by J. K. Coi
“It’s kind of fun.” His grin made her insides melt. “Don’t be surprised if you see me across the classroom one of these days.”
Her gut clenched at the casual acceptance in his tone, at the implication that they wouldn’t be taking the classes together. Maybe he’d even be there with someone else.
This is what you wanted, isn’t it? For him to embrace the inevitable without a nasty fight? Then why did it feel like the bottom was dropping out of her world?
Twenty minutes later, the pot was full and starting to bubble. Leo cracked some more pepper into it before putting the lid on. “Look at that,” he said, proud of himself. “We both tried something new today, by learning from the other.”
She huffed, afraid of admitting that he was right, or that she’d had a good time today, and that he’d made her forget about the other things for a little while.
Theirs had been a whirlwind office romance that had never really left the office. They’d worked together, brought that work home every night, and when they weren’t working—or having mind-blowing sex—they’d tended to go their separate ways. For Leo that usually meant going to his boxing club, while Bria would go running in the park, or shopping, or reading in the window seat upstairs in her room.
It was strange to think that they’d been through so much heartache together, and yet there were still these basic things about Leo that she didn’t know, like how great he was at fixing a tile floor and that he wanted to learn how to cook. Don’t you owe it to yourself to really know what you’re giving up, before it’s gone forever?
“We can check on the soup in about an hour,” she said, fighting against a sudden lump in her throat.
He followed her into the office, where she rummaged through the desk drawer to find a pad of sticky notes. “What’s that for?” he asked.
She handed him half the pad and a pen. “We’ll put our names on the sticky notes and place them on things we want to claim for our own. Then, if there’s anything that has both of our names on it, we’ll negotiate to see who gets it.”
He tossed the notes back on the desk with a shrug. “That’s easy. I don’t want any of it.”
“What? That’s ridiculous,” she said. “What about this desk? You love this desk.” She pointed to it.
His eyes flared, and he stalked forward. She retreated a step until her ass hit the edge of the very same desk. “Everything is here because it belongs in this house,” he said. “Because it belongs to us. You want to know why I love this desk? Because I can’t sit behind it without thinking about the day we brought it home.”
She blushed, remembering. “It’s okay, you don’t have to—”
But the intensity in his gaze sharpened. “What’s the matter, Bria? If you can’t face the memories, then you don’t deserve to keep anything from this house, because the place is full of them,” he taunted her, leaning closer until his chest pressed to hers. “Before the door had even shut behind the delivery guys, I had you on top of this desk with your red lace thong around one ankle and your skirt hiked up to your waist.”
She gasped, heart racing. Her thighs quivered, and her mouth went dry as he painted the picture for her. “Leo—”
His finger traced the vee of her neckline, and his head dipped so that his mouth might graze her skin if she took a heaving breath. “I tore the buttons of your shirt getting it off you, and you put this gash in the corner of the wood whipping my belt buckle open. We didn’t come out of this room the entire night.” His voice lowered, became husky, and her whole body strained toward it. “We fucked on the desk, up against the bookshelf, and then moved down to the rug in front of the fireplace.”
Oh God, she remembered. She remembered her stomach digging into the desk as he bent her over it. She remembered pushing him down into the leather chair and getting on her knees between his legs to suck him off, gazing up the length of his hard body and feeling so full of happiness and love that she thought herself the luckiest woman in the world.
She also remembered lying in his arms on the rug afterward while he talked about their children—at least three—running amok through the house in another couple of years, playing hide-and-seek under his desk and coloring on the walls.
Her stomach lurched, and she shoved against him. “I know what we did on the desk, Leo. I know what we did on the rug, and in the kitchen, and against the shower tiles in the bathroom,” she snapped. The air was suddenly too thin. “What I don’t know is how you feel about the consequences of that. I don’t know how you felt sitting in the hospital while I lay there unconscious. I don’t know how you feel about the loss of our baby, or what it was like for you to watch her go into the ground.” Her voice hitched, but she bit back the despair, needing desperately to get through to him. “And I don’t know how you feel about the fact that our marriage is over.”
His brow furrowed; his hands clenched. She knew that if there’d been a punching bag in the room, he’d turn to it before ever opening up to her, but maybe just this once…
Her heart pounded, and she couldn’t help feeling a rush of hope. Would he finally let her in?
He stiffened, the silence spreading between them like a dark cloak as his chin only got harder and his gaze more remote. Her sliver of hope died, leaving her feeling worse for having been such a sucker to think he might be able to change and do this for her, for them.
“I thought so,” she whispered, throat aching with tears. “Nice of you to prove that I’m making the right decision.” She bit her lip and shook her head.
“Bria, I don’t see that this is helpful,” he started. “Why don’t we—”
“Don’t. God, please don’t. Just…do what you promised and put the sticky notes on the furniture that you want so we can get this farce over with.” She swung away and left him in the room by himself.
