Page 30 of The Lawyer
“The fun?”
My fun is right beside me.
Not that I should be entertaining the thought.
I turn to look at her and some more of those private smiles pass between us. We should probably leave right now. Fuck all of this off and go up to my room to get rid of this tension rather than play with it. Unfortunately, a hand slips into mine before I can act any further, and I turn to find Ivy pulling me onto the dancefloor. Willow grabs my champagne from me as I go, a laugh coming from her.
“What are you doing?” I question as Ivy leads me into the middle.
“Saving you from making a mistake.” I chuckle and let her grab hold of my shoulder, forcing the dance. “Unless you’re already sleeping with her, that is. Too late then.”
I look over her dress, quite pleased to see her looking so worthy of her name rather than the jeans and casuals she normally wears. “Sleep with my PA? Don’t be ridiculous, Ivy. We were just talking about the ballroom.”
Another couple bump against my back, making me catch hold of her tightly and spin us away.
“Landon, I’ve known you all my life. Your whole aura is screaming possessive alpha. You might as well be fucking her in front of them all." I burst out laughing, not sure I’ve ever heard that sort of thing from her mouth. “I mean, I’m not surprised, she outshines most of the bloody room, but think before you fuck. Father will go ballistic if another one of his children lowers themselves.”
I slow our dancing, eyes hardening. “Lowers themselves?”
“I didn’t mean that to come out as it did. I meant she’s not from the right kind of family for dating,” she says, making us move again.
I look over her shoulder, guiding us through the melee. “And you’d care about that, why? Surely, I should be able to make my own decisions about who I do or do not see. You seem to agree with Persephone’s choices.”
She stops us again, her face getting in mine. “Hold on. Do you actually have feelings for her?” I stall, unsure what I feel about Willow. “You do, don’t you?”
Scoffing at the thought, I swing us until we’re actually in rhythm with the rest of the dancers again. What a ridiculous notion. Although, when I snatch glances through the crowds to see if I can still see her, the eventual realisation that she’s already in someone else’s arms causes a riot of frustrations.
And then she’s all I can see, as I keep us moving.
And there’s a damn slit in the dress I hadn’t noticed before, high enough to make me question every other lecherous gaze trained on her.
“Fuck,” filters out of me quietly.
Ivy laughs and squeezes my shoulder. “Have you been caught, brother?”
“Fuck off. And shut up while you’re at it.”
Another laugh from her and we carry on with the dance in silence, part of me desperate to get to wherever Willow is and dislodge her from another man’s arms. Instead, I take a breath and carry on doing what I’m doing. That’s sensible. Logical even. Ivy’s right. But a few more turns around the floor, one of which includes another vision of Willow laughing with some cunt I need to kill, and I eventually give up trying to ignore it.
Letting go of Ivy, I make my way through the hordes of idiots until I’m brooding on the wings and reaching for another glass of champagne. It gets knocked back as I watch Willow and a different man twirl by for the second time, and then I’m heading for the bar with nothing but pent-up frustration at the forefront of my thoughts.
Caught? Ludicrous.
I’m not caught, and certainly not by my PA. If anyone's got close to catching me, it's that fucking dancer who refuses to let me inside her. That's all this is. I just need to fuck something. Anything.
“Double Cognac,” I snap, ignoring everyone around me. “And make it a good one.”
Thank God for the smoothness of the drink to relax me back to somewhere near acceptable. I order another one, which goes close to making me amenable enough for conversation with some of the surrounding guests. I don’t really engage, but at least it proves a slight distraction from the very real possibility that I actually need Willow beyond thoughts of fucking. She’s all I can think about, as I chatter aimlessly with wives and husbands about work. She’s even there in my thoughts when I end up talking to some of my courtroom colleagues about life before this.
“Who’s the girl in the black lace?” one of them asks.
I don’t answer. I let them take their own guesses.
“I don’t know, but whoever she is, she needs a good seeing to,” another one butts in. "I'd pay for a slice or two of that with my Scotch."
Raucous laughter erupts as all of them join in on their little debate about what they’d do to her if she was theirs. She isn’t any of theirs. Not that I should have any say in that going forward, but the revelation that I’m so pissed off by the conversation that I could, once again, kill someone is enough for me to have my say.
“Her name is Willow Etherington. And she’s my PA.” The stunned silence is exactly what I expected. They all look at me and then over to her as she talks with a chap from marketing. “Perhaps you could show some respect, gentlemen, if you don’t want to be asked to leave.”
