Читать книгу Legal Desire - Lisa Childs, Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

“ALLISON MCCANN DOES not exist.”

Trev snorted over Simon’s pronouncement. If she didn’t exist, who the hell had he just been kissing in his office?

“You can’t make her disappear just because I figured out she’s the mole,” he said.

It must have been killing Simon to know that Trev had figured it out before he had. It was probably killing him even more that he had been the one who’d hired her, which was probably why he’d had Miguel send Trev to his office the minute she’d left. Miguel must have told the managing partner when she’d headed to the elevator.

She’d done that quickly—right after turning down his assignment. But had she left the door open to something else? To something more personal than politics?

Or had she only been joking? He’d been so stunned that she might have accepted his sexual proposition that he hadn’t moved fast enough to stop her from leaving his office. And by the time his dick had settled down enough for him to move, he’d rushed into the hall to find her already gone.

Then Miguel had redirected him here—to Simon’s office where Ronan and Stone waited for him along with the managing partner. They must have all come here after they’d left his meeting.

Simon’s office was very similar to Trev’s with the tall windows, exposed brick and long conference table. Simon also had a leather couch along one of the interior walls.

Trev didn’t have any comfy furniture in his. He was usually too restless when he was working to sit down and relax. Simon wasn’t the type to relax, either. But according to office gossip, he didn’t use that couch for taking naps.

Maybe Trev needed a couch like that. He could have taken Allison there. Hell, he could have taken Allison on the conference table. Or standing up.

But Trev always took no for an answer.

While Ronan and Stone sat around that conference table, drinking from the mugs of coffee they’d brought from his office, Simon sat at his desk. He studied his computer monitor through narrowed eyes as if he was trying to find something. Or someone...

“I didn’t make her disappear,” Simon said. “Allison McCann never appeared in the first place, at least not until she started her PR firm seven years ago. No birth certificate. No social security number. No nothing.”

She’d certainly felt real in his office—in his arms...

Trev paced in front of the windows that looked out onto Midtown. He glanced down at the street, but he was too high to see any people clearly. Still, if she was down there, he would have noticed her. With her bright red hair and pale skin, she would have been recognizable from any distance.

“So what do you think?” Ronan asked Simon. “Did she create herself when she created her company?”

Simon leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Maybe she’s not an ice princess at all,” he mused. “Maybe she’s a robot.”

She was definitely flesh and blood—all very hot flesh and blood. But Trev wasn’t ready to admit to his partners that he’d kissed the mole.

Trev shook his head. “She’s not a robot.”

Simon sighed. “Then I have no idea what she is or where she came from.”

Trev had no doubt that she was real. “What are you thinking?” he asked Ronan, who’d brought up that she’d created herself. Why would she have done that? “Do you think it’s just a PR stunt?”

Ronan shrugged. “A person who’s all about image might have set out to create one for herself.”

“I hope that’s all it is and not the ultimate con,” Simon said. The former con artist was probably beating himself up thinking he had missed a con. “I should have checked her out better.” His face was tight with self-recrimination.

“You checked out her firm,” Trev reminded him. “Hers was the best.” Or Simon wouldn’t have hired her.

“But who the hell is she?” Simon said. “And why would she suddenly turn on us like she has?”

Trev wondered that, too. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re not having doubts now, are you?” Simon asked. “She didn’t already get to you, did she?”

She’d gotten to him—physically. Trev wanted her like he couldn’t remember wanting anyone else in a hell of a long time. “No doubts that she’s the mole,” Trev said. He was even more certain now that he was right. “What doesn’t make sense is why she agreed to work for us in the first place with how she feels about lawyers.”

He focused on Stone, who’d been curiously silent this whole time. He was the one who’d been with Trev when she’d made that comment. And now she’d made one about her dislike of another profession.

Simon asked, “What about your plan? Did she take the bait?”

Trev shook his head. “No, she hates politicians more than she hates lawyers.”

Simon expelled a ragged breath. “What the hell is her deal?”

“I don’t know.” But Trev was more determined than ever to find out.

