Legally Addicted

chapter Nine



The second time Georgia woke up in Brad’s ostentatious apartment she wasn’t nearly so daunted by it. She had only chosen to come to his place so she could leave if she needed to, but when they arrived back at his penthouse for round two of what they had started at the shelter, Brad admitted that he actually hated the over the top decoration, and that he kept it to please his butler.

Butler?

How was she supposed to feel about that?

The old guy who had been serving the food at Brad’s beach house, the one she had mistaken for a caterer, had woken them with a cup of coffee on a silver tray. She hadn’t meant to stay so long but she had fallen asleep. The next thing she knew, after only a split second’s worth of surprise at finding two people in the bed, the butler was asking ‘what type of beverage madam would require’.

And this time, when she slipped into the living area to collect up her clothes, she found them in a neatly folded pile on the sofa with her thong sitting on top.

‘OMG!’

Hearing the exclamation Brad came running into the living room, his arms up in fists as if he was ready to defend her. He had been like that ever since she told him about Jake, keeping her close and cradling her in his arms all night. She had never felt so safe as she had with Brad.

‘What’s wrong? Oh, the clothes thing.’

He chuckled, relaxing his arms down by his sides. Yes, he does that sometimes. Don’t worry; he does all my laundry, including my smalls. Nothing shocks him. Jeffrey was responsible for my potty training too as I recall.’

She laughed.

‘Jeffrey, the butler? I thought you would have had a nanny?’

‘Well, the first one was very attractive and after my mother found her in bed with my father that was it — no more nannies. Jeffrey sort of stepped into the breach. He was like a mother, father, and valet all rolled into one.’

‘Poor little rich kid deserted by his parents and left to the servants to raise.’ As soon as the taunt was out of her mouth she regretted it, but he didn’t react and for once, it didn’t annoy her. She expected that from him now. Brad, she realised, was calm under fire. It was only when she was threatened that he seemed to go into red alert mode.

‘Pretty much.’

His tone was not so much annoyed as bitter. She gave him a questioning look, but he ignored her expression, pulling her to him. He kissed her, then pulled away.

‘I’ve got to go. There’s something important I want to sort out at the office, right away. Jeffrey will make you breakfast if you want it. He’s usually in the kitchen at this time of day.’

‘When will we…’

‘See each other again? I think that’s pretty much up to you. Far be it from me to try to distil what this means, but if you turned up again here for dinner this evening I wouldn’t be disappointed.’

Ouch.

She supposed she deserved that. Georgia slumped down on to the couch.

Was she really doing this? Seeing someone? Properly seeing someone, not just casually, and someone who was rich enough to employ a butler into the bargain?

‘Can I bring you some breakfast, madam?’

She turned to the older man who had come into the lounge and commenced dusting ornaments on the marble mantelpiece above a gas fireplace.

‘Jeffrey, can I ask you something? Do you like being a butler? Is it okay for you here?’

‘Oh yes, my life here has been wonderful. After the way I grew up, well you wouldn’t understand and that’s a good thing, but gaining the security of a live-in job that came with a ready-made family was priceless. I don’t think Bradley would mind me saying he’s almost like a son to me.’

‘The way you grew up — I don’t mean to pry. But were you poor?’

‘Desperately poor — but we didn’t need to be. My father had a reasonable job as a mechanic, but he was an alcoholic so we lived hand to mouth, as they say.’

‘I do know what that’s like. Exactly what that’s like.’

‘Oh, my poor dear. Well, you’ve fallen on your feet here. Bradley adores you.’

Bradley adored her? Her insides contracted, and not with hunger. She clasped a hand to her throat. The thought was terrifying.

The butler’s face clouded over.

‘Oh dear, I hope I haven’t said the wrong thing. Let me get you breakfast. Everything looks better on a full stomach. Nothing is too much trouble. Waffles? Full English? Continental?’

The old man was jabbering. She should put him out of his misery.

‘Do you have puffed wheat, the kind with honey on?’

‘Of course — come with me, dear.’

