Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance (37 page)

“Jealous?” Foster said, grinning that stupid, sexy grin of his.  

“Only of her ass,” I replied. “I’d kill for an ass like that.”

“No, it’s too small. I’m all for a slim figure, but I need something to sink my teeth into. Now,
your
ass is just right. Did I ever bite your ass that night?”  

“No,” I replied, suddenly feeling like I’d missed out on something special. “Not my ass.”

“That’s a shame. Well, maybe next time.”  

There won’t be a next time.
Those were the words that should have come straight out of my mouth the second he’d finished speaking. Instead I stayed silent.  

There
would
be a next time. I knew that now. I didn’t know when, but it was inevitable.  

“You should go home,” Foster said, breaking the silence. “You’ve been working late a lot, and I need you refreshed before you get started on that memo.”

I nodded, and headed towards the door. I knew he was looking at my ass, but this time I didn’t care.

“April?”

I turned around as my hand was on the door handle. “Yes?”  

“My paralegal flirts with everyone in the office. You don’t need to read anything into it.”

“Okay.” I shouldn’t care. He could fuck whomever he wanted, and I’m sure most nights he did. I grabbed my purse, and headed out the door, not making any effort to hide that I was leaving early.  

Foster had gotten in my head, and I didn’t know how to get him out of there. I didn’t know if I wanted to; I was enjoying the company.

April was undoubtedly a woman of many talents. Despite her timid demeanor, she’d been a live wire in bed that night nine months ago, and judging by this memo, the girl had some legal writing skills as well. There wasn’t much sexier in life than a girl who was a good fuck, and could bill $400 an hour. Not for the same thing, of course.  

April had earned a place in the meeting today, so I had my secretary send her an invitation. The whole point of the meeting was to discuss the findings of the memo, so who better to be there than the person who wrote the damn thing? Unfortunately, that meant introducing her to Jacob. He was an ass. A very rich and successful ass, but an ass nonetheless. He loved himself and thought he was God’s gift to women.  

We probably should have been best friends, but something about him rubbed me the wrong way. I never left these meetings in a good mood, and this one wasn’t likely to be any different.

My secretary let me know Jacob was waiting in the large meeting room, so I swung by April’s office to collect her. She’d been sitting there, waiting with her trusty pen and pad of paper, looking nervous as all hell. This must be her first client meeting. It would likely be a baptism of fire.

“You ready?” I asked.  

“Yes,” she said eagerly, standing up and following me down the hall.  

“No need to be nervous,” I said.

“Do you need me to do anything in particular?”  

“Just introduce yourself, and present the findings of your memo and your legal conclusion. I need you to lead the meeting because I haven’t read it.”

I kept walking but noticed that April was no longer following. I turned around and saw her standing still, staring ahead, looking frightened. Frightened and beautiful.  

“You haven’t read the memo?” she asked nervously. “What if it’s all wrong? I can’t lead the meeting, I don’t know—”

“Relax,” I said, interrupting her as she spoke faster and faster, the panic audible in her voice. “I’m kidding. I’ve read the memo, and I’ll lead the meeting. Just sit there and look pretty.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, and resumed walking. “You’re a complete bastard, you know that?”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman to call me that,” I admitted. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

I opened the door and let April walk in front, although she didn’t introduce herself to the client until after I had shaken his hand. Jacob appeared to be in one of his pleasant moods today. With any luck we would get through this meeting without him being a complete shit.  

Just before the meeting started, the partner technically in charge of Jacob’s business came in and insisted on staying. Alan hadn’t done any actual legal work for the client in years, but he still got all the credit when things went right, while passing the blame onto me if the outcome was ever less than ideal. Typical partner, really.

There was a slightly awkward moment where Alan and April had to pretend they already knew each other, despite the fact that they clearly hadn’t met before. April thought on her feet and greeted Alan the way a summer associate would treat a senior partner—friendly, but with respect.

“Here’s my card,” Jacob said, handing his business card to April.

“Thanks. I don’t have any cards yet. I’m just a summer associate.”  

