He also pointed out that I could do my job from anywhere in the world.
I agreed and here I was, sitting on his lap once again indulging on him.
“We should go home sweet thing.” He smiled up at me with those gorgeous blue eyes I knew I would be lost in forever. “How about I make love to you all night. We have a long flight tomorrow.” Mischief flickered in his gaze.
* * *
“Okay Mr. Dempsey. You making love to me all night sounds like a real treat.”
“Let’s go then, sweet thing.”
I giggled as he took hold of my hand and lifted it to his lips. He kissed over the beautiful engagement ring he’d given me. then took a moment to look at it, then up to me. Love and appreciation filled his eyes.
“I love Paige. Thank you for being mine.”
“I love you too Jason.” I replied. Words straight from my heart which this amazing man had managed to revive and fill with all that it needed. All that I needed. “Thank you for being my everything.”
I said everything because he was. He’d had the ability to do something no one else could have. He rescued me, saving me from losing myself and showed me that I could live again after experiencing the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
I glanced at the ring.
It was beautiful indeed, as beautiful as the one Paul gave me. I’d never forget that ring, and I wouldn’t forget this ring either, and all that they signified. Promises of love which would be sealed to my soul.
A lot had happened to me since I met Jason. It was like my life did a complete three sixty.
I put my house up for sale a few weeks ago. It was hard, but a necessity.
Last week, I’d spent a substantial amount of time packing. Packing what I’d take to Hong Kong, but also packing away my life with Paul. The pictures came down and were placed in storage. I only kept a small album. It helped too that I could talk to Jason when I felt low.
It was really difficult to pack away a life, and everything that had meaning to me for such a long time.
But, I had to move on. It was just great that I got to do so with a truly amazing man who helped me to find myself.
I could be the me I used to be and the me that had evolved from all that had happened to me. My readers loved it and my advice column had grown in significance over the last few months.
Jason brought out the best in me, and gave me what I never expected to find ever again.
True love.
About the Author
Khardine Gray writes hot contemporary romance and romantic suspense.
Her books have drool worthy heroes who will make you melt, and sassy, fun loving, ambitious heroines.
She loves writing and simply adore her readers.
She’s from the Caribbean but currently lives in England with her husband and two kids.
When not writing, you can catch her ice skating or dancing at a Samba class.
The Scarlet Letter of the Law
Lexi Greene
Copyright © 2018 by Lexi Greene
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All rights reserved.
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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.
The Scarlet Letter of the Law
When Tony Radcliff joins Forbes Lawyers, career-driven Scarlet O'Connor suddenly has serious competition for the coveted senior associate position that is the foundation-stone of her future.
And Tony has a couple of aces up his sleeve. Like his surf-sculpted body, which plays havoc with Scarlet’s ‘all work and no play’ plans for partnership and his brother, who holds the key to a secret from her past.
When Scarlet and Tony start steaming up the office windows, there’s no doubt they're playing with fire. But there can only be one winner, so who gets burned?
1
Scarlet focused on her breathing and not the deep mahogany of the lift doors in front of her. Or the metal on metal clanking of its inner workings. Or the hands of her watch that circled closer to seven. She drew her breath in until her chest felt full and her belly expanded. Release. Slow and steady. Her phone pinged and she glanced at the screen. You’ve got this. The reminder went off at seven every day and every day she stood here, her body paralysed in a percussion of protest. You can do this.
The lift doors parted and the mirror-clad, marble-floored box waited for her entry. Simple. One step, then another. Press level eighteen. She could do it. She’d done it before. She just had to acknowledge the reaction, breathe through it and step into the small, tight, enclosed chamber.
Or take the stairs. Her eyes veered to the side. The stairs were good for her thighs. Her buttocks, too. They were a cardio-vascular win-win.
Her high heels met the marble floor of the foyer with a confident Hi, I’m Scarlet O’Connor, soon to be senior associate of Forbes Lawyers. She reached for the fire escape door handle, but her grip slipped and she had to shove it with her shoulder.
The stairs had become an important part of her morning morphosis. Toughen up, Scarlet. You’ve got this, Scarlet. You can do this, Scarlet.
She eyed the spiralling, concrete stairway. One step at a time. The door banged behind her and her heart did that thing where it wanted to vacate the premises. Her throat tightened and her eyes took a moment to adjust to the sharp slap of the lighting and the raw tang of the concrete. She took a sip of the coffee she bought every morning from Hudsons Coffee on Little Collins St. and breathed in the sweet undertones of vanilla and hazelnut… the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. One step at a time, Scarlet. There are no shortcuts to the top. With every step of the twenty-eight-times-eighteen steps, her skin hardened, crystallised and set until she morphed into the confident, professional, sophisticated—albeit a smidgen sweaty—woman who strode down the carpeted hallway to her not-yet-corner office. She wrenched the door open, her heart heaving a Thank God and lowered her only cup of coffee for the next ten hours onto her desk.
