Legal Attraction
He didn’t want to talk to Bette. He didn’t want to talk at all. He wanted Muriel back in his arms, her body pressed to his. She was the one, the female who might finally match his appetites in the bedroom and wherever else they might dare to do it...
“We’re stuck here,” he reminded her. And as he said it, the elevator rocked and creaked.
And Muriel gasped and shot forward—straight into his arms.
“Did you fall again?” Ronan teased her. “I wouldn’t think a supermodel would be as clumsy as you are.”
Despite glaring at him, she remained in his arms with hers locked around his shoulders. “Didn’t you feel that? We’re falling again.”
“I’ve never fallen before,” he told her. “So I’m not about to fall now...” And especially not for a man-eater like Muriel Sanz.
Then he realized what she meant even before she murmured, “I was talking about the elevator.” Then she started laughing, and as she laughed, she stepped back and dropped her arms from around his shoulders. “I wasn’t talking about falling for you. You can’t believe I would actually fall for you.”
He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. She made it sound ridiculous that she could care for him. Plenty of other women claimed that they had. But then, he hadn’t had the relationship with those other women that he had with her. Actually, he hadn’t ever had a real relationship with anyone.
Just sex...
And he would like to have that with her, even though she was trying to destroy his career. Because from that kiss, he knew it would be good between them. Hell, it would be better than good; it might be great.
He hadn’t had great in a while—probably because every time he’d been with a woman the past few months, he’d imagined that woman was Muriel and he’d been disappointed when he’d realized she wasn’t.
“I would never make the mistake of thinking you could love me,” he assured her. “I don’t think you’re any more capable of really falling in love than I am.”
“I was married,” she said, “until you ended that.”
“You ended that with your cheating.”
She lifted her hand, but before she could swing it toward his face, he caught her wrist. Through gritted teeth, she told him, “I did not cheat.”
He snorted again, almost amused over her show of righteous indignation. She could be one of those models who easily crossed over into acting; she had the skills. “So how did your ex find so many witnesses who testified otherwise then?”
Her green eyes widened. “My ex...? He found the witnesses? I thought you did—you or that PR firm.”
“Yeah, that was your second mistake when you forged those notes that supposedly came from my case files,” he said. “You made it sound as though I found the witnesses.” He shook his head. “And that wasn’t true.”
She glared at him. “What those witnesses said wasn’t true. They perjured themselves and you knew it.”
“And that was your first mistake,” he said. He stepped closer now, pressing his chest up against her breasts. “Trying to blame me for your bad choices.”
“Bad choices?” she repeated. “My only bad choice was getting married in the first place.”
He nodded. “In that, we are in complete agreement. Marriage is always a mistake.” His parents’ marriage had showed him that. Their constant fighting was why he’d run away from home for a while in his teenage years. “People aren’t meant to be monogamous.”
“Many people are,” she said.
He shook his head now. “Not people like you and me, Muriel.” He skimmed his fingertips along her jaw, down her throat to push her sweater from one shoulder. Then he toyed with that bow again. He was so tempted to tug it loose. So damn tempted.
His fingers twitched and the bow began to loosen. Then the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
Muriel stepped back through the doors. But as she did, she reached out and struck a button on the control panel. The doors closed as she turned and ran down the hall.
Ronan wasn’t sure what floor they had stopped on, or if it had even been her floor, or if she had just really wanted to get away from him. Before he could look at the numbers above the doors, the elevator began to move again—heading down—until it stopped in the lobby.
He hesitated a moment before he stepped through the open doors. He’d changed his mind about trying to apologize to Bette again. It was probably better for Simon if Ronan didn’t talk to her at all. He suspected she’d already told him all that she knew. No. If he wanted to get to the bottom of the documents that had been given to the bar association, he needed to talk to Muriel again. But he would have to do that another time—because if he tracked her down now, after that kiss and seeing her nipples pushing against that camisole, he would do a hell of a lot more than talk to her.
