She held out a hand. “You were serious? No! You can’t do that. This is my home now. Yours is in Chicago. And have your forgotten than you’re not licensed to practice law in this state?”
“We’re not trying cases here.” Eric shrugged. “We’re telecommuting until our office manager is ready to return to the office with us. When you won’t come to the office, the office will come to you. We had a meeting last night after you went to bed and worked it all out. That’s part of our new protocols.”
Surely they didn’t need her assistance around the firm that badly. “Guys, I resigned.”
“We didn’t accept your resignation,” Tate replied cheerfully. He held up a stack of papers. “In fact, I had Sequoia fax me your employment contract. It’s for two years, so you should probably pull up a chair and get busy.”
“What?” She thought back, vaguely remembering something about guaranteed work. “That language was in there for my protection, not yours. You couldn’t fire me for any reason other than gross incompetence for two years without penalties. I made you put that in because your last three office managers lasted a total of two weeks. You always found something you didn’t like about them. If I recall, you fired one because he brought you the wrong soda.”
Eric shook his head. “No, baby, we really fired that guy because of his outrageous body odor. Tate’s got a very sensitive nose, and I’m pretty sure that guy thought he was allergic to deodorant.”
“You smell like happiness,” Tate supplied.
She almost laughed at his sappy grin, then she remembered they were trying to screw her over. “You can’t use that contract against me.”
“We totally can,” Tate shot back.
He acted like a five-year-old sometimes—but he was a man with a spectacularly square jaw and amazing pectorals she could see all too well through his tight T-shirt. She turned to Kellan, who would surely be the reasonable one. “Explain to him that it won’t hold up in court. That contract states you three can’t fire me, not that I can’t quit.”
Kellan poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her. “As his lawyer in this matter, I really can’t comment.”
It took all her self-control not to scream. They were closing ranks to show her a united front.
“You can’t hold me with that contract.” She grabbed the document and shook it in her fist.
“We’ll use whatever we have to in order to hold you,” Eric replied solemnly. “Belle, where you go, we go. If you decide to stay in New Orleans, we’ll just take the Louisiana bar.”
“I’m excellent at taking tests,” Tate said. “I’ll look forward to it. I might even enter into criminal law down here since the cases are so interesting. I’ve been watching this madam murder case all morning.”
Of all the conversations she’d imagined having with them now, this possibility had never crossed her mind. They had rejected her, so why had they come here and insisted on staying? God knew it shouldn’t be that hard to hire another competent assistant. But Eric and Tate didn’t act as if their interest was purely professional. Kell…she wasn’t sure where he was coming from and she was too afraid to ask.
Belle set the coffee mug down and walked through the house, then let herself outside, determined to get some fresh air and figure out what the hell was going on.
The courtyard was blissfully quiet with the single exception of Sir yipping as he chased an insect and the gently trickling fountain. One of the men had let him out and turned on the peaceful water feature. Their thoughtfulness did strange things to her heart. They were so concentrated when they worked. They got involved in a case and rarely did anything penetrate their cone of concentration, but one of them had stopped to let her dog out and make her world a little more tranquil.
What was she doing out here? There were three amazingly hot men inside her kitchen with varying degrees of interest in her, and she stood alone, mooning. Had they overreacted to that night in the suite? Had she? God, she wasn’t sure what to think, what to do. All Belle knew for sure was that she could still feel their hands on her, their mouths seizing her own, claiming her down to her soul. After they’d arrived last night, she hadn’t dreamed of dead girls hanging from the rafters, but of sharing a bed with them. Obviously, she’d felt safe with them in the house, so her mind had wandered—right back into their arms.
In her dreams, they’d surrounded her. Their arms had been the sweetest cocoon. Not only had they protected her, but they’d held her, pleasured her, loved her. She’d opened herself to all of them in turn, consuming the sustenance she needed from each: Tate’s goodness. Eric’s strength. Kellan’s dominance. She’d surrendered, giving over her problems in favor of their affection.
The trouble was, in her dream, they had worked in tandem to complete her, body and soul. No one had thrown a damn punch.
“Hey.” A dark voice skated over her skin, and Belle turned.
Kellan stood in the doorway. Instantly, she knew from the tight set of his lips that he had something on his mind. He wasn’t going to just leave her in peace.
Belle steeled herself because it looked like the fight had just found her.
* * * *
Kellan looked at Annabelle and tried like hell to keep the longing off his face. In the early morning, her skin glowed a warm, golden brown that had always fascinated him. Her hesitant expression and wounded chocolate eyes made him wish so badly that he was a better man. Why couldn’t he have met her before his marriage and the resulting disaster of his divorce? If he’d known her when he’d been a dumbass kid who thought the world was fair and wanted to make sure it stayed that way, he would have claimed Belle and never let her go. The cynic standing before her today wanted more than anything to believe in love and faithfulness, until death-do-us-part. But now, he couldn’t just forget the lessons from his trip down the aisle with Lila. How would his life have changed if Belle had been the woman on his arm that day so long ago?
“Kellan.” She put a hand on her chest as though catching her breath. “You scared me.”
Oh, likely she wasn’t scared enough of him. He intended to make her understand just how scared she should be, but first he had a case to plead. “Sorry. I just want to talk to you.”
Those gorgeous lips of hers thinned to a stubborn line. “There’s not much to say. You made yourself clear in Dallas. Message received. But now that I’m trying to leave, you’re using that employment contract to force me to stay? It wasn’t intended to force me to work for you.”
She was certainly smart enough to know the contract was a Hail Mary play, but they were very good lawyers. Still, he understood the way the court system worked and how the game was played. “It could take a while to convince a judge of that, and the case would have to be heard in Chicago. Do you need the name of a good attorney?”