Burning Desire

by Scarlett Avery

  I blink a few times, taking her beauty in as if this is the first time I’ve ever seen her. I’m torn between my need to be inside her and my commitment to protect her. Shaking my head to cast off the spell, I realize if we don’t hop in a cab at this instant, I’ll find myself in a compromising position with her underneath me.

  “Let’s hit the road,” I say, reaching out to her. She takes a few steps forward and interlaces her fingers around mine.

  Her touch instantly brings flashbacks of a whole lot of raunchy memories. Jesus, this is going to be a very long five days.

  Doing my best to avoid giving in to my urgent need, I grab my laptop with my free hand and drag her out of our suite. If we don’t head for the door, there’s no telling what I’ll do to her. “Are you ready to take on this day, Ali?”

  She looks up at me with her sparkling hazel eyes and bats her long eyelashes a few times. “With you by my side, I am.” Damn. I instantly feel a pang in my chest. Things were a whole lot easier when I was hiding behind my screen and immersing myself in work, but now there’s nowhere for me to hide. It’s just me and her.

  I think I’m going to go out of my goddamn mind.

  * * *

  As we leave the hotel, the afternoon heat hits me like a wall, even in the suffocating shadows of the buildings overhead. I look up and down the street and I realize—I’m back in New York. There’s nothing quite like summers in Manhattan and that’s why I love living in Fort Collins so much. You don’t have to deal with the oppressive heat, the heavy smog, the mobs of eager tourists or the stinking sewers.

  The chauffeured car is already waiting for us when we emerge from the hotel. Lucky for us, lunch hour is a decent time to be travelling in Manhattan and within a few minutes we arrive in front of Aaron Schatzberg’s office.

  Ali and I ride the elevator up fifteen stories in silence. As much as I try, I can’t take my eyes off of her—she’s breathtaking. Since the elevator is packed with employees coming and going from lunch, we don’t have to force ourselves to make small talk. When we get to Aaron’s floor, I grab her by the hand again and I push my way out of the elevator. When I pull open the glass doors to Aaron’s office a bubbly young receptionist greets us.

  “Welcome to Schatzberg & Associates. Do you have a meeting?”

  “Yes, we do. We’re meeting Mr. Schatzberg. My name is Jake Carrington and this is Allison Randall. We have an appointment at twelve-thirty.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Schatzberg is expecting both of you. Let me call the attorney who’ll take you to the boardroom where Mr. Schatzberg and your team of attorneys are waiting. If you’d like to have a seat, it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

  “Thank you very much,” I respond before turning to Ali. “Do you want to sit?”

  She shakes her head. “I’d rather stand,” she answers, nervously biting her lower lip and crossing her arms around her chest. God knows I want to take her mouth into mine, but now is neither the time nor place.

  “Jake, I’m getting anxious again,” she confesses.

  Dammit, I just want to protect her. I grab hold of her shoulder and lower my head. “Look at me, Ali.” She obeys without hesitation. “It’s going to be all right. I know we’re about to discover a lot more nasty things about your ex, but you can do this. Lean on me if you need to. I’m here for you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you want me to get someone to fetch you a—”

  A voice interrupts me and both Ali and I turn around at the same time to face the woman calling out my name.

  “Mr. Carrington, how are you? My name is Rachel Coffman and I’m one of the attorneys assigned to your case,” she says, extending her hand.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I respond, taking her hand. “It’s not my case. I’m here for moral support.” I wink. “This is Allison Randall, the client.”

  “Of course. Ms. Randall, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Rachel shakes Ali’s hand with as much confidence as she did mine. “Rest assured, we have a power team assembled in the boardroom. If you’d like to follow me.” Rachel marches ahead and we follow her through the maze of cubicles and offices until we hit a large room surrounded by glass windows.

  Aaron’s spared nothing. The boardroom is packed with attorneys and support staff who all have an important role in this case and I already have an eye on the mountain of snacks weighing down a table in the corner of the room.

