Counselor Undone (4 page)

The guest chair to his right squeaked, and Michael pulled
his hand from his pocket. What was that old expression? Think of the devil and
the devil shall appear. Okay, so maybe it was “speak” of the devil, but for the
moment, it was all the same.

“Chase.” Michael acknowledged his partner with a bland look.

“Welcome back.” Chase took a seat opposite Michael’s desk.

Michael’s perplexed expression made Chase grin. “I stood in
your doorway for several minutes. What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Or should I ask
whom
were you thinking about?” Chase
made absolutely no effort to hide the amusement in his sky blue eyes.

Annoyed, Michael turned squarely to his desk, picked up his
stylus, and let it resume its somersaults between his fingers. “Did you need
something?”

At Michael’s curt avoidance of his question, Chase sighed.
“Man, tell me you are not still hung up on your beautiful party crasher.”

“Don’t start with me, Chase. I’m not hung up. Let it go.”

“I don’t understand what it is about this woman. You
couldn’t have spent more than thirty minutes with her tops.”

“Forty-five minutes.” He’d looked at his watch when she’d
ridden off in the cab. She’d pulled off at twelve forty-five a.m. exactly.

“I stand corrected,” Chase deadpanned then leaned back in
his chair. “I’m starting to worry about you, man. It’s not like you to become
so preoccupied with a woman.”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you,
Chase. I really can’t explain it. Something about her won’t let me go.”

Chase studied him. For the first time, Michael saw his
friend’s dawning acceptance that his interest in Juliet wasn’t some passing
fancy.

“I can’t believe the untraceable, unnamable duplicate Juliet
bewitched you so completely.” Chase ran a hand through his ash blond hair.
“Michael, I did what I could to determine who she may have come to the party
with. You’re going to have to accept you might never find her.”

“Intellectually, I know that, but my head isn’t winning on
this. Something tells me she’s closer than I think. Something I noticed about
her that night or something she said holds the clue to finding her. If only I
could figure out what I’ve been overlooking.”

Chase leaned forward in his chair. “Don’t go all
dog-with-bone on me. I know how you get when on the trail of a missing
link—that one piece of evidence an adversary doesn’t want found or the
discrepancy in an argument that would shatter an opposing counsel’s whole legal
premise. You do it better than just about any lawyer in the country—which
is why we have several Fortune 100 clients on the firm’s roster—but this
isn’t high-stakes litigation.

“I don’t know what more we can do to find the mysterious
Juliet. I’ll admit, I’m more than a little intrigued by the lady. She’s the
first woman in whom you’ve displayed more than a passing interest in over a
year. It’s the main reason I made such a pest of myself with the association’s
party guests in an attempt to locate her. But, no luck. Maybe it’s time you let
this go.”

He laced his fingers together and lapsed into silence.
Michael saw the wheels begin to spin behind his eyes.

Sensing trouble, Michael warned, “Don’t even think about it,
Chase.”

“What?” Chase’s look of faux innocence almost made Michael
laugh.

“I
know what you’re thinking, and I’ll have none of it. I’m not interested in
dating another one of Grace’s friends.” Grace was Chase’s late wife. She’d been
relentless in trying to pair Michael off with one of her friends. Since her
passing two years ago, Chase had made it his mission to pick up where she’d
left off.

“What’s
wrong with Grace’s friends?”

“There’s
absolutely nothing wrong with Grace’s friends. I simply would rather not be
privy to any more of your matchmaking by proxy. It was bad enough when I had to
deal with Grace. Do me a favor? If you think these women are so great, you go
out with them.”

Chase
got a faraway look in his eyes. “You know there’s not a woman on the planet who
can take the place of my Grace.”

“I’m
not talking about replacing Grace, Chase.” Michael’s voice dropped to a hushed
tone. “It’s been two years. It’s time to move on.”

“Says the dyed-in-the-wool bachelor who, after being betrayed by his fiancée,
staunchly proclaims he’s never getting married.”

Michael
squirmed. He couldn’t argue with that.

“You know, Michael, I’m beginning to wonder if your mother’s
right.”