Chapter Seven
Bria was up and dressed and ready to leave the house even earlier than usual. Not only because today was the day she and Leo would have to face each other across the boardroom table with their clients at their sides, but because the idea of seeing him bright and early after the erotic dreams she’d had last night was too much for her resolve to handle, at least without the benefit of a gallon or so of coffee in her system first.
All week, she’d been waiting for him to push his advantage, like a fighter who’d seen the moment of weakness in his opponent and unrelentingly closed in. But surprisingly, he’d kept their agreed-upon evenings light and pressure-free. He still refused to put his name on any of the furniture, but he’d joined her on her run one morning, and he’d brought home Chinese food Wednesday night for them to share while working late in front of the television.
He hadn’t kissed her again, but instead of releasing the tension, that only seemed to make it stronger.
When she’d awakened this morning, he’d been gone by the time she came downstairs, and despite being the one who was driving him away, she couldn’t rid herself of the piercing ache in her chest, or the heavy ball of lead sitting in the pit of her stomach as she walked into their empty kitchen. She thought about how it would feel to have the house all to herself every morning once he agreed to leave for good, and it didn’t give her the sense of satisfaction she’d been expecting.
It didn’t escape her, either, that her conflicting feelings weren’t consistent with those of a woman who no longer loved her husband and truly wanted a divorce, but she never claimed to have stopped loving Leo. That was the problem.
From the time they had ridden up the empty elevator together almost five years ago on Bria’s first day at Ashton Granger Markham, and he’d seemed to suck all the air from the closed-in little box, to the moment they’d said “I do” on a pretty beach in Jamaica with no one else around but a couple of beaming hotel attendants and promised all their tomorrows to each other…
She still wanted him, and she had no doubt she’d want him for all of those tomorrows. She wanted him during the day when she should be working, at night in her dreams
, and every moment in between. But it just wasn’t as simple as that anymore.
She’d tried explaining, but he didn’t understand—or didn’t want to. He seemed to think he could just ignore the painful stuff, and eventually they’d both forget about it and get their lives back on track with his Plan. He didn’t get that unless she could trust that they were in this together, really together, there would be no future for them. She needed someone who would be there in more than just body, so when the bad stuff came—and there would be other trials, even if they didn’t have another child—she wouldn’t feel so alone.
She decided to get coffee on the way to work, instead of making it just for herself. An hour later, she had settled into her desk and was reviewing her notes for the meeting.
Brandon knocked on her office door. She glanced up, fighting back a wave of nerves and hoping she appeared calm. “Is André Cordeiro here?”
He nodded. “I put him in the breakout room with a cup of coffee. Mrs. Cordeiro has also just arrived with Mr. Markham. They’re waiting in the boardroom—without so much as a glass of water to soothe their dry throats.”
Bria’s stomach twisted, but she laughed. “Leave it to you to turn the reception area into a psychological chessboard,” she said.
“That’s what I’m here for, but you had better get out there before Nadia does some damage. She was out front when everyone arrived, and I wouldn’t put it past her to try to slide right in and take over.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Bria stood and tugged on her black pin-striped jacket over her white dress shirt, both of which were still too loose for her. She couldn’t seem to put on any of the weight she’d lost in the hospital. “How do I look?”
He gave her a quick once-over but paused before answering.
“What?” she asked, looking down. Had she already put a run in her stocking again? Had one of her buttons come undone?
“That depends. Do you want to impress André Cordeiro…or Leo Markham?”
She gasped. “Brandon—” she warned.
“Hey, just listen.” He held up a hand and stepped inside her office, holding the door closed. She raised a brow. “This is for your own good,” he said when she started to order him out. “I’m not trying to pry or anything, but if you want André to think you’ve been working so long and hard on this case that you haven’t been sleeping, then he’ll be impressed.” Bria glared, but Brandon only shrugged. “Then again, if you want to actually win this case…”
“You don’t think I plan to do just that?”
“I think if you go in that room looking nervous or intimidated, he’s going to eat you alive.”
It was obvious who he was. “I know that.” She gritted her teeth.
“And yet, you still came to work this morning in a baggy suit, without any makeup, and your hair twisted up in that careless knot with a pencil jabbed through it.”
“It was a long night. I was trying to get out of the house early.” She winced. “It’s that bad, is it?”
“You look fine,” he said with a grin. “But do you want to look exactly the way Leo Markham will expect you to look? Like his harried, maybe slightly scatterbrained wife? Or do you want to look like a razor-sharp shark who’s going to bust his balls?”
“Jeez. Okay, you’ve made your point.” She groaned. “Did you have to be so brutal about it?”
“I’m only doing my job, boss.” He crossed his arms and tilted his head like he was still assessing her. “Oh, and one more piece of advice…”
She huffed. “What now?”
“Don’t say ‘jeez’ in that boardroom. Use the tough, adult words.”
She laughed. “Get the fuck out of here, Brandon.”
He grinned and opened the door. “See, that’s better already.”
She shook her head as he left, but he was probably right. If she was going to do this, she had to strip away everything that Leo thought he knew about her. She needed to keep him on his toes and show him he didn’t have her figured out.
