Bittersweets_Terry and Alex Read online

“I thought you would be perfect for each other,” Brenda said, disappointed. “Who knew he was never going to grow up?”

  The intercom buzzed, and she pressed the button. “Terry, it’s Vince. Are you free?”

  “I can be,” she answered.

  “If you don’t mind, come on around. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “See you,” she said.

  “We’ll continue this conversation later,” Terry said. “I might be ready to meet that other co-worker of Larry’s.”

  “You know he’s another ER doc,” Brenda said. “He works with Arvin.”

  “Oh forget it then. I’m done with doctors. Maybe I should go down the shore and look up a beach bum.”

  “You’ll have to wait until next summer. They’ve all gone home,” Brenda replied.

  Terry left the office walking down the hallway and around a corner to the senior partner’s reception area.

  “Go on back,” Fredericka, the executive secretary said. “They’re waiting.”

  Terry stopped. “Who is it?” she whispered.

  Picking up a piece of paper, the secretary began to fan herself. “You’ll see. Oh, my God,” she said, nodding toward the door.

  Smoothing her skirt, she stood up straight, aiming for the door. Normally never intimidated by these impromptu gatherings Vince called for; today’s felt different to Terry. “Is it a client?”

  Fredericka shook her head, mouthing new attorney.

  Frowning, Terry reached for the handle. A new attorney meant a number of things for her. It could mean more work, taking someone under her wing, or more competition for that esteemed opportunity to make partner. She’d been there for five years and wasn’t looking forward to any setbacks.

  Tapping on the door, Vince shouted come in. Stepping into the expansive space, Terry smiled, happy she’d taken the time to wash the mud off her legs. A handsome, well-dressed stranger set papers down on the desk, smiling back at her, the tableau right out of daytime TV courtroom drama.

  The classic, distinguished senior partner was surrounded by his young, blond female clerk, two other partners, and Mr. Gorgeous. Terry tried for her aggressive courtroom demeanor, but it wasn’t happening, so she just kept smiling, gliding across the carpet, praying she wouldn’t trip.

  “Terry Kovac,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Alex Hawthorne,” he replied, taking her hand.

  “Terry, sit down, sit down,” Vince said. “Alex, Terry is the lead attorney in the Terence Clodfelter case.”

  “Is that right? I’m impressed,” Alex replied.

  “Don’t be,” Terry said. “No one else had time for it and my case load became lighter when a client died in jail.”

  Chatting about cases in process for five minutes ended when Vince said, “Let’s get down to business.”

  Uh oh, Terry thought, here it comes. “Terry, take Alex under your wing. Brenda can work with Paul until the new year.”

  Well-being plummeting, she didn’t want to take anyone under her wing, especially an attorney who looked to be her age. Wouldn’t he resent clerking for her?

  “What do you think of that plan, Alex?” she asked, understanding Vince might take offense.

  “I’m ready to assist,” he said, seemingly sincere.

  “Alex just got home from Iraq in August,” Vince explained. “It was his idea to clerk for a while to get back into the groove.”

  “Oh, okay,” Terry said, wondering why Vince didn’t say that in the first place. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

  Vince tapped a number on his phone. “Fredericka, ask maintenance to ready old Mr. Porter’s office next to Ms. Kovac for Mr. Hawthorne.” He hung up and looked around the room.

  “Okay, get back to work everyone,” he said.

  Terry led the way with Alex following, listening to her explanation of what was on the agenda, and what she was originally going to have Brenda do for the trial.

  By eleven, Alex’s office was ready and he started working on his own. Brenda ducked in to Terry’s for a quick chat.

  “I was just going to call you,” Terry said, grinning.

  “I heard,” she said. “Vince’s secretary called me. But Paul? He’ll be grabbing my ass by the end of the day.”

  “Stop,” Terry said, chuckling. “Buy pantyhose on your way home tonight.”