Jeffrey led the way out of the lounge into a large industrial style kitchen, a gleaming mass of stainless steel with two enormous fridges, four sinks and a ten ring gas burner.

‘Wow — this looks like a restaurant kitchen.’

‘In its heyday it almost was. The Spencers were great entertainers.’

Jeffrey pulled out a bar stool from underneath the bench and patted the seat, indicating she should sit down.

‘Actually, you sitting there takes me back. That’s exactly where Bradley used to sit when he got home from school. I’d make him a snack, and then he would usually do his homework right here in the kitchen. He was a good kid. Very placid. It usually took a lot to rile him. Apart from standing up to his parents to insist on becoming a lawyer, he pretty much went with the flow, which was perhaps to his detriment. If he had been a difficult child he might have received more attention from his parents.’

‘What were his parents like?’

Jeffrey moved swiftly around the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and various cupboards, answering her question as he went. ‘Brad’s father spent most of his time at the office, or at least that’s where he said he was, and Brad’s mother threw herself into charity work and entertaining. Evelyn is still alive, but she spends a lot of time in London. Even with her living overseas, I don’t think Bradley sees much less of her than he did when he was a child, and being an only child meant he was very much alone.’

He placed a bowl of puffed wheat and a small jug of milk down on the counter in front of her, then handed her a spoon.

‘Oh,’ Georgia said thoughtfully, digging in to her cereal.

So that is what Brad had meant about being left out. To an extent she could empathise, but at least Brad had someone when he was growing up. It was hard to feel too sorry for someone who had their own personal butler, even if that butler did have to act as a stand-in for his parents.

She ate the rest of her breakfast in silence, and Jeffrey returned to the lounge with his duster. Once she had finished the cereal she slipped out of the apartment, and took the train back home to change before returning to the city.

She got in to work an hour or so later to find Miriam had arrived before her. Spinning around in her chair to face Georgia’s tiny work area, she handed over Georgia’s messages, which she traded for the draft addiction centre proposal that needed to be typed.

‘Dayton’s secretary just told me that Spencer has negotiated his release from the partnership. Georgia, does this mean what I think it means?’

‘Presumably it means we get our corner office back,’ Georgia replied, deliberately misinterpreting Miriam’s question.

‘I meant, are you and Spencer officially seeing each other now? Is that why he’s leaving the partnership?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

Brad’s comment that he had something to sort out at the office made sense now.

Miriam let out a squeal.

‘Keep it down. No need for the whole office to know. Dayton and Llewellyn are going to be seriously pissed off as it is.’

‘If he really loves you he’ll make the severance payment big enough to cover the disappointment.’

If he really loves you.

Bradley adores you.

The words fused, combining in force to jump up and smack Georgia in the face. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Her heart palpated in her chest like she was about to have a coronary. This was all going way too fast. She stumbled back against a copy machine, accidentally setting it going.

‘Crap.’

‘It’s okay, don’t panic. Here — just push cancel. Someone’s left it activated for a job — no harm done.’

Miriam studied her.

‘Are you okay, Georgia? You look strange. It’s not just the copier is it? Speak to me, Georgia.’

Georgia’s mouth felt like it had filled with something dry and thick, making speech impossible.

‘Brad l-loves me?’ she stuttered.

‘Me and my big mouth. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. Look, don’t freak out. Brad hasn’t said he loves you, has he?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re in the clear then, aren’t you?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Just go with it. Enjoy the ride. I know you don’t believe this, but sometimes things do work out, okay, and if it doesn’t, well, no matter what, at least you’ve got your office back, haven’t you?’

‘And I’ll have my addiction centre.’

The idea immediately cheered her up.

‘Not this proposal you’ve given me to type up? The centre that’s going to cost three million dollars a year to run?’

Miriam gestured towards the handwritten document Georgia had placed on her desk, the three million dollar sum leaping out of the dot point summary on the first page.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not going to ask Brad to fund that, are you?’

‘I was thinking about it. The Spencer Trust is already paying most of the outgoings for the women’s shelter anyway, and this is a huge improvement to the existing service.’