“Right about what?”

“She believes despite not knowing her real name, you fell
instantly and completely for the mysterious Juliet, which is why
you
can’t seem to move on.”

Michael waved his hand in dismissal. “My mother is a
hopeless romantic.”

“That she is, but maybe she knows what she’s talking about.
It seemed to work for her and your father—that whole get engaged after
knowing each other only two weeks fairy tale. Have you seriously considered
that maybe you’re—”

“
No
. I haven’t.” His voice took on an edge. “Enough
about the missing Juliet. What brings you here?”

“Well . . .” Chase’s smile immediately made Michael more
nervous than the direction their conversation had started to take. “I’m wondering
if you plan to grace us with your presence at this week’s briefing session. The
new laterals and associates have been here for months, and you’ve yet to meet
them.”

Michael sighed. He really didn’t want to participate in the
weekly war room session they used to supervise and train new lateral hires and
associates. “Can’t you continue to handle these on your own? I’m not in the
mood to manage the egos of another bunch of young professionals with a penchant
for high-school-level drama.”

Chase chuckled. “I know you eschew these administrative
duties, which is why you’ve resisted for another year taking over the Managing
Partner position your grandfather vacated when he retired three years ago. But
you agreed to co-chair our group’s Associate Development Committee with me this
year, and you’ve been extremely lax in your duties. Not to mention you know I
need to take over the Werner case from Jackson soon. So, you need to make a
decision on my replacement for the Metra Pharmaceuticals case. At some point,
looking at resumes isn’t going to be enough.”

Snagging the folder of pedigrees Michael had ignored all
morning, Chase flipped through the dossiers for the senior associates on their
team. “Eventually, you need to meet these guys in person to determine which one
will suit your purpose best.” He tossed the folder back on the desk.

Chase made a good point. No matter how many times he went
over the resumes, it always came back to the same two possible candidates—on
paper. Time he evaluated the next level. He flipped open the folder and placed
the photo-included resumes of his top two candidates side-by-side on top.

Unfolding from the chair, Chase stood. His tall frame
towered over Michael’s desk. “Avoidance time is done. You’re coming to the
meeting today. I expect to see you in the South Conference Room in fifteen
minutes. If you’re not there on time, I’m going to personally pick one of the
new female hires to come escort you down.”

Michael’s head jerked up. As he suspected, a mischievous
smirk graced Chase’s lips. His friend had a wicked sense of humor, and Michael
knew he meant it. The only thing Michael hated more than the administrative
duties associated with partnership was fending off the female groupies who
considered him the firm’s most eligible catch. Every year, a new bunch arrived.

Sometimes, he felt like a mouse in a house with a dozen
cats. He had to be careful when he came out of his hole. The Mediterranean
complexion he’d inherited from his mother gave him a perpetual tan look the
opposite sex found attractive. Still, he’d learned what most interested females
were the size of his bank account and the power associated with having the same
surname as the firm’s founding partners. He didn’t do office relationships.
He’d been there, done that, and had the battle scars to prove it.

“I’ll be there,” he finally replied. The last thing he
needed was for Chase to sic some overzealous female associate on him. Chase had
a knack for picking the ones with a biological clock ticking so loud it could
be heard throughout the tri-state area. The last time it happened, Michael
spent weeks trying to dissuade the young lady from her pursuit. In his opinion,
there wasn’t a species on the planet more tenacious than a female lawyer. He
doubted even a mother lioness could hold her own.

“Good.” Chase turned and exited the corner office.

Michael’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath as he
rubbed his left hand through his hair. His Monday morning hadn’t stacked up so
well. He’d let Chase catch him daydreaming about his mystery lady. He’d let
thoughts of
her
distract him from the case he should have been working
on.

Opposing counsel had made it clear during their last telephone
conference that the plaintiff, Dexter Drug, wouldn’t talk settlement unless the
deal included a full assignment of Metra Pharmaceuticals’ patent rights in its
competing drug. Of course, Metra Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t agree so he needed to
survive the summary judgment phase. If he did, this case might actually go to
trial.

