Chapter 1
The Art of Falling in Love
The lift doors are seconds away from snapping shut when slender, blue-stained fingers slide between them and they rebound open. A tangle of absurd curls bounces into the space after them.
“Thank you so much,” the owner of the fingers and curls throws breathlessly at me with a blinding smile.
A smile that somehow manages to tell me she knows I’d made no effort to hold the lift; she thinks I’m rude, and it’s her intention to embarrass me.
Quite a lot to pack into four words and one smile, really.
Sadly for her, I don’t do embarrassed. And today, of all days, when I’m struggling with the guilt of my conflicted emotions, I can’t seem to drum up any response other than irritation. “You’re very welcome,” I reply, matching her sarcasm, note for note.
Not content with slowing me down once, she lunges for the open-door button.
Charging through the foyer appears to be every office worker in the Sydney CBD, all heading for the lift.
A moment ago, I was alone. A much-needed moment of solitude in a day I hardly know how to navigate.
Now, thanks to her, I’m surrounded by a seething mass of humanity and their swirling energies.
She gifts them a smile infused with genuine warmth as she shifts backwards to make room and loses her balance, stomping firmly on my foot with her ridiculous spike heels.
I catch her by the shoulders and stand her upright, barely managing to contain my grunt of pain.
I know it wasn’t deliberate, but I’m not in the headspace to be forgiving right now.
I simply want to wallow for a while. Alone.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. Did I hurt you?” She glances over her shoulder at me. She continues to shuffle backwards in the face of the oncoming wave of humanity.
“Don’t give it another thought.” I scowl at the scratch across the top of my previously unblemished Stefano Bemer shoes. This already bad day seems determined to get worse.
At last the lift is as full as it can possibly get, and the irritating cause of the crush is pushed close up against me.
I’m tall and so is she. And she’s wearing towering heels.
Which means her perfectly rounded arse is pressed tight against me right where it shouldn’t be, and her tangled nest of curls is tickling my face.
As we speed upwards, I’m forced to hold my breath. Those curls tickling my nose smell like wildflowers. Like my grandmother’s garden. The last thing I need today is sentimentality and nostalgia.
She pressed no other button, so I assume she’s coming to Carter, Pierce and Millwood.
Not surprising. We get lots of beautiful young trophy wives in our offices, looking for a lucrative divorce settlement.
What is surprising is she doesn’t appear to fit the usual profile.
No sign of Botox, hair extensions or fake tan. Not the usual trophy wife at all.
I glance down. No tasteless yet expensive ring on her left hand. Not even a dent where a ring may have been. Long elegant fingers are decorated with nothing more than those weird blue stains, short unpainted nails and an enormous purple stone on her middle finger.
The lift has gone from a fast express to an all-stops journey.
People are getting off on every floor, yet there still seems to be no room, or air, in the lift.
The wildflower scent and the press of her rounded arse have raised the temperature and are in danger of raising something else.
I stay as still as possible, but my irritatingly attractive tormentor is shifting back and forth, making room for our fellow travellers as they come and go.
I close my eyes, which only intensifies my other senses, defeating the purpose.
I think about my first-grade teacher Miss Best and her hairy face wart.
That always works. Except this time, it doesn’t.
Finally, to my almost overwhelming relief, the last passenger leaves the lift and the wildflower curls and lush arse move away.
“I truly am very sorry about your shoe. I hope they aren’t your favourites?” Her expression is apologetic, a small, rueful smile showing off the dimples in her glowing cheeks. Jesus wept. She looks like Glinda the Good Witch, all sunshine, sparkles and smiles.
“Not anymore, thanks to those lethal heels.” I can’t keep the annoyance out of my voice.
“Perhaps you should consider trainers if you have trouble keeping your balance?” I know I’m being rude, even for me.
But I simply don’t have the emotional energy to temper my response today.
Rather than upset her, though, my rudeness goads her into a glare.
