Charade (A Fake Fiancée Romance) (Pretense and Promises Book 1) Read online

  Erica still hesitated, nervous that his touch could make healing more difficult, but then she decided she liked the idea of being able to tell him to stop if it got to be too much.

  She just had to be sure to not think about him doing it to Bret’s wife—and Elle somehow finding it erotic.

  “Okay, so how do we do this?”

  “Lie down on your stomach. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll straddle you, okay?”

  Still dubious, she said, “Okay,” and rolled over. She positioned her arms underneath the pillow and moved around, trying not to hurt her back.

  “Ready?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  In a few seconds, Brock climbed on the bed and, true to his word, straddled her upper thighs. “Can you tell me where it hurts?”

  “On the right side, just above my butt.”

  She felt a slight brush on that area. “Here?”

  “Yes.” She tried not to be snappy.

  “All right. I’ll avoid that area. It seems like if you can relax the muscles around the sore ones, your whole back feels better before you know it.” He adjusted a little and said, “So just relax.”

  Closing her eyes, she tried. At first, her muscles were tense, probably with fear that he was going to hurt the hell out of her, but after a while, she was able to experience the magic that was Brock’s hands. He was finding lumps in her back she didn’t even know existed, leaving the flesh left behind feeling melty and warm.

  Man, she never wanted it to end.

  And then, later, just as she was getting drowsy, he asked, “Feeling okay?”

  She muttered an affirmative into the pillow.

  “All right. Hold on, okay?”

  In a moment, he was back on the bed, straddling her, but this time he was positioned higher, so that his crotch was cradling her ass. At first, she was a little alarmed, but she chilled again. “I got some lotion. I think you’re almost asleep, so this should get you there.” She expected a cold shock, but he’d warmed it up before applying it to her back. This time, he was gentler, applying sensual pressure, gliding over her skin in a way that was soothing…but hotter than hell.

  Oh, shit. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  She had to make herself relax once more, this time because her filthy mind was going places it shouldn’t. If his hands felt that good on her back, what would they feel like on the rest of her body? If he was that attentive with her when she was in pain, how much more so as a lover?

  Holy hell. She was in deep shit.

  And not surprised at all when she awoke the next morning in a light sheen of sweat, having dreamed of gorgeous Brock Ford fucking the shit out of her.

  * * *

  Monday morning, Brock was in the office before seven AM. After being off work for several days, he wanted to beat most of them there so he could have a little quiet time and get a handle on his day.

  But at eight o’clock on the dot, Erica entered his office, rapping with force on the door. He looked up from the case he’d been perusing to see her standing there with a serious look on her face. Her hair was pulled up, not in a bun but up off her neck so that she looked professional. Her jewelry was understated…but that wasn’t what caught his eye. She was wearing a dark blue suit that hugged her curves and heels that added so many inches, she was probably close to his height—but he hadn’t stood up to find out.

  Before he could even offer a good morning, she asked, “What’s on the agenda today?” He started to come up with an answer but she continued, “When do I get to take a case?”

  He swallowed. Damn…she was firm and heated. When he’d dropped her off at her apartment the night before, carrying her luggage upstairs so as not to restrain her back, it had taken everything in him to not pull her into his arms and kiss her like there was no tomorrow. And, unfortunately, here at work he most certainly couldn’t get away with it.

  Before they officially “broke up,” he would have to have her…just one time.

  For now, though, he had to play employer.

  “Well, why don’t we look over the clients we’re going to meet with today and you can pick one?”

  He saw a bit of shock registered on her face, as though she hadn’t expected his agreement to come that easily. But he saw no reason to fight her. She was smart and capable and only needed the chance to prove herself. Half of being a lawyer in the courtroom was being a good actor, and he already knew she had that down pat.

  “Umm, okay. When do you want me to come back?”

  “You don’t need to. I’m ready to prepare for appointments. First one’s at eight-thirty, so we need to get started.” The emails, preparing for tomorrow’s hearing, all that stuff—it could wait until later. “I have more appointments than usual today. Having a few days off makes Monday a little busier.” Erica sat in one of the client chairs across from him on the other side of the desk. “Why don’t you bring one of those chairs over here so you can look at the computer screen and case files with me?”

  “Okay.”

  It took everything he had to not stare at her ass in that dress as she pulled the chair around. And he already knew what those shoes would make her calves look like. Shit…he had to get his mind out of the gutter and concentrate.

  “All right. So we’ve been inundated with more clients than we can handle right now. By all rights, I should have been working over the weekend.”

  “You did. I saw you answering emails on your phone.”

  “Yeah, I should have been doing more, though…but I wanted a bit of a break. That’s part of why we were hiring a while back. We foresaw the need for more attorneys on staff, but the problem, as you already know, is we’re so buried that we’re using and abusing you guys to do the work we just can’t get to and we’re not really getting around to training you like we should.”

  Her smile was sweet. “Well, you are now.”

  “Yes, but to the point—I’m not handling the kind of cases I prefer or even ones in my expertise. They’re all over the place, so if you want to take lead on a couple of them, no problem. I can guide you but let you do the work and decide within reason how to handle it.”