Looking at his calendar again, he noted that would put him
in court right around the Fourth of July picnic. Raina was going to skin him
alive. On top of that, he now had to go play mentor.

He rose from his deep black leather chair, grabbed his suit
jacket, and headed for the conference room. He didn’t know why, but he had a
sudden premonition his day was about to get even more complicated.

Jordis Morgan stood off to the side of the half-full conference
room, gripping a cup of chai spice black tea. Subconsciously, she categorized
the different personality types in the room. She excelled at reading people, a
skill that had proved useful during her career as a litigator.

In some ways, she was an anomaly. She had a reputation as a
fierce litigator. She rarely lost and could pick apart an adversary’s case with
the efficiency of a swarm of locust stripping a field of crops. Yet, her easy
smile and youthful demeanor lured opposing counsel into a relaxed mood that
often resulted in their underestimating her. By the time they realized under
her easy-going exterior laid the heart of a predator, she’d shredded their
legal theories and left their clients defeated.

While her colleagues didn’t qualify as adversaries per se,
competition inevitably reared its head among the group. She lumped the women on
her team into distinct categories, from hot-to-trot to damsel-in-distress to
no-nonsense career woman. She turned her attention to the men, but got
distracted when Michael Remington walked into the conference room. The head of
every female swiveled his way and lingered longer than necessary to simply
acknowledge his arrival. Jordis, too, took a few extra minutes to admire the
tall, muscular dark-haired lawyer in his tailored navy Armani suit. His confident
loose-limbed walk said athletic. This man didn’t simply chisel out a physique
in the gym to impress the ladies; he used his body for activities more engaging
than static barbell repetitions.

Michael made his way around the room, shaking hands and
introducing himself. He lingered with a couple of guys whose faces became
particularly animated after introductions. Jordis couldn’t hear the entire
conversation, but apparently one of them had attended Michael’s law school alma
mater.

The younger of the associates, Jonathan, like her was a
lateral hire and new to the firm this year. The other associate, Eric
Covington, was a firm veteran and the group’s egomaniac. Covington had wasted
no time rubbing Jordis the wrong way. Her hand tightened around her cup as she
watched him try to ingratiate himself with Remington.

When Michael Remington finally excused himself and walked
her way, he hesitated a second before extending his hand. “Michael Remington.”

She shifted her cup into her left hand and shook his with
her right. “Jordis Morgan.”

Up close, Jordis took note of his alluring gray eyes. She’d
never met a man with gray eyes. She’d read about them in works of fiction, and
now seeing the real thing, she understood why hordes of women would fantasize
about having a man look lustfully at them through gray lenses.

Michael narrowed those exquisite eyes slightly as he
examined her face more closely. “Have we met before?”

“No.” Jordis shook her head. “At least, not officially.”

“Not officially?” Michael, who had continued to hold her
hand, glanced down when she slid her hand casually from his grasp. “How so?”

“I’ve worked at the firm for four months.” She flashed an
easy smile. “Maybe you’ve seen me lurking in the halls.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jordis caught Alyson McGovern
watching her with a none-to-happy look on her face.

Michael slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks while
he considered her response. “Maybe, but I don’t think that’s it.”

Rumored to be the hottest guy at the firm, the firm’s future
managing partner had a reputation as a chick magnet. A die-hard workaholic,
associates rarely saw him outside his office. She’d joined the firm shortly
before Labor Day, and until today, she hadn’t met the man in person.

She didn’t put much stock in rumors or innuendo, but she had
to admit, the talk didn’t do him justice. He didn’t have a classically handsome
face in a pretty-boy way. His features leaned towards the rugged. Square-jawed
with angled cheekbones and full brows below a balanced forehead, he had a straight
nose that gave nice symmetry to his face. His brown-black hair had been shaved
short around the sides and back of his head, but left full in the top. With his
athletic build and those compelling features beneath a smooth olive complexion,
he exuded an animal magnetism hard to ignore.

Before he could make another comment, Chase called the
meeting to order.

