Falling for the Lawyer - By Anna Clifton Page 0,60

lock his hands behind his head, regarding her curiously.

“You have a message from Mark Jackson,” she explained in a business like tone of voice.

“He rang you?”

“You were on the phone.”

“What did he say?” JP beckoned to her with his finger to sit down opposite him.

“I wrote it down in short hand,” Alex perched on the edge of one of his client chairs. “I thought I should take it down verbatim so that you had the precise meaning of his message. In the interests of decorum I’ve changed some wording which will become apparent to you.”

“Okay,” JP murmured slowly, wishing he knew where Alex was going with all her newfound professional formality. “Shoot.”

“Here I go.” Alex began to read in a monotone fashion. “Is that you, Alex? Good. At last they’ve put me through to someone I know in that den of thieves you work in. Your boss is on the line to someone else who he’s no doubt robbing every last cent from, so pass this message on, will you? Tell Jonathan McKenzie from me that I got his letter. If he thinks I’m going to pay all my outstanding debts to your firm before he’ll accept another matter from me then he can go and expletive himself. Then you can tell him I never said those things he’s put into my expletive affidavit at paragraph forty and I don’t care how many expletive documents he reckons he can find that prove I said them. And you can also tell him that if he doesn’t expletive wake up to himself and let the client run the show instead of expletive banging on with legal mumbo jumbo all the time then he’ll have no expletive clients left.”

JP stared at Alex and then throwing his head back began to laugh helplessly. For the first time since entering his office, Alex smiled.

“So what did you say back to him?”

“I said I’d pass the message on.”

“Ever the cool professional, eh Alex?”

“What will happen with Mark now?” Alex deftly ignored his sardonic remark.

“With any luck he’ll do as he’s threatened and find another lawyer. But I suspect what will actually happen is he’ll sober up, pay his bills and as his lawyers we’ll all move on for another five years of having to put up with him.”

Alex nodded and was silent as their eyes locked but then she got to her feet and was taking steps backwards towards the door.

“Okay,” she said lightly, “Well that’s all. I’ll let you get on with dictating now.”

But JP wasn’t having it. He got to his feet and with his longer stride reached the door before her and slammed it shut.

“Oh no you don’t,” he muttered, hearing an involuntary hint of menace in his tone. “You don’t escape that easily. You’ve been avoiding me too long already.”

“Why, do you have something else for me to do?” she asked, feigning wide-eyed innocence.

JP narrowed his eyes in response. “Aye, I do,” he replied. “We’re going to talk.”

“I like the way you say that.”

“What?”

“Aye.”

“Why?”

“It seems to mean more than just ‘yes’. It seems to mean, I don’t know, ‘we’re on the same page’, something like that.”

“Are we on the same page, Alex? Because I, for one, feel like I’m stumbling around in a three volume edition of ‘War and Peace’.”

“What exactly do you want to be on the same page about?”

“Everything.”

“Everything,” she echoed, tilting her head a little, still a study in disingenuous innocence. “Well I have a few things I need to talk to you about. Maybe that would be a start.”

“What are they?”

“My position here for one. All of a sudden I seem to be your only PA—for the time being.”

“That’s right. Caroline needed one and Vera was the obvious choice.”

“Why Vera and not me? Is it as Vera says, because she’s ‘high-level’?”

JP placed his hand over his mouth and regarded Alex with open suspicion. “Are you saying you want to work for Caroline?”

Alex pondered the question. “No,” she admitted finally, “I’d just like to know how the decision came about when the last conversation we had about this you said you didn’t want me to be your PA.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I wanted you to be my paralegal.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“The partners thought you should go to Caroline. I intervened and suggested Vera instead on the basis that she’s had more experience here and will be better placed to help Caroline settle in.” JP paused as he took in Alex’s slightly dissatisfied look before explaining.

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