Tempting the Artist (7 page)

Christina had asked herself that
question a thousand times. Her other life had been a secret for so
long, the thought of sharing it with anyone other than Jada seemed
impossible.

“
I’m not sure. I guess I
just don’t want any negative vibes circling me. When people don’t
understand something, they tend to shoot you down.”

“
I know I promised to keep
this secret, but honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. So you
have another life. So what? I kinda get why you haven’t told the
family, but why not Luke? Is it that you don’t trust
him?”

“
At the time I was still
getting to know him.” The more she thought about it, the more she
realized that she was making everything harder than it needed to
be. “In hindsight I wish I would have just told him.”

“
He’s a lawyer. Couldn’t
you have just given him a dollar and hired him? I think at that
point, everything would have fallen under some client
confidentiality thing.”

Christina laughed. Leave it to Jada to
come up with something like that. “I’ll have to keep that in mind
if ever he gives me a chance to make things right between
us.”

“
So are you going to tell
the family soon? You don’t want them to hear from someone
else.”

“
Yeah, I know. I guess I’m
just afraid they’ll judge me.”

“
They might, but you’re a
grown ass woman. Who cares what people think?”

“
Honestly? I do.” She had
told her sister that she didn’t care what others thought, but deep
in her heart, she did care. “I don’t want Grampa to be disappointed
in me.”

“
Oh please. If he can get
over Toni being arrested or get over all the nonsense that I’ve
been a part of, he can deal with your stuff.”

Sitting in his office, Luke took out
his cell phone and pulled up a picture he had taken of Christina
during her last visit to New York. Despite being angry at her, he
couldn’t bring himself to delete the photo. After seeing her three
days ago, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Just when he thought
he had moved on – bam. She shot back into his life like a meteor
plummeting to earth, leaving a trail of her lust-inducing
scent.

He tapped his cell phone screen,
increasing the size of the photo and stared into eyes that had
enraptured him from day one. And that smile. God he had missed her
smile. When they were dating, the highlight of his evening after a
tough day in court was seeing Christina. Either he would go home to
her when she visited or they would Skype and talk well into the
night.

Frustration pumped through his veins
as he stifled a groan. There had to be a way to get her out of his
system. He wanted a simple life, and whatever she was hiding, was
probably anything but simple.

He glanced up when he heard a soft
knock at his opened office door.

“
Are you ready for me?”
Robin Drake, his paralegal asked. The suggestiveness of her words
matched the seductive smile on her lips.

Luke gave her a once over wondering
how she managed to get away with dressing like she was going
partying with her girlfriends – thin blouse, short skirt, stilettos
and all.

He waved her in. “Sure, we can meet
now.” He shoved his cell phone back into his pocket. Not sure what
he was going to do about Christina, he knew if he ever wanted to
get some sleep again, he had to do something. Thinking about her
all day and dreaming about her at night was starting to take its
toll.

Robin caught his attention when she
made a production of pulling the guest chair in front of his desk
back a few inches. She lowered her fit body and crossed her long
legs.

“
Where would you like to
start?”

Luke ignored the sultriness of her
voice and pulled a pile of files in front of him. “Jason Lake. I’ll
need to talk to Gary regarding that case.” Days after Luke had
started with the firm, Gary had given him several cases that he’d
been overseeing, claiming that most of them just needed some
follow-up. Not only did they need follow-up, there were two that
Gary hadn’t even started. The attorney had barely interviewed the
clients. “There’s not enough evidence to prove that Deluxe
Construction did anything wrong. Unless Gary hasn’t given me
everything. So let’s hold off on that one.”

Luke pulled out the third file in his
pile and handed it to Robin. “I’m not working with Mr. Hardy.
There’s no way I can work with that man for the next two years with
his attitude. And it will take at least that long and an infinite
stream of funds to prove his claim. After our conversation last
week, he won’t be surprised that I turned down the
case.”

There was a time when Luke would take
almost every case that came across his desk, but those days were
long gone.

For the next twenty minutes, they went
over a few more cases. When deciding to leave criminal law, he
wasn’t sure what or where he’d practice. His biggest concern was
that any other type of law wouldn’t hold his interest. Though some
days he missed the intensity that came with taking on murder cases,
this slower pace wasn’t all bad.

“
Is there anything else I
can do for you?”

Luke slowly lifted his head
from the file in front of him, his eyebrow cocked at the sensual
tone of his paralegal’s question. At the rate she was going, they
were definitely going to have to have
the
talk. The talk where he told her
he wasn’t interested in anything outside of a working relationship.
Robin, a pretty red head with flawless skin and too tight clothes
had been making suggestive comments to him since the day he
started. It wasn’t so much the comments or the questions, but more
so the way she phrased them. Every question she asked sounded like
a proposition and spoken with a seductive tone. A tone that would
make any red-blooded man stand at attention. But Luke had had just
about enough.

“
I’ll also need everything
you can find on the owners of the Pearson Corporation. I mean
everything. Bank information, cell phone records. If they’re
married, children - everything.”

“
No problem. Anything for
you.” She scribbled on her notepad.

“
Oh and can you finish your
report on the Hudson case by Friday? I want to make sure we’re
ready to present the information to the client next
week.”

His gaze fell to her legs. How many
times had she crossed and recrossed her legs causing her skirt to
rise and show more leg than should be allowed in a professional
environment? He would admit, she was a beautiful woman, but he
wasn’t interested. She might have garnered his attention, but there
was only one woman who ever made him want to throw caution to the
wind and try something he had never tried – being in a committed
relationship.

