The Hot Lawyer (A Romance Love Story) (Hargrave Brothers - Book #4)

by Alexa Davis

  Veronica, his mother, had been squatting in the house sine Kristy had gone into the hospital. It made me hope she sold it right out from under the old parasite. For a split second, I was disappointed that Veronica wasn’t there to hear the judgment. The courtroom stayed hushed as the chairwoman finished discussing. I wanted to ask about Jameson. Had he been reprimanded, was he going to be disbarred?

  I realized that was why they called him in first, and released him before I was called before the Committee. As far as they were concerned, it was none of my damned business. By reading Judge Gaines’ decision the Committee had as much as told me to leave it alone and walk away. Which meant I’d be buying Steve Piper a beer as soon as his schedule allowed.

  The chairwoman asked Libby and Kristy to be seated, and for me to stand, which I did, a cold sweat running down my back.

  “Mr. Lancaster, you are cleared to work and use or renew your license to practice law in the state of Texas without restriction. It is the hope of this Committee that you strive to refrain from the all-too familiar pitfall of those of us who defend the law. The law is not meant to create heroes and villains, but to protect and serve the people who live under it.” She looked down at me over her glasses with disapproval clear in her eyes.

  “Ma’am?” I asked, when she didn’t continue.

  “It is still unclear to me whether you attempted to use the Ethics Committee as your personal witch hunt. While it was not proven, I suspect Mr. Jameson was not the only attorney in this complaint with a personal ax to grind. It will not happen again.” She raised her eyebrows and waited for a response.

  “No, ma’am, it will not happen again.”

  “Good. We’re not your personal attack dogs, Mr. Lancaster. You want to beat bullies, do it in the courtroom, and stay away from my office. This hearing is adjourned.” Cheers went up behind me from current and former colleagues. Looking around, I was astonished how many people were there, and now I couldn’t deny they were there to support me.

  “Well, I guess Libby proved you can’t underestimate the power of a good phone tree, huh?” Cynthia hugged me and bumped my shoulder. “We were all going to be here anyway, but then she had to go get your old firm involved. I was afraid we all wouldn’t fit.”

  Henry Wilmer and two other senior partners pushed their way through bodies and shook my hand. Henry reminded me that I had a very full case load to get back to, then strode off while I was left weak-legged from relief that I still had a job.

  Cynthia promised to double check that we weren’t still on Judge Gaines’ docket for the next morning. I shook several dozen hands as my coworkers headed out to various bars for early happy hour networking or back to their offices. When the courtroom cleared out and we three were the only ones left, Kristy offered to head back to the ranch alone so Libby and I could celebrate.

  It was Libby who said that we’d just ride back to the ranch together, so that the family could celebrate together. I felt her ring in my pocket, where I had kept it since she’d given it to me. I wasn’t ready for marriage yet, but the ferocity of my emotions where she and Olivia were concerned told me I was a liar. Even my father had seen what I had been unwilling to.

  Libby had pulled away from a relationship with me because to her, that meant marriage and promises of forever. If I was going to claim her, she wanted me to do it the right way. Olivia needed a mother and a father, not a mother and her boyfriend. Suddenly, I felt like a heel for pushing Libby so hard, when she was right. We hadn’t talked about babies, or marriage, or schools for Olivia. I slipped the ring to the first knuckle, as far as it would go.

  We had some talking to do, for sure. But I couldn’t imagine being more proud or wanting anyone more than I did Libby. She was every woman I’d ever dreamed of having and she was real, and more like the girl I’d met when I was a dumb kid, every day. I was never in love with my best friend’s wife. I wanted the woman she was meant to be, before he made her second guess every breath she took.

  A lot of weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Although I knew Veronica wouldn’t be satisfied, none were left to suffer from someone else’s greed. That was all Libby had wanted. I was glad that my poor judgment hadn’t won out. Kristy was a good person and deserving of everything she’d been given, no thanks to me.

