” He persisted.

  She had several. But she only shook her head. Her hair, which was so heavy, pulled at the knot that had slipped to the back of her head. The pins shifted, sticking into her skull. If she’d been home, she would have pulled them out, let down her hair.

  But she couldn’t do that around him. The tight bun—the glasses—that was her armor to protect herself around him. Not that he would make untoward advances. She knew even with her hair down and glasses off, she wasn’t his type. But she felt more protected in her office camouflage. So that he wouldn’t know the real her. Only her most trusted friends knew the real her. And she would never trust Simon Kramer.

  “If you had no reason to leave,” he said, his deep voice husky with frustration, “you wouldn’t be leaving.” He crumpled the letter in his fist.

  And Bette’s pulse leaped with fear. Although she was well aware of Simon Kramer’s ruthlessness, she had never been afraid of him before. He’d never been warm and fuzzy with her, but he’d never been mean, either.

  “I—I just want to leave,” she said. And she wasn’t talking only about his employ. She wanted to leave his office, too. But he stood in the path between her and the doorway.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “But—but you can’t refuse my resignation...” Could he? Before deciding to leave the firm, she’d read over the employment contract he’d had her sign when he’d hired her, and she’d seen nothing about not being able to quit. But he was the contracts and trusts lawyer. He was the one who would have come up with the clauses and legal jargon that would make it possible for him to legally enslave someone.

  “I can change your mind,” he said, and even though his lips curved into a smile, his eyes remained cold and hard. “How much will it take?”

  “You think this is about money?” Street Legal paid all their employees very well. That was why she’d come to work for him although she’d really wanted to work in a fashion house. But after interning at fashion houses, she knew how little they paid and how hard she would’ve worked.

  He tilted his head, and his blue eyes narrowed as he studied her face. “Isn’t everything about money?”

  Maybe it was the wine that made her less censored than she would have ordinarily been but she admitted, “Unfortunately it is—to most people.”

  “Are you saying you aren’t one of those people?” he asked, and one of his golden brows arched in skepticism. But there was more than skepticism in his eyes. He was looking at her a certain way that he never had before, a way that had nerves swimming in her stomach. He was actually looking at her, and there seemed to be an appreciation in his gaze as if he liked what he saw.

  Damn. She was such a lightweight. She had to be drunk to imagine that Simon Kramer would look at her that way, like he wouldn’t mind seeing more of her—naked.

  “I wouldn’t have taken the job working here if money didn’t matter to me,” she admitted. But having him to look at, to fantasize about, had given her the inspiration to succeed at her other job.

  “So then more money will get you to stay,” he said dismissively, as if he’d closed a case. He tossed her crumpled-up resignation letter into the brass trash can sitting beside his desk.

  Frustration—and not just with this conversation—overwhelmed her, overcoming her natural inclination to avoid confrontation, and she blurted out, “No!”

  Working for him these past two years had increased her frustration because of all those damn fantasies he’d inspired.

  “But you just said—”

  “I took the job because I needed money,” she said. “I needed money then.”

  His eyes narrowed more as he studied her face. “And you don’t need it now?”

  “My reason for leaving has nothing to do with money,” she said. Had she not found another source of income, she would have been forced to stay, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “So you do have a reason.”

  He wasn’t the trial lawyer of their partnership, but he could have been. She felt like she was being cross-examined on the witness stand. And she didn’t enjoy it one bit. Quitting was not a crime.

  “I don’t have to give you a reason.” At least she didn’t think she did.

  Maybe she should have had a lawyer look at that employment contract before
she’d written her resignation letter. But no matter how much she paid, no lawyer would be as good as Simon Kramer. He was the best.

  And, according to his ex-lovers, not just at the law...

  “Why don’t you want to tell me?” he asked, and he stepped closer now, so close that she could feel the heat of his body through his suit and her cardigan and skirt.

  Heat flushed her body, making her skin tingle. She tried to step back but the desk stopped her, the hard wood pressing into the backs of her thighs as he nearly touched the front of her. Her breasts pushed against the front of the gray cardigan as she struggled for breath. She had never been this close to him before. It was more than unsettling. Her knees trembled and her already tripping pulse quickened even more.

  “Because it’s personal,” she murmured. And they had never been anything but businesslike with each other, except in her dreams.

  He leaned down, so close that his warm breath whispered across her lips as he asked, “Are you in love with me?”

  Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Childs