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Georgia.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know, but something tells me that where Brad’s concerned it’s not a good idea to mix business with pleasure.’

‘Like what?’

‘Uh, nothing. Just be careful, okay.’

‘What’s going on? One minute you’re trying to push me into his arms and the next you’re telling me to watch it?’

‘I don’t think Brad likes being asked for money.’

‘There’s a big difference between being cranky when he’s asked to put in for an office sweepstake and something as important as this centre.’

Miriam was reading far too much into Brad’s touchy response to an office whip-round. Getting the pip over the endless annoying requests for colleagues’ various raffle tickets and sponsorship drives or the odd sweepstake was hardly the same as supporting a major initiative to tackle drug addiction.

‘If you say so.’

Miriam’s reluctance to back down unsettled her, but she dismissed it. Her secretary made far too much of a big deal about a lot of things, including the idea that Brad was in love with her.

‘Oh, and there was another message from Brad, one I didn’t have time to write down. He said he’s made reservations at Café Macquarie, for dinner at eight. He also said he’s making it easy for you, and you’d know what that meant.’

He was making it easy for her.

After work, it was a relief not to have to decide whether or not to show up at Brad’s apartment. Meeting for dinner somewhere neutral was a lot less confronting, and choosing a café, somewhere unpretentious where she would feel comfortable, was thoughtful of him. She had searched for the address on the internet. Café Macquarie was on the sixth floor of the former maritime building housing the city’s fine art collection. After returning to her apartment to shower and change into something more relaxed, she took a train back into the city to the stop nearest the art gallery.

She found the lift tucked away behind the gallery’s reception area, and once the elevator doors opened on the sixth floor, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dim light.

Oh no.

From the slick foyer where two receptionists alternated between welcoming guests and taking bookings on their headsets, she could see that Café Macquarie was a dining establishment, but not a café by anyone’s standards.

Contemporary styling, high backed leather chairs, sparkling glass reflecting the candlelight, and a staggeringly close Sydney Harbour Bridge illuminated large in lights made her want to retreat to the elevator. Taking an uncertain step backwards, she saw Brad already seated at a table. His dark eyebrows rose in brief but certain acknowledgement.

He had seen her.

There was no choice but to walk into the restaurant. For the moment she was covered head to toe in a black coat, but once she reached the table she knew that she was going to have to take it off. Underneath the coat she was wearing slim fitting jeans, knee high boots, and thankfully a filmy, tunic-like black silk top Miriam had insisted she buy on one of their shopping trips. She looked good enough for an outing to the mall or for an actual café, but not for formal evening dining. Her mind darted for a solution. If she kept her coat on until she reached the table, and if she sat down quickly enough, she just might avoid anyone noticing that she had worn jeans and boots after five to one of the city’s best restaurants.

‘Excuse me. Excuse me, madam.’

A waiter was at her side asking to take her coat. Georgia backed away, and then sucked in her breath, galvanising herself for the walk among Sydney’s well heeled.

She felt quizzical eyes follow her across the restaurant, and heard conversations stall then turn to murmurs as she reached Brad Spencer’s table. Her throat tightened, tears forming behind a dam of determination that she hoped would hold. She had been in this situation many times before, although she had sworn it would never happen to her once she had her own life and her own money. She had always been the kid in the inappropriate, second-hand clothes, years before vintage became chic, and here she was again surrounded by whispers and nudges.

The clinking of glass on glass, cutlery on plates and the buzz of genuine conversation resumed as soon as Brad Spencer stood up to meet her, pulling her to him and kissing her.

Clearly, any woman out with Brad Spencer could wear what she liked, or more to the point, what he liked. Spencer approval was obviously Sydney approval. She should have felt grateful for the rescue, but it rankled. Her annoyance, however, was not enough to stop her body responding as it pressed against him, her mind recalling his contours as if she now had an internal map of him, or the kiss that he gave her, barely appropriate for such a public setting, searing her lips like an outback branding iron.

‘You look stunning — bold. I like it,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

She searched his face. Was he serious? Or was he exhibiting the good manners that should have been typical of the upper echelons of Sydney society, but in her experience almost never was?