“After you.” Michael stepped aside and motioned her towards
the conference table.

A voice interrupted their parting. “Excuse me, Mr.
Remington.”

Michael looked down to see Alyson smiling at him.

A petite woman, Alyson stood about a head shorter than
Jordis, making her look delicate next to Michael. “I’m going to top off my cup
of coffee.” Her sweetly reticent smile suggested a shyness contradicted by the
offer in her eyes. “How about I get you a cup?”

“No thanks, Alyson. I appreciate the offer, but I’m good.”
Michael motioned Alyson to the coffee service. “Why don’t you hurry and freshen
your cup so we can get started.”

From her spot at the conference table, Jordis watched Alyson’s
smile turn into a frown once Michael could no longer see her face. After
topping off her coffee cup, Alyson moved to the conference table and placed her
cup in front of her seat before adjusting the wide leather waist belt on her
red designer shirtdress. Alyson glanced at Jordis and gave a fake smile. Jordis
returned the smile in turn, internally pleased at the disappointment masked on
Alyson’s face.

Jordis didn’t have time to examine why the interchange
between Michael Remington and Alyson pleased her so much because Michael
surprised her—and Alyson—by walking over to the coffee service and
pouring his own cup of coffee. Jordis discreetly caught the expression on Alyson’s
face as the woman took notice of the gesture and the silent message it sent:
she wouldn’t turn Michael Remington’s head easily.

Ms.
Hot-To-Trot would have to up her game if she intended to make a play for the
sexy partner. Why this pleased Jordis, she’d have to examine more closely
later.

* * *

“Okay, the last order of business,” Chase stated, “is to
select this year’s litigation pro bono case.” He flipped open a file folder in
front of him. “Each of you has a copy of the synopses for the five potential
cases selected by the Pro Bono Review Board. The matter is now open for
discussion. Recommendations?”

Michael looked casually around the table. He covertly
evaluated this latest crop of lawyers, trying to determine who’d likely have a
long-term stint at the firm and who’d likely be gone by the end of the fiscal
year. Good grades and high test scores were important, but they encompassed
only a small part of what it took to be a great lawyer. He believed in recruiting
from the top ranks of prestigious law schools, but intangibles such as drive,
discipline, empathy, and integrity meant as much as academic success. Talent
alone was never enough. When they got lucky and found associates with the
triple combination of academic talent, emotional intelligence, and those
amorphous intangibles, then he knew they’d hit pay dirt.

He lifted his cup of now cold coffee and tried to focus on
the discussion. He was having an unusually hard time paying attention to the
various topic. He sat at the opposite end of the table from Chase, and the
long-legged associate with the unique name sat two chairs down on his left. He
couldn’t take his eyes off her, though he made sure to be discreet. Where had
he seen her before?

Maybe he had passed her in the hall, but the thought didn’t
ring true. He’d noticed her immediately upon walking into the conference room.
Something about her posture and body language as she’d stood alone surveying
the room had tugged at the recesses of his memory.

When he’d introduced himself, her striking eyes had taken
him off guard. The swirls of browns, golds, and greens mixed together to make
an alluring tapestry of color more intense than any hazel eyes he’d ever seen before.
She wore minimal makeup, but her eyes appeared large and seductive. Combined
with her light caramel skin tone, the exotic eyes gave her a stunning appeal
that would make any man look twice.

High cheekbones graced an oval face enhanced by perfectly
arched eyebrows. She’d pulled her straight hair back and secured it at the base
of her neck with a flat barrette. Its chestnut brown fullness fell between her
shoulder blades against a gold-colored blouse she’d paired with a pencil skirt.
The skirt stopped decorously right above her knees, but the cheetah print pumps
she wore accentuated her shapely length of long legs.

To his chagrin, when she’d walked away to take her seat, his
eyes had dropped to the sway of her hips. He’d looked up to find Chase watching
him with a questioning look. Michael had taken a quick glance around to see if
anyone else had noticed where his eyes had strayed. No one had seemed the
wiser.

