Falling for the Lawyer - By Anna Clifton Page 0,51

go, JP!” she cried out, unable to shift his weight and becoming frenzied as she realised Simon would not wait on much longer.

JP withdrew his arms from around her waist and stepped back. Alex rushed to the phone as it rang out and reached for the receiver. But her fingertips paused on top of it as she was struck down by indecision.

Her eyes swept in panic to JP who was standing just metres from her, his face set with grim, obdurate lines as he fastened his jeans, slowly and deliberately. They were frozen in time, the phone ringing out as his gaze searched hers savagely. Then he muttered words which she knew would chill her to the bone for as long as she lived: “If you answer that phone it’s over for us, and I won’t be back.”

But Alex’s hand had already closed around the receiver and was lifting it slowly to her ear.

Chapter Ten

The day was already heating up like a pressure cooker even though it was barely eight-thirty in the morning. Making things worse was the oppressively hot westerly wind howling up Bridge Street as Alex wandered towards her office building, exhaustion settling like lead weight into every muscle of her body. For after her torrid half-hour phone call with Simon the night before she’d had no sleep at all.

Tossing and turning all night her mind had played back the endless round of blurted apologies and explanations. Yet by the end of the phone call nothing had been resolved between them except the most serious thing of all: their long relationship was coming to an end.

They’d decided to meet in the foyer of her building after work that day so that they could go somewhere private and talk things through. But Alex knew there was no turning back.

Simon was devoted and decent but he would never be the man for her. And she would never be the woman for him. He’d fallen in love with a dream girl and for three long years she’d let him live the dream. She would never forgive herself for doing that to him because now the dream was lifting like a summer morning’s mist. But she couldn’t pretend for a minute longer that she was anything more than who she was: an ordinary girl, falling in love for the first time, longing to stop dreaming and start living—the ordinary girl JP had noticed when she was still well hidden under layers of muddy, bedraggled clothing.

Alex hesitated outside the building. Simon’s misery weighed heavily upon her spirits and she felt totally ill equipped to walk into an office dominated by JP’s phone calls, clients and staff. As always he would be like an omnipotent, inescapable presence within and it took every ounce of her willpower to step into the foyer’s perpetually revolving doors.

When minutes later she walked out of the lift at level twenty-three the last person she expected to see was waiting for her in reception. Her father sat perched on the edge of a chair looking small and uneasy amidst the elaborate décor of Griffen Murphy Lawyers.

Alex was dumbfounded.

Her parents never visited her at work, not even when they were visiting the city. She’d sometimes wondered whether they might be intimidated by the severe, corporate surroundings of her law firm. For even though her father had run a successful building business for forty years, he and Mary avoided busy, crowded places now, preferring a quiet life at home surrounded by their family.

Peter Farrer struggled onto his wobbly knees when he saw Alex walking towards him. Holding out his arms he pulled her close.

“This is a nice surprise,” Alex smiled down at her diminutive father. “Where’s Mum?” They were rarely apart.

“She’s at the dentist, poor love. I can’t stay too long.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yes, yes. Just a routine check-up.”

“Oh okay, that’s good,” Alex nodded, still wondering why he’d made the effort to come in to see her. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No I’m fine. I’ve just had one.” Peter Farrer was looking around himself anxiously.

Alex bit down on her bottom lip. Something was bothering her father and she was about to ask him what it was when the lift doors opened and JP McKenzie sauntered into reception rolling an enormous trolley of folders behind him.

Alex froze, helplessly railing at herself to reel in her gaze as she drank in the sight of him, so incredibly gorgeous in his navy suit and open necked white shirt—how could she ever have thought his