The lift doors swish open, and I sweep my arm out in mock gallantry. I’m treated to another of her subtext smiles, a waft of wildflowers and an unobstructed view of her very nice derriere as she waltzes past me. I swear I hear her whisper, “Such a gentleman,” under her breath as she passes.
I head straight to the sanctuary of my office, where I can put the strangely distracting woman right out of my mind.
Sitting front and centre on my desk is a Post-it Note reminding me—in caps—of the meeting I don’t want to attend.
Christ on a bike. I have no idea why we must do this.
And of all the days of the year to pick, it had to be today.
My assistant sweeps in with my coffee in her capable hands. “Don’t forget the mee—”
“Yes. I know. The meeting.” I hold up the Post-it Note. “How could I forget?” At that moment, my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. “You set an alarm? For God’s sake, Mandy. I know how to get to a meeting on time.”
She puts the coffee on the desk in front of me.
“Of course you do. You are also quite capable of accidentally on purpose forgetting meetings you don’t wish to attend.
” And she’s out the door with one of her evil grins and a toss of her head.
I hate her sometimes. I need a new assistant.
Except she’s excellent at her job. And I love her to bits.
I have a few minutes before the meeting, and I’m feeling restless, so I fill in the time by stopping by Will’s office.
Our grandfathers started this business together in 1960.
Will joined the firm right out of uni, while I went to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship before joining the firm. Exactly as my father wanted.
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?”
“Doing what?” He glances up from his computer with a frown.
“Why we’re going to—as he so eloquently put it—‘re-energise and modernise’ the office?
We have the best tech money can buy. What else do we need?
” I drop into one of the worn-out visitors’ chairs in front of Will’s desk and wince as it creaks under my weight.
His office isn’t as big as mine, since I’m a senior partner.
But at least he doesn’t have to work surrounded by antiques, which are beautiful, but not in the least comfortable or convenient.
“Oh, well,” Will answers. “Let me just save this contract I’m reviewing for our biggest client—on this high-tech computer—and take time out from my busy day to explain to you why we need to look like a successful law firm operating in the twenty-first century instead of a second-rate insurance company from the 1970s.
” He saves the document on his screen with a flourish and turns to face me across the desk.
“We are successful—our billings speak for themselves. Why do we need to spend good money botoxing the office to prove it?”
Will roars with laughter, head thrown back against his leather chair.
“I know it’s not your intention, Nick, but you’re hilarious. Take it up with Harry. Although I’m warning you, he’s made up his mind. You won’t win. Now be a pal and bugger off so I can finish this before the meeting, will you?”
I stalk back to my office and search for something to distract me.
It wouldn’t do to be punctual for this one.
Let them sweat. It will drive Harry crazy.
It’s not my habit to indulge in passive-aggressive behaviour, but I’m struggling with this whole endeavour.
Our firm trades on its long history, and I know my father was dead against any changes that made us seem like one of the slick new firms. I get where he was coming from.
Our reputation is tied up in old-fashioned service.
But changing with the times wouldn’t have killed him.
Unlike the booze and cigars. Nevertheless, this firm was his life, so to be doing this today seems like a betrayal of his vision.
I settle in and attempt to concentrate on a contract, with little success. The incident in the lift keeps returning to distract me. Which does nothing for my already sour mood.
I walk into the conference room ten minutes late and do a quick double-take. Standing at the head of the table next to the wall-mounted screen is the woman from the lift. So, not a trophy wife at all. Well, perhaps she is, missing ring notwithstanding. But that’s not why she’s here today.
Without acknowledging my tardiness, I drop into my preferred seat at the table—we are all such creatures of habit—and cross my arms. “I have twenty minutes. Let’s get on with it.”
“Thank you all for taking the time to meet with me. As I understand it, your objective is to update and modernise the offices of Carter, Pierce and Millwood, while at the same time honouring the history of your long-established firm—” she starts in a voice like top-shelf scotch.
Ugh. I could use a drink right about now, despite the fact it’s not even midday.
“We already know that,” I speak over the top of her, earning me a glare from Harry.