  I was never more proud of the law, than when Andrew’s only surviving family had been treated fairly and correctly despite the stupid feud between Jameson and me. To let that continue would mean still caring about Sara Abbott, and his relationship with her. I let it all go, breathing easier with every slight, real or imagined, that I chose to forget. They flew out the window as the breeze rushed in to tousle Libby’s long golden hair into loose curls at her neck.

  If he came back around for Libby or for Kristy, I would deal with him then. But no longer would I let him dictate my happiness or how I lived my life. I was done with him, and I hoped, though I might never know for sure, that he had received the wakeup call he needed to get his own life right. I had no more time or energy to waste on him, when everything I’d ever wanted was right here in my hands.

  I slid the ring off my finger so I could switch steering hands and threaded Libby’s fingers through mine. She wanted me, not to take care of her, but to help her achieve her best. If putting a ring on her finger guaranteed that she’d keep pushing me to be my best, I was more than ready to make her mine.

  34. Libby

  The party at the ranch was the loudest, happiest affair I had been at in memory. George and a few ranch hands played guitar while we danced, and I was introduced to more wives and girlfriends than I had any hope of remembering. Olivia danced with Aunt Hannah and Aunt Rachel, her new best friend, and I grinned at Kristy’s confused face and jealousy at not being the favorite of my little redheaded angel anymore.

  Jackson Facetimed his brother from California just so he could congratulate me and Kristy, and his girlfriend C.J., a celebrity of some kind, ducked her face in to introduce herself, as well. She and Kristy hit it off and before the end of the call, had exchanged numbers. It made me feel old and out of touch, so I let them talk and snuck off to a quiet corner to process what had happened between breakfast and the giant celebratory barbeque.

  After a minute, I realized I wasn’t alone. I looked deeper into the shadows beside me, and a man saluted me with a beer. I slid closer to him, so the moon and the hanging string of lights helped me find definition in his face. He was handsome, and looked so much like Tucker, he had to be a Lancaster.

  “Are you Logan?” I asked him, and he slid into the light a little more, so I could clearly see him.

  “Is it that obvious?” He scoffed and I arched an eyebrow at him.

  “Devilishly handsome, rugged, chiseled features that belong in a movie western, deep, sexy voice… Yes, it is in fact, that obvious.” He laughed and tipped the neck of his beer toward me.

  “You should be dancing your shoes off right now. You’re the lady of the hour.”

  “Hmmm. I am waiting for the party to be over, so I can be the lady of the time alone with Tucker,” I replied. “We need to get back to reality, and I’d like to get him alone before then.” He laughed aloud and shook his head.

  “Tucker!” he yelled across the terrace at his brother, “get over here and claim your woman before I do.” Instantly, it seemed, Tucker materialized, menacing his younger brother as he swept me into his arms.

  “He was kidding, Tuck,” I reminded him gently as he carried me into the house.

  “Not likely. Logan loves beautiful women, and I haven’t made proper claim to you yet. He’d romance you off your feet and make you blissfully unaware I existed, just to spite me.” He continued blasting his brother until we were out of earshot and I head his brother’s laughter follow us. I was shocked by the exchange, but his tone was affectionate, even while he cursed the day Logan was born.

  “I’m jealous,” I confessed, “I wish I had a family like yours.” Tucker kissed my forehead and set me down on the stair
s. He sat next to me and took my hand, and my heart fluttered.

  “You don’t need to be jealous, Libby. My family is your family.” I scoffed. “Until I go home. Then it’s just me and Olivia. Kristy won’t need to stay with me anymore. She’s already called Veronica and offered to sell the house to her for the cost of the paperwork. For a moment, people surrounded me. Now, they’re going to go away.” I hated how pathetic I sounded. “I was just getting used to them.” Tucker laughed and yanked me into his lap, kissing me as I fell back across his legs.