* * *
Legs trembling, heart pounding, Muriel leaned back against her apartment door. She’d turned the deadbolt, so even if he’d followed her, he would not be able to get inside her place. But she didn’t think he’d followed her. The elevator doors had closed before he’d had a chance to step through them.
But he could track her down...especially now that he knew where she’d moved after the divorce. While the building was nice, her apartment was small—much smaller than her old place. Maybe Ronan didn’t realize she lived here; maybe he’d thought she was just visiting Bette.
Then she should have gotten off on another floor...because she wouldn’t put it past him to knock on every door until he found her.
He was furious with her for reporting him to the bar association. Why was he so angry? Because he’d been caught? Or because he hadn’t suborned perjury, as he’d tried to claim?
She could understand his anger if he’d done nothing wrong. That was how she’d felt over her divorce proceedings. She’d been maligned in court and in the media, and she hadn’t done anything of which she’d been accused. She had definitely not cheated.
She’d taken her vows seriously. She’d been monogamous. That was all she knew. Even before she’d gotten married, she’d never dated more than one man at a time. And since the disastrous divorce, she hadn’t even started dating again.
Maybe that was why Ronan Hall had affected her so much. Or maybe it hadn’t been him at all. Maybe it had been the elevator malfunctioning and making her fear that they were about to plunge to their deaths. With her emotions so heightened, it was no wonder she might feel attracted to him.
And it wasn’t as if he wasn’t good-looking and sexy...
But still, she should hate him, not desire him. And she did hate him.
But what if he wasn’t responsible for those witnesses coming forward? What if those memos from his Street Legal law practice had been forged, as he’d claimed?
No. She couldn’t believe that. She knew every one of those witnesses who’d testified. While they hadn’t all been close friends of hers, they were acquaintances. They wouldn’t have lied about her without some serious coercion. Arte wouldn’t have done that. He hadn’t been the man she’d thought he was, but he wasn’t a monster or she wouldn’t have married him in the first place. He’d once been so sweet and charming.
No. Ronan Hall was the monster. And she would prove it. In case those memos weren’t sufficient evidence, though, she needed to find more.
Ronan had been attracted to her, too. And she didn’t think it was because he’d been scared. No. He was attracted to her because of how she looked. Her looks were why—despite her reputation being smeared—her career hadn’t suffered like she’d worried it would. Magazines and designers said she sold copy and clothes, maybe even more so since she had become so notorious.
But she hadn’t wanted to be notorious. And she was mortified that so many people believed those lies about her and that her grandparents—the sweet couple who’d raised her—had heard those lies. About affairs and orgies and sex parties...
While they knew her too well to believe them, they had to contend with the comments from their friends, from their fellow parishioners, from their neighbors...
That was why she hated Ronan Hall. Not so much for what he’d done to her as for what he’d done to them. She wanted him to suffer like they had. That was why she’d turned those papers she’d received over to the bar association. But maybe she should have had them authenticated first. She’d thought Bette had given them to her, though.
But Bette hadn’t known anything about them.
So who had delivered that envelope of memos to Muriel’s door? And were they real?
She needed to know the truth. And she needed proof of it. The best way to do that was to go directly to the source: Ronan himself.
Could she use her looks to get him to admit to what he’d done? An audio recording of his confession would be indisputable evidence.
But what would she have to do that would compel him to confess? Seduce him?
Instead of disgusting her, the way the idea should have, she was strangely excited by it. Maybe that was just because it had been so long since she’d been with anyone but her vibrator. While that eased some of her tension, it wasn’t like being with a man—like having his hands and his mouth on her.
Like Ronan’s mouth had been on hers...
Heat flashed through her, and she headed toward her bedroom—and to the vibrator she kept in the table beside the bed. For tonight, it would have to do...while she planned how to seduce Ronan Hall into confessing to his misconduct during her divorce proceedings.
That was what she really wanted. His confession.
Not him...
But she thought of him as she pulled the vibrator from the drawer. From the erection she’d felt straining against his dress pants, she knew he was bigger than her toy. And if it was possible, maybe harder...