  “Really?” She acted like she almost didn’t believe him.

  “Yes.” He grabbed a thin manila folder off the stack. These particular folders were currently thin because they hadn’t filed any motions yet. All they had were a few brief notes taken by paralegals in initial non-billable (read: free) consultations. But that was enough for him and Erica to go on before they met with the clients to get an idea of what they would be discussing.

  He handed her the folder. “Typically, you’ll get something like this from one of us. Dad, Bret, Brandon, and I will take the cases we either want or need and pass on the ones to the associates we think will do best with them or who seem to be handling their caseloads just fine. But, like I said, because we’ve been swimming in work, especially since May, we’re getting bombarded. It’s best for a client to meet with the attorney assigned to the case, so we try to shuffle them off before this first meeting if we decide not to keep them, because the client will have a hard time thinking of someone else as ‘their’ lawyer. I’d planned to keep all these, just because I don’t have anyone to give them to. Everyone’s overworked here right now, but these seem pretty cut and dry, so I should be able to work them in my sleep.”

  Erica’s smile flashed like a Nikon. “You can give them to me.”

  “I intend to give you one or two. Once I know you’re on the right track, I’ll give you more.”

  “Two cases won’t be enough to keep me busy.”

  “I’ll have you helping with mine.” When she nodded, he pointed to the file in her hands. “Go ahead and review the notes and tell me the kinds of questions you think we should be asking.” When she opened the folder, he peeked at it momentarily to refresh what he already knew. If he recalled, it was a sexual harassment case, but the details seemed vague. He wouldn’t say anything to Erica about it, but he’d gladly let her tak
e that one. While he felt like their firm could be a good champion of equality and fairness in the workplace, he didn’t think he was the attorney to handle it.

  Erica began jotting a few notes and he turned to his computer to sort through a few more emails.

  “Okay, so here’s what I think.” Brock took his hands off the keyboard to give Erica his undivided attention. “I think we need to ask her what happened—or, more precisely, give us a timeline of occurrences. Like…what events have transpired? Has she talked to HR at her place of employment?”

  “Yeah, sure, those are good questions. More often than not, though, you’re going to ask her to talk and that will lead to organic questions. What I did when I was fresh out of school was make sure I was familiar with the particular laws surrounding what my client was visiting me for.”

  “So…Civil Rights Act?”

  “Yes. If we have time, we’ll pull up the statutes, kind of skim them a little to make sure we know exactly what we’re dealing with. There are also some pertinent state statutes surrounding sexual harassment.” He picked up his coffee cup and saw that he’d drained it minutes ago. If he had a chance before the clients started filing in, he’d grab one. “Next.”

  “But—”

  “Erica, we have twenty-five minutes if we’re lucky. You’re going to need to make decisions quickly before we start looking at laws. Because once the clients start coming in, we need to give them our attention. Every minute with them counts—literally.”

  She batted her eyelashes, looking a little irritated, but she clamped her jaw and picked up the next file. Based on his own history, he knew what that clenched jaw meant—she was biting her tongue to refrain from saying anything that might cause friction. She opened the folder and skimmed the notes quickly. Ah, she already had the right idea. “Okay. This woman says her employer has forced her to work untold hours without compensation—clocking out early while actually continuing to work, that kind of thing.” Before he could even ask, she rattled off, “Federal and state labor laws, especially FLSA.”

  Nice. “Good. What next?”

  “Which is the one coming in this afternoon?”

  “It doesn’t matter. If these clients take too long with us, there won’t be another chance to review. We prep now.”

  “Okay.” She clenched her teeth again…and why the hell did he find her so damned cute when she did that? But she once more breezed through the file before setting it down. “Racial discrimination on the job. Another civil rights suit.” She looked up, not even asking if it sounded good to him, and set the file on top of the others. Picking up one of the last files, she said, “I thought you preferred criminal work.”

  Brock couldn’t help the smirk on his face, because, as he recalled, he thought there was one there that was closer to it.

  Less than a minute later, she said, “The client this time is a defendant. He’s accused of sharing trade secrets with the public and, therefore, rival companies…and his defense isn’t that he didn’t do it, but that the trade secrets were nothing of the sort.”

  “Go on.”

  “He was apparently blogging on the side, trying to make money by sharing all the crap that made him hate his job—and the employer is alleging that a good portion of what he shared isn’t his to share. We have a copy of the complaint, and it says that the workers are required to read the employee manual and sign off that they have done so.”

  “Law?”

  “This still feels kind of like civil rights.”

  “Yes, but we’re on the defense side now, so we need to think a little differently. We might also want to look at the possibility of a plea agreement. Sometimes we can negotiate with the plaintiff to see if they’d like to accept a lower penalty to our client in favor of avoiding a costly lawsuit that, frankly, I could find a way to drag out for months.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Lots of reasons—it gives me more time to prepare but it also weakens the other party. If they’re just wanting to be done with it, the longer you stall, the more likely they will be to settle for something less. But this? Why didn’t they just demand he take that shit down and then fire his ass or write him up or something? And maybe they have and this was a last resort. So…you might think case is more like to the kind of case I prefer, but no. If you don’t want it, I’ll slough it off on another associate.”

