Page 7 of Tempting All The Way

“Setting me up, sending her little friend out here instead.”

“So, she’s a friend of your sister’s.” Then his eyes bulge out of his fucking head. “Wait… that’s thefriend. Isn’t it?” he says.

“Shh, shut it.” I point a finger at him.

“Holy shit, it is.” He cranes his neck to look through the glass walls at Shardonnay. She’s sitting at her desk. I have a clear view of her from here. Pressing a button on the remote, I fog the glass over. Effectively blocking her from our line of sight. “Well, shit, man, I can see why that girl’s had you all up in a tizzy. For years.” Alistair smirks.

“Not a fucking word. She’s Lucy’s best friend, nothing more. And stop fucking checking her out.”

Alistair holds up his hands. “Got it, off-limits. You’ve called dibs.” He stands before buttoning up his jacket.

“I haven’t called dibs. She’s an employee; we don’t touch employees,” I warn him. It’s the number one rule we’ve all agreed on, and to my knowledge, none of us have broken it.

“Right, you might want to reevaluate that one, because you’re already a goner for that girl. How areyou going to be able to handle working with her all day, every day?”

“Easy, the more time I have to listen to the shit that comes out of her mouth, the more I realise I can’t fucking stand her.”

Alistair laughs, exiting my office. And I pick up the phone and call Lucy. It goes to voicemail, which doesn’t surprise me.

“Lucy Lu, call me back. You have some bloody explaining to do, sister.” I hang up and throw the phone on my desk.

Opening the paper bag, I smile. A blueberry muffin. Was it a lucky guess or does Shardonnay know these are my favourite?

The intercom buzzes before her voice filters through the speaker. “Mr Christianson, your nine a.m. is here, sir.”

Fuck me, I’m going to need her to go back to using my first name. My cock likes it a bit too much when she calls mesir.Opening my calendar, I look at who the fuck I have scheduled for this morning and groan when I realise it’s Andrew Mathers. Some white-collar idiot who was caught embezzling funds. He’s facing up to ten years. Although I have my suspicions that he’s covering for his wife. I can’t blame him. If I had a wife, there’s no way I’d let her see a day behind bars either.

But, fuck, he’s being played and can’t even see it. There’s five million dollars of company funds missing from the tech firm he owned. The withdrawals are all in his name, yet he can't tell me where the cash went. Which isn’t unusual in this type of case. Except, with Mathers, it isn’t just awon’ttell me where he’s stashed the money; it’s acan’ttell me. Because the fucker honestly doesn’t know. I can tell when my clients are lying to me. And this guy has no fucking clue.

“Send him in,” I respond to Shardonnay. I stand when the door opens, and Shardonnay smiles politely, gesturing for Mathers to enter. She closes the door behind her as soon as he steps over the threshold. I press the button and clear the glass walls again for no other reason than I want to be able to see her.

“Xavier, it’s good to see you.” Mathers holds out his hand.

And I take it. “Have a seat.” Sitting back down, I find his file on top of the pile on my desk. “We’re still trying to track down the money, Andrew. You need to prepare yourself though. If we can’t find it, you are facing time. How long, I can’t say.”

“It is what it is.” He shrugs. I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. I don’t lose many cases, and because this little fucker won’t open his goddamn eyes when it comes to his wife, my hands are tied.

“Has Mrs Mathers returned from her trip yet? I’d love to speak with her?” I ask.

“Why?”

“I’ve told you before. If we can trace where the money went once it hit your joint account, then we can prove that it wasn’t you who stole it.”

“There has to be another way. My wife wouldn’t have done this to me,” he says with so much confidence.

“Andrew, the deposits were put into an account with your and your wife’s names. Only two people had access to that account. If it wasn’t you, it only leaves her.” I’ve had this conversation with him a million times. I know I’m wasting my breath, but I’d be a shit lawyer if I didn’t at least try to convince him to get himself out of this mess. I’m okay with losing cases when I know the defendant is guilty. What I’m not okay with is an innocent man going to jail. He doesn’t realise the repercussions this will have on the rest of his life.

“It wasn’t her. Look, I don’t know who it was but I know it wasn’t her,” he says.

“Okay, well, your hearing is set for two weeks’ time. We’re going to have a mock trial. I want you as prepared as possible for cross examination. I’ll have Shardonnay call and pencil you in for that,” I tell him. “In the meantime, my guy is still working on tracing those transactions.”

“Thanks, Xavier, for everything.” He stands to leave.

I wait for him to exit the office before pressing the button on the telecom. “Shardonnay, could you come in please?”

“Sure thing, boss,” she sings in reply.

I roll my eyes at her chirpy tone.What the hell does she have to be so damn happy about?

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