A Wolff at Heart Read online

  “I don’t flirt with clients,” she said firmly, shutting him down.

  “Why is this office for rent?”

  He shot the question beneath her defenses, leaving her gaping and struggling to find an ambiguous response. “Well, I…” Damn it. She was cool and deadly in a courtroom. But that was with hours of preparation. Today she felt quicksand beneath her feet.

  Pierce cocked his head. “State secrets?”

  She sighed. “Not at all. If you must know, I’ve sold my practice. I have an offer to join a firm in northern Virginia, just outside D.C. With one of my law professors.”

  “I hear a but in there somewhere.” His curious gaze belied his earlier gruffness.

  “I asked for time to think about it. I’ve been out of school for six years. Never taken more than a long weekend for vacation. Burnout is such a clichéd word. But that’s where I am.”

  “You must be pretty sure of your decision if you’ve already sold your practice.”

  “I’m not. Not at all. But even if I don’t take the offer, I’m ready for something new. I’d like to work as legal counsel for a nonprofit.”

  “You can’t get rich doing that.”

  “Have you ever heard the phrase follow your bliss? I want to live my bucket list as it comes…not wait until I’m old and half-dead.”

  “I can relate,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  She doubted it. He had silver spoon, heir-of-the-manor written all over him. She glanced at her watch. “We’ll need to continue this later,” she said. “I have another appointment.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve found out all I need to know. You can give me your whole attention. I like that.”

  Was it her ears, or did every word out of his mouth sound sexual? “I’m beginning a va-ca-tion,” she said slowly.

  “Yes, I know. And some deep introspection. I can help you with that. Whatever your fees are, I’ll pay them. And together we’ll exhume the skeletons in my closet that honest to God, I’d rather not meet. But in the meantime, I’ll help you become more of a human being and less of an uptight lady lawyer.”

  “I haven’t said I’ll take your case. And besides…what qualifies you to help me unwind?”

  He adjusted the portrait over the fireplace until it hung perfectly straight. Then propped a hip on the corner of her very expensive desk. “You’ll see, Ms. Nicola Parrish. You’ll see.”

  Two

  Pierce had been forced to cool his heels for six days before Nicola wrapped up her appointments and was officially off the clock. Even now, he’d been coerced into helping her move out of her office in exchange for a face-to-face meeting. Fortunately, his father was holding his own, but Pierce wasn’t willing to wait much longer for the answers he needed.

  At Nicola’s request he’d brought a truck he and his dad used to transport inner tubes and kayaks. Pierce had to give it to her—she was a master negotiator. He could think of several hundred things he’d rather be doing on a hot summer day than moving boxes.

  His mood, however, took a definite uphill swing when he knocked at the street door and Nicola let him in. She looked far more approachable today. A simple headband kept her pale-blond hair off flushed cheeks. Brief khaki shorts left those gorgeous legs on display, and the outline of her breasts in a close-fitting white T-shirt dried his mouth. The black espadrilles on her feet made her look far too young to be a successful lawyer.

  He cleared his throat. “Truck’s parked outside.” His tone was gruffer than he had intended, but he was trying to hide his reaction to her casual attire.

  Nicola frowned. “You’re late.”

  Eyebrows raised, he promised himself not to take the bait. “There was an accident on the way over. I had to take a detour,” he said mildly.

  She swiped a finger across her forehead, grimacing. “It’s hot as Hades in here. Someone got the dates wrong and turned off my power two days early.”

  “Bummer.” He stepped inside, not surprised to see the reception area reduced to a large pile of boxes. “Do you live on the second floor?”

  “Good Lord, no. That would be a terrible idea for a workaholic.”

  He followed her up the stairs, his gaze level with her curvy butt. “Most people who are workaholics don’t admit it.” It was a good thing he was about to do some literal heavy lifting, because he needed something to distract him from carnal thoughts about a woman he barely knew.

  The room upstairs was just that, a fairly large open space with a tiny bathroom walled off in one corner. Clearly Nicola had used this level as a storage area, though in one corner there was a sofa and a table and lamp that indicated she might occasionally spend the night or at least catnap in the middle of a busy day.

  She bent and picked up a medium-sized box, her gaze wry. “Self-deception is rarely productive. I know myself pretty well. Let’s get moving. So far I’ve got fifty-three boxes ready.”

  His lips twitched. “Fifty-three? Not fifty-four or fifty-two?”

  “Are you making fun of me?” She frowned, a tiny wrinkle appearing above the bridge of her perfectly classic nose.

  He took the box out of her hands. “You finish packing and taping. I’ll load the boxes, Ms. Parrish. I outweigh you by at least eighty pounds, and since I doubt you’d trust me enough to actually fill a box, this makes more sense.”

  She folded her arms across her waist. “You may as well call me Nikki. I think we’ve already damaged the lawyer/client relationship.”

  Adding a second box to his load, he tested the weight and decided he might even manage a third. “You call it damage, I call it progress. I’d just as soon not have a desk between us.” Unless you’re sprawled on it and I’m leaning over you, licking your—

  He brought himself up short, grinding his teeth. Attraction in this situation was not going to help matters. “Nikki it is. And you can call me Pierce.”