She wanted to take him to task for failing to mention that Café Macquarie was a topnotch restaurant, but she said nothing. If she hadn’t been so rushed and had read more off the internet instead of simply looking up the address, this would never have happened. Let him think what he liked about what she was wearing. At least she would get a decent dinner out of it, even if pride did mean she was going to have to insist on paying half.

Brad signalled for a waiter to fill her glass with wine from a stand beside their table.

‘So if you grew up in Dockton, how did you…?’

‘Become a partner in one of the city’s most respected law firms at the ripe old age of twenty-nine?’

She was about to elaborate when a woman rushed up to their table, wine glass in hand, breathless in a fitted, deep blue satin dress; a dress that, at that moment, Georgia would have wrestled her to the ground for, if she thought she could have gotten away with it. The V-neckline of the dress framed the largest polished opal, suspended as a pendant, that Georgia had ever seen. Combined with matching opal and diamond earrings and a bracelet which caught the light, refracting it painfully into Georgia’s eyes, the whole effect was seriously OTT.

Reminded of the inadequacy of her own clothing, Georgia shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

‘Brad, Brad Spencer isn’t it? Sorry to interrupt.’ The woman was apologising with her back to Georgia, in a move that appeared deliberate. ‘I’m Paris Walsh. Thank you so much for what you’ve done for my mother. Without you, Dad would have screwed her out of everything. No wonder you have a reputation for being the best.’

Brad tipped his glass in Georgia’s direction.

‘Actually, I can’t take the credit I’m afraid. It was Georgia here who established that your mother had a case.’

Paris turned, and rocked back on her heels taking in Georgia’s outfit, her expression briefly transforming into one of recognition, before twisting into a crooked smile that suggested pity.

‘Oh my God, it’s you isn’t it? It’s Grubby George from high school. I should have recognised you before, when the waiter had to chase you down for your coat, but you look so different now.’

It had been years since Georgia had been subjected to that particular humiliating moniker. She didn’t remember Paris, but then she might have been among the younger students Georgia didn’t know so well. She had never let the other girls see how much it got to her, but now, inexplicably, she felt her bottom lip tremble.

Suddenly, Georgia was thirteen again, forced to wear a uniform that was second- or third-hand, donated by the ‘friends of the school’ — do-gooder society matrons who had nothing better to do than collect up hand-me-downs to torture her with. Like her PE uniform, with baggy pilled shorts two sizes too big and a polo shirt that was supposed to be white but which had turned a charming shade of puce, providing inspiration for the detested nickname.

‘Well, Grubby, I have to thank you, both of you.’

The woman pivoted around to refocus on Brad. She was about to say something more, but he put up his hand to stop her.

‘I’m sorry to break up your little reunion, Paris, but Georgia and I are off-duty now, so if you don’t mind excusing us.’

‘Sure, okay. I won’t interrupt you further, but thanks anyway,’ Paris said, taking the hint and slipping back to her own table.

Georgia grabbed a menu, still fuming as her mind finally decided to jump into gear and generate a slew of witty, cutting comebacks she could have used on Paris, if she had only thought of them earlier. Instead, she had let that woman push her back through time into a stinking school changing shed.

Brad stole a glance at Georgia as she scanned her menu. Her blue eyes had clouded over with anger and he didn’t blame her; but God she was breathtaking when she was angry.

Breathtaking and ballsy.

Not many women could wear jeans as an item of evening wear and get away with it, but with her low cut silk tunic showing as much as could be considered decent of her perfect breasts, and her tight jeans and boots accentuating her willowy frame, she cut the best figure of any woman in the restaurant, and that included Paris Walsh.

Paris, the daughter of Ruby, the mistress who Douglas had since lived to regret making his second wife, obviously rated herself, but her’s was a surgeon sculpted, make-up enhanced, bleached blonde sort of beauty. In a cheaper dress she would have looked just as at home on stage gyrating against a pole. Georgia’s was a natural understated beauty, made all the more alluring by the fact that she didn’t seem to appreciate how damned attractive she was.

