Chasing Terpsichore (Muses Across Time) (2 page)

She sneaked out of the back door and made her way down the dark alley towards her car. She rested her body against the wall in the lane way, and leant forward to take off her high heels so she could rub her aching feet. The sound of a police siren startled her as she slipped the shoes back on and peered out of the alleyway to see what was happening at the front of the club.

Oh crap, it’s a raid.
So much for staying inconspicuous.

Ducking back into the alley she prayed to the gods that the police hadn’t seen her. All she wanted to do was go home. When the ruckus calmed down, she decided to take her chances and stepped outside. When she was almost to the end of the block and in sight of her car, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, scaring the bejeezus out of her.

She turned her head to find a cop stopping her from moving, accompanied by that kid from the bar.

“That’s her, officer. She’s the one,” said the kid, smirking at her as he took a step forward.

She opened her mouth as the surprise set in. “What the heck are you talking about?”

The cop looked from the young man to Corey, taking his time, his eyes moving up and down her smutty attire.

Oh great. The one time I don’t take the time to change into my street clothes and this happens.
“Look, officer, I can explain—”

The kid grabbed onto the cop’s arm. “Who are you going to believe, the word of a hooker or the son of a prominent judge?”

This kid was beginning to annoy her big time.

The cop lifted his eyebrows and sighed. “I’m sorry, miss, but soliciting a minor is an offence. I’ll have to take you in and charge you.”

“What? I didn’t solicit anyone. I was only dancing. I didn’t even speak to him—hang on, did you say minor? Then what was he doing in The Cave in the first place?”

The kid smirked again. She was really beginning to dislike this spoilt brat.

“I wasn’t in any club,” he said, poking his tongue out at her while the cop wasn’t looking. “You propositioned me here in the alley, bitch!”

The policeman stepped between the two of them as Corey tried to move closer to her accuser. As she restrained herself from an overwhelming urge to zap him again, the boy must have picked up on her train of thought and retreated. “Careful, officer,” he said as he stepped backwards. “She burns.”

“That’s enough, kid,” said the cop as he placed a small notebook in his shirt pocket. “I have your details, now move on. Show’s over. I’ll take it from here.” The cop took her arm, gesturing for her to place her hands behind her back before he attached plastic restraints to her wrists. He then ushered her towards a police car that conveniently waited on the corner, pushing her into the back seat with his hand firmly on her head.

Oh my goddess, they really do that. Just like in the movies.

Shuffling forward in the seat as well as she could with her hands tied, she leaned towards the front seat where the cop was now sitting. “Officer, you can’t arrest me. I didn’t do anything except dance.”

The cop started the car and angled his head to check his mirrors. “You’ll get your chance to talk when we get to the station,” he said as he put the car into gear and drove away from the kerb. “In the meantime, keep your trap shut. I’ve got a real humdinger of a headache and I get really nasty when I don’t get my peace and quiet.”

“Am I really under arrest then?”

At the corner of the lane as the car slowed to a stop, the cop turned his head and nodded towards her cuffed hands. “Well, duh.”

She twisted her wrists back and forth under the cuffs. “But you didn’t read me my rights.”

“You watch too much television, woman. This isn’t the US of A. It’s Sydney, Australia, and we don’t have any of those fancy Miranda rights here, but if it makes you any happier, you’re under arrest, and anything you say may be used against you, so shut the hell up.”

Oh lucky me. A surly comedian. This just gets better and better
.

* * * *

James Barrington straightened his red silk tie and smoothed the collar of his white shirt while his secretary, Susan, asked him for her first legal advice favour in the entire three years she’d worked for him. “You want me to represent who?”

Susan held out his suit jacket for him, sleeves open, so he could slip his arms right into it. “My dance teacher, Corey. There’s been a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“Your dance teacher? You mean the tango teacher?” She nodded as he pulled the edges of the suit down to straighten the line. “What sort of misunderstanding?” Retrieving his comb from his pocket, he lifted his hand to tidy up his never-a-strand-out-of-place blond hair.

“She’s been arrested for prostitution,” said Susan as she closed the closet door.

The comb dropped to the floor.

