Page 3 of Defensive Hero

Seated behind the table is the devil incarnate. At least he seems that way, and it’s not just those unnerving eyes. No, it’s everything about him. From his broad shoulders pushing against the crisp white shirt to a sharp jaw that would no doubt cut through glass and perfectly styled black hair. There is not a strand out of place.

The man, with his striking presence, exudes authority. The kind that can only be earned after decades of holding power, but this man seems to be in his mid or late thirties.

Does the coldness come naturally to him?

Oblivious to my sudden nerves, Martha grabs my shoulders and pulls me to her side. “Mr. Hile, this is your new legal assistant, Sandy Beck. I emailed you her credentials, and you approved the hire.”

Martha almost sounds desperate as she speaks, afraid the man will change his mind about hiring me, and for a second, even I get that feeling. His face is blank. I can’t tell if he wants me here or not, and that unnerves me.

The man doesn’t speak for a long time. His eyes stay fixed on mine, those icy blues piercing my soul, and I find myself shuffling on my feet. Even if he hasn’t said a single word, I can already imagine what his voice sounds like.

“You may leave, Martha,” Mr. Hile says, and his voice is deep and full of authority.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Martha says, patting my shoulder reassuringly before rushing out. I almost want to beg her to take me with her, but the door is already closing behind her when I turn around to look, leaving me alone in the office with this intense man.

With Martha gone, there is tense silence that falls over us, and I shuffle nervously on my feet, trying to figure out if I should say something to break the tension or wait for him to speak. I don’t have to wonder for long as the man finally speaks.

“Sit down,” he instructs, and I nod, way too eager to offer my shaking legs a reprieve, except I move too fast, a little too eagerly—

I feel a sudden, sharp tug at the back of my skirt. My eyes widen to saucers when I hear the unmistakable sound of fabric tearing, and the material gives way with a ripping noise that echoes in the space.

My new boss stares at me with something akin to surprise, but I can’t be sure as his expression quickly fades back to nothing.

Talk about first impressions.

I bite my lip and blink back the tears that threaten to spill at the hopelessness of this situation. I want to run… Or hide. Anything to avoid meeting my new boss’s eyes, but I do neither.

I need this job.

Ripped skirt or not, I can’t run away.

Chapter Two

Wilson

Very little surprises me anymore. In the twelve years I have been practicing law, I have met all kinds of people, from murderous criminals who will swear they have never hurt a fly their entire life to innocent people accused of heinous crimes just because they were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Some of my clients are animals, but there is little they can do that would get a reaction from me. Whether or not I agree with their actions is a whole different matter. My only job is to defend them, and with time, I have found myself numbed by everything. I have seen the worst and best of humankind, and there is truly little anyone could do to surprise me. On the occasion that something does, I learned from a young age to always school my features and hide my feelings.

“Emotions are for losers,” was my father’s first life lesson. “Never let them read your mind, or they’ll use it against you.”

Those were my father’s words when he first brought me to the law firm my grandfather had founded. I was five at the time, but I remember those words like it was yesterday. More than thirty years later, I still live by those very words, and yet, I can’t seem to remember his teachings around this five-foot-nothing girl staring down at me with her beautiful, teary brown eyes.

They’re hypnotizing. Making it hard for me to think beyond the girl—beyond this moment.

When Martha emailed me her profile, I didn’t bother to look at it. Why would I focus on that when, like everyone else before her, she too would be gone in a week? If she could even last that long. I was convinced of this even without wasting my time checking out her resume.

Looking at her now, I question if I should have checked her file after all. I wonder if I would have approved her hiring if I’d seen those gold-specks in her eyes on my screen. She’s here now, so I can’t exactly do anything about that.

I trail my eyes over her knee-length, form-fitting skirt and up to the blouse covering her supple chest. Her dark brown hair is tied back tightly into a bun and she is dressed like every other female employee in this firm, but something about her sets me on the edge.

Maybe it’s the way she looks at me from under her long lashes, eyes fluttering nervously as she does so. Or the way she stands with her bag and file hugged so close to her chest, pushing up her tits so that I can almost see her cleavage.

Perhaps it’s because she’s oblivious to all of this and the effect it has on me.

I clear my throat and discreetly adjust myself in my pants, annoyed by the sudden erection pushing at the fly. Her blatant innocence and the effect it has on me pisses me off. She could prove to be a distraction, and I don’t need one of those around me.

“Sit,” I say again, and the girl blinks at me as if she’d been expecting me to kick her out after her wardrobe malfunction. I may be a difficult man to get along with, but I am not a complete monster.

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