Legally Yours Read online

  Legally Yours

  Manda Collins

  Copyright 2012 Amanda Collins

  Smashwords Edition

  http://www.mandacollins.com

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  It started like most things in the law firm: with a memo.

  Julie Streeter and her fellow paralegals had gone out after work to their favorite bar, Charlie’s, where, as usual, they couldn’t stop talking about the thing that bound them together.

  Work.

  “Ugh.” Cissy Turner, who was beautiful enough to spark envy, but sweet enough to make you feel guilty about it, winced from her position on the inside of their booth. “Did you see Clay trying to make small talk with Alyssa? It was so pathetic. He’s got a wife and two little girls at home and he’s trying to get into the corporate counsel’s pants. If he weren’t from one of the richest families in the state he wouldn’t even have a job, much less be a partner in the firm.”

  “I’m just glad I can respect my boss,” Monica Ballard, the eldest of the group, said taking a sip of her Appletini, “David’s a good guy and he’d never cheat on his wife. Not that he has one, but if he did, I know he wouldn’t do it.”

  “You’re not saying much tonight,” Theresa Godwin nudged Julie with her shoulder. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “More like Matt’s got her tongue,” Cissy quipped. “Those two have been thick as thieves this week.”

  Julie felt a blush rising from her chest to her cheeks. “We’ve been working, Cissy,” she denied. “That’s all.”

  Since her law school crush had arrived in Birmingham last week as part of RFG Enterprises corporate counsel team, Julie had been trying and failing not to remember just how gaga she’d been over Matthew Ellis. He’d been the top of their class in everything. He had a mind that leapt three steps ahead of everyone else and he could formulate a legal argument while the rest of the class was still struggling to assimilate the basic facts of the case.

  When she’d had to drop out of law school to take care of her younger sister, Julie hadn’t had a chance to think about the things she’d miss. And certainly her crush on her hotshot classmate had seemed trivial when she was busy trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

  Now, five years later, her sister, Lily, was enrolled in one of the most prestigious colleges in the country, and had a full ride scholarship to boot. And Julie was still working as a paralegal. She even made a pretty good living. It wasn’t what she’d be earning as a partner, or even an associate, but she was okay with that. Being a paralegal meant that she could do what she did best. Organize the information. Sort through documents and scan them for pertinent information. And she didn’t have to get up in front of a courtroom full of people and argue the case.

  Since Lily had left for school three months ago, she’d even begun to date a little. But then, they’d gotten the RFG Enterprises case and Matthew Ellis had sauntered back into her life.

  His polished good looks still had the power to stop a woman in her tracks. He must put out some heavy duty pheromone that stupefied any woman in winking distance. Within seconds of being re-introduced to him, her heart was beating faster and her tongue was tied in knots.

  Yep, same old Matt.

  And, unfortunately, same old Julie.

  She’d run into other classmates over the years. Had learned to respond pleasantly to the questions about why she’d dropped out and what she’d been doing with herself since then.

  It wasn’t that she was embarrassed by her choices. Taking on the responsibility of raising her sister after their parents’ death was the right thing to do. But there was something about those nods of understanding that grated. Like they thought she’d used Lily as an excuse because she just couldn’t cut it in law school.

  Which was why seeing Matt again had been such a jolt.

  “Hey, Jules,” Matthew had smiled down at her, the single dimple in his right cheek sending a tingle of awareness down her spine—and other places. “I didn’t know you were here. How are things going?”

  Julie swallowed, grateful that she’d decided to wash her hair that morning after all. Since they were mostly a corporate firm, they didn’t have very many clients come into the office, and she had a tendency to dress more casually for work on non-court day. “Hi, Matt,” she took his proffered hand as his long lashed blue eyes surveyed her from head to toe. “Things are good. Thanks for asking.”

  “Matt,” Clay Parchman, Julie’s least favorite partner in the firm, interrupted them, “I’ll take you back to the conference room so we can go over the Furman deposition.” He turned to Julie with a raised brow, as if he knew Matt had assumed she was a member of the firm instead of a lowly paralegal. “Julie, will you bring us some coffee?”

  Without a backward glance for her, he ushered Matt down the hall and toward the larger of their two conference rooms. It was against firm policy for attorneys to request their paralegals to wait on them in any way. Not necessarily because it was degrading for the paralegals, but the secretaries didn’t like the idea of paralegals treading on their turf.

  In the heat of a big case, of course, they’d all work together, doing whatever it took to get the job done. But for Clay to put Julie in her place like that—clearly making sure that Matthew knew that she wasn’t at the top of the food chain with them, was humiliating. It wasn’t unusual for Clay to be such a tool, but for him to do it in front of corporate counsel was a deliberate move on his part to preen in front of Matt, whom he wanted to impress.