He angled his conference chair to the left and leaned back
in the comfortable black leather swivel rocker. With his right foot propped
over his left knee, he kept Jordis Morgan directly in his line of vision. Every
once in a while, she flicked her left hand and rubbed her left wrist. She wore
no watch. He wondered if she’d forgotten to put one on this morning and subconsciously
missed it.

She had nice hands with long fingers and soft skin. A French
manicure in beige instead of white tipped her nails. Her hands kept busy,
either casually fingering the rim of her cup or fiddling with her pen. The
constant movement fascinated him. He could imagine those hands trailing
languidly across his naked body. The place on his anatomy he’d most welcome her
touch twitched at the thought. When she opened her mouth to lobby for the
landlord-tenant matter of a single mom in a depressed neighborhood, he squashed
his wayward thoughts and shifted his awareness of the discussion from the back
of his multitasking brain to the forefront.

“Look, sweetheart, I feel for the little inner-city single
mom as much as the next person,” Eric Covington said to Jordis with barely
disguised superiority.

Michael’s right hand, which had heretofore absently twirled
his pen atop a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him, stopped abruptly.
Did he just call her “sweetheart” in the middle of a business meeting?

Michael looked at Chase who slowly raised an eyebrow,
confirming for Michael he hadn’t imagined the inappropriate appellation.

“However, we have the opportunity to be the legal face of a
major patent dispute that could lead to some historical legal precedent. Here,”
Eric tapped the folder of his preferred case, “we have an everyday guy whose
brilliant innovation was ripped off by a major corporate conglomerate.” He
leaned forward in his chair, getting into his pitch. “It’ll be great PR. We’ll
be touted for fighting for the underdog. We shouldn’t pass that up for a case
that could easily be handled by Legal Aid.”

Jordis leaned back in her chair and simply stared at Eric.
Michael watched a slow smile creep across her face. He’d swear he’d seen the
same look on the face of his uncle’s favorite tomcat right before he took out a
family of rats. He thought to intervene, but something about Jordis’s relaxed
poise made him bide his time.

“Excuse me,
studly
, but I thought the point of the
firm’s Pro Bono Program was to make a difference in the community, not to
select cases with the intent of improving the firm’s PR profile.”

Eric glowered at Jonathan, to his right, who came down with
a sudden coughing fit at Jordis’s use of the word
studly
.

“Legal Aid is a charitable organization with a finite annual
budget,” Jordis continued. “There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to take on this
woman’s case, at least not immediately. If the patent case has such promise,
I’m sure some other firm will be more than happy to take it on a contingency
fee basis. Besides, we already have a high profile intellectual property case
on the firm’s docket. Using the Pro Bono Program to add another smacks of
personal hubris not community service.”

“Jordis, I can understand wanting to fight for the social
underdog.” Eric’s voice held a slight edge of condescension. “But let’s look at
this logically.”

Jordis lifted an unopened water bottle from the table,
twisted the cap off, and took a sip. Setting the bottle back on the table, she
slowly swiveled her chair to the right, crossed her long legs and responded
with a quiet air of nonchalance. “Logically?”

Eric grinned his pretty-boy grin, expecting his charm to
carry the day. “Exactly.”

Jordis smiled back, not with joviality, but with the look of
someone who recognized an insult and intended to pick up the gauntlet thrown
down before her.

Michael watched the foot Jordis dangled in the air bob
twice. He tried to keep his eyes on her ankles, but they were drawn to her
shapely calves and beyond, to where her black pencil skirt had ridden up her
thighs. His thoughts wandered to what she might be wearing under that skirt. A
vision of Jordis uncrossing her legs to plant her cheetah-pump shod feet wide
enough apart to give him a peek flashed through his brain. The image hit him
hard and shocked him with the instant hardening impact on the muscle between
his thighs.

Looking up from Jordis’s thighs, his eyes met those
multi-colored orbs he found almost as entrancing as her legs. Her eyes shifted
color. Her facial expression remained neutral, but she’d noticed where his
attention had been focused. He dropped his foot to the floor and turned his
seat squarely under the table, needing to be discreet about his lap’s abrupt
change in appearance.