  Before we even open the door, Aaron greets me with a warm smile. We go way back and this man has saved my ass more times than I can count. No one goes after the bad guys like this legal eagle. Don’t be fooled by his stature. Although he only stands five foot six, Aaron is a powerhouse capable of the impossible for his clients. It goes without saying such brilliance comes at a hefty price tag, but Ali is very much worth it.

  As usual, Aaron is one step ahead of me and speaks before I even have time to open my mouth. “Jake, I never thought I’d see you again since you moved to spend your days tending to cattle.”

  “It had to be a darn good reason for me to come back to the Big Apple.”

  Aaron takes me in with a sly grin. All right, we’re about to get into a friendly war of words.

  “You’re a disappointment, Carrington. You know that? If you’re going to make a comeback, assume the role,” he says, taking a step forward before flicking the lapel of my suit. “I expected to see you waltz in here in worn-out cowboy boots and a leather cowboy hat, chewing on a piece of hay or tobacco and wearing some tight jeans that make my female staff lose their heads, but instead you look like a goddamn tight-ass banker who spends his days crunching too many numbers in your bloody expensive imported suit.”

  I smile before I retort. “Just because I own a ranch and sometimes walk around in a cowboy hat to ward off the sun doesn’t make me a bona fide cowboy. I’m much better at hiring them than pretending to be one… even if I can ride a horse.”

  “Fucking excuses. Was it too much to ask?”

  I size Aaron up with a grin hanging from the corner of my mouth. “You kiss your mama with that mouth, Schatzberg?”

  “You leave my mother out of this if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Is that your way of saying you’ve missed me?”

  “You wish,” he says before embracing me in a man hug.

  “Consider yourself lucky I still have you on speed dial,” I joke.

  “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I send you my bill.”

  We both laugh.

  “I missed you, Aaron.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Jake.” Aaron is still patting my back when I notice Ali looks like a deer in the headlights. She’s obviously taken aback by our banter. I grin at her and mouth, “We’re joking around.” Reassured, she smiles back at me.

  “I brought the client.” Pulling myself away from my long-time friend, I bring the focus back to Ali.

  “I finally get to meet the lovely Allison in person,” he says, taking a step forward before cupping her hands in his. “My, my, my. If I weren’t representing you, I wouldn’t dream of leaving this meeting without your phone number.”

  Allison turns beet red so fast, Aaron bursts out laughing. “Oh,” she manages to say with eyes as big as Frisbees.

  “Aaron, don’t you think you’re laying it on a bit thick?” I mock.

  “What can I say? It’s impossible for me to remain unaffected by the charms of a beautiful woman.”

  I roll my eyes at Ali. Aaron is a master flirt able to charm his way out of any situation. His ability to seduce tough-as-nails judges has served his clients very well.

  Since moving away from the dotcom industry and taking ownership of the ranch, I’ve hired a few corporate lawyers in Denver with whom I work closely. That said, I still have the lawyer who took care of the sale of our former tech company on my payroll and I’ve always kept Aaron close by. Since we’re in the cattle business, there’s still an opportunity for people to come after us with fri
volous claims and I’m not willing to gamble when it comes to my defense team.

  Jeff Bingaman, who owns a farm a few acres away from our ranch, got sued a few years back when false rumors came out he was doping his chicken and passing them off as organic and grain-fed. He fought tooth and nail and won. Unfortunately, it cost him an indecent amount of money and the negative press affected his business for months. It’s amazing what kind of shit a vindictive former employee can stir up. Having a lawyer willing to draw blood makes good business sense in my opinion.

  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Aaron.”

  “Are you ready to get started and find out how we’re going to get you out of this royal mess?”

  “I am.”

  “Good. The entire team is here and in the next forty-five minutes Gloria, my assistant, will wheel in lunch for all us. Let’s get started. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I should warn you now…”

  “Oh, no. What’s wrong?” Ali asks nervously.