He had wanted her. No matter how much they detested each other, they couldn’t deny the attraction between them. And Muriel would use that to her advantage, just like she used thoughts of him as she shrugged off her sweater and pushed down her yoga pants. Then she lay back on the bed, and she imagined Ronan kissing her, touching her...
She tugged one of the bows of her camisole free and began to touch herself. There were two more bows holding her panties together. She undid those as she flipped the switch for the vibrator. And she imagined it was Ronan’s long, hard cock as she slid it inside herself.
She came almost instantly, and to her horror, she cried out his name.
CHAPTER THREE
LIGHTS BLAZED, BUT that wasn’t what had sweat beading on Ronan’s brow. The heat flashing through him had nothing to do with the lights and everything to do with the woman posing beneath them.
She wore so very little on her gorgeous body—just some scraps of lace and silk and all that naturally tan skin. Desire slammed through Ronan with a force he’d never felt before. It knocked him back on his heels while making his cock rock hard.
Maybe coming here had been a bad idea.
But he wanted to come—inside her. He knew she was the only one who could relieve the unbearable tension that had been building in his body since he’d been trapped in the elevator with her a couple of nights ago.
“Muriel!” the photographer shouted at her. “You’re not giving me what I want!”
She wasn’t giving Ronan what he wanted, either—because he wanted her to untie that bow between the cups of her strapless black bra, wanted her to untie the bows on each hip that held up her panties.
But he wanted more than to see her naked. He wanted to feel her, taste her...and bury himself deep inside her.
Why the hell was he so attracted to this woman? He would have screwed her in the elevator if she hadn’t pulled away and slapped him. But she’d kissed him back before she’d done that. Was she attracted to him, too?
He was counting on it—so that he could get the truth out of her. That was really why he was here, why he’d tracked her down at her photoshoot. It wasn’t for sex.
He could get that anywhere. It wasn’t as if he wanted or needed only her. Any woman would do.
No. What he really wanted from Muriel Sanz was the truth.
Her lips curved into a slight smile. “What do you want, Lawrence?”
“Bad,” the photographer shouted back. “I need you to be bad.”
She was bad, and Ronan had proved that in court. She claimed those witnesses had been lying, though. Why would they lie? Why would they risk perjury charges? They’d had nothing to gain from their testimony.
Muriel Sanz was the liar. And Ronan intended to prove it. He just had to get her to admit to forging those memos. Could he seduce her into a confession?
Those witnesses had claimed she was addicted to sex and that was why she’d cheated on her husband. So if she was addicted to sex, maybe he could get her addicted to sex with him—so addicted that she would confess all to him.
He knew it was possible for a person to get addicted to another person. That had been his father’s downfall: his addiction to Ronan’s mother despite how badly she’d mistreated him. She’d been a lot like Muriel Sanz—beautiful and selfish and completely devoid of a conscience.
“I need you to be the badass of Bette’s Beguiling Bows,” Lawrence said.
This photo shoot was for the line of lingerie Muriel exclusively modeled. That line had been designed by her friend and Simon’s former assistant, Bette Monroe.
He had to admit that Bette had a talent for design. Her lingerie was the sexiest he’d ever seen.
Unfortunately, so was Muriel.
“Oh, I can be a badass,” she assured the photographer. But she was looking at Ronan now. He could feel her gaze on him, and his skin began to heat even more. She raised her husky voice a little more, probably making certain he would hear, and added, “I can be very, very bad...”
Ronan chuckled. She’d already started confessing...and he hadn’t even touched her yet.
The camera clicked.
She ran her fingertips down her deep cleavage to the bow between her breasts. And she toyed with the ends the way he’d toyed with the bow the other night...in the elevator.
Too bad that bow hadn’t been between her breasts, too. Then he could have touched her, like she was touching herself.
As she stroked her fingertips up and down her cleavage, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip then swiped her tongue across it.
