Falling for the Lawyer

chapter Six


“Are you sure you’re all right, Alex?” her mother asked again as she led her daughter down the hallway of her childhood home.

“Yes Mum, I’m fine,” Alex assured her, hoping she didn’t sound too flustered or dismissive.

“You’re very flushed. I think you’re working too hard. And you’re very thin. Why don’t you come back and live at home and I’ll fatten you up.”

“Stop fussing woman!” Alex’s father piped up good-humouredly from his usual position on the sofa in front of the TV.

Alex bent over to peck him on the cheek and he gave her hand an affectionate squeeze.

“I don’t need fattening up, Mum.”

“Yes Mary, the girl looks fine,” Peter Farrer interjected again. “And perhaps you should be checking with her future husband whether he wants her fattened up. You know how much wedding dress fabric costs.”

Alex smiled weakly despite the disheveled state of her emotions after fleeing JP’s car just minutes before.

Her elderly parents had been engaging in their affectionate banter for as long as she could remember. Being amidst it made her feel warm, safe and secure, as though she was a little girl again. But at the same time her stomach was lurching at their reference to Simon and the wedding, hot knives of guilt over her burgeoning feelings for JP slicing mercilessly through her.

“How’s work? You have a new boss, don’t you?” Mary Farrer asked as she returned to the cooker to stir the steaming, aromatic contents of her French Ovens.

“Yes, and work’s fine thanks,” Alex answered as heat filled her cheeks.

“I hope he’s treating you properly.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Who does he think he is working you back so late?” her father shouted across the room. He was a little deaf and so felt that by shouting himself he would assist everyone else’s hearing as well. “Your mother tells me he’s had you working in some God forsaken place for hours.”

“It was a legal centre.”

“Well what do you want to be going and doing there? Do they pay you?”

“No, Dad. The centre provides free legal advice.”

“Free! Holy Mary and Joseph! Now I’ve heard everything,” Peter Farrer shouted again from his chair. “Free legal advice! Why haven’t I ever had free legal advice?”

“Because you can afford to pay for it. Those people are desperate.”

“Afford it! I could afford it until the first lawyer got a hold of me. I’ve been broke ever since.”

“You have the first dollar you ever earned and you know it,” Alex replied as she perched on the arm of his lounge chair and draped her arm around his shoulders affectionately.

“Well, you’re a good girl,” he replied, immediately soothed by her gentle touch. “But you know I’m not happy you’re working with lawyers. They’re all thieves!”

“Not all of them, Dad. You know you’re exaggerating.”

“Never trust a man who hasn’t produced something you can touch at the end of his working day.”

“Lawyers produce words,” Alex argued. “And words are important too. Think where we would be today without words.”

“A whole lot better off. There was a time when a man’s word was as good as his handshake, then someone invented lawyers to complicate things. I tell you, law is no way to make a living.”

At that moment the doorbell rang and Alex got to her feet to answer it.

“Sit down girl. A young lady doesn’t answer the door at this time of night.”

With that, Peter Farrer climbed laboriously out of his chair onto his weak knees and shuffled off down the hallway. Alex wandered over to the cooker to stand beside her mother as she stirred and added to her pots.

The smells that emanated from Mary Farrer’s kitchen were always delectable and she cooked gourmet delights at every meal. Alex had just tasted a mouthful of the night’s meal off a teaspoon offered by her mother when she was grabbed from behind. She jumped violently, her nerves still on edge after her encounter with JP in the car, before twisting around in a pair of all-encompassing arms.

“Simon!” she whispered breathlessly as she felt the blood drain from her face.

“Surprised?” he asked gleefully, his dark eyes shining with delight.

“Yes … yes … I’m staggered. I was only talking to you a few hours ago in New Zealand.”

“I know, I rang your Mum from the airport to let her know I’d come straight here. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well aren’t you going to give your future husband a kiss?” Mary Farrer prompted with more than a hint in her tone.

“Yes, of course,” Alex agreed hurriedly, feeling awkward with her parents in the room.

Simon’s mouth descended upon hers for a short hard kiss but then Alex sensed that someone other than her parents was watching them closely.

It was her cousin Monique, standing quietly in the background as she watched the reunion unfold before her.