  “Is there anything that happened since Allison and I left the hotel we should be concerned about?” I ask.

  “On the contrary. Winston’s team came through and our people here have been brilliant. We just got a few more juicy details about half an hour ago that will help Allison’s case. This means we have a shitload to go over today. I doubt any of us will leave this office before seven tonight. It’s going to be a long day and I promised the entire team drinks on me when we’re done. Of course, you and Allison are my guests.”

  “That’s the kind of warning I can live with.”

  “Glad to hear it, Allison. Come over here and take a seat. Jake, where do you want to sit?”

  “Right next to Allison.” I pull out the closest chair and sit next to the curvy blonde and she smiles at me with gratitude. When I take my place at the table, I lean in and whisper in her ear. “You didn’t think I was going to leave you alone, did you?”

  “It sounds like it’s going to be a brutal day,” she whispers back. “I’d understand if you needed to attend to things related to the ranch.”

  “The ranch can wait. We’re in this together, remember?”

  “Right.” Her lips curl up and she rewards me with a huge smile.

  “Okay, the two of you. Cut out the chitchat or else we’ll never go for those drinks,” Aaron says and both Ali and I sit up straight in our chairs like docile pupils.

  “Allison, before we get started, let me introduce you to the team. You’ve already met Rachel. She’s one of the junior attorneys assigned to your case. This is Steve Griffiths, he’s another junior attorney. Both of these young people are sharks and promise to be top attorneys. This is Tanya Daley and Valerie Gooden. They’re both paralegals and let me tell you, nothing slides by them. These people have been relentless in the past three weeks at uncovering the truth. We didn’t want to let out too much information until today, but we’re ready to open Pandora’s box.”

  “Gosh, I’m not sure what to say. I can’t thank you enough for helping me clear my name.”

  “We’re here to protect and serve our clients. Call us old-fashioned, but we take our clients’ needs to heart. But”—Aaron lets the words hang dramatically as if he’s pleading in front of a jury—”your case had us all shaking our heads. Right, gang?”

  All four heads nod in agreement.

  “Why would you say that, Aaron? You must have seen worse cases in all your years in business.”

  “Jake, once we unpick the web of lies Clark and Jasper wove around Allison, you’ll be amazed at the lengths people are willing to go to for greed.”

  “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “I’ll pass the floor over to Steve, who will brief you on every detail we’ve discovered so far.”

  “Ms. Randall and Mr. Carrington, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  “Please, Steve, no need to be so formal. I’m Jake and she’s Allison,” I mock.

  “That sounds good to me.” Steve turns his attention to Ali. “Allison, I believe Aaron has made it clear that the trial we have in three days is to establish your innocence and to get a judge to recognize you were never a principal of Venture App and therefore the class-action suit wouldn’t be something you’d have to concern yourself with.”

  “Yes, Steve. I understand that.”

  “Good. The class-action suit will undoubtedly go on, but our job is to make sure those angry investors know you had nothing to do with stealing their money.”

  “I’m still not clear how my name got associated with Venture App as a treasurer.”

  “This is a simple case of two young traders willing to do anything to get what they wanted… even if that meant screwing you over.”

  “So you were able to establish I had nothing do to with this?” Ali asks nervously.

  “Winston’s team is genius, but in the last few days they’ve been on fire.”

  “How so, Steve?” I interrupt. Winston and I have been in contact numerous times, but I know how he works. He’ll reveal the minimum until he’s provided the attorney working the case with enough evidence to build a solid defense. Any leaks along the way could cost us dearly so I’ll be hearing about the details of the case at the same time as the sexy woman sitting next to me.

  “Allison kept saying she had no clue how she ended up a principal in her ex’s company, but we needed to be sure she had no involvement.”

  “I didn’t realize you didn’t believe me. You thought I wasn’t being upfront?” Ali asks, shocked.