  She’d braced herself for Matt’s condescension when she arrived with the requested coffee, but he’d been gracious in his thanks, and had proceeded to get down to business. For the rest of the week, their interaction had been cordial if distant. With the first in a series of trials against RFG coming up next week, everyone on the RFG team, both at the firm and those visiting from the corporate legal department were focused on getting the job done. But as she’d watched him laugh and joke, and flex the brilliant legal muscles that had only improved in his years since law school, Julie felt her old crush returning.

  Which meant that she needed to nip her colleague’s speculation in the bud.

  “Yes, we’ve been working together,” she told the other women at the bar, finishing her gin and tonic, “but it’s strictly business.”

  “Yeah, sexy business,” Monica chirped. At Julie’s glare, however, she scaled it back. “Okay, okay, we’re just teasing Julie, lighten up. It’s not like you to be so defensive.”

  “Probably has something to do with that birthday you’ve got coming up, Jules.” Cissy grinned. “Are we going to do a spa weekend like we planned?”

  Julie was relieved at the change of subject and joined in with their discussion of her birthday plans. Once they’d all finished their drinks, they paid their tab and called it a night. She was grateful to have such loyal friends. It was sometimes hard for degreed and non-degreed paralegals to get along in a firm. Those who’d made the jump from legal secretary to paralegal resented the college-e
ducated interlopers who hadn’t paid their dues by working in the trenches first. But at Gordon, Taylor, Lutz and Parchman, the paralegals were a close-knit group and though the more experienced paralegals might resent training the new kids on the block, eventually if you proved yourself, you were part of the club.

  As she climbed into her car, back in the parking garage of the high rise that housed the law firm, she reached into her bag, searching for her phone. If Lily called and didn’t get a call back the same evening, she’d worry, so Julie always tried to call her before she left for home. But, after a thorough check of her purse she saw that her phone wasn’t there.

  Damn it. She’d left it on her desk again.

  With a sigh, she unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, hiking her bag back onto her shoulder. This late in the evening, the building was deserted. The receptionist had locked the main entrance to the firm hours earlier, when she’d gone for the day, so Julie dug out her key and unlocked the door. In the distance, she could hear the hum of the janitorial staff’s vacuum cleaner.

  She loved the quiet of the office at night. No ringing of phones. No good old boys telling goofy jokes, and especially no bosses hovering over her workstation while she tried to proof their memos.

  When she reached her office, she flipped on the light, and saw her phone on her desk. Dropping her bag on the paper-littered surface, she slid into her chair and checked to see if there were any missed calls. But there were none.

  Since she’d started school, Lily had been busy, and as the semester progressed, she’d become less conscientious about calling. Julie knew that pulling away was part of the maturation process, but it still hurt. For seven years now Lily had been the center of her world. And now, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine she was experiencing what most mothers didn’t deal with until their forties: empty nest syndrome.

  Picking up the framed photograph of her with Lily at her own college graduation, Julie wondered what had happened to that care-free, fun-loving girl in the picture. The girl who’d gone on to follow her dream of attending the same law school were their father had gone. When had she gotten so…old?

  She looked down at her sensible shoes, her tailored plaid trousers, and her sleek black turtleneck. The Julie in the picture’s favorite color had been red. She’d worn short skirts and kitten heels. She’d been sexy.

  When was the last time she’d felt sexy?

  Putting the picture down, she booted up her computer, and opened a blank word processing document. She’d write a little to-do list, she told herself. Of things that would make her feel sexy again. Sort of like a bucket list, but instead of things to do before she kicked the bucket, it would be things to do before she turned thirty in two weeks.

  Number One…

  Chapter Two

  Matthew Ellis stifled a yawn as he jogged down the hall toward the printer.

  He’d rolled up his sleeves and gotten rid of his tie two hours ago, when he’d assured the other lawyers on the team that they could go home. It wasn’t that he couldn’t have used their help going through the documents for the Furman case, but he’d been sent by RFG’s corporate legal department to find out who had been leaking details about their case to the plaintiff’s lawyer, and he needed as much time alone in the office as he could muster in order to figure it out.

  He’d worked for RFG since graduating law school six years earlier, and though most men in his shoes would have chosen to join a large firm, he’d been happy enough to take a position as part of the multi-national corporation’s legal department. Most big firms, especially the ones in the south, encouraged their associates to marry before they were considered for partnerships. And since his parent’s divorce when he was in high school, Matt had decided that marriage was an institution he’d rather not join.

  Seeing the partners in this firm with their wives had not changed his opinion. Clay Parchman, in particular, had made his stomach turn. By day in the office he hit on every woman he came into contact with. He was even carrying on a not so secret affair with a secretary in another firm in the building. But when his wife was around he was the picture of the perfect husband. Being a good actor was something that came with the territory of being a lawyer. So did being persuasive. But it was the guys like Parchman who gave lawyers a bad name. Not only because he was a liar and a cheater, but also because he was really good at it. If Matt hadn’t seen the guy with his hand on the secretary’s ass hours earlier, even he would have had a hard time disbelieving his heartfelt excuse to his wife about not being able to make it home for dinner.