“Did you and Monique arrive together?” Alex asked Simon in surprise and he nodded, releasing her from his arms.

“Hello, you!” Alex said in delight and moved across the room to hug her cousin. “I had no idea you and Simon were travelling home together. I thought you were still in New Zealand.”

“I was,” Monique explained. “But I decided to change my flight so that I could come home with Simon.”

“Well you look great. Have you had a lovely time?”

“Yes, wonderful. You haven’t been to New Zealand have you?” Monique hooked her arm in Alex’s and led her away from the family.

“No, I haven’t.”

“I can’t believe that in all the time Simon’s been there you didn’t manage to get there yourself.”

“It’s been hard to get away from work. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know,” Monique agreed and then lowered her voice a little so that only Alex could hear. “I hope you don’t mind that I linked up with Simon for the trip home. I really hate taking flights by myself. The take-offs scare me half to death.”

“Of course not,” Alex assured her. “I’m glad you both had the company. Simon told me you cooked for him. He would have loved that. You know how he hates any meals which are shop bought.”

“That’s the least I could do after he’d shown me around Auckland for a whole day.”

“Well now you are making me feel guilty,” Alex confessed. “I must try and get over there for his next trip.” With that Alex looked over at Simon who had his sharp eyes firmly fixed on the two girls. As he heard Alex’s last words he wandered over to her and slid his arms around her waist.

“I’m afraid there won’t be any more opportunities for you to go to New Zealand, unless we want to go for fun.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked as her heart began to pound away in her chest.

“I’ve sold the whole business.”

Alex gaped at him, dumbfounded. “What? But I thought you were only going to sell part of it.”

“They made me an offer. I’ve jettisoned the whole business. And that means …” he began suggestively, raising his eyebrows.

“You can come back to Australia for good,” Alex finished, plastering a smile on her face, waiting for the inevitable upshot of his news.

“And that means you and I don’t have to wait any longer to get married. Let’s book the church and do it.”

Alex nodded in response to his ecstatic look. “Yes … yes, of course.”

Simon’s smile dissolved. “You don’t look as happy as I expected you would.”

“No, I am happy Si, really.” Alex reassured him and summoned everything she could from within herself to reflect his own happiness.

But then Alex’s eyes caught her mother’s. Mary Farrer had been watching her future son-in-law and her daughter and she was now staring at Alex with a look of intense disapproval.

Alex felt sick. Did her mother see something that no one else in the room could, something that even she was having trouble recognising?

At that moment the doorbell rang again. Alex jumped into movement, mainly to escape the scrutiny of her mother and fiancé.

Thankfully her father had been unable to hear the bell over the conversation in the kitchen so she had a free run to collect her thoughts and calm her nerves as she made her way down the hallway. It had all been too much, that was for sure. First, those intense minutes in the car with JP, then the big announcement from Simon. Alex wasn’t sure she could take much more.


JP heard the sound of heels clicking on a timber floor within before the front door was swung open.

“Oh no!” Alex shook her head in disappointment and disbelief as she took in the sight of him outside her parents’ door.

“That’s a nice way to greet your boss,” JP replied with a sardonic smirk.

He was enjoying surprising her, he couldn’t deny it. And to think he could have been sitting in his car and heading for home right then, still fuming over her final decision about the paralegal offer. Yet that was exactly what he’d planned on doing not ten minutes before as he’d drummed his fingers on the wheel and watched her disappear like an apparition into the house opposite.

Then as fate would have it a call from a client had delayed his departure and thank God it had. But for that call he would not have been sitting there when that cab drew in across the road from where he was parked. He would not have watched a couple get out of the cab and remove their suitcases from the boot. He would not have seen that same couple linger on the footpath for several minutes after the cab had driven away, leaning towards one another as they engaged in an intimate conversation before finally heading into the house. And he would not have had an opportunity to decide it was absolutely necessary he get into that house to find out whether the man he’d just watched making body language love to another woman was Alex’s fiancé.

The only problem was JP didn’t have a single excuse for barging into her parents’ home unannounced. It wasn’t until he’d racked his brains, come up with no brilliant ideas at all and thrown the car into gear that he finally saw it: Alex’s wallet was lying on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat. It had obviously fallen out when she’d grabbed her bag and fled just minutes before.