  “They’re getting used to having you around, too. Don’t think they let go that easily.” He paused, and held my hand up so he could slide my ring over my finger. “Don’t think I’ll let go, either.” I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my face into his shoulder so he couldn’t see me cry. “I’ve never felt anything as strong as what I feel for you, and for O, except what I felt when I realized we could make another brilliant little girl like her together. I don’t want to do that with anyone but you.” I sniffed and stared into his eyes.

  “Because you like crazy?”

  “Because I love brilliance, and creativity, and kindness, and strength. I loved you when I was too young and stupid and shy to know what to do with it. I won’t waste my second chance.” I slipped off his lap and stood at the base of the staircase, and held out my hand to him. We walked up the stairs that way and I felt a shyness that hadn’t ever existed between us before. We’d gone from friends to lovers, and because of me, near strangers. I wasn’t sure what this new feeling was, but it gave me butterflies and made my heart pound as Tucker held the door to his room open for me to enter ahead of him.

  The door was barely shut when his hands went to my t-shirt and he yanked it off over my head. He stooped to kiss me, and my lips opened for him in a sigh of relief and need. I slowed him down by taking my time to undress him, savoring every button undone, every inch of hair that curled over my fingers as I ran them over his chest.

  He followed my lead and slid one bra strap own over my arm, releasing my breasts one at a time as he pulled the bra down over my chest, pinning my arms to my sides until he undid the clasp and I let it fall to the floor, arching an eyebrow at him. He kissed me then, soft and sweetly, on my forehead, my cheeks, the tip of my nose. He moved on to brush his lips over mine and nipped along my jaw, then down my neck to my shoulder, until I was trembling and my knees buckled.

  I stepped back, and he followed, picked me up and held me with my arms clinging to his shoulders, my legs wrapped around his waist as he dipped his head to my breasts, nipping and sucking my nipples one at a time, until I begged to have him inside me.

  He laid me back on the bed and pulled my jeans down over my thighs and down to my ankles, whisking them off like a magician. He made me watch, refusing to let me touch him as he took off his jeans, his eyes on my face as I watched hungrily. My hands kneaded the blankets under me as I inched closer to the edge of the bed, closer to the long, hard length of his muscular body.

  He knelt over me and slid me farther up the bed so my head was on the pillows, and ran his hands over my breasts to my stomach, then down to my hips. My thighs parted like water under his hands and he leaned over, sheathing himself in me as he pressed his chest against mine, his lips finding my mouth open and ready to taste him.

  We moved slowly together, our bodies intertwined as he held me in his arms and turned us so he held me over him, and gave me control. I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of him, the softness of his skin and the roughness of his fingertips. At first, pleasure slid over me like a blanket, warming my body where he rubbed against me and spreading it like embers of a fire to my extremities. He lifted his hips, and the embers became flame, the heat that warmed me threatened to engulf my body before I found release.

  I bit my lip to keep my moans from turning to screams of ecstasy as he thrust deep into me and held me on him, his breathing ragged. His heart pounded under my palm, and he pressed the length of my body against his chest as his orgasm pushed me over the edge and I came with him. He swallowed my screams as we kissed, and I stopped pushing up against his arms and collapsed, trembling, letting him hold my full weight as he cradled me.

  “Ban lifted, huh?” I asked, my lips still half-numb from how hard I’d bitten them to stay quiet.

  “Practicing my husbandly duties,” he groaned, his voice full of gravel and sated with pleasure.

  “Tucker James Lancaster, you are everything,” I sighed, pressing harder against him as though I could push myself inside him and stay as safe and warm and undone as he’d made me, for the rest of time. He was my best friend, my only love, and one day, the father of my children, if Olivia would have him too. The sky grew dark, lengthening the shadows around us, but we hid away for a little while longer, as music and laughter floated up to us from the garden below. “You are my everything,” I repeated as I felt the strong steady beat of his heart. “I love you.” He kissed me gently, and I held onto the moment for an eternity. I held him inside me, and breathed him in. He wasn’t the only man I’d loved, or the first. But he was the last man that I would ever look at with love and lust and need and want and joy, all at the same time. He was everything I had always been afraid I could never have, and now that I wasn’t afraid anymore, he was mine.

