Off Limits

He shook his head. “No.”

“But—but you can’t refuse my resignation...” Could he? Before deciding to leave the firm, she’d read over the employment contract he’d had her sign when he’d hired her, and she’d seen nothing about not being able to quit. But he was the contracts and trusts lawyer. He was the one who would have come up with the clauses and legal jargon that would make it possible for him to legally enslave someone.

“I can change your mind,” he said, and even though his lips curved into a smile, his eyes remained cold and hard. “How much will it take?”

“You think this is about money?” Street Legal paid all their employees very well. That was why she’d come to work for him although she’d really wanted to work in a fashion house. But after interning at fashion houses, she knew how little they paid and how hard she would’ve worked.

He tilted his head, and his blue eyes narrowed as he studied her face. “Isn’t everything about money?”

Maybe it was the wine that made her less censored than she would have ordinarily been but she admitted, “Unfortunately it is—to most people.”

“Are you saying you aren’t one of those people?” he asked, and one of his golden brows arched in skepticism. But there was more than skepticism in his eyes. He was looking at her a certain way that he never had before, a way that had nerves swimming in her stomach. He was actually looking at her, and there seemed to be an appreciation in his gaze as if he liked what he saw.

Damn. She was such a lightweight. She had to be drunk to imagine that Simon Kramer would look at her that way, like he wouldn’t mind seeing more of her—naked.

“I wouldn’t have taken the job working here if money didn’t matter to me,” she admitted. But having him to look at, to fantasize about, had given her the inspiration to succeed at her other job.

“So then more money will get you to stay,” he said dismissively, as if he’d closed a case. He tossed her crumpled-up resignation letter into the brass trash can sitting beside his desk.

Frustration—and not just with this conversation—overwhelmed her, overcoming her natural inclination to avoid confrontation, and she blurted out, “No!”

Working for him these past two years had increased her frustration because of all those damn fantasies he’d inspired.

“But you just said—”

“I took the job because I needed money,” she said. “I needed money then.”

His eyes narrowed more as he studied her face. “And you don’t need it now?”

“My reason for leaving has nothing to do with money,” she said. Had she not found another source of income, she would have been forced to stay, but he didn’t need to know that.

“So you do have a reason.”

He wasn’t the trial lawyer of their partnership, but he could have been. She felt like she was being cross-examined on the witness stand. And she didn’t enjoy it one bit. Quitting was not a crime.

“I don’t have to give you a reason.” At least she didn’t think she did.

Maybe she should have had a lawyer look at that employment contract before

she’d written her resignation letter. But no matter how much she paid, no lawyer would be as good as Simon Kramer. He was the best.

And, according to his ex-lovers, not just at the law...

“Why don’t you want to tell me?” he asked, and he stepped closer now, so close that she could feel the heat of his body through his suit and her cardigan and skirt.

Heat flushed her body, making her skin tingle. She tried to step back but the desk stopped her, the hard wood pressing into the backs of her thighs as he nearly touched the front of her. Her breasts pushed against the front of the gray cardigan as she struggled for breath. She had never been this close to him before. It was more than unsettling. Her knees trembled and her already tripping pulse quickened even more.

“Because it’s personal,” she murmured. And they had never been anything but businesslike with each other, except in her dreams.

He leaned down, so close that his warm breath whispered across her lips as he asked, “Are you in love with me?”