“Yes, of course you do.” She gives me another one of those blinding subtext smiles. “I simply wanted to make sure you know I understand what it is you are looking for.”
And then she proceeds to ignore me. For sixteen minutes, she doesn’t once look my way.
Not even a glance. I have no idea what she has said, and nor do I care.
All I can hear is the teacher’s voice from Charlie Brown as I watch her lips move.
Her quite luscious lips, I can’t help but notice.
Which, of course, irritates me even further.
The last thing I need right now is an inconvenient attraction.
Especially with a potential work colleague.
Not to mention I have a girlfriend. Of sorts.
The snap of her laptop lid brings me back to consciousness.
“Thank you so much for your time. Does anyone have any questions?”
“Oh, I don’t think so …” Harry looks around, eyebrows raised, at the other partners, some of whom look like they’re drooling.
Others appear mesmerised. “That was exceedingly thorough. As you are aware, we have a couple of other designers to speak to, but we are anxious to get started, so we should be able to let you know by the end of the week.”
That’s it. I’m up, out of my seat and out the door without a word. I need some space to breathe. In the end, I may have to concede on this, but I don’t have to like it.
Alone in my office, I drop my forehead to the worn leather and wood of the antique partner’s desk.
Dad’s desk. It has been a year to the day since I watched the paramedics battle to save my father in the foyer of this office.
Battle and fail. The desk—the entire office—still smells like Dad.
Like his after-shave and those ghastly cigars he smoked when everyone else had gone home for the night.
This desk, the chair, the bookcases, even the masses of leather-bound legal books—modern copies of which are also kept in the legal library—belonged to his father before him.
The room is a constant reminder of my father and how I never quite lived up to his expectations.
My sister says I wear it like a hair-shirt, and maybe she’s right.
It scratches at my soul to be here day in and day out, reminding me of those expectations and the path he set out for me at birth.
A path I promised to follow. Promised on his deathbed.
Well, the floor, at least. But lately, it feels as if I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere.
I sit bolt upright at the soft knock on the door and try to pull my face into a neutral expression. “Come in.”
I’m surprised when it’s Harry. Soft is distinctly un-Harry-like. He settles his massive frame on the sofa, which means I have to get up from the desk and sit on the sofa opposite him. He searches my face and gives a gusty sigh.
“How are you coping today?”
“I’m fine, Harry,” I reply, although we both know I’m lying. “Apart from wasting almost an hour of my time in a meeting about primping up the office.”
“Hmm. Well, there was no need to be quite so rude to Lulu MacLeod. I understand you’re not on board with this redecorating, but it has to be done. Even your father agreed.”
I feel an uncharacteristic twinge of regret.
Perhaps I was unnecessarily rude to Ms MacLeod.
But after the episode in the lift, I couldn’t seem to help myself.
To say my emotions are running close to the surface today would be an oversimplification.
Unfortunately, Lulu MacLeod copped the brunt of that.
“You might be stretching the definition of agreed a little bit, don’t you think? ”
Harry frowns. “Yes, I guess so. But it’s happening, nonetheless. And Lulu MacLeod gave us a brilliant sales pitch. Although I am sorry it had to be today. It’s a tough day for all of us.”
Harry’s eyes are sorrowful and, not for the first time, I wonder how he and my father ever became friends. Chalk and cheese. Yet there’s no denying they were close.
I sigh and rub both hands over my face in irritation.
“I know it needs doing, but I don’t have to like it.
” It’s clear Harry doesn’t understand how conflicted I am by the whole enterprise, and I don’t have the energy to explain it to him.
I’m not even sure I can explain it to myself.
“Just so we’re clear, there will be no changes in my office. At all.”
“No touching anything of your dad’s,” Harry agrees. “A coat of paint and carpet, that’s all. To match the rest of the office. Oh, and maybe new sofas…” Harry's grin is sheepish.
“Jesus. This had better not interfere with workflow.” I stand, arms crossed, signalling to Harry the conversation is over.
“Try to keep an open mind, hmm?”
That manages to bring a smile to my face. Open-minded is something Pierce men are not.