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  BILLIONAIRE’S TRUST

  By Alexa Davis

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Alexa Davis

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dax

  "What the hell is wrong with you, Beck?" I yelled. "You fuck up everything you lay your hands on!"

  "Aww, c'mon, Dax," he said with a hangdog look. "I didn't do it on purpose. It's not that big of a deal, only a couple of ounces got lost."

  "Lost my ass," I said as I rubbed my eyes and then looked at him. "Beck, I don't care if you are my fucking brother, if you don't get your shit straight and run your business right, I'm gonna fuckin' kill you."

  "Dax, it's not my fault," he whined. "I sold the stuff the way you told me, it's just that your connection shorted me on the buy."

  "Bullshit," I said. "He's never once shorted me before. This is your fuck up and your fuck up alone. Get your shit straight, Beck, or I'm gonna have to do something you're not gonna like."

  "Fine, whatever," he said as he turned and walked across the empty floor. He stopped before he got to the door and turned to look at me as he spoke. "You're not always going to be on top, you know, big brother. Someday, someone is going to come along and knock you off your throne and then where will you be, huh?"

  "Let them try," I said as I held his gaze. He looked away first and then shoved the door open with a loud bang before walking out into the street.

  I turned to the figure sitting in the shadows and said, "Keep an eye on him, Riza. He's gonna fuck things up for all of us, I just know it."

  "Don't be too hard on him, boss," she said as she stood up and stretched. "He's young and wants to impress you."

  "That may be, but I'm not going to risk the entire business for his growth opportunity," I said. My younger brother was a Class A screw up and had been his entire life. It wasn't entirely his fault.

  We'd spent the first years of our lives in a violent home before my father, a failed inventor, shot my mother, a financial analyst, and himself and left us orphans. We'd been placed with my f
ather's mother, an Irish woman who ran a grocery store on San Pedro and lived in a shack behind the store. We didn't know it at the time, but she was in the early stages of dementia and often left the store closed up and us to fend for ourselves while she wandered out into the streets on Skid Row looking for a way back to her hometown of Dublin.

  When she was home, it was obvious why my father had ended up the way he had and why we rarely saw my grandmother while he was still alive. She held the firm belief that children who were heard rather than seen should be severely punished in ways that would have horrified even the toughest disciplinarian. Gram hated Beck and often punished him for minor infractions that I was allowed to get away with. Needless to say, I looked forward to the days when she'd disappear and leave us on our own. They were a respite from the torment and abuse.

  With no one to check up on us, I quickly got used to being the protector and provider. We didn't really have to struggle much, since my grandmother was well connected in the neighborhood and people looked out for us, but it took awhile for Beck and I to figure out the system. By the time my parents died, we were living in an abandoned house that had no running water or electricity. The switch to the Grand brought us into a different world that was more consistent in many ways, but still left us on our own for long stretches of time.

  Gram had little interest in us, aside from ordering us to stock shelves or haul boxes into the storage area from the truck that arrived every Monday. She didn't bother to buy us any clothes or toys or even register us for school.

  I had to figure all of that out on my own.

  We moved in with my grandmother when I was ten and Beck was eight. By the end of the first week, I knew which neighbors would feed us without asking questions and which ones were inclined to call nosy social workers. I learned to call Elsa, the woman who ran the liquor store on the corner of 6th Street and who knew my grandmother the best, and let her know that Gram was gone again. Elsa was the one who helped me order clothing for Beck and I and register us both for school. I quickly became wheeler-dealer and, as a result, I was able to maintain a good front and keep people from asking too many questions, despite the oddness of our living situation.