Stone cleared his throat. “Bellows isn’t Hillary’s real last name,” he said.

Trev and the other partners turned to him in surprise. He’d never mentioned that before. Hillary was an ambitious assistant district attorney. They’d never even suspected her of being the mole. What reason could she have had for changing her name? “Really?”

Stone nodded then he glanced at Simon. “You wouldn’t be able to find any birth certificate for Hillary Bellows. She took her mother’s maiden name.”

“Why?” Trev asked. “Is her father a criminal and, as a DA, she didn’t want to be associated with him?”

Stone shook his head. “Just the opposite. He’s someone very rich and very important and she didn’t want special treatment because of her real last name.”

Ronan snorted. “I doubt that would be the case for a publicist. If her father’s famous, she would undoubtedly use that to her advantage.”

But Trev wondered.

While Allison McCann didn’t have any problem delivering their press releases, she was careful so that she was never any part of the story herself.

Simon tapped the keys on his computer. “So if Allison took her mother’s maiden name...”

“How are you going to find her real name?” Stone asked him. “I had no idea who Hillary really was until she told me.”

Simon cursed.

“I’ll find out,” Trev assured them.

“How?” Simon asked. “You said she didn’t take the bait.”

Not that bait. But she’d given him another opening—when she’d kissed him back.

“I’m not giving up after just one shot,” Trev said. Or one kiss.

“We don’t just need to know who she is, though. We need to get evidence against her in order to bring her down like she tried bringing down Street Legal,” Simon said.

The others nodded in agreement.

Trev might have found another way in—literally. But he wasn’t about to share that with any of his friends yet. “I’m not giving up,” he repeated. “I’m going to get her.”

Simon shook his head. “I’m not sure I want you risking yourself like this,” he said. “We don’t really know anything about her. She could be dangerous.”

“She is.” She’d affected him like no other woman ever had. “But she doesn’t scare me.”

“That’s the problem,” Simon said. “You should be scared and you’re not.”

His friend’s words chilled Trev for a moment, finally cooling off the heat of the desire he felt for Allison. He didn’t want to wind up like his friends had. He didn’t want to be in a relationship the way all of them were.

But he didn’t have to worry about that happening to him. Allison was the mole, so there was no way he would ever fall for her. Hell, he was safer than his friends were, which was good because after that kiss, he was damn well going to get Allison McCann or whoever the hell she really was.

Allison had lost her damn mind. She couldn’t believe she’d said what she had to Trevor Sinclair. Fortunately, he hadn’t taken her up on the offer any more than she’d taken him up on his offer to help him run for office.

What the hell had she been thinking?

She hadn’t. After that kiss she hadn’t been able to think at all. That was her only excuse for her slip in judgment. Two slips...

Her first slip had been slipping her tongue into his damn mouth. Kissing him had been so stupid. And then to suggest that she might have agreed to have sex with him.

The sad thing was that she hadn’t been kidding. She was tempted. But apparently, she hadn’t been enough of a temptation for him. Maybe he couldn’t believe she’d turned down his job offer, though.

And that had probably been her third mistake. Like she’d said, he had a damn good shot at winning whatever election he ran for. If she was the one who helped him cross from lawyer to politician, she could bring her business to the next level. But politics wasn’t where she wanted it or her to go.

She wasn’t sure it was the right place for Trevor Sinclair, either. He was a much better lawyer than he would be a politician. But he was so eloquent and so damn good-looking that there was no way he could lose...whatever he wanted.

For a moment, with the passionate way he’d kissed her, she’d thought he’d wanted her. But he only wanted her to help him win.

She sighed. She probably should have taken the assignment. But politics and campaigns...

She shuddered as bad memories washed over her. Memories were all they were, and she was too strong, too resilient, to let them ever get to her again. She wouldn’t let Trevor Sinclair get to her, either.

And just in case he’d tried to track her down later that day, she’d made certain to stay so busy that now, at the end of the workday, she was exhausted. She dropped her dress on her closet floor and grabbed her nightgown. Moments later she opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass as she glanced down at her view of the park.