  “Excuse me,” Alex said coming through the door, looking over Brenda’s shoulder. When she moved aside for him, he extended his hand. “Alex Hawthorne.”

  “Brenda…What’s my last name?” she asked Terry, and they both started laughing.

  “I guess I shook things up around here,” he said, politely ignoring Brenda’s veiled compliment. “I’m truly sorry.”

  “No problem,” Brenda said. “I go where I’m needed. I’d better get back to my office. I’m right around the corner if you have any questions.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “We can review the case file now,” Terry said after Brenda left. “We do jury selection on Tuesday.”

  For the next two hours they went over the file. At one, Vince tapped on the door and stuck his head inside.

  “Go to lunch,” he said. “It’s on me today.”

  “That means we go to the deli,” Terry said. “It’s noisy so we won’t get any work done, but that’s why he suggested it. Vince is a good guy.”

  She locked up the files and signaled Alex to follow her. “It looks like it stopped raining so we can walk.”

  “Thanks for your patience today. I know it can’t be easy training someone,” Alex said.

  “It’s fine,” Terry said. “You’re an experienced attorney. It’s not like I’m training you.”

  “I was surprised he hired me, to tell you the truth. I feel like I’m starting from square one.”

  “How long have you been home?” Terry asked.

  “I was discharged in August, but then my ex and I started divorce proceedings. I was ready for a change and contacted a head hunter. The move here was easy enough.”

  “Where did you move from?” she asked.

  “New Jersey, so not too far. The truth is after I passed the bar here, I’d never spent much time in Philadelphia,” he said.

  “I’ve heard that people who live right across the river have never been here. That’s hard to believe. It’s such a great town!”

  “We went to Manhattan instead,” Alex replied. “Same big city, but more expensive.”

  “Ha! I never heard anyone say Philadelphia and New York were the same. Philadelphia is definitely a big city though. I love it.”

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “Born and raised,” she said. “My dad still lives in the same house I grew up in in the Northeast. About two blocks from the Tacony Palmyra Bridge. It’s about as far from where I live in the city now as if we’d been in different countries.”

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “Mount Airy,” she answered. “One block from Germantown Avenue. Its got the best of everything up there, best Chinese food, best pizza, best libraries, museum, parks; you name it. I’ll never leave it.”

  “I’d like to see it,” he asked.

  “Where are you from in New Jersey?” she asked.

  “Princeton,” he answered, and Terry burst out laughing.

  “Princeton is as far from Mount Airy as if they were in different countries too, just like the Northeast.”

  “You let me be the judge of that,” he replied, smiling. Scratching his chin, he looked at Terry carefully. “It sounds like you think I might be snob.”

  “You might be,” she replied. “We’ll see.”

  As they walked, chatting away, the couple didn’t notice the admiring looks they were commanding, a handsome man, as perfectly groomed and dressed as a fashion model, and a beautiful woman, dressed inappropriately for the weather wearing a short skirt, high heels and bare legs. Holding her arms around her body, shivering, she was definitely going to say something
to Vince about the attire problem with winter coming up in a few short months, often brutal in the Mid-Atlantic States.

  “Here we are,” she said, reaching for the door. “The best corned beef on rye in the city.”

  Ordering their lunch at the counter gave them the opportunity to continue getting to know each other. Terry hated eating in front of strange men… the risk of choking, having food caught in her teeth, getting a hunk of gristle that she’d have to spit out added up to a nerve-wracking meal. But Alex immediately broke the ice by confessing that corned beef gave him gas. The irreverent admission put Terry at ease and she forgot her own discomfort, enjoying the meal and the company.

  “We’d better get back,” Terry said after they’d been there for almost an hour. “He’ll buy but will give us hell if we stay out of the office too long.”

  Alex held Terry’s coat for her, and as she slipped her arms into the sleeves, she finally noticed the attention they were getting. “Whoa,” she said. “I wonder if they are all court TV fans.”