He turned back to face her. “For a minute there I thought you said prostitution?”

“I did,” she said as she bent down, picked up the comb and handed it back to him. “However, she isn’t a prostitute. It’s all a horrible mistake,” she said. “You have to help her sort out this mess.”

He sighed. “Susan, you know I only do corporate law now. It’s been years since I worked a criminal case. I can give you a number of recommendations for criminal law specialists.”

“No, I don’t want anyone else. I don’t trust anyone else, James. Corey has no one and you’re the best solicitor I know. Come on, it won’t take long to get it sorted.” She looked at him with her little girl, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, pleading face that he could never resist. “Please?”

James lifted a pile of files off the desk and placed them inside his brown leather satchel, before he moved to the door and turned around to face her.

“I have a meeting with Henderson in an hour. I won’t have time to do anything until this afternoon,” he lifted his wrist to check his watch. “If at all today.”

Susan turned away quickly, her cheeks turning a deep shade of pink. “Um, ah…” she stuttered. “I rescheduled it for tomorrow.”

James tried to hide the twitching of his lips. She thought she was a master manipulator when it came to getting him to do things he didn’t want to do in the office. This was slightly different as she’d never asked him to represent anyone before, but he found her clumsy attempts amusing. He’d left criminal law behind when he’d chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he did owe Susan a favour, considering all the extra hours she’d put in lately. And she never complained. He walked back to his desk and dropped the satchel. He might as well surrender now and save himself the trouble of dealing with a pouting secretary. “All right then. Tell me the rest.”

It was almost worth it just to see Susan’s face light up. She was a nice-looking girl, but when she smiled, she was almost beautiful. Now he knew what his junior partner, Thomas, saw in her. Susan and Thomas had been dating for the last few weeks and James couldn’t be happier. The pressure was off him, now that Susan was over her crush on him.

“Well, it all started when this boy grabbed her leg while she was pole dancing at King’s Cross.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

* * * *

“You’re kidding, right?”

Susan shook her head and whispered across the table. “Now why would I kid you? James is a really good solicitor. Why don’t you want him to help you?”

Corey looked across the room at the six foot tall hunk of conservative male skulking near the door. It was obvious that he didn’t want to be here. Susan must have told some fantastic story to drag her boss all the way up here to King’s Cross to help a stranger. But she didn’t want a solicitor who didn’t want to be here. She leaned over the table and whispered back, “He doesn’t want to help me. I can tell he’s just here because you asked him.” She nodded towards James as he spoke in hushed tones with a police officer at the door. “I really appreciate it, Susan, but I need a solicitor who has his heart in it. He doesn’t even want to be in the same room with me. Give him a break. He probably has no idea what to do for a criminal case.”

The lanky solicitor spun around to face them, his voice cold. “I’ll have you know I’ve represented dozens of criminal cases in the past. I might practise a different type of law now, but that is by choice, not aptitude.”

Corey threw her hands up in the air. “My point exactly. He doesn’t want to do it, Susan. Give me another name.”

James stiffened his back, and judging by the way he was shooting some proverbial smoke out of his ears, he wanted this less than she did. “I am perfectly capable of handling your case, Miss—”

Corey looked at him properly for the first time. Wow, what a cutie. Susan had never mentioned that her boss was so gorgeous—an uptight bastard, but gorgeous all the same. She caught a very manly, citrusy scent that must be his aftershave, and those blue eyes flashing at her really were magnificent. “It’s Miss Olympia, but you can call me Corey,” she said, as she flipped a stray curl off her forehead. “Now, James… I can call you James, can’t I?”

His eyes widened a little, showing just a small chink in his strong facade of control. “Fine.”

She smiled brightly, summoning all of her charm. “Good, that’s much more friendly.” Now that she had his attention, she lowered her voice, aiming for just that hint of huskiness she knew most men couldn’t resist. “James, I don’t want you to do this for me unless you believe in me.”

The edge of his mouth twitched, betraying the barest hint of humour under that stiff composure. “Susan believes in you, Miss Olympia, and I have a lot of respect for her judgement. I agreed to help you and I intend to keep my word.”