  “No, I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever you give me.”

  “Okay. I’m not particularly interested in any of these today. I’d prefer—”

  Brock’s secretary, a middle-aged woman with light blonde hair and tired gray eyes, peeked her head in the door. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ford. I have one more.”

  “That’s fine, Harriet.” He took the case file from her. “When are they coming in?”

  “Squeezed them in at ten.”

  “All right.” He handed the file to Erica as his secretary left.

  “How long has she worked for you?”

  “For me personally?” Erica nodded. “Since I started here—so about six years.”

  “And you still make her call you Mr. Ford?”

  Brock couldn’t help but chuckle. “I do no such thing. She’s been here at the firm for close to twenty years. It’s her thing. I don’t mind being called my first name by employees, but I’m not going to beg her to do it. The one time I told her she could call me Brock, she seemed shocked. Probably because my dad insists on being called Mr. Ford and won’t answer people if they call him by his first name. Well, I guess I should clarify—here at work, he views everyone as a subordinate and demands that they all show respect…and one way they do that is how they address him.” He nodded at the fresh case in her hands, one he hadn’t seen yet. “So what have we got?”

  He glanced over to skim the document as well, but he didn’t finish it by the time Erica began talking. “Another civil suit. This time a young woman—looks like she’s a college freshman—is suing for the right to use the men’s locker room whenever she pleases.”

  “What?” Surely, he hadn’t heard correctly.

  But Erica confirmed. “Yeah. Not just during practices or games or anything specific. She just wants access and, of course, the college denied it.”

  Brock rested his forehead on the tips of his fingers for a moment. “Where do these people come from?”

  “I don’t know…but I guess we’re representing her in her fight for justice.”

  “She’s lost her fucking mind—but, I suppose, she must have been willing to pay the retainer.”

  Erica just nodded but jotted a couple of notes. “So which of these cases do you want?”

  “None, frankly. But I have to admit I think you already have me figured out. If I had to take one, it would be the blogger one.” He sat up. “Instead, you need to tell me which ones you’d like to represent—how about two for now?”

  “Two? Are you kidding?”

  “I’m trying to go easy on you.”

  Erica let out a sarcastic half laugh. “You guys had me doing research for months on end—usually twelve to fourteen hours a day—and now you want to go easy? That’s rich.”

  “In all fairness, Erica, that was my brother, not me.”

  She blinked a couple of times, slowly inhaling, before she said, “You’re complicit. You’re one of the brothers set to take over the firm.”

  He arched an eyebrow. Damn, she was feisty today. Normally, he loved it, but right now she was poking a tender spot. “Look…right now, I’m the low man on the totem pole. Say I’m complicit if you wish, but know that I really can’t tell my brothers what to do. Even when we take over, I can’t imagine being able to boss them around.”

  “But you can tell them if you see an injustice.”

  “Maybe in the future. Now? No. That’s not my place.”

  She acted like she was going to say something else and then thought better of it. She finally said, voice sweet as honey, “Can I take all five cases? At least you’ll only have to consult on
them.”

  Truth be told, he couldn’t find a reason not to let her. People learned better by doing, and she already had all the education she’d need. From this point forward—especially because she’d no doubt become quite adept at research—she’d become better by actually practicing law.

  Rolling his chair back a little from his desk, as if conceding a point, he said, “Okay. They’re all yours.”

  “Really?” She giggled, a behavior that seemed a little incongruous considering the professional air and clothing she wore, and then spontaneously leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  Brock, normally confident, mostly good at reading signals from women, was stumped. Should he take that little peck on the cheek as something or blow it off?

  For now, because she got right back to business, he was going to disregard it—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t floating around in his mind, teasing him…just below the surface.

  Chapter Twelve

  ERICA COULDN’T BELIEVE her score, landing so many cases just starting out. She credited the fact that she looked the role. Thank the heavens her back was feeling all better, or she wouldn’t have been able to wear those ridiculously high pumps.

  “So,” she said, looking at her fake fiancé, trying to pretend she hadn’t just kissed him on the cheek. What the hell had she been thinking? “We’re going to look up statutes now?”

  “I’d rather grab a quick cup of coffee, because we might not have another chance until this afternoon.”

  “Seriously?”

  “All depends on how fast we get through each interview. And, honestly, they’re the ones paying, so they can stay as long as they like.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll get some, too.”

  She expected them to go to the tiny kitchen where they’d first met, but she found out there was a coffee pot upstairs as well. Erica was wondering why when they first met he hadn’t just gotten coffee there instead of downstairs, but his secretary cleared it up for her. When they approached the pot in the conference room, Harriet said, “Fresh pot’s made, boss.” He thanked her and poured a cup, and Erica realized that he didn’t make the coffee—he had his secretary do it. She might have to talk to him about that sometime.