Falling for the Lawyer - By Anna Clifton Page 0,59

a start, there was an easy confidence about her he’d never seen before. She was holding herself tall and upright and her eyes were shining as she took in everything going on around her. In fact, everyone was looking at her because she was simply compelling to watch.

“Exactly how many games of football have you played in your lifetime, Alex?” Michael Porter teased.

“Absolutely none!” she declared and smiled self-deprecatingly.

“But as the boss says,” Michael continued with a cheeky grin. “Alex can swim like a fish so in the event of a tsunami across this rugby field we’re set!”

“Okay, very funny. If you two have finished we’ll get on with things,” JP began, rubbing his hands together and bouncing up and down on the spot in a quick warm up that soon had a few of the others following suit. “Now as I was saying, commercial, after all their big talk, have arrived here today and are down two players. And outrageous as it is they’ve asked me to send one of my players over to even up the numbers.”

“No way!” someone called out in mock protest.

“That’s typical of commercial lawyers,” Michael Porter shouted. “They’re full of big talk, but when things don’t go their way they go to water. They just can’t hack the pressure like litigators can.”

“You’re exactly right Michael,” JP agreed, egging on his team’s competitive zeal. “But we can’t have commercial saying we beat the pants off them because we were up a player. We need to beat the pants off them with equal numbers. So who’s volunteering?”

He was met with a stony silence.

“Come on guys,” he prodded. “Someone’s got to do it.”

“I’ll go!” Alex offered. Everyone turned to her.

“No way, not Alex,” Michael Porter protested with a shout.

“No, not you, Alex,” JP agreed in swift confirmation and turned to the others.

“Why not?” she argued. Again, all faces turned back to her. “Look I know I’m your star player but you can’t have them saying you sent over the weakest link, can you?” she finished jokingly.

With that, Alex turned on her heel and began to saunter over to the commercial group before anyone else could argue.

“Alex!” JP called out behind her, craving a moment of her exclusive attention before she disappeared across to the opposition. She turned and waited for him to catch up.

“Are you sure you don’t mind? I dragged you into this game after all.”

“I don’t mind,” she answered brightly and began to walk backwards, her ponytail swinging from side to side as she moved towards her new team. “Anyway,” she tossed at him with a teasing, heart catching grin, crinkling her nose a little as she squinted into the bright morning sunshine. “It’ll give me a chance to check out whether any of the commercial partners are looking for a new PA seeing as I’m only in that role with you—for the time being,” she added, echoing his words to Caroline Cartwright of two days ago.

She threw him a cryptic smile before swinging around and continuing on, a tiny bounce in her walk. And her upbeat, positive mood didn’t end there. She joined in with the sparring and the good-natured but ferocious competitiveness, the high-fives and the friendly abuse of poor David from the mailroom who’d foolishly volunteered to referee the game.

And despite her self-deprecatory remarks about her rugby prowess, once she had the ball she was surprisingly difficult to catch before she tore across the score line. At one stage Michael Porter even took to chasing and holding her in his arms whenever play started so that no one could pass the ball to her.

But in the end litigation won the day, although commercial wanted a right of challenge to follow in the next few weeks. Justin was insistent that Alex become commercial’s official mascot, thereby banned from playing with litigation in the future. JP was equally insistent that she was on temporary loan and would definitely not be playing for commercial again. In fact, the pulsating imperative within him to keep Alex as close as possible on every level was escalating to a point where any other outcome was becoming unthinkable.

Chapter Twelve

When Alex walked into JP’s office, freshly showered and back in her work clothes after their morning rugby match, she didn’t have her head buried in any documents. It was held high.

He’d been dictating quietly but his words trailed off as he watched her approach his desk. He leant back in his office chair slowly and stretched his arms back to