  * * *

  Nikki felt guilty. Not guilty enough to refuse Pierce Avery’s help, though. She had fully intended to hire movers, at least a couple of college guys who needed cash. But when Pierce had called her office repeatedly for three days, she’d been frazzled and testy and had finally told him if he wanted a second appointment so damn badly, he could help her move her office.

  She hadn’t really expected him to agree. The ultimatum had been a toss-away comment, a reaction to his dogged insistence. Still, here they were. The guy with the big muscles handling her boxes with ease and the lady lawyer with the big brain reduced to panting over rippling biceps and the faint hint of aftershave that lingered in the stairwell.

  Muttering beneath her breath, she finished up the last big pile of junk upstairs by stuffing it all into a trash bag and tossing the bulging plastic blob out the back window into a Dumpster in the alley.

  With one last quick glance around the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything of value, she descended the stairs, checking first to make sure Pierce was still out at the street. She didn’t want to have to squeeze past him on the narrow stairs. Never had a man made such an impression on her. He was impossible to ignore, both by virtue of his forceful personality and his ruggedly masculine looks.

  She’d dated wealthy guys in law school a time or two. But when all was said and done, each relationship ended by her choice. The gulf between her past experience and theirs was too great to sustain a long-term commitment. It occurred to her on reflection that it had been almost two years since her last date here in Charlottesville, and even longer than that since she had been intimate with a man.

  Her wide circle of friends kept her social calendar filled, and on the rare occasions when she had free time, she used the extra hours to power through the backlog of work that always dogged her.

  She loved her job. The diplomas on the wall were more than mere window dressing. Th
ey were a testament to how far she had come. Those same diplomas now rested back-to-back in a sturdy cardboard carton that would go straight into her car when she and Pierce were finished. The only real challenge remaining was her desk. She snagged two packing boxes, pulled up the appropriate spreadsheet on her computer to label them and started opening drawers.

  * * *

  Pierce stood in the doorway, unnoticed, and studied the woman who was going to help him make sense of the unbelievable. She worked quickly and methodically, using Ziploc bags to corral paper clips, pens, rubber bands and a host of other office necessities. He knew what she was doing. He’d carried out enough boxes to realize that she had color-coded and cross-referenced each one. He had to admire such single-minded organization, but he didn’t possess any of those genes. If it had been left up to him, he would have managed to box up the whole place in half a day.

  But Nikki Parrish was too meticulous to cut corners. Which was why she would never be searching for a washcloth and towel at one in the morning, as Pierce had been the night he’d moved into his new house.

  While he watched in silence, he saw her reach into the back of the flat center drawer and extract something small that looked, from this distance, like a metal animal.

  “Gift from an old boyfriend?” he asked, entering the room and sprawling onto her settee with a groan of relief. The window beside the fireplace was open, letting in a much-needed breeze.

  Nikki clutched the figurine to her chest, her eyes wary. “I’m not sentimental, Mr. Avery.”

  “I told you to call me Pierce. And if you’re not sentimental, then why do you have that whatever-it-is hidden away in the bowels of your desk?”

  It was a fair question, and a simple one. But Nikki seemed taken aback by his query. She shrugged, turning the object in her fingers, her expression pensive. “It’s a pewter collie. Someone gave it to me when I was a child.”

  “So if you’re not sentimental, why keep it?”

  A shadow of something dark danced across her face. “It reminds me of a particularly bad day.”

  “I’d think you’d want to toss it, in that case.”

  She looked up at him, her gaze bleak. “Sometimes we have to remember the past, even when it hurts. Acknowledging our mistakes can help us make sure we never repeat them.”

  The note in her voice disturbed him. What did Nicola Parrish have to regret? Surely nothing too terrible at her age. He thought about pressing for details, but decided it was not a smart idea. He couldn’t take a chance of pissing her off. Not when he needed her help so badly.

  He rolled his shoulders, feeling the pleasant strain of exertion. Despite the physical nature of his job, two hours of lifting heavy boxes tapped into a whole extra set of muscles. “The upstairs is clear,” he said. “And the outer office minus the furniture. All we have left is whatever is in here.”

  “You’re fast.”

  “No point in wasting time.”

  “I appreciate your help,” she said, her manner a trifle stiff.

  He shrugged. “It’s a quid pro quo, remember? I’ll take you to dinner tonight and you can tell me what you’ve uncovered so far.”

  She leaned forward to drop the dog into a box…hesitated…and at the last moment, tucked it into the pocket of her shorts. “Dinner isn’t necessary.”

  “You’ve had a long day, longer still by the time we’re done. It’s the least I can do.”

  “I’m not dressed for dinner.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll go home and get cleaned up while you do the same. There’s a new place over on East Market I’ve been wanting to try.” He paused. “Are we taking the boxes to your house? I’ll be quicker unloading than loading. I took my time packing them in, but it’s still going to take two runs.”

  She shook her head. “My condo is tiny. I’ve rented a storage unit two blocks over. If you don’t mind, I’ll give you the key and the code, and by the time you get back, I should be finished. This desk and that furniture grouping go also…but none of the pieces in the outer office.”

