Sleeping With the Opposition (Bad Boy Bosses) (17 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The next afternoon, Bria and André walked into the boardroom where Leo and Josephine waited. Bria hadn’t kept them sweating long. After all, this meeting wasn’t about intimidation, it was about truth.

She gave Leo a warm smile. He grinned back at her, and she had to look away quickly again or everyone would be able to tell that he was the one who’d put the glow in her cheeks and given her more orgasms last night—and again this morning—than she could even count.

She cleared her throat and looked around the room, her expression tightening at the sight of Josephine’s brother leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, throwing André dirty looks. Brandon waited by the door to the boardroom, and she knew he was already seething, but if he knew what was good for him he would restrain himself.

“Mr. Markham, thank you for agreeing to meet with us today,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted. “I assume you’re going to explain what this is all about, and why you requested that Mrs. Cordeiro’s brother attend as well?”

She’d been ethically restrained from warning him about what she’d planned. After she presented her evidence, he could easily object to either the content or her methods, and advise his client to sue. Hell, he might even get a new client out of this meeting. But when she’d told André about her suspicions, he’d been willing to let her run with it, so she was betting a lot on the assumption that the truth would win out.

It wasn’t how a ruthless lawyer vying for a partnership spot would have approached the case, but Bria was ready to accept that she’d never be that kind of lawyer, and she didn’t feel lessened because of it.
Real
people needed lawyers who understood what they really needed from the law. She wanted to be the kind of lawyer people turned to for
solving
problems, not just winning.

“If this meeting ain’t about settling my sister with all that she’s owed from her cheating snake of a husband, then I don’t know why we bothered,” Gavin muttered.

She motioned for everyone to sit down. “If you’ll make yourselves comfortable, I’d like to show you something.”

Leo shrugged and held out a chair for his client. Gavin slumped into the seat beside Josephine and leaned back with a bored expression.

André positioned himself on the opposite side of the table and watched her with eyes full of hope. She took a deep breath and prayed that this would work.

“Brandon, would you run the footage, please?”

He came over and pulled the rolling white screen down from the ceiling. Everything else was ready to go, and as soon as he pressed play on the laptop at the back of the room, Bria dimmed the lights just enough for everyone to see.

The scene was of the alley behind the hotel that André had been living in since arriving in New York, which wasn’t apparent from the shot, but would be easily verifiable if necessary.

“What is this, Ms. Martin?” Leo asked with a frown. She didn’t answer. Her favorite part was coming up.

Two figures stood in the shadows, close together near the side of the building. At first it was impossible to tell their identities because the shot was too far away, but then the camera obligingly zoomed in close enough to show that one of the men was wearing the exact same army-green fatigue jacket that Josephine’s brother had on right now.

“Hey, what the hell is going on here?” He shot up from the table and glared at her, violence in his every move.

Leo got up, too, but she raised her hand and he stood down. Bria held her position. “I think you know exactly what this is about,” she said.

“I don’t know what you think this will prove, but if you say one more word, I’m going to sue the shit out of you.”

Josephine looked at Leo. He nodded. “I want to see the rest of this,” she said. She turned to her brother. “I think you should sit down and be quiet, Gavin.”

“This isn’t what they’re going to tell ye it is,” he insisted.

The video was still rolling, and Josephine pointed to the screen. “Then you tell me what it is, because from what I can see it looks like you talking in secret to the same reporter who printed those photos of André and the groupie. The reporter who tried to get an
interview
with me after the fact to exploit my pain.”

“He was just asking if you’d changed your mind about giving that interview, but I told him to get lost, I did.”

“That’s not
exactly
what happened,” Bria said, focusing on Josephine. “I called my investigator last night because something about your situation didn’t sit right with me. You see, André really does love you, Josephine, and as his lawyer, I am obligated to keep his secrets, but you know what?”

She shook her head, her gaze slipping to her husband. “No…what?”