But why hadn’t he noticed just how bitchy some women could be before? Miriam had been spot on with her advice. Georgia could do with a Sir Galahad. She had achieved so much on her own that she deserved some support. Instead she had women like Caro, and now Paris Walsh, constantly having a go.

‘Another?’ Brad asked, poised to pour the pinot he was holding over her glass.

Had she really drunk the first glass that fast? The wine tasted of raspberries and something deliciously cool and herbaceous. After the run-in with Paris she needed something to take the edge off.

‘Mmmm, yes please.’

‘So, you were about to tell me how, against the odds, you made it as a successful lawyer?’ Brad said, refilling her glass and demonstrating his attentiveness by returning their conversation to where they had left off.

‘Having someone take an interest made the difference. I was lucky to have people who intervened.’

Brad’s eyes sharpened and he nodded thoughtfully and deliberately, as if something she had said resonated with him.

‘I was going to ask you about that? Who helped you out?’

‘A couple of teachers; one at primary school and then another one at secondary school, who coached me for scholarships in their own time. I got the Morton Scholarship to Rose Bay Girls’ Grammar and then the Ellen Maree Award to the University of New South Wales.’

‘You got an Ellen Maree? My father made that endowment. Ellen and Maree are my mother’s middle names: Evelyn Ellen Maree Spencer — one of his many grand gestures after mother found him out. After a while, flowers and jewellery weren’t enough for the job.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

Georgia felt awkward, like she should thank him or something, but in the circumstances of how the award came to be, it seemed a bit off.

‘You don’t have to say anything. It’s just great to see Dad’s legacy making a difference.’ Brad raised his hand in the direction of the waiter as he continued, ‘See — sometimes having money isn’t such a bad thing after all. Not when it helps someone like you.’

Helping someone like you.

Georgia toyed with the idea of bringing up the addiction centre proposal. Brad had been positive about supporting it at the shelter, but support was one thing; three million dollars was something else. Things were going well, but it was so new between them. They were still getting to know each other. Even positively affected by the wine, Georgia managed to summon enough clarity of thought to realise that it would be better to wait until their relationship had a firmer foundation before asking Brad for the money.

They gave their orders and when dinner arrived, it was amazing, living up to the promise provided by the sleek and shiny surroundings of the restaurant. Conversation over their meal came easily as she found they had plenty to talk about, trading legal war stories of cases won and lost, and settlements nailed down against the odds. Despite the huge differential in the quantum of the settlements, she and Brad found plenty of common ground in the legal issues and emotional responses of the clients.

‘What now?’ Brad said when, at the end of the evening, the waiter returned to their table, delivering the bill in a leather folder.

‘We split the bill,’ Georgia said, reaching for the folder.

He didn’t try to stop her.

A thousand dollars?

Georgia looked at the three zeros before looking again. She wondered if the wine was causing her to see double.

No, the figure hadn’t changed, it was still a thousand dollars.

What the hell had they been drinking? There were times, like at the beach house, when she had paused to wonder if maybe Brad’s wealth didn’t matter so much, but then something like this happened and it hit her just how wide the gulf was between them. When she thought how far a thousand dollars would go providing meals at the shelter, there was no forgetting that Brad still came from that same sector of society that she had grown up despising. If it wasn’t for the addiction centre proposal, all freshly typed by Miriam, now sitting in her handbag, waiting for the right moment to make her pitch to Brad, she wasn’t sure if she could put all of that aside to be getting into this relationship business.

Relationship.

She shivered just thinking about the word.

She composed herself, hoping that her shock hadn’t showed, before slipping her credit card into the folder and sliding it back across the table to him.

‘Have it your way,’ he said, placing his own platinum card inside the folder. ‘What do you say, Ms Murray, shall we go for a walk around the quay?’

Despite her misgivings about where this thing between them was headed, the suggestive twinkle in Brad’s eye still had the power to undo her.

If they walked the promenade around Circular Quay, they would end up at the door of Spencer Towers.

He was trying to make this easy.

Far too easy.