JP sat back in his seat and laughed in mirthless disbelief as he killed the car engine, wondering whether the devil himself might have made that wallet fall out that night.

“I thought you’d have gone by now,” Alex hissed back irritably as the initial shock of seeing him on her parents’ doorstep subsided.

“I took a business call after you got out of the car,” he explained, loving the effect he was having upon her.

Turning to check no one had followed her down the hallway, Alex pulled the front door closed behind her and stepped out onto the front porch.

“You can’t come in,” she directed, her voice pitched at near hysteria.

“Why not?” JP drawled, unmoved by her panic.

“You know why not.”

“Is it because Simon has arrived? I saw him get out of the cab, you know. I guessed it was him with that pretty little curly haired number.”

“That pretty little curly haired number is my cousin, if you must know.”

“They make a cute couple,” he couldn’t resist adding, wanting to see Alex’s reaction so that he could gauge whether she had any inkling of what he’d thought he’d seen pass between her fiancé and cousin.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, visibly perturbed.

“Nothing at all.”

“Anyway, you can’t come in.”

“You know that’s very bad manners,” he laughed. “And you may want to reconsider your decision not to let me in because I have your wallet.”

With that he whipped it out from behind his back to reveal it to her ever so briefly before stowing it away again.

“Give me that!”

“Not until you invite me in,” he replied with a grin. He hadn’t seen much of Alex’s feisty side and he decided he liked it—very much.

“Never!” she cried and launched herself at him, lunging around his powerful physique to grab at the wallet but he was too quick for her. He soon had his arm stretched upwards as she jumped a couple of times to snatch it. But he held it just out of her reach, laughing uproariously the whole time.

“Alex, what’s going on?”

At that moment, Alex was airborne in an effort to regain her wallet when the bone chilling tone of a woman’s voice reached JP’s ears. Alex regained her footing and throwing a silencing look at him swung around to face a dark-eyed, slightly built woman standing in the doorway. She was clearly nonplussed at the shenanigans going on in her garden.

“Mum!” Alex breathed, but then despite her mouth being open to speak, no sound came out.

“It’s my fault, Mrs Farrer.” JP stepped into the light. “I’m Jonathan McKenzie, Alex’s boss.”

“Oh!” Mrs Farrer replied, taken aback at JP’s ready command of the situation.

“Alex left her wallet in my car. I was just torturing her a little before I gave it back. I didn’t mean to interrupt your gathering.” With that, he held his hand out to Alex’s mother who accepted it, looking a little dumbstruck at his appealing demeanour.

“That’s all right, I suppose,” she replied doubtfully as Alex watched her in fascination, clearly shocked at her mother’s docile acceptance of his explanation. “Won’t you come in?”

“No!” Alex cried with a shrill note in her voice. “JP has another commitment.”

“JP?” Mrs Farrer questioned, looking hard at Alex and then at him.

“Jon Paul, like the popes,” he grinned but the levity was lost on Alex’s mother who was completely poker-faced. “And unfortunately my other commitment was cancelled,” he added, throwing Alex a look of mock disappointment.

“Well then, come in and have dinner with us,” Alex’s mother commanded rather than asked.

“Mum’s mission in life is to feed the men of the world as often and as much as possible,” Alex threw in dryly, looking in grim resignation at her mother.

“Don’t be cheeky young lady!” Mrs Farrer scolded but JP could see the affectionate sparkle in her eye as she waggled her finger at her daughter. “You’re not too old to be sent to your room, you know.”

“I’d love to join you but I wouldn’t want to intrude,” JP checked insincerely as he raised his eyebrows at Alex provocatively.

“You’re not. We’re just sitting down at the table now,” Mrs Farrer assured him and turning her back on her daughter she made sure to usher JP into the house ahead of her.

Mary Farrer had soon introduced JP to everyone and after accepting a glass of wine he wandered over towards the dinner table. Sensing Alex was deliberately setting out to sit as far from him as possible he changed course like a flash to slip into the seat next to her. By that time all the other table positions had been taken—she had no choice but to remain where she was.

“So you’re a lawyer?” Peter Farrer lead the conversation from the head of the table, his voice loaded with scepticism.