  When she handed him the keys, her fingers brushed his palm. The two of them were close enough that he could inhale the not-unpleasant scent of overly warm feminine skin. He flashed for a moment to a vision of the both of them showering together. Holy hell. Not an auspicious time to get hard.

  He backed away as casually as he could. She handed him a slip of paper with the address and the code. “Thank you for doing this.”

  Trying to ignore his baser instincts, he cleared his throat. “Have you had any luck with the records?”

  She perched on the edge of her desk, one leg swinging. “You’re lucky we live in the high-speed age, Mr. Impatient. Something came through on my laptop just a little while ago. I’ll print out the attachments and bring them to dinner. With both of us looking at them, surely we can spot any anomalies.”

  His arousal faded as he once again felt the crushing burden of knowing that something terrible had happened when he was born. Did he really want the answers? No, but he didn’t really have a choice.

  “I won’t be long,” he said, striding from the room before she could read his unease. “See you in a few.”

  * * *

  Unloading the truck was a piece of cake since he could carry boxes directly into the unit Nikki had rented. It occurred to him that she was literally storing away a large part of who she was while she tried to relax, unwind and decide the next step her life would take.

  In that way, their situations were similar. Pierce, who had been comfortably assured that his life’s course was mapped out, was suddenly faced with putting his assistant manager in charge of the business in order to wade through deep, unknown waters. He wasn’t his father’s son. Even now, with plenty of time to get used to the idea, he was incredulous.

  As he drove back, he tried to imagine how he would react when he found out the truth of his birth. But the problem was, he had no idea how to spin that. No scenario made sense.

  Nikki was waiting for him on the stoop when he got back, her face tilted toward the sun, stylish black sunglasses hiding her expression. He put the truck in Park and got out. “All done?”

  She nodded, handing him a water bottle. “Yep. I feel a little sick to my stomach.”

  “How come?” He sat down beside her, their hips practically touching. Her arms and legs were pale in the afternoon sunlight. Workaholics were rarely suntanned.

  “I hope I’m doing the right thing. I love it here in Charlottesville. But I keep thinking there’s something more. Something I’m missing.”

  “Marriage and kids?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Doubtful. Kids require attention, and I’m not sure I can change my ways. I’ve worked flat out for all of my adult life.”

  “For what?”

  “Validation. Fulfillment. Rent money. How about you?”

  “My dad and I own and operate an outdoor adventure company. He pushed and prodded me until I finished a business degree, but that was merely a means to an end for me. I could never have stomached sitting at a desk all day. I’m an adrenaline junkie. More action. Fewer words.”

  Three

  Nikki wondered if he meant that last bit to sound suggestive. Was he flirting, or was her overheated imagination reading subtext where there was none? It wasn’t difficult to imagine Pierce practicing his philosophy of life in the bedroom.

  She swallowed hard, envying him his casual confidence. She had worked incessantly since she was sixteen, terrified of the prospect of being broke and alone. Though she had found help along the way, much of her success could be attributed to sheer cussedness and an unwillingness to give up.

  Her savings and retirement funds were sound. And even with this hiatus, her checkbook wouldn’t suffer too much. But in her desperate push to achieve fiscal security, she had occasional
ly forgotten how to have fun. With big, sexy Pierce Avery sitting on her doorstep, literally, the prospect of playing hooky was suddenly irresistible.

  His body was a thing of beauty, strong and muscular and perfectly proportioned. It came as no surprise to know that he spent his days outdoors in physical activity. He carried himself with the masculine grace of an athlete. Though he was a large man, he was neither clumsy nor inelegant. Sitting so close, she could study his hands—the long fingers, broad palms, neatly trimmed nails. It occurred to her that Pierce was the kind of man who could sweep a woman off her feet and carry her up a flight of stairs without effort.

  When her breathing grew choppy, she knew she was in trouble. “I suppose we should get back to work,” she said, wincing at the unmistakable wobble in her voice.

  Pierce didn’t seem to notice. He stood up in one fluid movement and held out a hand to help her to her feet. “I’m ready if you are.” When his warm grasp engulfed her smaller hand, her knees trembled. Wow. This was a heck of a time to fall victim to an entirely inappropriate infatuation.

  He released her at exactly the right moment, leaving her to wonder if all that dizzying attraction was on her side only. He held open the door and followed her into her office.

  “I guess the desk needs to go on first, doesn’t it?” she asked, trying to sound businesslike and professional instead of like a teenage girl with a crush on the star quarterback.

  “It does,” Pierce agreed, eyeing her dubiously. “I don’t want to offend your womanly sensibilities, but wouldn’t it be better if I call one of my buddies to help me with this?”

  “I’m stronger than I look,” she insisted. “I’ll get this end and you take that one and walk backward. We can set it down in the doorway to catch our breath before we go the last bit to the truck.”

  It was clear he wanted to argue, but she was ready to be done with all this and go home. Now that the moment was actually at hand, she felt hot tears sting her eyes, despite her professed lack of sentimentality. This cozy suite of offices and the square footage upstairs had been a happy, comforting place—a spot where she had found her stride, cut her teeth, learned to trust in herself.