I cringed. So much for pretending April was an actual lawyer and not just a law student. It was my fault, I should have mentioned it before the meeting.  

“Oh,” Jacob replied, his mood immediately turning sour. “Well, I hope I’m not paying for this training experience.”  

“No, of course not,” Alan said immediately. As always, he caved to the client’s demands, no matter how unreasonable.  

“Actually Alan,” I said calmly, “we
are
billing for April’s time here today. I asked her to be in the meeting because she wrote the memo we’re here to discuss.”

“You’ve dragged me all the way in here to discuss a memo written by a student?” Jacob asked.  

“What Foster means,” Alan said, “is that April provided some research assistance, but that he actually wrote the memo.”

April fidgeted nervously in her seat, and her hand swept some loose strands of hair behind her ears. I didn’t want her to hear this, but the worst thing I could do right now was ask her to leave.

“That’s
not
what I meant,” I insisted. “April wrote the memo, and it’s a damn good one. I’ve reviewed it and I made a few tweaks to the language, but she knows it better than I do. That’s why she’s here.”

“I’m not being billed for her time,” Jacob repeated. “Train people on your own dime.”

“In that case, you don’t get the memo and I suggest we call an end to this meeting.”  

April cleared her throat, and spoke quietly. “Perhaps I should leave. I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Yes, dear,” Alan said. “Please leave us men to it.”  

April’s face went from nervous to angry and I knew why. Alan was a sexist pig. That’s why he wasn’t allowed to interview new associates anymore. April opened her mouth to speak, but decided against it and stood up ready to leave.  

“Sit down please, April,” I said gently. “I would like you to stay.”

“Foster, I want a word with you,” Alan said sternly. “Outside. Now.”

“No,” I replied.  

Alan looked at me incredulous. It wasn’t the first time I’d fallen out with him, but it was the first time it had happened in front of a client. Mom would give me an earful for this later.

Jacob sat back with a smile on his face. He was loving all this.  

Alan took a deep breath and composed himself enough to speak. “Jacob is my client, Foster, so I will decide—”

“Jacob,” I said interrupting Alan. “Who would you rather have serving as your legal counsel? Would you like to deal with Alan, whose main area of expertise is the Securities Act of 1933, largely because he was alive when they wrote it, or would you rather deal with me? The person who’s been providing you with sound legal advice for the last five years.”

“I would delegate the work,” Alan said meekly. “It’s not like I’d try to do it myself.”  

“I’m the best lawyer in the firm, Jacob. You want to take the risk with whoever Alan can find to work with him?”

Jacob looked at Alan who already looked defeated. I didn’t usually take pleasure from showing up an old man, but the guy should have retired years ago. My paralegal had been in my office a week ago telling me all about the things he said to her. It was fucking disgusting and hugely inappropriate for a law firm.  

“Alright,” Jacob conceded. “But I’m still not happy about being billed for a trainee.”

“She charges a lot less than I do,” I said.

“If I may,” April said timidly, before clearing her throat again. “I could go through the memo with you, and then you could decide whether it’s worth paying for.”  

“Interesting,” Jacob said, eying up April with what I hoped was just curiosity. “Okay, that’s fine with me.”

“I can agree to that,” I said. April knew the contents of that memo better than I knew the contours of her chest.  

“Me too,” Alan said, although by that point we had all forgotten he was there.

April looked at her copy of the memo, but I suspected she was just taking a few moments to compose herself before speaking. How could this be the same woman who had shouted at me to fuck her? She’d not been lost for words when we were in bed together, but outside of the bedroom she was often timid and shy.  

Most women were the other way around. All mouth until I got them in the sack, and then they suddenly didn’t know what to do. Or worse, they thought they knew what they were doing but didn’t have a clue. I still had no idea how some girls got the idea that they should clamp on to my dick with their teeth instead of lips. I shivered, as I had an unfortunate flashback to the last girl I’d had to educate on proper blow job technique.  