She should have been out there, running. That was her fastest way to relieve stress. But she didn’t think this was the kind of stress that could be relieved with exercise. She needed sex.

Sex with Trevor Sinclair. While she had other men she could have called, he was the one she wanted, which was stupid. She worked with him. At least she used to work with him. Mixing business with pleasure...

Was stupid.

But where else was Allison to find pleasure when all she did was work? She pressed her glass to her lips and took a long sip. The alcohol shot straight from her empty stomach to her head. Maybe she should have waited to open the wine until after she’d eaten. But she wasn’t interested in food.

She just wanted Trevor Sinclair here. For more of his kisses.

For more of him.

She should have undressed him, should have seen if his muscular body looked as good without clothes as it did with them. But he hadn’t really wanted sex with her. He’d wanted her to run a damn campaign for him. Anger coursed through her, replacing the desire she’d felt for him. That was better.

She’d rather be angry with him than attracted to him. But she doubted any amount of anger—or wine—could negate the amount of desire she felt for him.

She sighed but she took another sip anyway. She could handle her alcohol. Her mother had adopted the European attitude toward drinking, serving it to Allison well before she’d been of legal drinking age. So she’d built up a tolerance to it, which was unfortunate because she couldn’t use being drunk as an excuse to call Trevor Sinclair and proposition him for sex.

Not that she would have. She knew better than to get involved with a man like him. It was bad enough that he was a lawyer; now he wanted to be a politician.

She groaned with disappointment and murmured, “What a waste.”

The ding of her doorbell drew her attention away from the windows, and she glanced toward the door. Her pulse quickened with excitement.

Could it be...?

Had he found her?

Had he found her?

After that unsettling second meeting with his partners, Trev had spent the rest of the day doing something he’d never done before: chasing after a woman. And Allison McCann was one busy woman. He never tracked her down at her office or throughout her day of outside appointments.

But as he stood outside the door of the penthouse apartment in a building on Central Park West, he truly hoped he had found her now. He pressed the bell for the second time and finally, the door opened. Allison McCann leaned wearily against the jamb as if she’d spent the day running from him.

Had she known he’d been trying to track her down? Had she been purposely eluding him? He wouldn’t have put it past her, especially if she had any inclination that he suspected she was the mole.

She didn’t look scared, though. She looked...

Incredibly sexy. So sexy that she struck Trev dumb once again. He couldn’t talk. He could only stare at her.

She’d looked beautiful earlier that day in a navy blue dress. But then she’d also looked uptight and professional. Now she appeared soft and approachable. Her hair had begun to curl around her face, softening her sharp cheekbones and pointy chin. And while she wore another dress, this one was short, revealing her long, bare legs. Was it a dress or a nightgown? The silky white material was thin, nearly transparent, and clung to her every curve. And she had more curves than he’d originally thought. As he stared, her nipples tightened into points that pushed against that thin material.

A groan slipped out of his lips as desire coursed through him, heating his blood and hardening his body. She was incredibly sexy.

But even though she didn’t look like the ice goddess anymore, she sounded like it when she asked, “What the hell do you want?” and her voice reached new icy levels of coldness.

If not for that kiss, Trev might have bought the ice queen act she played so well. But he couldn’t forget the heat and passion of that kiss.

So he grinned and replied, “You.”

“Fuck you,” she replied.

He laughed and stepped forward, crowding her in the doorway. “That’s why I’m here.”

Her pale eyes narrowed in a frosty glare. And he wouldn’t have put it past her to slap him. But instead, she laughed and stepped back, letting him inside the penthouse. A wineglass dangled from her fingertips, a deep red sloshing around inside the glass as she walked barefoot down the hall to the living room with its big windows looking out onto Central Park.

“I really need to fire Edward,” she murmured as she dropped onto the sectional couch in front of those windows.

Trev’s mind had gone blank again as he stared at her long legs. She’d curled them beneath her on the cushions, like a cat curling up in the sun. “Edward?”

“My assistant,” she said. “The one who must have told you where I live.”