JP felt Alex tense at his side. She knew what was coming, as did he. That particular opening from strangers had been landed on him all his professional life. Peter Farrer didn’t like lawyers and he was about to let JP know that in no uncertain terms.

“That’s right,” JP replied brightly, turning to thank Mary Farrer as she loaded his plate with three different kinds of steaming hot meat and vegetable dishes that he didn’t recognise but which smelt incredible.

“And you’re a partner, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So how much do you charge an hour?”

“Dad!” Alex protested. “That’s no question to ask at the dinner table.”

“Your daughter is right, Peter,” Mary Farrer interjected as she took her place at the other end of the table.

JP spoke up anyway. “I don’t mind giving Peter an answer to his question if no one else minds hearing it. I charge eight hundred dollars an hour.”

“No!” Peter Farrer protested, staring at JP with sharp brown eyes.

“How can you justify that?” Simon asked, shifting his look between JP and Alex from across the table and then JP sensed Alex lower her gaze to her plate.

“Easy,” JP remarked casually, “That’s market price. If clients want the best litigation practice in town then they have to pay for it.”

“But are you the best?” Simon pressed scornfully. “How do your clients know you’re better than the next lawyer charging half that?”

“We’re not always better but we always get it right. Clients will pay a premium to know their lawyers are getting it right.”

“How can you lie straight in bed knowing you’re crippling ordinary people with your fees?” Simon shot back with barely concealed hostility.

“We don’t act for ordinary people. We act for institutional clients and multi-nationals—although I also have a handful of very wealthy private clients. If a mum and dad matter comes in we refer it out. They can’t afford us.”

“But eight hundred dollars an hour!” Simon scoffed. “That’s a joke!”

“Let me put it this way,” JP persisted. “You’re in the rag trade, aren’t you Simon? The amount of clothing you produce can be almost limitless because no doubt you manufacture off shore. Lawyers can’t do that. We’re always labour intensive. Although I have lawyers working for me, at the end of the day the clients look to me, as the partner, to give them the cold hard facts about their court case. You make your profits in mass production. I make mine out of intensive services, like a heart surgeon.”

“Hah!” Peter Farrer half laughed and half scoffed from the other end of the table. “If I could afford eight hundred dollars an hour I’d hire you Mr. McKenzie. You’re the most persuasive man I’ve ever met.” And with that announcement he laughed again. Mary Farrer and Monique smiled uncertainly.

“How many lawyers you got?” Peter Farrer went on.

“Twenty-six in my section.”

“And they’re all men?”

JP suddenly feared he might choke on his meal. He cleared his throat as he lowered his knife and fork to his plate, wondering whether he may have travelled back in time to the nineteen-fifties.

“More than half my lawyers are women,” he explained quietly to the table when he was able to speak again.

“No way!” Simon argued.

“It’s true,” JP explained suspecting that although he moved in a modern world, in certain quarters people had not changed their attitudes much at all. “Girls have outnumbered the boys in law schools for a long time now. It’s a simple equation: if we want the best we have to hire women otherwise we’d end up with second rate lawyers.”

“But how does a woman raise a family when she’s a lawyer?” Mary Farrer asked in disbelief at what she was hearing.

“That’s a good point, Mrs Farrer. It’s one that my partners and I are still trying to address but we have a flexible working hours policy. I’m also finding that men are taking on more of the domestic duties for their families at home, which is only fair.”

“It’s a load of politically correct tripe if you ask me,” Simon interjected dismissively before addressing the whole table. “I’m sorry. But women and men are not the same and no one will ever convince me that women have the head for law and business that men do.”

JP stared at Simon as indignation rose hot within him.

In that single moment he completely got what made Alex tick. But it didn’t make him feel satisfied. In fact, although there was something warm and honest about Peter and Mary Farrer, JP felt thoroughly depressed. The stifling attitudes were closing in around him, just as they had for his own mother. He knew then that only an iron will within Alex would ever allow her to become mistress of her own destiny within that environment. He despaired for her.