Files were stacked high on every flat surface and the city of Melbourne stretched before her feet. She liked looking down on the already busy streets, and the early morning sunshine promised another warm and sunny day. She booted up her computer. Her crammed schedule flashed before her and she kicked off her heels. A new associate had been hired to help with some of the files teetering on her desk, and they had a site visit in Myrniong first thing. She eyed the precarious stack, unwilling to give up any of them. The last thing she needed was more competition for the senior associate position due to be announced at the end-of-the-financial year dinner in less than four months. The black lettering on the inside of her wrist caught her attention—PS19. The tattoo had come to represent her goal... PartnerShip 2019… a goal as indelibly inscribed into her brain tissue as it was on her skin.
Partnership had come to represent more than just professional success. It was about being on the top of the stack instead of the bottom. It was about feeling strong on the inside and erasing for always the fear of not being enough…
“Good morning.” The male voice was low and rumbled around her like thunder before a storm front. “I’m Tony. Tony Radcliff. Dan told me you’d be in by seven fifteen. You got here eventually.”
Her coffee splashed out of the cup and onto the skirt of her suit. Hell. She mopped it up with tissues and glared at the cheerful face that had appeared around the glass door to her office. No one, no one messed with her first hour in the office. She liked the quiet. She liked the company of her coffee, her calendar, and her to-do list. She didn’t do cheerful. She didn’t do camaraderie. Wait up. Did he say, Radcliff? She eyed the arresting blue eyes and the tan that said he didn’t waste his weekends working. A barely-there recognition feathered her skin with a thousand tiny bug feet and slid down her spine.
“This is my power hour. I share it with no one. Come bac
k after eight-thirty if you want polite.” She lowered her gaze to the file now open on her desk, but the words ran together and those tiny bug feet became a tap dancing torrent that roared in her ears.
“Dan suggested we collaborate on the Cartwright matter. If you could point out the file, I’ll get familiar with it.”
Scarlet dragged her gaze from her work, her temper touchy. It collided with his. Confident. Cocky. Unabashed. He’d been head-hunted, she knew that much, which meant he was good. He looked the part, too. Sharp grey suit. Snappy red tie. Smug expression. Steel coated in friendly. “Who let you in?”
“Bob organised my security pass when I came in on Friday. Nice bloke.”
Easy fodder for the likes of a Radcliff. Well, she wasn’t a fool and she wasn’t stupid. She knew his type. Good looking. Athletic. Fabulous. At least in his own eyes.
“I came in early to get the lay of the land and set up my office. I’m across the hall.”
No view. The thought soothed the snark from her tone. “Then you were warned.”
“We’re on the same team, Scarlet.” The smile lines around his eyes softened and she felt the magnetic pull of his personality. Her armour had been honed over five hundred and four steps and she was as impervious as a warrior-princess.
“Great.” She closed the file in front of her and handed it over. “The site visit starts at ten thirty. See you downstairs at nine. It’s a bit of a drive.”
* * *
Dismissed, Tony thought. He reached for the document and noticed a tiny tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Interesting. Her glossy blonde hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail giving her a youthful look, but her violet gaze was mature-woman and it clawed him with no apology. Intriguing. Her silk shirt, a soft grey in colour, and the pale pink sheen of her lips said feminine, but the steely rod in her back said strong, smart and I surrender to no one. Impressive. He took ownership of the file and strode away. He had less than two hours to get familiar with the matter, but he couldn’t resist a glance back at the now closed glass door to her office. Already, her attention was on her screen. There weren’t too many women who met him and didn’t show a flicker of interest in the depths of their eyes… and there weren’t too many women who brought a flicker of interest to his own.
Scarlet O’Connor was competitor number one. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to make senior associate and then partner. He understood her animosity. He knew her reputation. But if she wanted the senior associate position, and he knew she did, then she’d have to fight him for it. His father had become partner at Minter Ellison by thirty years of age and it was a yardstick he’d held high for both of his sons. Not easy following in the footsteps of a High Court Judge nor being the youngest of two boys by a long shot of twenty years. Not easy watching his formidable father succumb to early-onset dementia. The one thing that brought a light to his eyes was the hope that Tony would succeed where his brother had failed. No pressure, Ant. Ant—Geoffrey called him that to make him feel small and all of the hairs on his body bristled at the thought. He didn’t give a fig about his brother, but his father? Even a year ago, he couldn’t have cared less, but now? Now, time was running out and it was unclear how much longer his father would even recognise him, let alone appreciate the achievement… but, it had become important.
* * *
“I’ll meet you in the foyer.” Scarlet appeared in his doorway. Beyond a soft lip gloss, she didn’t wear makeup, which was unusual in a law office. Women usually glammed up like bait on a hook. Her features were neat and symmetrical, her face heart-shaped, but he wouldn’t call her beautiful, mostly because of the cold disdain of her expression, yet still, his lungs grappled for oxygen like gills in the open air. Her black skirt hugged her hips and she wore a matching suit jacket. Her legs were long and her heels were high. Her complexion was that of a soft peach, but she was dynamite and just as dangerous to mess with. He dragged his gaze from the violet trap of hers and eyed the time. Eight-fifty. How long did it take to go down in the lift?