  “With all due respect, people lie to cover their ass all the time, but you seemed sincere. There’s a reason why Rachel, Aaron and I kept drilling you with the same questions. We needed to determine your trustworthiness. Once we did, we moved on to the next step.”

  “Which is?”

  “Jake, we needed proof from the horse’s mouth to support Allison’s claims. In other words, we needed a trail of communication between Jasper and Clark where they shared their master plan. Not an easy task when most communications now happen on cell phones.”

  “Didn’t Winston find anything on their computers?”

  “It’s a new world we live in. Winston hacked their computers early on, but found very little. That’s when we realized… it was all in the palm of their hands.”

  “That’s so true. Clark lived with that phone glued to his hand. He even slept with it safely tucked under his pillow.”

  “Bingo, Allison. After trailing both of these idiots for a few days, it became clear we needed to tap into their phones to get a hold of the text messages they’ve exchanged over the past eight months.”

  “But how do you do that given the complexity of the telecommunications systems? It’s not as if you could remotely access their deleted and archived messages. Any small-time coder can hack a computer these days in their sleep, but text messages are a whole other beast.”

  “God, I forgot you were a master coder, Jake.” Aaron jumps into the conversation. “You’re spot on. It was a nightmare, but Rachel here was brilliant.”

  “Aaron’s right. Without Rachel’s solution, we’d still be scrambling.” Steven turns to his colleague. “Why don’t you explain that part?”

  “Thanks, Steve.” The short redhead extricates herself from her chair and stands at the opposite end of the table from where Aaron is sitting. “We had a two-step plan. First, Winston installed monitoring software in proximity of their homes so we could track their conversations, which he did successfully. Once we knew there was something fishy going on, we needed irrefutable proof.”

  “Did you use spyware on their phones?”

  “Jake, that’s a good idea, since once installed, the software is practically invisible. In other words, there’s no way neither of them could detect they’re being spied upon. That said, there are laws against this kind of monitoring in this country, not to mention we’d still have to figure out a way to get our hands on their phones long enough to install the darn software.”

  “This sounds l
ike a mind-numbing jigsaw puzzle.”

  “It was, but then I remembered—and I’m so sorry, Allison, for bringing this up—Clark had a roaming eye.”

  “Other parts of his body had a tendency to roam even more indecently than his eyes, if you know what I mean.” Ali’s sarcastic retort has us all in stitches.

  “Point well taken, Allison. We needed to retrieve their old text messages legally in order to be able to use the evidence in court without risking them being thrown out by an overzealous judge.”

  “Don’t keep us guessing. How did you do it?” I have to admit it, you can take the coder out of Silicon Valley, but you can never take the passion of breaking complex wireless systems apart out of my veins. I’m like a kid inside a candy shop.

  “We used hot and sexy women.”

  “Huh? Come again?” Okay, I didn’t expect that.

  “What?” Ali gasps.

  “It’s summer in New York. Other than the oppressive heat, rich New Yorkers running away to the Hamptons and outdoor concerts, what else can you count on?”

  Ali looks as puzzled as I do. “Rachel, I don’t follow.”

  “I’ll be honest, I’m with Allison on this one, neither do I.”

  “Street marketing,” Aaron and his team all answer in unison, surprising the heck out of me.

  “You could be speaking Russian right now, it would be the same thing.”

  “Allison, in the summer every company looking to boost their visibility and sales is giving away samples or trying to get some market data out of New Yorkers. We simply followed the trend by hiring a few attractive female models capable of stopping traffic with their good looks. We dressed them in slightly naughty schoolgirl outfits and then we placed them smack dab in front of Clark and Jasper’s office. From that point on it was simply a matter of letting nature run its course. The plot was to lure both crooks in to believing they were entering a contest to win twenty-five thousand dollars if they answered one simple question…”

  “Which is?” I press.

  “What’s the name of your cell phone carrier?”

  “Why is that so important?”