And Ronan groaned. The photographer echoed the sound and shot a glance at him. Instead of admonishing him for trespassing on the set, the guy grinned at him. “You must be the reason for that sudden spark in her eyes,” Lawrence said. “You made her bad.”
Ronan chuckled. “Nobody made Muriel that way.” Least of all him. She’d already been bad.
“I’m good,” she said. And she tilted her head provocatively. “Very, very good...”
And both men groaned again.
Lawrence muttered, “Now I understand why her ex...”
“What?” Ronan asked when the guy trailed off. “Why he what?” Divorced her or married her?
The photographer just shook his head. “You can stay,” he told Ronan. “But don’t distract me.”
“What about me?” Muriel asked.
“He’s a good distraction for you,” Lawrence said.
Could he be? Could Ronan distract her enough that she would withdraw her complaint to the bar association?
He had to try, at least. That was why he was here. That and the fact that thoughts of her and that damn kiss had been keeping him awake.
He wanted more than a kiss.
* * *
He was not a good distraction for her. But as Muriel peered over Lawrence’s shoulder at the computer monitor at the thumbnails of all the photos the photographer had taken, she couldn’t deny that Ronan had certainly inspired her. This was by far the best shoot she’d ever had and she had been modeling since she was fourteen years old—more than a decade.
“If you’re not going to take that man out for a drink, I will,” Lawrence said. “He got you to the money shots, baby!” He turned around and kissed her lips. “You have never looked more gorgeous!”
Muriel chuckled at the photographer’s enthusiasm. “I’m sure he’s already gone.”
She couldn’t imagine why he had showed up to begin with...unless he was after the same thing she was.
The truth...
He probably wanted to know how she’d gotten her hands on the memos she’d turned over to the bar association. At least he must have finally accepted that Bette hadn’t given them to her. That was good. She never would have used them had she known the problems it would cause for her friend.
“I’m still here,” a deep voice murmured.
That was not good.
She glanced up to find his long, muscular body leaning against the doorjamb of Lawrence’s office. He was wearing a suit; he must have come either straight from the office or from court. Who else’s life was he ruining?
She was afraid it might be hers again if she dared to try her plan to seduce him into a confession. Could she take the chance?
“I can leave,” he offered, “if I’m interrupting...”
“You interrupted the shoot,” she said. “And you didn’t offer to leave then.” Hours ago. He had stayed through changes in wardrobe, hair, makeup and backdrops.
Why had he stayed so long?
“He improved the shoot,” Lawrence said. “Your best work ever...” He turned back to the computer monitor with all the frames and murmured, “Maybe mine, too.”
A little thrill chased through Muriel, but she worried it had less to do with the praise than with how Ronan was looking at her, with how he’d been looking at her the past couple of hours. With every wardrobe change, his eyes had gotten darker and his body even more tense. Despite the way he was leaning now, she could feel that tension; it fairly radiated from him.
So that she felt it, too—coiling low in her body, pulsing in her clit. She couldn’t remember ever wanting a man more, which was crazy. She had been in love before and hadn’t felt this powerful attraction. But this man—this man she hated—she wanted more than any other.
Maybe she had lost her damn mind. That was the excuse she was going to use for what she was about to do. “So, how about it?” she asked as she walked toward the doorway. “Do you want to go for a drink?”
His dark eyes narrowed as if he was as suspicious of her offer as she was of his showing up at the photo shoot. Now a little chill moved through Muriel, raising goose bumps on her skin despite her having changed into street clothes of jeans and a sweater. She hadn’t felt a chill like this when he’d been staring at her, when she’d been wearing nothing more than a bra and panties. Then she had felt hotter than hell. And it showed in those photos.
But wondering how he’d tracked her down unnerved her. How had he found her?
She hesitated as she neared the doorway where he stood. But then he stepped back into the hall. “I didn’t come here just to watch,” he said. “That’s not my thing...”
She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. Was it just that everything he said sounded like sexual innuendo or was he actually implying that there was something between her and Lawrence?
Of course, he had seen Lawrence kiss her. But Lawrence kissed everyone. Everyone.