She grabbed the white silk shirt she kept in her office for emergencies, which was more form-fitting, and after a trip to the employee restroom to put on some makeup and brush out her hair, she met André in the breakout room. It was a smaller meeting room off the reception area, designed for private discussions with clients. “Good morning,” she said brightly.
He stood and shook hands with her. His grip was firm, his hands large, strong, and callused like one should expect of a professional athlete. “Hello, Ms. Martin,” he said with a lilting Irish accent. He smiled, but his expression was like a dark cloud rumbling with the coming storm.
Unfortunately, when she thought of deep, sexy voices, only one man’s direct, confident drawl came to mind.
“Nice to see you, André,” she said brightly. He looked ready to punch something, and they hadn’t even started. “This meeting with Josephine and her lawyer is just a formality, remember? I’ll do all the talking. We’ll put our position on the table and stay firm. They’re going to push back, don’t get me wrong, but everything’s going to be okay,” she tried to reassure him.
“I don’t know,” he said with a frown. “I still can’t believe any of this is happening.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But I’ll be right here the whole time, and I’ll help you get through it as best I can, I promise.”
From the moment she had met André Cordeiro, Bria was surprised that he seemed to be taking the estrangement between him and his wife especially hard. He’d boldly admitted to the fact that he’d been photographed with dozens of beautiful women. They’d been throwing themselves at him pretty much nonstop since he stepped foot on U.S. soil. But he’d also admitted that it was all just a part of the show. A lot of people had spent a lot of money getting him to New York to play soccer. He was predicted to do for this city what Beckham had done for the L.A. Galaxy—but it would work only if he stayed long enough and made himself available to the public long enough to raise awareness of the sport.
Of course, when you wanted to create a huge media splash, you went to parties and hung out with lots of women…or so the suits running the league had told him.
André said that he’d tried to explain this to Josephine when she’d arrived in New York a few months later, but after seeing all the tabloids, she hadn’t believed him. Bria didn’t know whether or not to believe her handsome, buff new client when he said none of it had been real, either. Everyone lied; it was usually just a matter of how much. There hadn’t been an entire stream of courses at law school about ethics for no reason, after all. But thankfully, it wasn’t her job to believe him. It was only her job to make sure that everyone else did.
She picked up her notepad and pen. “Before we leave this room, I need to be sure that there won’t be any surprises when we get in there with your wife’s lawyer,” she said. “I know I don’t need to remind you that I’m bound by solicitor/client privilege to keep everything you tell me strictly confidential. So if there’s anything Josephine can use against you to break the prenuptial agreement besides a bunch of tabloid photographs, then I’ll need to know about it now.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t done anything.”
His accent had gotten thicker with anger. That wouldn’t do. She squeezed his shoulder and smiled. “Then don’t worry about a thing. Sit back, stay calm, and let me do the talking.”
He nodded, and she turned to lead him from the room.
…
Briefcase in hand, Leo waited with Josephine in the boardroom they’d been ushered into upon their arrival at Bergmanis Dorfman. He’d warned his client in advance to leave her brother at home for this meeting, and she’d been more than happy to do so, preferring for there not to be actual bloodshed.
She nervously watched the door now, and he put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I guess I didn’t realize he’d be here, too. I mean, you told me he would be, but I didn’t think I’d be so anxious.” She’d been stay
ing at a hotel with her brother, and since she and André didn’t have any children to necessitate seeing each other, she’d managed to avoid speaking to him altogether. With a split like this, one that was likely going to be contentious and bitter, it was probably better for the lawyers to handle everything anyway. This was the point at which clients started getting nasty with each other. One spouse would say something hurtful, and the other would end up lashing back at them, and then before you knew it, there was a restraining order in the mix.
Leo looked around. This was a decent office. A good building, good location. He’d been familiar with the firm before Bria left Ashton Granger to join their ranks, of course. Bergmanis Dorfman’s best litigator—Nadia Foster—was front and center in the news quite often, and he had some history with her. Some very brief history from just before he got together with Bria.
A knock on the door, and he turned, chest tightening in anticipation of seeing Bria. But when the door swung open, it wasn’t his wife who entered.
Speak of the devil.
“Well, if it isn’t the one and only Leo Markham.” Nadia Foster herself entered the room without asking permission and walked right up to him with her arm outstretched.
She ignored his client completely and ignored the mutinous-looking young man at her heels, the one who’d greeted Leo earlier and introduced himself as Bria’s assistant. The assistant didn’t cross the threshold at the entrance, however, and when he spun back around and disappeared again, Leo had a feeling he was racing away to warn Bria.
“Ms. Foster,” Leo said, meeting Nadia halfway. She pumped his hand firmly, then stepped back and gave him a distinctly unprofessional once-over.
“I’m sorry, do we have some business to discuss?” he asked her with a pointed look before shifting his briefcase into the opposite hand and adjusting the sleeve of his suit jacket to check his watch. He and Josephine had been about ten minutes early, which normally would have been an unwise tactic for meeting with opposing counsel, but he’d been eager to see Bria at work.