April didn’t have what I would call ‘blowjob lips’ but I didn’t doubt her abilities. She’d kissed me firmly, with a decent amount of tongue. Not too much, but she didn’t hold it back either. She’d know how to suck dick, and if she didn’t, I would be a patient teacher.  

I looked down at my own copy of the memo to fight the eagerness growing in my pants. The last thing I needed was to get hard in front of the client. Knowing Jacob, he’d think it was because of him.

“You asked what needed to be included in the disclosure to shareholders,” April began. Her voice shook slightly as she spoke, but that didn’t matter as long as the words made sense. “However, the better question is whether you need to make the disclosure at all.”  

“That’s not the question,” Jacob said. “I
know
that I need to make the disclosure.”

“I disagree,” April replied. “There’s an exception in the Delaware Corporate Code for this situation when one hundred percent of the directors vote in favor of the resolution.”

“But not all the directors are voting in favor,” Jacob said. “If you’d have read my emails, you’d know that one of the directors is abstaining. He’s against the whole thing.”

“I read the emails,” April continued. “He’s not going to be at the meeting and he’s not voting by proxy. You don’t need every director to vote in favor; you need every director present at the meeting to vote in favor.”  

Jacob stared at April for a few seconds and then broke out into a big grin. God, I wanted to smack him one sometimes.

“I think I’m going to like working with you,” Jacob said. “Keep going.”

April went through the rest of the memo, and answered Jacob’s questions the few times he interrupted. I might as well not have been there until the end when we discussed strategy and the next steps.  

“Impressive, April,” Jacob said as the meeting ended. “If you don’t want to work here after you pass the bar exam give me a call. I’m sure I can find something for you to do in my office.”

Ugh. He might as well have licked his lips, his desire for her was so obvious. Was I that creepy? April didn’t seem to mind. She thanked him for the offer and shook his hand.  

“I don’t need to tell you how brilliant you were in there,” I said to April as we sat down in my office for a post-meeting debrief. “You knocked it out of the park.”

“Yeah, I know,” April replied, letting a confident smile spread across her face. She’d earned it. “I think Jacob took a liking to me as well.”

“Uh, yeah, I think he did.”

“He’s a good looking bloke.”

“If you say so,” I grumbled.

“It’s a shame I can’t date clients.”  

“Well you’re not a lawyer yet and he’s not technically… actually you’re probably right. You shouldn’t date him.”

“Jealous?” April teased.

“You’ve sure come out of your shell,” I joked, to avoid answering her question. “Am I going to regret letting you into that meeting?”  

“You like it when I’m more confident,” April replied. “Is there anything we should discuss?”

“No, I suppose not.”  

April smiled and stood up to leave. She’d be walking on air for the rest of the day. Not every client meeting would go that well, so I wanted her to savor this moment.  

She stopped at the door and turned back to me. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For what you said.”  

I nodded. “You’re welcome. Oh, April?”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t sleep with clients, but there’s nothing in the ethics guidelines about sleeping with other lawyers. Don’t forget that.”  

She smiled and walked out the door. What just happened? I’d gotten jealous. Worst of all, she’d spotted it. That wasn’t how this was supposed to play out. Women got jealous after I’d fucked them, not the other way around.  

This was uncharted territory. As a lawyer, I didn’t like the unknown. I watched April as she chatted to Paul while making a cup of coffee. She had a glow about her. A freshness that no one else in this office ever had. Even Paul was smiling, and he never looked happy at work. That’s what she did to people. That’s what she did to me.  

I was in trouble.

I didn’t get anything done for the rest of the morning. Endorphins had flooded my body during the meeting, and I found it impossible to concentrate on work. Maybe I would enjoy being a corporate lawyer after all.  

The memo had been fun to write, but I’d expected Foster to make loads of changes. He’d barely touched it. There were a few minor edits where he’d toned down my overly confident language, and he’d picked up a rather embarrassing typo of the word ‘public’ with an unfortunate letter missing, but that was it.  

Foster had boosted my confidence to no end. He knew how to do that. Nine months ago, he had transformed a nervous law student into a sexually confident woman for the night, and now he had helped me be a real lawyer.