Her heart rate ramped up as she realised she really wanted it to be him. “Wonderful. Your overwhelming enthusiasm is appreciated.” She winked at her friend Susan, whose lips trembled as she valiantly tried not to laugh. “I suppose I’d better tell you the whole story then.”

Corey picked up her glass of water from the table and took a sip before starting. “I didn’t do anything wrong except stop a randy teenager from pawing me.” She wiped her hand over her mouth to wipe up the excess moisture and looked up into cool blue eyes. “How would I know his father is a prominent judge?”

“Judge?” James turned to Susan, who had slumped back in her chair with her head down. “Susan,” he snapped. “You didn’t mention anything about a judge?”

Corey stood up and moved behind Susan, placing her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Don’t blame her—she didn’t know the full story. I forgot to mention that bit.”

“A fairly significant part you forgot to mention. If you want my help, Corey, you had better start from the beginning.” He dragged her chair farther out from under the table and ushered her into it before placing his satchel on the floor and pulling out a legal pad and pencil.

Corey focused on his hands as he started writing. He had beautiful hands with long, perfectly shaped fingers and neat, short nails. If not for the interesting calluses she would have called them feminine. But feminine he definitely wasn’t.
Hmm… So he doesn’t spend all of his time in an office
. Those hands brought to mind all sorts of things he could do to her body and she sighed.

“Corey?” James stopped writing and started drumming his fingers on the table.

“Huh?”
Oops. Caught napping again. I’d better pay attention.
“Oh, yes. Well, I dance in a high cage so no one can get to me, but this idiot kid decided he wanted to grab my leg. When I shook him off, I guess he must have been disappointed.”

“So how exactly did you shake him off?”

How could she put this so that it sounded plausible? She couldn’t tell him she had zapped the kid with a fire bolt. “Umm… I shook my leg until he let go?”

Picking up the arrest report, James read a few lines before lifting his eyes. “He says in his statement he wasn’t even in the club. He states you called him over to the alleyway, propositioned him, and when he declined, you burned his hand with a cigarette.”

Corey stood up, shoving her chair away from the table, the legs of the chair screeching across the dirty linoleum floor, and placed her hands face down on the scratched surface. “I did no such thing! If he has a cigarette burn, he must have done it himself.”

James arched his brow. “So your story is that he grabbed your leg, you shook him off, he let go, then left the club. Is that it?”

She walked across to the window and crossed her arms around her middle as she stared out into the courtyard below. “It’s not a story, James. That’s what happened. I never spoke to him in the alleyway. I am not a prostitute, I’m a dance teacher. Period. That rat is just trying to cover his butt for getting caught underage in a club.”

James flipped a page on the police report and looked up again. “He says a bouncer from your club lured him into the alley from MacLeay Street. His father is threatening to sue The Cave for corrupting a minor.” He stood up and joined Corey at the window, close enough for her to smell his expensive aftershave.

This situation was getting weirder by the minute. Some snotty-nosed kid with a god complex was trying to ruin her life because he hadn’t got his own way. Sounded like the sort of stuff she and her sisters used to do back home on Olympus—even resorting to using his father to help him get out of trouble.

Oh crap. Have I been as bad as this kid? Is this some sort of warped poetic justice for past misdeeds?

James placed his hand on her shoulder in a surprisingly comforting gesture. “I know this kid’s father. I’ll go speak to him and see if we can get this sorted out.”

* * * *

James closed the door to the office of Judge Whittaker and smiled. He couldn’t believe how easy it had been. One mention of the interesting story it made, having the son of an upstanding judge caught in a King’s Cross exotic dancers’ nightclub. It wasn’t quite as bad as a strip club, but it came pretty close. The media would ignore the subtle differences and the general public certainly didn’t care.

The gentleman’s old boys’ network did come in handy sometimes, with James’ father the golf partner of the judge. It was one of the first things he learned about the law. Ninety per cent of cases were won or lost in the clubs, the restaurants and the offices of solicitors, barristers and judges. Not exactly truth, justice and equality for the downtrodden, but sometimes one had to work the system to get what one wanted.