  “Is that big in Philadelphia?” he asked, letting her walk ahead of him.

  “Number one,” she said. “At least with a certain demographic.”

  By the end of the day, Terry and Alex found they worked together amazingly well. An easy camaraderie grew up between them, along with mutual respect. From the partners, Alex discovered that Terry was a formidable debater, well read and better researched, and often had the answers to questions at her finger tips. And if she didn’t, would make it her mission to find it.

  “My clients get the fullest protection the law will allow. But I won’t lie. If I think a defendant is guilty I will do my best to get him to be truthful. It’s so much easier to make sure rights are maintained if they’re telling the truth.”

  “I’d feel sorry for the victims,” Alex admitted. “Why did you choose criminal defense? Why not the prosecutors office?”

  “Why’d you do it?” she asked, turning it on him.

  “I want to make some money,” he said, being honest.

  “Well there you go,” she said. “I wasn’t cut out for public office, anyway.”

  “No, I guess I wasn’t either.”

  Keeping the relationship professional became more challenging the longer they worked together, but an additional case added to their schedule kept them too busy for any extraneous flirtation.

  Office chatter said the sexual tension between Terry and Alex was so thick you could smell it. But if there was any chemistry between them, it was unacknowledged and kept under control by the parties involved.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  December 1st

  Waking up disoriented, opening eyes to a strange place, sterile like a hotel, ordinary beige drapes pulled closed, but with a gap big enough to allow gray light to creep in, the hum of a heating unit below the window, she got up on one elbow, and glanced around. Pulling the sheet out, she looked down at her naked body, her bare breasts scolding her for being a disgusting slut, the sensation between her legs divulging that the night had not been for sleep only. Next to her, the side of the bed was empty but slept in, white institutional sheets thrown back over a scratchy brown blanket.

  Those clothes thrown over one of four chairs around a dark wood table looked like her clothes, work clothes, she recognized a flash of royal blue; her suit, and a white, silk shirt. Stretching to look to the floor, she saw polished men’s shoes next to a pair of tall boots. Gripping her forehead, she struggled to remember with whom she’d agreed to go to a hotel.

  The squeak of a shower faucet echoed through the room. Pulling the sheets up to her neck, she waited for the door to open, revealing who had slept next to her.

  “You’re awake!”

  Falling back against the pillow, Terry bit her tongue to keep from laughing. It was Alex Hawthorn.

  “It’s you! What did we drink last night?” she asked. “I woke up with no memory at all.”

  “Tequila,” he said, holding a towel in front of his body, but ineffectually, because she could still see his hips and the sides of his thighs, and if he moved just a little to the right, an outline of muscular buttock. “It took me a minute to figure out where I was too,” he said. “And no offense, but who you were. You’re a different woman with your hair down.”

  She reached up and felt her hair; like he said, it was down. Feeling around the bed, she looked for her hair pins, leaning over the bed, she saw familiar underpants, which she swooped up.

  “Ha! Well that’s just great. What the hell are we going to do now? Vince has a zero tolerance fraternization policy. Zilch.”

  Throwing the towel over the chair exposing full-frontal nudity, Terry gasped looking at Alex in all his glory, while he looked at his phone, forgetting what he was going to say for a second. Her eyes went right to his penis, flaccid, but impressive, and she quickly turned away when he looked at her again. Sculpted thigh muscles, slim hips, flat stomach, he was in great shape, and he had a beautiful body. Waves of some emotion she couldn’t quite pinpoint; admiration, desire, love, flowed over her.

  “We can forget this ever happened,” she finally said, shaking her head trying to regain common sense. “I certainly won’t tell.”

  “Forget that,” he said determined, walking toward the bed. “I’ll find another job.”

  He pulled the sheet down off her, and she cringed a little bit, not used to being inspected, especially by a stranger but his words resonated. Could he mean it?

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, kneeling down on the carpet in front of her.