  It hadn’t helped matters that Parchman had been such an asshole to Julie Streeter the other day.

  He’d been surprised, but glad to see her here. When she’d dropped out of school to take care of her younger sister, their whole class had been bummed for her. To lose your parents so suddenly was bad. But to be put in charge of a kid when you were little more than a child yourself, was even worse. She had a helluva legal mind, and he’d missed their verbal sparring. But she’d also been at the top of a very short list of women in their class he would have liked to get into bed. Of course he’d had a girlfriend at the time, so he hadn’t done anything about it, but he’d looked.

  God, had he looked.

  But it would seem that the flirty, sexy Aspiring Lawyer Julie had been replaced by no-nonsense, sensible Paralegal Julie. He couldn’t say he blamed her. The hierarchy within a law firm depended on a delicate balance between the lawyers and their various support staff. Though Julie had at one time been near the top of their class, since she hadn’t graduated law school, she may as well not have gone to law school at all. Without the degree on the wall, she was less than—at least in the profession’s eyes. But what really sucked was that she didn’t quite fit in with the other paralegals either. So she was in a weird no man’s land in between castes.

  That didn’t stop the attorneys from using all the knowledge she’d gained in law school.

  Jerks.

  Even in her new guise, with her trousers and turtlenecks, she made his mouth water. With her dark hair pulled up into a messy twist today, and her dark rimmed glasses, she’d been rocking the sexy librarian look and it had been all he could to not to corner her against the conference room wall and steam up those glasses.

  Nearing the printer, he shook his head at his own foolishness. Alone in an empty office with a boner. Great job, Ellis. Let’s hope the janitor doesn’t think you’re printing out porn.

  When he picked up the papers from the tray, however, he saw that someone else was printing too.

  Before Thirty List:

  1. Outdoor Sex (the park? hm, check on legality)

  2. Learn how to give a really good blow job (class? internet?)

  3. Try something new in bed (position? Toys?)

  Holy hell. He’d picked up someone’s personal document. Matt shook his head at the stupidity of someone printing such a private document on a community printer.

  Even as he heard her footsteps coming down the hall, his eye caught on the signature line that automatically printed on office documents. There at the bottom were the initials: JMS.

  And just like that, he was hard.

  ***

  Julie had slung her bag over her shoulder again, and whistled as she approached the cubicle where the printer for her side of the building was networked. It had been cathartic to make her to-do list. Of course to do some of them she’d have to find a partner. But that shouldn’t be a problem. Just because she hadn’t been on a date in years didn’t mean she hadn’t been asked. One night at the Young Lawyer’s monthly mixer, where local attorneys and their office staff mingled side-by-side, would put her in the path of dozens of local attorneys looking to get laid. And most of them were ambitious enough to want their sex with no strings attached.

  She was saddened by the thought that at her age she hadn’t found someone to share her life with, but some people just weren’t cut out for relationships, and she was afraid that she was one of t
hem. Not only was she annoyingly self-sufficient, she was not willing to let her guard down for just any guy. She’d done that in the past and it had only led to pain on her part and frustration on his. It was much better this way. She was alone, but content.

  If she sometimes wished she had someone to snuggle up to at night, well, that’s what her cat, Max, was for.

  When she rounded the corner to the printer cubicle, she was startled to see Matt standing there, his broad shouldered back to her as he picked p a sheet off the tray.

  As if in slow motion, she watched in horror as he scanned the page.

  Nooooooooo!!!!

  Stepping forward, she tried to snatch the page from him, but it was too late.

  “Ah, Julie,” he said with a grin. “I believe this is yours?”

  The bastard held the paper high above his head where she couldn’t reach.

  “Just give it to me, Matt,” she hissed. “It’s personal.”

  “Oh, very personal,” he said, with a stifled laugh. “Never outdoors? That surprises me for some reason. The Jules of our law school days would have done it outdoors in a heartbeat.”

  Her face was so warm she thought it might catch fire.

  “Please,” she asked, pressing against him as she tried and failed to get a grasp on the page. This close, she could smell the heady mix of his aftershave and an intoxicating twang of male sweat. Pheromone city. She couldn’t help but feel the firm muscles of his chest where she pressed against him. When instead of retreating, he stepped forward, she was surprised to feel the brush of his very impressive erection against her stomach.

  She leapt back.

  “Not so fast, Miss Julie,” he said. “I think we should discuss this list of yours.”

  Before she could step away, he had her in his arms. To her surprise, though his touch was strong, it was also gentle. Her list fell forgotten to the floor as his mouth descended to hers.