Page 33 of Legal Seduction
Chapter Nine
HOWCOULDBETTEhave worked for him for two years and Simon still know so little about her? When he’d hired her, he’d checked her references and résumé. But now he had to pull up her employment file again to refresh his memory. She’d worked in fashion houses before she’d worked for Street Legal. Her degree was in fashion.
He’d dated a couple of design assistants. They didn’t make much. That was the reason he’d figured she’d quit the fashion house and applied for the job as his executive assistant. She could have worked as a model if she hadn’t been able to break in as a designer. She looked amazing in all the lingerie she wore.
The image of her standing in his office in just that black bra and G-string held together with bows flashed through his mind again. Hell, that image had never really left his mind. She was so damn sexy. And much too distracting...
He needed to find out if she really was the mole, especially now with the guys putting pressure on him over getting involved with her. What if she wasn’t?
Would she—could she—sue him for seducing her? Of course she’d seduced him first, though. Why?
Had she realized that he was onto her?
He pressed the intercom button on his phone.
“Yes?” Her voice filled his office, just like her scent and her image did.
“I’d like to see you...” In the flesh and not just in his mind. Due to the meeting with his partners, he hadn’t seen her yet this morning. And there was a strange tightness in his chest.
She hesitated a long moment before replying with, “I have to finish a couple of things first.”
“Are you stalling?” Maybe she didn’t want to see him as badly as he wanted—as he needed—to see her.
She sighed. “No. I was distracted this morning with a visit.”
Who had come to see her?
“Who was your visitor?” he asked. In the two years she’d worked for him, he couldn’t remember anyone ever coming by to see her.
From what she’d said, her family didn’t approve of her moving to the city. So they probably never visited. What about friends? He’d never met any of them. But then it wasn’t as if they were dating or anything.
After another long pause, she replied, “Your partners.”
He suppressed a groan. Why hadn’t they trusted him to handle this—to handle her—on his own? After all, he was the managing partner. And that was because Street Legal had been his idea. He’d come up with the plan back when they’d all been living on the streets:
Go to college.
Get their law degrees.
Start their own practice.
They should have trusted that he would do whatever necessary to protect that practice. Of course doing Bette Monroe was no hardship.
“Bette, I need you in here right now.” As he said it, a chill chased down his spine. He really did need her.
She sighed again, a sigh of frustration, and murmured, “I’m coming.”
“Not yet,” he said, then promised, “but you will be.”
“Simon!” She admonished him, but there was amusement in her voice. And it certainly wasn’t long before his door opened and she hurried inside.
Did she need him as much as he needed her?
He damn well hoped so—because he didn’t like this feeling, as if the balance of power had shifted in her favor. As if he needed her more...
That wasn’t the case, he assured himself. He needed the truth. He needed to know if she was, indeed, the mole.
“What did you want?” she asked as she strode over to his desk, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor. She wore another of her pencil-slim skirts with another cardigan. The skirt was gray, the sweater a deep purple. He wondered more what she wore beneath them.
