Eventually, his attention caught by whoever was speaking to him on the end of the phone that was still clamped to his ear, he glanced away, and I slid my hands down and away from his chest.
We continued our journey, passing through another gap in the buildings, and I expected to rejoin the hustle and bustle of London. Instead I was surrounded by extreme cuteness. Green patches of lawn and more old buildings in different-colored brick with tin-paned windows. It was like a toy town. We made a sharp right and without even saying goodbye, Knightley pressed cancel on his phone and shoved it in his pocket. “We’re here. Let me know how things work out with your mobile.”
I wanted him to say something else. Ask me to dinner. Kiss me. Something. I wasn’t ready for him to walk away just yet. In New York, men were everywhere, but no stranger had ever captivated me like this one. It was as if when I’d stepped onto the tube I’d swallowed some kind of potion that made me completely attracted to this Knightley guy. And he wasn’t even my type.
I didn’t ask guys on dates. I’d never had to. About to watch him walk away, I wished I’d had more practice. “I will. Thank you.”
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something but then frowned, clearly changing his mind. And with that he swept up some steps and through an open door. I checked the address on my printout. Number One New Square. The exact same address was painted in shiny black paint on the side of the building. I’d made it. My handsome stranger had disappeared into the very building where I was headed. Another sign. Maybe I’d get to see him again. Today was my day.
I took a deep breath and took the stairs, retracing the footsteps Knightley had just made.
Time to be fabulous.
Three
Alexander
My workout this morning had been punishing. The harder I worked, the harder I worked out. I was a big believer in that if I wasn’t physically fit, I couldn’t perform as well in my job. And I was willing to do whatever I had to do to be the best barrister I could be. As a result, I’d been up since five, worked out until six thirty, and then had a conference call with Dubai at seven. I hated days when I was late into the office, but this morning couldn’t be helped. My commute had been . . . unusual. The woman I’d knocked into while getting off the tube had been beautiful, and I couldn’t keep the image of her gazing up at me in the middle of Lincoln’s Inn Fields out of my brain. I needed to focus. And perhaps get laid when I got the time. But it wouldn’t be tonight. I’d be working. I had hundreds of witness statements to go through and my opening statement to draft.
In three days, I’d be in court, and that was my sole focus. There was no time to be wasted on fantasizing about women.
As I trawled through my emails, trying to pick out the important ones from the hundreds littering my inbox, someone knocked at my door. I resisted the temptation to growl. I hated being interrupted—I needed a sign for the door.
“Come in,” I barked.
The door swung open, and I could tell by the footsteps that the head clerk had swooped in. “Mr. Knightley.”
“Craig.” I didn’t take my focus off my laptop screen. Craig was an avuncular and charming man in his mid-fifties. He’d been in the business since he was fifteen and had clerked my father. If anyone could interrupt me, he could. And he knew it. Over the years, I’d tried to get him to call me Alex, but he insisted all the clerks and admin staff call the barristers by their surnames. The bar could be a very old-fashioned place.
“I want to introduce you to your new assistant, Violet King.”
I paused, my fingers hovering over my keyboard. I knew nothing of this and would never have agreed to it—I worked alone. Slowly, I turned to find Craig in front of my desk, his eyebrows raised in expectation.
“My what?” I asked. A figure moved in beside him and I slid my gaze to the right. I found myself staring straight at the beautiful woman who’d invaded my thoughts since I’d arrived in chambers. What was going on? I looked away from her, sure that Craig would see my attraction to her if my eyes lingered over her for more than a split second.
My breath had caught in my throat when I’d seen her this morning on the platform. I’d watched, mesmerized, as she hurried toward me, arriving on the platform just before the train arrived. She had pale blue eyes, flushed cheeks, and long, black hair that I could imagine twisting my fingers through as I fucked her over my desk. Women rarely caught my attention, but she was not only beautiful. There was something exotic about her, something that made me want to know more. I’d been warmed by her heat throughout our journey this morning and was almost pleased when I got to walk her to chambers, although I’d felt like a teenager, unable to think of anything to say. I’d been grateful when a phone call had saved me from completely betraying my fascination with her. The way she’d looked up at me with those blue eyes, as she steadied herself against my chest on the tube and again in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. My pulse began to race—at the memory or at having her so close now. I couldn’t decide.
Here in my office, she was just as beautiful. Just as intriguing. It set me on edge. I didn’t like the unexpected. The last thing I needed was her assistance.
“She’s going to start straightaway, which is tremendous news.”
“And what, may I ask, will Miss King be assisting me with?” I’d never heard of a barrister having an assistant before. The admin staff and the clerks were all pooled between us, and most barristers were pretty self-sufficient. After all, we were all self-employed and in a set of chambers simply to share resources. We all paid a percentage of our income toward maintaining chambers, but we were fiercely independent. The independence and the lack of interaction with others were some of the things I liked about my job. Every now and then, Craig would invent some new effort to organize my billing or my office, but it never lasted long. He gave up when I didn’t give an inch.
“She’s going to help you with your billing. You know you should be bringing in triple what you are.”