“Good night,” she called back to the photographer. He barely glanced up from the computer monitor to wave.
As she walked down the hall of the old warehouse, she turned to Ronan and asked, “Why did you come here? And how did you find me?”
“I have my sources,” he said.
And that chilled her blood even more. “I am well aware of that,” she said. “But I can’t believe they actually got it right this time.”
He stopped at the elevator and turned toward her, his dark eyes narrowed. “So all those witnesses were lying and you’re the only one telling the truth?”
“Yes,” she said. Her grandparents had raised her with values—one of which being that it was never okay to lie, not even little white ones. Too bad those witnesses hadn’t been raised the same way she had.
“Why would everyone else lie?” Ronan asked her.
“You tell me,” she challenged him. “Did you pay them?” He must have. What else could they have had to gain, except for some time in the horrible spotlight that the scandal had shone on her?
He chuckled. But he didn’t answer her question. He just turned and pressed the button for the elevator.
What would it take to get him to confess to somehow coercing those witnesses into lying? He was rich. So he didn’t need money. He had probably used his own to pay them off since Arte hadn’t had much money until he’d taken most of her savings—and the apartment and car—in the divorce. He didn’t even know how to drive.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open with a swoosh of noise and air. Muriel sucked in a breath at the thought of getting into another elevator with Ronan Hall.
He stepped back and waited for her to pass through the doors in front of him. “Come on,” he said. “As long as you don’t mess with the control panel this time, we’ll be fine.”
She hesitated. “We could take the stairs...” It would probably be safer—for a few reasons.
“We’re on the twelfth floor,” he reminded her. “Did you take the stairs up?”
“No.”
“So you don’t have a problem with using the elevator,” he said as if he was cross-examining her again, the way he had on the witness stand. “You just have a problem with taking the elevator with me.”
While his cross-examination had been ruthless, he hadn’t shaken her. But then, she’d had the resolve of the truth on her side. He didn’t have that, so maybe she could shake him. But she was not going to get a confession out of him unless she was alone with him. Dare she go through with her plan? Dare she be alone with him?
Because she knew what was going to happen...
The attraction between them was too strong—so strong that it could probably even overpower the anger and resentment and distrust between them.
She stepped into the elevator car. And when she automatically reached for the control panel, she pulled her hand back to her side. She was not going to risk getting stuck with him again.
He chuckled as he stepped inside with her. Then he reached for the panel. She didn’t see which button he pushed; she just assumed it was for the lobby. In the heart of the Garment District, the building’s tenants were mostly fashion designers along with a few photographers. There was no place to have a drink there.
Muriel really needed that drink. Hell, she needed more than a drink. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. And she was not the type of model who starved herself. She enjoyed food too much.
Fortunately, the fashion industry appreciated curves now over skin and bones. Or she wouldn’t have been able to get any work. Now she was sought after...
Professionally. Personally—not so much. Men weren’t eager to date the man-eater the media had painted her as being. She’d overheard people talking about how she was too intimidating to the opposite sex now.
Ronan Hall hadn’t appeared too intimidated the other night. And he must not have been or he wouldn’t have sought her out again.
The doors closed, shutting them into the stark car together. This elevator wasn’t nearly as fancy as the one in her building; it was all bare metal and wood, and it was bigger—big enough to carry crates of garments from one floor to the next.
She didn’t have to stand anywhere near Ronan. But it didn’t matter how far away she was from him; she could feel his presence. It was as if electricity arced between his body and hers.
Her skin tingled, and her blood heated, pumping hot and fast through her veins. “We should go somewhere with a kitchen,” she said. “I’m hungry, too.”
She felt a hollowness inside, but she wasn’t sure that it was one food could fill. Maybe only he could...
He reached for the panel again, jabbed a button and the elevator shuddered to a stop.
“I’m hungry, too,” he said as he reached for her. He wrapped his arm around her waist and reeled her in until her body pressed against his. He was so big, so broad, so tense.