Legally Addicted - By Lena Dowling Page 0,6

to her office.

Then it hit her. As a full equity partner, Brad Spencer would have an influence over the partnership equal to that of Dayton and Llewellyn, effectively making him senior to her. So, extrapolating on that, last night she may as well have gone and shagged her boss.

Well, as good as.

‘I assume from that pose of utter jubilation you’ve heard that we’ll be moving?’

The voice was Miriam’s. Georgia sat up and folded her arms. Her secretary held a clipboard with some sort of checklist pinned to it.

Georgia realised she should have seen this coming. There were only three corner offices in the triangular shaped building rented by the firm, and the Brad Spencer could hardly be asked to work in a cubicle and meet with his glittering client list in the shared conference room.

‘I don’t suppose we can expect the famous Brad Spencer to slum it out in the open-plan, now can we?’

‘No, not really. Sorry, Georgia.’ Miriam’s face had screwed up in an apologetic expression that was part sympathy, part trepidation, as if she was expecting Georgia to explode. But there was no point taking her frustrations out on Miriam. It was a backwards step for her too. Not that she had an office, but she would no doubt have preferred to keep her current spot right outside Georgia’s door than be pushed back out into the middle of the open-plan.

‘But if you look on the bright side, Georgia, having Brad Spencer around will give us girls something decent to look at. He’s going to raise the attractiveness profile of the men around here by quite a bit.’

Until now, there hadn’t been a man in the office capable of distracting Georgia. Dayton and Llewellyn would be hitting retirement in a few years, and the only other men consisted of a group of middle-aged lawyers who had all but given up on making partner and were working on enlarging their middle-aged spread instead. Aside from them, there were just two spotty part-time clerks who were both still at uni.

Georgia stood up and looked around the spacious office, wondering how much longer she had left to enjoy her workspace. Compared to the cubbyholes out in the open-plan, the office she had only recently moved into was positively palatial.

‘How soon is the shift?’

‘Pretty much straight away — the movers are coming in to do the job overnight.’

Georgia sighed.

‘Oh well, I had better enjoy the view while I can, I guess.’

Miriam didn’t reply; she was already striding away like a guided missile locked on to her next task.

Georgia turned towards the wall-to-ceiling window and braced herself against it with the heels of her hands, as if she hoped to affect a tranquillity transfer from the cool glass.

At least the view out across Sydney city never failed to inspire her. It was a metropolis equal to any in the world, and yet Sydney had been erected out of nothing, in little over two hundred years, on the backs of convict and poor immigrant labour. It was uplifting, and in many ways it mirrored Georgia’s own spectacular rise. She sucked in a breath. Sydney was still a city where anything was possible.

‘Are you okay?’

She hadn’t noticed Brad slip into her office, and now he was standing at her side looking out at her incredible view.

Scratch that.

He had slipped into his office, and was looking out at his incredible view.

She turned to face him, his annoyingly high cheek-boned features and brooding black eyes sending her mood plunging back to the new low it had found after Dayton and Llewellyn’s bombshell announcement.

‘Since you asked, I’m not okay, actually. I’ve just found out that this office, which I worked for — no, make that slogged for — is going to be yours, and I’m back out there in the office mosh pit.’

She stabbed a finger in the direction of the open-plan area in the middle of the floor rented by Dayton Llewellyn, where phones rang constantly, and even hushed conversations between colleagues were a constant distraction.

Georgia had coveted her ascension to this particular piece of office real estate ever since she joined the firm. Having made partner she felt like she had reached the summit, and now, all thanks to Brad, she was slipping back down as if she had grasped a greasy pole instead.

‘Not that you’d have any appreciation of what it is to have to slog for anything, Mr Silver Spoon.’

Brad’s head jerked back as if she had given him a quick poke in the