Chapter 22
‘What do you want from me?’ I’m pacing the couple of steps in front of the bed, back and forth, still trying to reason with Jared.
‘I’ve offered to pay you for the van, undoubtedly more than it’s worth, but I can’t magic that kind of money out of thin air.
It’s more than reasonable to pay by instalments, and you have no right to sit here and intimidate me. I want you ou—’
Jared talks over me before I’ve finished trying to order him out. ‘And I’ve already told you, I want the value of the van plus compensation for the trouble you’ve—’
The van door flies open with such force that both Jared and I jump.
Reece appears in the doorway, shirtless and dripping wet, his hair plastered to his head and his legs shoved unevenly into a pair of avocado pyjama bottoms. Water is dripping down his bare torso and he’s breathing hard, like he’s raced down here without catching his breath.
‘Is everything okay? I heard raised voices.’
He looks between me and Jared, and his demeanour changes when he instantly understands the situation without a word being said.
I’m so relieved to see him that I struggle not to burst into tears on the spot just from the feeling of having back-up.
Especially shirtless back-up, but that’s a thought for another day.
‘Nothing that concerns you, friend.’ Jared looks Reece up and down with distaste. ‘We’re having a private conversation.’
‘And I believe all private conversations of this nature should involve me.’ Reece gives him a false smile and leans into the van, offering Jared a wet hand to shake. ‘Reece Sterling. Miss Lymford’s legal representation.’
I blink in surprise. I did not expect him to do that, and I get a warm flush of reassurance. It feels like that scene in Legally Blonde where Elle Woods pretends to be Paulette’s lawyer and they rescue her dog from an evil ex.
Jared is too surprised to shake the hand Reece is offering. ‘You don’t have a shirt on.’
Reece glances down at himself like he hadn’t noticed. ‘My sincerest apologies. Had you made a prearranged appointment with my client as you should have, I assure you, I would not have been mid-shower when you turned up announced.’
‘You have avocados on your trousers.’ Jared sounds like he hasn’t got a clue what’s going on.
‘Be that as it may, it sounds like you’re trying to threaten my client and that’s completely unacceptable.’ Reece sounds calm and authoritative, despite being half-naked and soaking wet. ‘Perhaps you could explain exactly what it is you’re doing here, Mr…?’
‘Stevens. Jared Stevens.’ Jared huffs, clearly thrown off his game by this unexpected arrival and trying to figure out how I’ve got legal representation who can appear so fast and so wet.
‘And if you’re her legal representation then you know exactly what she’s done.
I’m the wronged party here. I’m simply trying to reclaim my stolen property and secure compensation for my losses. ’
‘I see. And what evidence do you have that the vehicle was stolen?’
Jared’s confidence wavers, as anyone’s would in the face of Reece’s imposing voice. ‘She took it without permission.’
‘She didn’t need permission to take it – she had a key.
Possession of a key implies permission. If you give someone a key to your house, for example, a reasonable assumption would be that the person is welcome to enter your house and would not be doing anything wrong if they did, indeed, enter your house using the key given to them.
You were the person who gave Miss Lymford the spare key to the vehicle, were you not? ’
‘Well, I—’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Reece sounds completely unruffled, like a consummate professional, despite his harried appearance.
‘She simply made use of a shared household vehicle during a relationship breakdown following the discovery of infidelity, after you ejected her belongings and terminated the relationship. It’s my assumption that you weren’t intending to make your girlfriend homeless with no back-up plan in place, and that surely you knew she would make use of the aforementioned household vehicle until alternative arrangements could be made. ’
‘I did not— No, of course I didn—’ Jared splutters, sounding flustered by Reece’s calm delivery of words that are hard to argue with, and I’m so grateful that I want to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him.
Where Jared wasn’t interested in listening to me, Reece has appeared with exactly the right words at exactly the right moment.
‘The legal definition of theft requires premeditated intent to permanently deprive the owner of their property. That was never Miss Lymford’s intent – she was simply using a familiar vehicle during a period of emotional distress.
A very reasonable thing to do considering that you shared a house and she had a key to said vehicle. ’
I think I might actually love this man. No one has ever stood up for me like this. There’s no argument that I was in the wrong, but he doesn’t waver, not even for a second.