Bria put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “He doesn’t have any.” She stood and nodded at André, who was focused on Josephine. “This man loves you very much, Mrs. Cordeiro, and it’s my professional opinion that he is telling the truth when he says he never cheated on you.”

“This is all just more bullshit,” Gavin shouted at Bria and André. “But my sister’s done believing your lies, and she’s going to come home to her family…with
your
money in her pockets.”

Bria straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, you’re going to have to do a lot better than hiring a call girl to force herself into my client’s room and planting a set of panties in his bed if you want to overturn the prenuptial agreement your sister signed.”

“What?” Josephine spun around with a look of shock. “Gavin?”

Bria didn’t let him get a word in. She couldn’t afford for him to undermine her evidence. “In addition to this video footage, my investigator was able to identify and locate the woman in the photographs you showed us last time you were here. In fact, that was why I originally called him. She’s a professional dancer who works at a nightclub a couple of blocks from the hotel you and Gavin are staying at, and she claims to have been paid five hundred dollars by a ‘cute Irish guy’ to find a way into André’s hotel room and put on a bit of a show close to the windows.”

Josephine gasped, and André’s jaw was so tight Bria worried he might let his anger get the better of him.

She put a hand on his shoulder in warning and continued. “Not only that, but my investigator filmed you with the reporter in the alley last night, and then talked to him after you left. He admitted to buying those same photos from you for five
thousand
dollars, with instructions to go ahead and print them in his magazine.”

She looked at André and frowned. “I’m sorry, but unfortunately my guy wasn’t able to convince the reporter to turn them over or to refrain from printing them. The best he could get was a promise to wait twenty-four hours before they show up in print or online.”

Josephine was shaking as she faced her brother. “Is it true? Did you set André up this whole time?”

The guy rushed forward and took her hands. “He deserves it, Josie. Maybe we didn’t catch him in the act this time, but you
know
he can’t be turning down
all
the women. They’re throwin’ themselves at him all the time. Plus, he was taking ye from your
family
to play soccer here.”

“How could you?” she snarled, jerking away. Leo put a supportive hand on her shoulder. “And you planted those women’s panties in my bed after André and I had decided to try to make things work? When? How?”

“I wanted to save ye the pain of putting your faith in him all over again, only to be stuck here alone in a faraway country when it all fell apart again.”

“Again? It didn’t fall apart in the first place, because I never cheated on my wife, and I never would. If not for your greed and your ill-spirited interference we’d never be in this mess,” André spat, stepping forward with a fierce glare. “None of this is about your concern for Josie’s welfare. You’re only worried about yourself. You can’t leech off us if we move to America, now can you?”

The brother gave André the dirtiest, most self-righteous look ever created, then turned a mean sneer on his own sister, which made Bria want to step up over there and deck him.

“If you want to choose this washed-up lawn fairy over your own flesh and blood, then don’t come cryin’ ta me when he cheats for real and ye’re left out in the cold without a dime. Not when ye could have had something now to see ye into the future.”

With that, Gavin stomped out of the boardroom. The door slammed shut behind him…with a little help from Brandon, who gave Bria a falsely innocent shake of the head.

André and Josephine were already in each other’s arms, murmuring soft words and apologies. Bria quietly approached Brandon. “Why couldn’t I get a morally bankrupt associate to work for just like all the other assistants?” he said with a wry smile. “I had to get the only honest lawyer in all of New York.”

She sighed. “Not the only one, but I have a feeling if you’ve been hoping to be assistant to a partner anytime soon, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Well, the good thing is I’m depraved enough for the both of us. I’m sure I could make a shark out of you, given enough time.” Brandon grinned. “But maybe I won’t have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have a message from Justice Horner’s office.” He straightened his tie.

“And…”

“And the good judge wants to meet with you about a professional opportunity.”

She gritted her teeth. “You’re killing me, Brandon. If you want to keep working for me at all, you’ll spit it out.”