He opened his mouth to respond to Simon’s last comment when the girl herself suddenly slid her hand over his under the table and squeezed it. It took his breath away but it was not an affectionate squeeze. She was sending him a message, begging him to stop, pull back, and not demolish her fiancé in front of all those she loved most in the world, as she knew he could without even trying. JP snapped his mouth shut again, caught her hand firmly in his own and squeezed it hard. ‘Trust me’, he was saying back to her. For although he didn’t want to hurt her he would not back off. There was some excuse for Alex’s parents—they were elderly and from an earlier generation—but there was no excuse for Simon. He was a young man living in a modern country. He should know better.

“Simon, I invite you to open the paper any day of the week and read the winding up and bankruptcy notices,” JP began chattily. “Not even that. Just open up the business section and read about the latest corporate collapse. Men in their infinite wisdom have placed other men at the head of these operations and men have been presiding over financial disasters since business enterprise began.”

Simon opened his mouth to speak but JP would not be interrupted. His hand was unwittingly squeezing Alex’s tighter and tighter as he spoke. He was driven by a need to speak up not only for Alex but for his own mother too; for every woman denied the opportunities they deserved.

“In my experience women are much more likely to come in early and seek advice if their business is in trouble,” JP argued on. “Men are more inclined to sit back and hope it will all go away. Their pride gets in the way, you see. So they try to crash through.”

“Well, there’s no way I’d let a female lawyer loose on my business affairs—no matter how clever you say they are,” Simon tossed in bitterly, visibly overwhelmed by JP’s arguments.

JP’s hand still held Alex’s tightly but he sensed her squeeze one of his fingers as best she could in his iron grip. In the briefest of glances he told her with his eyes he would pull back and not finish Simon off.

“The most important thing is that the client is comfortable with his lawyer,” JP remarked without feeling. “If you’re more comfortable with a male lawyer then you should definitely stick with that. I still prefer a male GP for certain medical examinations, needless to say.”

At that Peter Farrer threw back his head and laughed out loud. “I like this fellow!” he announced to the table. “Even if he is a lawyer and charges eight hundred dollars an hour.”

Across the table Simon took a mouthful of his dinner looking triumphant. His expression said it all: he’d won the argument with the big firm lawyer.

JP could feel Alex relax a little at his side and a twinge of guilt made him hesitate for a split second over what he was about to do, but not for long. If he was going to put the cat amongst the pigeons over Alex’s future then now was the time to do it.

“Speaking of female lawyers,” JP began chirpily. “Alex here has one of the finest legal brains I’ve come across.” He was met with a stony silence that he ignored, continuing to eat as everyone stared at him.

“Alex?” Peter Farrer queried in disbelief as JP stopped chewing.

“Yes, Alex.”

“But she’s not a lawyer.” Mary Farrer’s expression was confused.

“Doesn’t matter. She has better natural instincts for the law than some of my qualified lawyers.”

“I don’t think we need to go into that now,” Alex protested, finally yanking her hand out of JP’s in fury.

“My Alex is a clever girl. She got good grades in her finals,” Peter Farrer announced proudly.

“I know. I’ve seen her final grades. They were outstanding.”

“What are you suggesting Mr McKenzie?” Peter Farrer pressed.

JP looked slowly around the table. Every set of eyes except Alex’s was fixed expectantly upon him.

“I’ve put Alex’s name forward to my partners as a student paralegal,” he explained, unperturbed by the hard looks he was receiving from Simon. “That means she’d be a law student employed by the firm and she’d receive a generous contribution from us towards her university fees.”

You could have cut the air with a knife. Alex was staring down at her plate in despair and JP suspected the night was fast becoming one of the worst of her life.

“Have you started this process, Alex?” Simon asked sharply.

“No, not yet,” Alex answered in a shaky voice. “I said I’d talk to you.”

Simon sat upright and threw his napkin down on the table in disgust. JP glanced at Alex to see her blush to her hairline.

“I think this is a subject for another day,” Mary Farrer announced in a commanding, no-nonsense voice and JP suspected that when Alex’s mother put her foot down, no one crossed her.

The conversation moved on to safer subjects but JP couldn’t deny the relief he felt when he finally got to his feet after coffee and explained he would have to head off.

He farewelled everyone, trying to catch Alex’s eye, but it was useless. She was determined not to look at him. Out of courtesy he asked if he could drive anyone home. There was a silence as everyone looked at each other.

