Love And Liability. Katie Oliver
accepted a cup of coffee with cream from his secretary. “I thought your name was Henry. Not Alex.”
“It is. Alexander is my middle name. Hence—” he smiled a brief but nonetheless devastating smile “—Alex.” He placed the cup of tea with lemon Jill handed him to one side. “Now — what can I do for you today, Ms James?”
“I…er…” All intelligent thought fled as she met those velvety brown eyes. His lips looked as firm and inviting as a Greek statue’s, but better, because they weren’t carved of marble, but were made of warm, kissable flesh…
“Ms James?” he prodded.
Holly mentally shook herself. She couldn’t remember a single thing she’d planned to ask him. “I…like your red handkerchief,” she stalled as she dragged her gaze away from his lips. “It looks very stylish with your navy-blue suit.”
“My red handkerchief?” he echoed. “But I’m not wearing a handkerchief.”
“Yes, you are.” Her glance strayed to his breast pocket.
He glanced down. The red thong peeked saucily out. Alex reddened and thrust the offending bit of silk deeper inside his pocket. “I’m very busy this morning, Ms James. If you’d be so good as to tell me what this is all about…?”
“I’m here to interview you,” she said, and set her mini-recorder on the edge of his desk and switched it on, “for BritTEEN magazine.”
“You want to interview me — a solicitor — for a teen magazine?”
Holly nodded. From his tone of mild distaste and his slightly raised eyebrow, he obviously equated teen magazines with porn.
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I asked my boss the exact same question. ‘Who’d want to read about some boring old solicitor?’ I asked her. ‘Teen girls want to read about lip gloss, and boy bands, not barristers and quid pro quo…’”
When she caught sight of his forbidding expression, her words faded away. Oops.
“Are you implying that we in the legal profession are — or, more specifically, that I am — boring, Ms James?”
“Oh, no,” she hastened to say, “not at all! It’s just that…legal stuff, and stocks and bonds — well, those aren’t things the average teenage girl is interested in, are they?”
Oh, God, she thought, please let the floor open up and swallow me whole, right now.
But God wasn’t listening, because she remained where she was — sitting red-faced with embarrassment on the chair in front of Henry Barrington’s immense, and vaguely intimating, desk.
“No, I expect not,” he agreed, and leaned forward. He gave her a roguish smile. “Perhaps we should sex it up a bit.”
Holly blinked. “I-I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Go ahead,” he commanded, “ask me a question. I’ll do my utmost to make the answer interesting, despite my tragically dull life as a member of the legal profession. Never let it be said that Henry Alexander Barrington bored the average teenage girl. Carry on, Ms James.”
Holly sat before his desk with her pen poised over her notepad — she always took notes in addition to recording her subject — and before she could stop herself, blurted, “Are you married?”
Heat suffused her face. Oh, shit, what a stupid, stupid question. Where in hell did that come from?
He lifted his eyebrow. “Married? No.”
“What exactly is it that you do, Mr Barrington?”
He regarded her, baffled. “I thought interviewers generally knew a bit about their subjects beforehand.”
“Well,” Holly apologized, “usually they do, but I didn’t have any time to prepare.” Gamely she added, “It’s something to do with the law, and finance, isn’t it?”
He nodded cautiously, as if placating a lunatic. “Yes.”
“So you’re a barrister, then?”
“Solicitor,” he corrected her.
“I see. Do you wear a wig?” she enquired.
“No, thank God.”
“Why do they wear those wigs, anyway?” Holly asked with real curiosity. “They look ridiculous.”
“Well, originally the wigs provided anonymity, and ensured the judge wouldn’t favour one barrister over another. Now they’re mainly ceremonial.”
She glanced at her notes. “There’s a rumour you’re planning to stand for MP in the next election. True?”
“I’m considering it, yes. But I’d rather you didn’t put that in your article.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “My boss mightn’t like it. I’d have to quit if I won, you see.”
She nodded and crossed through her notes. “No problem. So what is it you do here, exactly?”
“Well, in my capacity as a solicitor, I research financial casework for my clients. Then I give my instructions over to a barrister, who presents the case in court.”
She scribbled a note on her pad. “You invest money for clients, too, don’t you?”
“Some of them, yes. And if I’ve done my job properly, my investments make my clients more money.”
Holly put an absorbed expression on her face and took notes as he talked in detail about index funds, buy-outs, and a lot of other incomprehensible and dead boring financial stuff.
Pro, she scribbled, her pen flying across the page, A.B. dresses conservatively, but well. She leaned forward slightly. And he smells divine. Con, she scrawled, no sense of humour; goes on relentlessly about dead boring financial stuff…
“Ms James?”
Holly started. “Oh. Sorry. What?”
“Have you any more questions?”
“Well…there is one thing…” She pressed the tip of her pen against her lower lip. “We always ask what we call our ‘One Outrageous Question’, you know.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
She couldn’t ask it. He was far too posh and upper-crusty. But Sasha would have Holly’s head if she didn’t ask the One Outrageous Question and get at least one memorable — i.e., sexy — quote from Henry Alexander Barrington before he threw her out.
“Well?” he prodded, with a trace of impatience.
She hated to ask him the Question; it was impertinent. It was cheeky. But if she didn’t ask it, she’d be sacked.
“Do you…do you…?” She tried to finish, but couldn’t. The question got choked up in her throat and wouldn’t come out.
“Do I what?”
“Do you believe in sex on the first date?” she asked in a rush.
“What?” he exploded. “What has that to do with anything?”
“Well,” Holly said defensively, “you did say you wanted to sex up the interview.”
“Yes, perhaps I did — but this? This is ridiculous! What kind of a question is that to ask me — a solicitor — for an intended audience of…of spotty-faced teenage girls?”
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s why we call it ‘One Outrageous Question,’