Before he could finish relaying the message, André and Josephine approached. Her client—former client now—had his arm around his wife and a smile on his face. “We both want to thank you for what you did. We owe you our marriage and our future…and maybe the lives of our future kids,” he said.

Josephine blushed and jabbed André in the ribs, but to Bria she added, “You could have taken advantage of our miscommunication and distrust of each other, but you didn’t.”

Bria glanced up to see Leo looking over their heads—he was much taller than the both of them—and smiling at her like she’d achieved world peace and not just peace between one man and one woman. She smiled back at him. “I think Mr. Markham and I could both see that this marriage needed another chance. Sometimes a relationship gets mired in sadness, doubt, and pain, but with a little help and understanding, even the worst differences can be overcome…as long as there’s still love. But I hope now you’ll have more faith in each other.”

Leo’s gaze softened, and he knew she was really only talking to him.

As Brandon opened the door for them to leave, André insisted that she send him a bill for her time spent, if nothing else, and Brandon vociferously agreed on her behalf, promising to have it in the mail before the end of the day.

“I bet your receptionist won’t know what to think about two people coming out of this room with their arms around each other, when they came in barely speaking,” Leo said, stepping closer as the famous football player and his wife made their way out of the office.

“It doesn’t happen with many of the other lawyers,” she agreed. Now that the meeting was done, she could barely keep from staring at his mouth.

Brandon cleared his throat and tilted his head knowingly. “About that call from Justice Horner…”

She snapped out of it, feeling the heat of embarrassment seep into her cheeks. “Right!” She cleared her throat. “What did he say?”

Brandon glanced meaningfully at Leo, who only crossed his thick arms over his chest, stretching the fabric of his suit distractedly. She had to snap herself out of it
again
and bit her lip.

“It’s okay, Brandon,” she assured him. “Unless it’s directly in relation to a current file, go ahead and tell me what this ‘professional opportunity’ is all about.”

Leo raised a brow. “This sounds interesting.”

“He couldn’t actually come out with it over the phone, you understand, but it’s obvious.”

“What is?” she said, exasperated. “You’re not making any sense.”

Brandon glanced into the reception area, then shooed both Bria and Leo back inside the boardroom and closed the door again. He lowered his voice to a secretive murmur and said, “The word on the courthouse steps is that the good judge is leaving his position to start a practice of his own.”

Leo frowned. “Justice Horner was a lawyer for twenty-five years before he took the judge’s seat. He’s not going to go backward at this point in his career.”

“Not backward,” Brandon agreed. “But he’s always been a very radical sort of personality, and it’s no secret that he pushes parties to utilize the mediation and arbitration system whenever anyone will listen.”

“That’s true. Every time we meet, he says that I would make a great arbitrator,” Bria said with a chuckle.

“Well, apparently he was serious.” Brandon leveled her with a heavy look.

She paused. “I’m still not sure what you’re getting at.”

“I do,” Leo said. “He’s not going to practice law again…not exactly. Justice Horner is going to open a private dispute resolution practice…and it sounds like he wants
you
to be his partner.”

She gasped and spun back around to Brandon. “Is this true?”

He nodded. “I’m ninety-five percent certain.”

She looked at Leo. There was a shuttered hint of intrigue in his expression, as if he were purposely hiding his opinion of this possible development. Of course, he wouldn’t want to influence her in any way.

“I’m not jumping to any conclusions,” she said. “I’ll call him back and see what he has to say, but until then, nobody else jumps to conclusions, either.”

With that, Brandon left to call the judge’s office back and confirm a mutually suitable time and place for the two of them to meet.

Finally alone together, Leo took Bria in his arms and kissed her until she barely remembered that they were in her boardroom, and her next client was probably sitting just outside the door, waiting. “I’ve got appointments for the rest of the afternoon, and who knows when the judge will want to meet with me,” she murmured, her hands still clasped around his neck.