“I said I’d drop Monique home,” Simon explained awkwardly, looking at Alex with an odd mixture of desire and uncertainty.

“No Simon, you take Alex home. I’ll get a cab,” Monique offered

“No Monique, you’re on the way home to Simon’s in the south. I’ll get a cab,” Alex interjected.

“I’ll take everyone home!” Peter Farrer dropped in.

“No old man, you’ll do no such thing,” Mary Farrer protested. “You’ve had too many scotches.”

“Look,” JP stepped in, sensing an opportunity, “This is silly. Alex and I are going north and Simon and Monique are going south. I’ll drop Alex home. That’s the only sensible thing to do.”

The debate raged for another minute but then everyone accepted that JP’s suggestion was the right one. Goodbyes were said and JP was left smouldering with a rare attack of jealousy as Simon took Alex in his arms.

“Can we talk tomorrow?” JP heard Simon ask her, more conciliatory now than when he’d first heard her news about the paralegal program.

“Of course,” Alex replied as she appeared to be trying to placate him with her eyes.

But there was nothing placatory about Alex in his car. She sat rigid and angry—so furious she was unable to speak. JP was unwilling to broach any subject either and the entire journey was undertaken in a heavy silence.

In monosyllables Alex directed him to her home and he complied without response. When finally he slid the car into the kerb he turned off the engine and swung around in her direction.

“Okay. Get it off your chest,” he commanded in a bland voice. “You’ve obviously got something to say.”

She turned to face him, her eyes huge in the dim light of the car, her voice shaking with anger.

“I do have some things I want to say. I want to tell you exactly how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking and then I never want to have another conversation like this ever again. I want you to stay out of my private life. What you said tonight at the dinner table about the paralegal program was more damaging than you can ever begin to imagine. Are you trying to emasculate my fiancé in front of everyone he loves? Simon and I have made our own plans for the future and you shouldn’t interfere with them. I like … no, I’m going to be dead honest with you tonight on every level. I love working with you JP. You make me feel as though I can do anything—be anybody. I don’t want to leave you … I mean my job, but … whenever you’re around I can’t think straight … I have to stop that happening …”

“Alex …” JP interrupted as he reached out a hand to touch her cheek as the fiercest, most compelling desire he’d ever felt for a woman raged within him, but she switched back as though avoiding a slap.

“No! That’s what I mean. That’s the second time tonight something like that has happened. We mustn’t ever touch each other again.”

JP watched her in the half-light. He was losing her again. The brick wall was going up; just as it had the evening he’d offered her the paralegal job.

“Is there a point coming anytime soon?” he demanded in frustration.

“The point is that if we can’t keep a formal distance from one another then I’ll have to go. If you’ve got to get rid of a PA then I understand it has to be me. Don’t put this paralegal thing in place just to fix the surplus staff problem you have.”

“That’s not what it’s about. Do you think I’d cook that up at the expense of my own firm, just to soothe my guilt about getting rid of a PA? You’ve got the makings of a great lawyer Alex, and that’s the bottom line.”

“If I asked for a transfer to another partner but still wanted to take up the paralegal grant would you agree to that?”

He looked at Alex as he pondered her question. “I wouldn’t be happy about it,” he admitted finally.

“You see?” she declared in triumph.

“I need a paralegal, I want you in that role and I don’t apologise for it. And if something else is happening between us at a personal level then maybe you should be asking yourself why.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“You mean the truth?”

“You just don’t seem to get it. I’m going to be married soon.”

JP scoffed. “You can’t marry Simon. Even if I knew we were never going to meet again after tonight I’d still say that to you. Why do you think I went into your parents’ house tonight? I saw Simon go in. I guessed who it was and I had to see for myself. You’ll be a trophy wife, Alex. That’s what he wants.”

“No, that’s not true.”

“It is true. I understand men like Simon better than you think. He’ll cherish you as a wife, sure, but only if you do whatever suits his self-image as the head of the household. You can bet your life that’s not going to include anything more than family commitments for you.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with family commitments!”

“I know that!” JP blurted in exasperation. “But you won’t have a choice. I understand your background is very different to mine but that won’t stop you withering in a marriage where you get no say in deciding anything for yourself. You’ve got to tell Simon what you really want and if you’re content with how he reacts you’ll know what to do. And if you do choose him I’ll never raise these issues again.”

