“I’d suggest you save your kisses for the young lady in your office,” she told him dryly.
“Does the lady have a name?”
“Miss Callaghan,” she informed him.
His body went on full alert at the mention of Meredith’s name. She’d been driving him crazy from the time she’d been in a training bra and he’d been a juvenile delinquent on a fast track to trouble. “Did she say, uh, what she wanted?”
“Since she doesn’t know that I saw her sneak in there while I was getting my sandwich from the kitchen, I didn’t bother to ask.”
“You going soft on me, Eddie?”
She shrugged. “The girl looked so pleased with herself because she thought she’d gotten by me that I didn’t have the heart to ruin it for her.”
“Well, what do you know? You are a buttercup after all.”
She straightened her shoulders, gave him that prim look, but Alex thought he saw a bit more color in her cheeks. “Mr. Kusak, if you expect me to get this brief typed, I suggest you let me get to it.”
Alex eased off the edge of her desk and started for his office.
“Oh and one more thing, Mr. Kusak.”
“Yes?”
“You might want to suggest to Miss Callaghan that the next time she wants to get by someone unnoticed that she’d be wise to leave the red trench coat at home.”
“I’ll do that,” Alex told her, and opened the door to his office. He stepped inside. And there she was—sitting behind his desk wearing that scarlet-red trench coat and a pair of killer black heels that she had propped up on his desk.
“Hello, Mr. District Attorney.”
“Hello, Meredith,” he said with a calmness he was far from feeling. Some men had a weakness for booze. Others for drugs or gambling or even sex. For him, his weakness had always been Meredith Callaghan. She was like a fever in his blood, impossible to cure and equally fatal. “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?”
She gave him a pout and tossed her strawberry-blond hair so that it fell across her shoulders. “I didn’t realize I needed a reason to visit an old friend.”
They’d been a great deal more than friends and therein lay the problem, Alex thought as he felt his body responding to her already. “I don’t have time to chitchat now. I’m due back in court in less than an hour.”
“I didn’t come by to chitchat,” she sniffed. “I came by to remind you about my mother’s birthday dinner tonight. She’s expecting you.”
“Jack already reminded me. I’ll be there.”
“Good,” she said, giving him another one of those slow smiles that tied him up in knots.
When she made no attempt to leave, he said, “Now that you’ve delivered the message, I’d appreciate it if you’d get your feet off my desk and your pretty little rear end out of my chair. I need to get back to work.”
She beamed at him. “You think my rear end’s pretty?”
“I think the coat’s pretty.”
“You should see what I have on underneath it.”
Alex bit back a groan, because he knew every damn inch of her body. “No thanks.” He managed the words out of a throat that had gone dry with lust. “Now, move it.”
“Not until you tell me why you haven’t returned any of my calls. I’ve left you at least a dozen messages over the past two weeks.” She’d actually left only three, but he didn’t bother correcting her. “And that Simon Legree secretary of yours keeps telling me you’re unavailable.”
“Because I’m not available. I’m busy,” he told her, and began thumbing through the mail stacked in his “in” box.
“Bull! You’ve been avoiding me, Alex Kusak, and you know it.” She swung her legs off of the desk and came to her feet. “I’ve been back in town for three months now and we haven’t been alone together for five minutes.”
“With good reason,” he admitted. Giving up any pretense of reading the mail, he dumped the envelopes back into the tray. “You and I both know what happens whenever we’re alone together.”
She came over to him, draped her arms around his neck, and looking up at him out of those big green eyes, she whispered against his lips, “I know what I want to happen.”
Alex could feel himself growing hard as she pressed herself against him. He breathed in her scent, something wild and exotic like her. He wanted her so bad he ached. It had always been that way with Meredith—ever since that first time on her eighteenth birthday. Even now, he couldn’t believe he’d fallen for the lame story she’d given him that night about having a problem and needing to talk to him. He’d left the society bash inside her parents’ home and gone with her to the gazebo to talk. And then she’d told him the problem—that the one thing she wanted for her birthday only he could give her. She’d wanted him to make love to her. It was wrong. He’d known it was wrong. But he’d found her impossible to resist. They’d been off-and-on lovers for years, and because they hadn’t wanted to freak out family and friends, they’d kept the secret between them. She’d matched him sexually in every way, and since neither of them had been looking for a long-term commitment, the relationship had suited them both just fine.
And then a couple of years ago, something had changed. He still wasn’t sure if it was he or Meredith. Whatever there was between them had become more than friendship, more than just good sex. He cared about her, maybe too much.
“Want me to tell you what I’d like to do?” she whispered in his ear. She nipped his lobe with her teeth.
Alex felt himself weaken. Then he remembered the way Meredith had looked at him when all that sordid stuff about his parents had come out during the campaign. There had been pain in her eyes. Pain and shame. For him? For herself? It didn’t matter, he told himself. He had no intention of starting things up again—no matter how tempted he was. With a strength he hadn’t known he possessed, he caught her wrists and pulled them away from his neck. “It isn’t going to happen, Meredith.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because I said no.”
Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “Is there someone else?”
“What if I said there was?”
Temper flared in her green eyes, turning them nearly black. She grabbed his tie, yanked his face close to hers. “Who is she?” When he didn’t answer, she repeated, “Who is she, Alex Kusak? Is it that little witch Alicia Van Owen? Has she been trying to sink her claws into you now?”
“Alicia?” he responded, surprised at the mention of the woman who’d been dating his best friend. “I thought she was dating your brother.”
“Jack dumped her.”
“You sure about that?” He uncurled Meredith’s fingers and attempted to smooth his tie. “When I saw Jack at the courthouse earlier, he told me that Alicia would be at the dinner party for your mother tonight.”
“That’s because she and my mother refuse to get the message. Both of them are hearing wedding bells. Well, she isn’t going to marry my brother. I refuse to have that woman as my sister-in-law.”
“Ah, you don’t like her,” he said.
“No, I don’t like Little Miss Perfect.”
The truth was, he didn’t care for the woman, either. Maybe because beneath all that polish, he picked up her disapproval of him. She wouldn’t be the first person to think the likes of him had no business being friends with someone like Jack Callaghan.