Falling for the Lawyer - By Anna Clifton Page 0,47

and a shave. One thing was for sure though, he wasn’t about to slip into his pajamas and crawl into bed all alone that night. If Alex Farrer thought their conversation was over for the evening then she could think again.

When Alex burst through her front door she knew with absolute certainty that if she shut herself up inside her tiny apartment that night she would surely go mad. There was only one thing for it: water.

Within minutes she was diving into the deep end of her apartment complex’s pool and cruising up and down its length with long, invigorating strokes. She reached fifty before she gave up counting the laps but she didn’t let up on speed, not until she’d felt the familiar soothing ache in every one of her muscles; not until she was simply too exhausted to feel anything other than pure physical pain.

Only then, with murderous feelings towards JP beginning to subside, did Alex prop her arms on the edge of the pool and stop. Resting her cheek on the cool wet skin of her forearm she listened to melodic guitar music drifting from one of the apartments nearby. It rippled through the night air in time with the ripples still playing at the edges of the pool after her laps.

Ever since she’d been a little girl water had been her best friend; it hadn’t let her down that night either. As always it soothed, comforted and inspired. Becoming a part of it had always helped her to see life with a frightening clarity. The only problem was that the clarity kicking in that night was whenever she thought about Simon.

She did want to marry Simon. Didn’t she?

Before Alex could answer her own question she threw herself backwards and began a slow languorous backstroke up the pool. Only more swimming might shake off the doubts she was battling. But it was no use—even twenty more laps couldn’t help her see a way forward that night. JP had addled her brain so completely that no amount of swimming was going to diffuse the endless questions swamping her: Did Simon love her? Did she love him? Would she make him happy?

Alex stopped in the middle of the pool, the water lapping around her shoulders like the doubts lapping at her mind and keeping time with the heavy, portentous pounding of her heart.

Would she make Simon happy?

She reached unsuccessfully for answers in the still, inky blackness of the warm night before diving down and swimming submerged to the far wall. By the time she’d burst to the surface for air she’d made her decision.

Enough was enough.

There would be no more JP and no more mind games. She would ring Simon that very night and make things right between them, once and for all.

Chapter Nine

Alex first saw him as she wandered up the dark garden pathway towards her apartment. He was leaning back against one of the stone pillars, a foot propped back against it, his arms folded across his chest, his expression pensive.

Alex stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes trailing compulsively over the powerful thighs in his jeans and the broad shoulders filling out the grey t-shirt clinging to his upper body like a second skin. His hair was damp from a recent shower, swept back from his forehead which was unconsciously lined with worry.

JP McKenzie.

Alex swallowed as an overwhelmingly urgent need to touch him and be touched by him banished the promise she’d made less than a quarter of an hour ago to exclude him from her heart and her mind once and for all.

She shivered then and moved forward to approach him and his attention was caught. He stood up straight, arms still folded, taking in the damp hair strewn about her shoulders and the surf towel knotted about her waist.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped nervously, praying he wouldn’t notice the desire rising like a fine mist from her bare skin.

“I was worried about you.” He strolled towards her and stopped very close, breaking every unspoken social law of personal space. “You rushed out of the hotel tonight and I wanted to make sure you got home okay. Your phone’s switched off.”

“Well as you can see I’m fine,” she blurted, her pounding heart creating staccato notes of her words.

“Are you?” His voice was mellifluous and mellow, like golden syrup pouring over her skin. “You don’t look it. In fact,” he continued, taking yet another forbidden step into her personal space, “You’ve been like an