JP knew he was pouring forth in a tirade but he couldn’t help it. Alex would never guess the tirade had as much to do with his own mother as it did with her.

“This is not about choosing Simon or you. This has nothing to do with you!” The anguished cadence in her voice hung in the air as silence descended between them. “Don’t you see JP? The way you pre-empted what I wanted tonight, announcing to everyone I might be joining the paralegal program—you, Simon, my father—all making plans for me!”

“Then tell us what you want Alex—tell all of us.”

“I will. And you’ll see you’re wrong about everything. This is my problem, not Simon’s. I should have spoken up earlier about what I wanted to do with my life. How can he support my choices when he doesn’t know what’s going on in my head?”

“Well I sincerely hope he’ll be supportive but forgive me if I don’t crack open the champagne just yet.”

“You see? You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Declaring how things are going to be before I’ve had a chance to find my own way. You’re so critical of Simon but don’t you see that you’re exactly like him? Do you have any idea how discouraging it is if those you love hand down the blueprints for your life before you’ve had a chance to work out what you want yourself?”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” JP asked in disbelief but at the same time wondering whether including him as someone she loved had been an error or a truthful slip. “You think I’m forcing you in a certain direction?”

“Of course you are. Even though we’ve only just met I feel as though I’m being pulled apart in a tug of war. You’re just as determined as Simon that I do things your way.”

JP sat back in his seat and stared out through the windscreen. Was she right? Was he no better than Simon? Was he browbeating her into submission just like everyone else in her life—just like his own father had bullied his own mother into a never-ending torpor of unhappiness and submission?

Taking a deep breath he let it go slowly. He had to pull back for he was beginning to care about Alex, more than he dared to admit. But if he cared about her he had to give her the space she needed to find her own way, otherwise she’d end up resenting him as just another browbeater in her life.

After a minute he turned to her again. “Is that what you want, Alex? You want me to back off from you and your life, in every way?”

She nodded.

He pressed his lips together in a hard grimace. He was worried that by backing off he might lose her. But the alternative, forcing his way into her life and trying to run it for her was no longer an option if he wanted her to become a part of his life. And that was precisely what he did want.

He’d been prepared to back off from her when she’d told him about the engagement, but his time with Simon and her family that night had given him a clear view of what lay in store for her, and he didn’t like it. He hadn’t quite gotten to the bottom of whatever was going on between Simon and Alex’s cousin but what he did know was that Alex was headed straight for the ornamental mantelpiece in her fiancé’s life.

He would have to tread carefully though. He knew what his own temperament could be: demanding, impatient, willful. It would take every ounce of his self-control to give Alex the space she needed so that she didn’t dematerialise before him and disappear out of his life forever. She was that fragile.

“Okay then Alex, if that’s what you really want,” he replied, his mouth taut with determination. “Although you and I may both live to regret this decision.”

“It is what I want.”

“Then I’ll be the model of formal propriety from now on,” he confirmed wryly. “And I’ll have to get my head around it by next Monday because we’re going to be working closely together.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have a client coming down from Queensland to give me a statement. I’ll need you with me from ten in the morning until late, maybe after midnight. No, don’t start arguing with me until I’ve finished. That call I received tonight, just before I arrived at your parents’ door, it was from that client. He’s developing a resort up north and wants me to commence proceedings against his builder. I need you to come with me to his hotel so that you can type his statement up as we go. We’ll only have one day to get it right as he’s leaving on Tuesday.”

“But why can’t he come to the office?”

“Because contrary to my instructions he shipped fifteen boxes of files to the hotel instead of my office. Now that they’re there I’m not going to risk any going missing during another move. Between you and me Alex, this guy’s as slippery as an eel and I wouldn’t put it past him to lose a few reams of paper if it suited his case.”

“But can’t Vera …?”

JP was already shaking his head. “I’m sorry, if you think I’m taking Vera you can forget it. She’s not up to this job, you are.”

Alex wrung her hands together in fidget-ridden torment. “It’s not the late night, or the hours …” she began to explain.

“I know. It’s the two of us together but you don’t need to worry Alex, I’ll treat you the way I treat any other PA in the firm—just as you want.”