‘It’s registered in my name! She drove it to Yorkshire and started a business in it!’ Jared’s face is turning redder by the second.
‘And she was intending to make arrangements to repay you for your investment in the vehicle, but it appears that you’ve decided to employ intimidation tactics before any such arrangement could be made.
’ Reece glances at me for confirmation like a lawyer communicating silently with his client in a courtroom, making it look like this is something we’ve discussed many times before.
‘I’ve offered to pay for it in monthly instalments or he can take his van back right now, which he doesn’t seem to want.’
‘Ah, there we go then.’ Reece claps his hands together. ‘Two perfectly reasonable options. Do you have a preference, Mr Stevens?’
Reece is like a different person. Even his voice is different.
His strong Yorkshire accent is buried and every word is enunciated perfectly, like an in-person posh telephone voice.
No one could argue with this sharp, confident man, whose presence is so commanding that I’ve almost forgotten he’s shirtless and slowly drying. Almost.
Jared thinks it over but that calculating look slips back onto his weaselly face and he stands up from the bench seat and steps towards the van door so he towers over Reece threateningly.
‘No, actually, neither of those options work for me. I want compensation for my troubles – the time I’ve spent trying to recover my van, and the time and money I spent working on it, along with a little something extra to make it worth my while to keep this little indiscretion to myself. ’
I see Reece blink as he realises exactly what Jared is doing here, and the consequences for me if he doesn’t get what he wants. ‘Ah, I see, so this is simply a spot of good old-fashioned blackmail then, is it?’
‘If you want to call it that.’ Jared is hulking like a bull, huffing, with one hand curled into a fist. ‘I see it as a reasonable response to the trouble she’s caused me, and she needs to make it right. I bet newspapers would pay me for my story, so why shouldn’t she pay me not to tell it?’
‘Well, that’s a big claim to break down, Mr Stevens.’ If Reece is even vaguely perturbed, he doesn’t let it show. ‘Why don’t we step outside into a less combative space? I always find fresh air is conducive to reaching an amicable agreement.’
Jared glances at me and I try to keep my expression neutral and not show that my entire body is shaking so much that the van must be vibrating.
Eventually, he rolls his eyes and jumps out, and I breathe the tiniest sigh of relief simply from getting him out of the van, and I wish I’d had the influence to do it on my own.
Reece holds a hand out to help me down too, and when I slip my fingers into his, he gives my hand the tightest, most reassuring squeeze, and I feel instantly better. He has the kind of cool professionalism that makes him seem like a force to be reckoned with, and there’s no way this won’t work out.
He lets go of my hand before Jared clocks that there’s anything more than a lawyer-client relationship between us, but even so, I stand a bit nearer to his bare bicep than strictly necessary.
‘Let’s start at the very top of your claims.’ Reece adjusts his pyjama bottoms now they’ve started unsticking from his wet body. ‘Your time and expense in making the vehicle what it is?’
Jared is pacing the car park in angry stomps.
‘It was just a shell when I bought it. She knows how long I’ve been working on it.
How much of my free time I’ve invested in it, and how much I money I’ve spent on the restoration.
We’re talking thousands! The entire interior is custom-made to my design.
Do you have any idea how much a vehicle like this would set you back if you were to buy one with so many features from a car dealer? ’
‘I’m well aware of what they cost,’ Reece says to Jared.
I have no idea whether he is or not, but his voice is so steady that no one would question it.
‘However, unless you can give us a full invoice for every item you bought for it, and a timesheet for every billable hour you worked on it, then your claims are unquantifiable. The best we can offer is a nominal sum as a gesture of goodwill.’
God, he’s amazing. He’s slipped straight back into barrister mode, despite being the furthest thing from dressed for a courtroom…
or dressed at all, really… He knows the right lingo, the intimidating way to word everything, and the right way to make me feel like I’ve got a fighting chance.
He must have been a formidable opponent to anyone who faced him in court.
‘And what about my silence, hmm?’ Jared is only getting more frustrated by Reece’s calmness. His voice and his angry huffing is getting louder with every second that passes. ‘If she wants to keep her reputation then she’s going to have to pay for it.’