That was all Edward had told him for the moment. But Trev had a feeling he could eventually get even more information from her assistant, so he shook his head. “It was easy enough to track down your address through a deed search.”

Despite how elegant she usually looked, she could swear like a sailor. She could even snort, which she did now. “That’s bullshit.”

She obviously wasn’t buying his explanation. Edward wasn’t getting easily off the hook with her. But that was his problem.

Not Trev’s. She was Trev’s problem.

“Don’t lie to me,” she warned him. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

“How do you know I’m lying?” he asked. Even the guys who’d known him since his teens couldn’t tell when he was lying. He was that good.

“Because the deed for the penthouse isn’t in my name,” she told him.

Busted. He hadn’t handled that well. But now he had even more questions, especially since Edward had made it clear it was her place. She wasn’t leasing it. “Is it in your husband’s name?” he asked.

And he wasn’t entirely joking now. Edward had also made it clear that Trev had no shot with her. He’d had to convince her assistant that all he’d wanted from Allison was her professional services. Fortunately, Edward hadn’t been able to tell that he’d been lying.

She snorted again. “I’m never getting married.”

“Again?” Maybe she’d been before and that was why her name was different.

She shook her head. “Never been. Never will.”

“What turned you off marriage?” he asked.

“Maybe I’ve worked too many cases with your partner, Ronan Hall.”

Ronan was the divorce lawyer. “Ronan became a divorce lawyer because of his parents’ lousy marriage.”

Her face was like a beautiful mask, hiding all her emotions and reactions but for a slight flinch. He must have hit a nerve. Usually when he did that, he pushed even more to break whomever he had on the stand.

But Allison wasn’t on the stand. She was on the couch. And she was so damn sexy. He didn’t want her to get mad and toss him out of her place before he’d had a chance to kiss her again. To touch her.

He pointed at the open bottle on the glass coffee table. “Are you willing to share?” he asked.

She glanced at it, as if assessing if there was enough left. “Glasses are in the kitchen,” she said, gesturing toward the breakfast bar at the other end of the living room.

But he dropped onto the couch next to her and reached for her glass. She wouldn’t release the stem, so he just slid his fingers over hers. Her skin was so silky and warm beneath his. His mouth suddenly very dry, he directed the glass to his lips and took a sip from the rim.

It wasn’t the dry red he would have expected her to drink. This one was full of nuances: berries, chocolate, coffee. It was bold like she’d proven to be. He flicked his tongue across his lower lip, where a drop had fallen, to savor the rich flavor. And her pale eyes darkened, her pupils dilating.

“Why are you here?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t quite as icy now as it had been when she’d opened the door.

“I told you,” he said. “I want you.”

“To manage your campaign,” she said and snorted again.

He shook his head. “That wasn’t what I was proposing,” he said. “I wanted you to revamp my image, so that I can run for office.” Not that he actually wanted to but he needed a reason to spend time with her—a lot of time.

“Wanted?” she asked. “Did you change your mind?”

“Nope,” he said. “But after that kiss today, that’s not all I want from you.”

He reached out again but not for the glass. Instead, he skimmed his fingertips over those long, bare legs of hers. Her skin was so damn silky, her legs so toned. She must have been a runner. He wanted those legs wrapped around his waist or arched over his shoulders or...

“You said you weren’t propositioning me for sex,” she reminded him.

“That was stupid,” he admitted. “I should have been.”

“Too late now.”

“You said I had a chance of convincing you to accept that proposition.” A better chance than getting her to work with him on a political campaign. Now he had some idea why.

If only he’d done a little more research on her before coming up with his plan...

But after that kiss and the comment she’d made before leaving his office, he’d changed his plan. He was much more excited about this new one than he’d been about pretending to run in an election.

He trailed his fingers from her calf to her thigh and toyed with the edge of her silk gown. Or was it just a long, loose pajama shirt? Did she wear anything underneath it?

He wanted to find out, so he moved his fingers up a little higher. And he held his breath, waiting for her to stop him. She could—with just a look. Her icy ones were capable of freezing anyone.

Except maybe him...