He set his pen down and sat
back in the seat. Propping his elbow on the arm of his office
chair, he rubbed his forehead.
Thinking of
Christina was driving him nuts. Robin offered a momentary
distraction, but her antics just made him long for Christina that
much more. Problem was, any chance they might have had at
reconciling had been shot to hell thanks to him. He could have
handled their run-in better. Actually, any other behavior from him
would have been better than making her think that he didn’t still
care. Heck, he more than cared and that’s what scared the hell out
of him.

His phone vibrated and chirped,
signaling a text message. Before he could pull the device from his
pocket, Robin cleared her throat. He knew he was tired, but rarely
did he zone out to the point of forgetting she was sitting in front
of him.

She stood and leaned over the front of
his desk, giving him a clear view of her lacy pink bra. His gaze
lingered there for a hot second before lifting his eyes to meet
hers.

“
It’s almost lunch time.
Would you like to eat out?”

Luke had spent most of his career
reading body language, as well as in between the lines. Though she
asked the question innocently enough, the look in her green eyes
and the seductive smile on her ruby red lips, said
otherwise.

“
If you value your job Ms.
Drake, I suggest you start wearing attire that’s befitting of a
professional environment.” The smile slipped from her lips, and she
stood straighter, adjusting her low-cut blouse. “Also, I’m not sure
how things work with the other attorneys you support, but whatever
you’re offering, I’m not interested.”

“
I … I don’t know what you
mean.” She fidgeted with the pen in her hand.

Luke stood and smoothed down his
Versace tie. “I think you do.” Not wanting his frankness to come
back and bite him in the ass, he added, “You’re an excellent
paralegal, and I like working with you professionally. I wouldn’t
want there to be any misunderstanding that would hurt our working
relationship.”

She nodded and attempted a smile that
didn’t reach her eyes. “I wouldn’t want that either. I’ll take care
of these items,” she mumbled and lifted the files from his desk.
She started to say more but seemed to think better of it and left
his office.

After she had gone, Luke sighed and
dropped back down into his seat. Every day he’d been questioning
his decision to relocate. Between Robin, Gary, and the office as a
whole, some days he wondered if he had made the right
decision.

His cell phone vibrated again,
reminding him that he hadn’t checked the first message he had
received before addressing Robin.

Digging the phone from the
interior pocket of his suit jacket, he tapped the screen.
His heart leaped around in his chest just as it
did whenever he nailed a closing argument in court.

Christina.

Staring down at his cell, he frowned
trying to figure out what he was looking at on the screen. “What
the …” An image of what appeared to be a picture of a lung covered
the screen, followed by a similar image. There was no doubt that
these were diseased lungs, considering the dark discoloration of
the organ.

His phone vibrated again, but this
time with a message.

Keep smoking & this is
what ur lungs r going 2 look like. As u told me, I care about …
your safety.

Well,
damn
.

He sat staring at the
photos and then her message. A smile crept across his lips, and he
chuckled.
Talk about making a
point
. She had often voiced her dislike of
his habit, but this was the first time she’d added images to
express her point.

A warm sensation flowed through his
body. Apparently, they’d been thinking about each other.

He laid his cell on top of
a file folder without responding to the message, his fingers
tapping
on the desk
. He was down to one cigarette a day, usually having one right
after work. Knowing he needed to give them up and doing it was one
of the hardest things he’d ever tried accomplishing, but right now,
he needed to figure out what to do about Christina. On second
thought, there was nothing to figure out. He wanted to see her. It
was time he stopped pretending he didn’t. But first he owed her an
apology for the way
he had walked away the
other day. When what he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and
cover her mouth with his. Kissing her had once been his favorite
pastime. Hell, anything with her was his favorite
pastime.

He picked up his cell phone and tapped
against the screen.

Thanks. I appreciate your
concern. Need something to distract me from the smokes
though.

Minutes ticked by and just as he
started to wonder if she would respond, a text came
through.

Is that right?

He grinned, enjoying their
banter.
That’s correct. Any
ideas?

Yeah, one.

Okay, I’ll
bite
. And what’s that?

Yoga.

Luke threw his head back and laughed.
She knew good and damn well yoga wasn’t an option. There’s been
only one thing that distracted him from wanting a smoke. Okay,
maybe two things, but they both involved one person.

Christina “CJ”
Jenkins.

Instead of texting her, he dialed her
number.

“
Hello.” She answered on
the first ring.

“
Hey.” Luke had never had a
problem talking to women or going after what he wanted. Until now.
Until Christina. Everything about this woman turned him on and
threw him off his game. He wanted her, but the one thing he
couldn’t tolerate – being lied to. He had always been slow to
trust. To know she had lied to him on more than one occasion, still
didn’t sit well with him. However, she had somehow bulldozed her
way into his heart and now held a certain amount of power that no
other woman had ever come close to possessing. And this scared him
to death.

“
Luke?”

“
Yeah, I’m here. I was just
…” His words were lodged in his throat, surprising the hell out of
him. He had spent his adult life, arguing some of the most grueling
cases, yet at that moment, words escaped him. Rubbing the back of
his neck, he knew what he needed to do, but apologizing never came
easy for him. Heck, he couldn’t remember the last time he had
expressed regret to anyone for anything, but he did what he should
have done days ago. “Look, I’m sorry about the other day. I was a
total ass.”