“At nine, right?”
“Yes. You’re one of Judge Radcliff’s boys.”
“Yes.” So, she’d done her homework. His mind flashed to the newspaper articles he’d discovered about her on the internet. He was still reeling… how old had she been at the time? Nineteen? He’d been overseas on a gap year and was unaware of the drama unfolding at home, although he knew of the affair that had broken his older brother’s marriage. Interesting to meet the scarlet woman responsible.
“Must be tough being the youngest.”
“Makes you tough being the youngest. What about you? Any siblings?”
“None.” The violet grey of her eyes turned gun-metal cold and her gaze cut like a knife. “You’ve no doubt done some background research of your own. The past doesn’t define me. If you’ve got a problem with it, talk to me.”
“But not before eight-thirty.”
“We might get along, Radcliff. I’ll see you downstairs in eight minutes.”
When she turned to leave, he noted her lovely calves and tight arse. She worked out? When? From what he’d heard, she spent every waking moment in the office. He picked up his notes, then sat down again. He’d be there. At nine o’clock as ordered and not a minute before.
2
Where was he? Punctuality had been drummed into Scarlet from an early age. It’s a sign of respect, Carly, her dad had lectured. Everyone’s time is important. She paced, her nerves stretched like elastic pulled to its limit. Tony Radcliff had brought the past back in vivid colour and her insides still quivered. She smiled towards Bob at the security counter. “How are you feeling today, Bob? How’s the arthritis?”
“Alright thanks, Scarlet. Where are you off to?”
“A winery near Myrniong.”
“On a weekday?”
“There was a workplace accident there a couple of years ago. It’s a site visit.”
“Nice day for a drive in the country.”
He was right. She just had to keep the image of the jagged glass shards of the fractured skylight and the broken man on the flagstone floor of the winery restaurant out of her mind, at least until she got there. Workplaces, she’d learned, could be dangerous. “It’s a tough job.”
The lift doors opened and Tony appeared. Maybe it was the metallic sigh of its workings or the closed-in space behind him, but her skin contracted and the air around her seemed to tighten like a fist around her windpipe.
“Nice to see you again, Bob. How’s your day going?” Tony’s voice was like warm caramel over sticky date pudding and the older man’s face brightened with a smile.
“So far, so good. Thanks for asking.”
Scarlet’s spine lengthened an inch and her hand tightened around her keys. “We need to go. Have a good day, Bob.”
She stormed towards the stairs to the basement. Her car was one floor down. No point waiting for the lift. No point checking to see if he-who-thought-he-was-fabulous had followed. No point pondering the corkscrew entanglement of her emotions. He annoyed her. His charming, nice-guy smile was like a too-sweet chocolate dessert that turned ugly in her stomach after three mouthfuls. His voice was like a perfect tone that held her body in thrall until the agony of it was too much to bear. His cheerful blue eyes were like sunshine to a hangover. Too bright. Too shiny. Too summer sky clear. The thought of an hour in close confines with Tony Radcliff brought hives to her skin. She pushed through the door and held it open for him. Along with punctuality, manners had been drummed into her, too, but the thrum of impatience was loud in her ears. “One floor down. Turn to the left.”
“In my world, men hold doors open for women.”
“In my world, men are a necessary evil.”
“Your altercation with Geoffrey was years ago, Scarlet. Surely, you’ve moved on.”
“It was. I have. Are you planning to move on anytime soon?”
“Fine.” He pushed through the open space and took the stairs with athletic grace. Her nose
scrunched against the warm waft of musky man-scent. No sweet or spicy aftershave to dilute the power of him. She eyed his tight arse. His thick mop of hair. Brown with blond streaks where the sun had bleached it. He was tall, lean and marginally attractive. Her fingers loosened on the door and it slammed shut. The sound echoed like a gunshot and blasted the madness from her thoughts.
“My turn.” He stood on the landing below, his arm outstretched, the door open. His blue gaze challenged her and for a furious moment, she found herself mesmerised. The moment seemed to stretch and elongate, and stopped her heart for long enough to hear the thud of his.
“Thanks.” She pushed past him and strode towards her black Audi convertible. She loved it with the kind of passion most women lavished on clothes or a cute canine. She’d saved until she could pay cash—she wasn’t a credit kind of girl—and every time she pressed the lock release and the sound echoed in the cavernous, concrete space, her soul settled and her heart sighed. Manners dictated she wait for Tony to get in and buckle his seatbelt before she turned the key, but manners were over-rated when it came to arrogant men. She breathed in the scent of the soft, creamy leather seats and revved the engine. Just a smidge.
There was one significant blemish on her escape plan. She adjusted the sound system to slightly higher than too-loud-for-conversation and hoped he’d get the message, but it seemed he was impervious to subtlety.
“Where did you get your law degree?”
“Melbourne.” Her attention was on the aeronautical precision required to navigate the car park where vehicles were slotted into the cramped space like jigsaw pieces.
“I went to Monash.”
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