  Running his hands down her side from her shoulders, over her hips, he took a deep breath.

  “Terry, you’re amazing,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “I feel like we really connected last night.”

  Tensing up, her shoulders would touch her ears if she didn’t relax soon, but she couldn’t deny what she felt; an intense emotional connection.

  “How do you know?” she asked, ignoring her feelings. “We can’t remember anything.”

  “May I?” he asked, pointing to her breast.

  “Uhum,” she mumbled, nodding her head. “I take it it’s not the first time.”

  “Nope, I definitely remember this,” he said. “You have fabulous breasts.”

  He caressed her, watching her response, kissing her.

  “Wait!” she said, when he started to kiss her lower, toward her waist. She pushed him away. “I need to shower. I won’t take long.”

  “Our cells are clean,” he murmured sliding his hand between her legs. “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I do,” she said, quickly moving away from him to the edge of the bed, hoping she didn’t leave telltale marks on the sheets.

  “Oh, okay,” he said, grinning. “I’ll be right here, waiting.”

  Rolling on his back, he watched her walking to the bathroom, and she could feel his gaze, turning around in time to grab his towel. “Ha! Gotcha,” she said, holding it up.

  “Don’t cover up! Let me see you,” he complained. “You’re so beautiful.”

  “Yes, well, thank you, but…”

  Reaching the bathroom, she hopped over the threshold, quickly closing and locking the door. Throwing Alex’s towel down, she looked in the mirror, at her smeared mascara, wild blond hair, beard burn over her chest.

  Unable to remember a thing of the night before, only his semen leaking out of her evidence of what had happened, which meant they’d had unprotected sex. Closing her eyes, she thought back, looking at a hazy calendar in her head, to when her last period had ended in the middle of November. She was probably as fertile as was possible, and she’d had unprotected sex. “You’re an ass,” she whispered at her reflection.

  A trip to the drug store for the morning-after pill would happen later that day. It was at this point she realized she had no idea of the day or the hour or even where she was. It was daytime, that much was clear. She put the lid on the toilet down and stood on it to peek out of the top window; the gla
ss on the lower window was frosted.

  “Oh shit! We’re in town,” she said out loud, a roof top statue of William Penn on City Hall in the distance.

  Opening the door, she returned to the room with a bath towel wrapped around her.

  “That was fast,” he said. “Come back to bed.”

  “Alex, where are we, what time is it and what day is it?”

  “We’re at the Ritz in Hamilton Square,” he said. “It’s Saturday, December 1st.” He looked at his watch. “Eight forty-six AM.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” she said, working her way back to the bathroom.

  There would be plenty of time to figure out how they got to that particular hotel, not anywhere near their Center City office. The Ritz was on the other side of the river, near the university, not a place she was familiar with at all.

  She quickly took a shower, keeping her hair out of the water. It was bad enough that she didn’t even have a lipstick to try to spruce up her appearance. At least she wasn’t in club clothes, doing the walk of shame. Her bright blue suit would stand out on a Saturday morning as it was.

  Washing her mouth out with soap, flinching at the horrible taste, as least her breath would be soapy and not disgusting, post tequila, maybe even a cigarette she thought, sniffing her hair.

  “How did we end up in University City?” she asked when she came back out.

  “I live over here,” he said. “We drank at my apartment, but I didn’t want you to wake up there. It felt kinder to come here when we wanted to be together.”

  Frowning, she wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “I came here willingly, correct?”

  “We were both worse for the wear. But you said you wanted me, so yes, willingly,” he answered. “Do you regret it?”

  “Probably,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’m not seeing anyone seriously right now so I don’t take the pill, and you didn’t use protection. I’ll have to get to the drugstore soon.”

  “We’ll go after breakfast,” he said, sitting up to reach her.

  Pulling the towel down, he caressed her breasts again. “You’re amazing,” he said. “I haven’t felt a real breast in a long time.”