INFLUENCED: A Good Girl, Bad Boy Love Story Page 2

  I’d done some mock courtroom assignments in school, but being in a court of law in a slightly professional capacity excited me. That brought me a step closer to achieving my accomplishment of being a lawyer, just like my parents wanted for me.

  “You will be here every morning at 8:30 AM. If you are late, you may go home. Tardiness is not tolerated,” she insisted. I nodded in response. Heather’s eyes came to mine, and she gave me a soft smile. “Today, you will start slow. In the archives, there are depositions that need to be properly filed and that will be your beginning task. Except for you, Megan.” My head shot up to her. “We have a new paralegal starting today and, as you know this place inside and out, I’d like you to assist him for a bit.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Now, come on everyone, it is down to the archives we go. Megan, we will pass his office, and I will leave you there. He hasn’t arrived yet, but should be here very soon,” Heather said.

  All of us stood and began to follow Heather from the conference room. I was anxious about my upcoming task. I didn’t quite know what this paralegal would need from me, but if it got me out of spending my day filing in the archives, I was down.

  “Ugh, I’m so jealous,” Jeannie Mae groaned as she walked alongside me. “Obviously, you know these people well.”

  “Reese and Reese are my parents,” I informed her in a matter of fact tone. Her mouth gaped open, shock written on her face.

  “Ah, nepotism,” noted the black guy who was a few steps in front of us. Jeannie Mae rolled her eyes.

  “If it gets you to the top, use it,” she proclaimed.

  “Megan, this is the paralegal’s office,” Heather informed me as she stood at a door along the hall. I gave Jeannie Mae a small wave as I passed the others and walked towards Heather. She pushed the door open. “I think you’ll be a good influence on him,” she noted, before walking away, the others scurrying behind her.

  I stepped into the small office. There wasn’t much to it, a cherry wood desk, some filing cabinets, and a plant. I wondered what Heather meant about being a good influence. I was just an intern, not some mentor.

  A strand of my hair found its way loose from my bun. Quickly, I worked to bring it back behind my ear. As I moved my hand away, I felt my earring come loose and watched it fall to the ground.

  “Shit,” I muttered, as I bent over to retrieve the small pearl earring.

  “Juicy and round, like a fresh Georgia Peach,” a deep voice muttered.

  Upon picking up my earring, I jumped into a standing position and sharply turned to see a guy leaning in the doorway of the office. He stood there, not quite looking like a paralegal, not one in the office my parents ran. He wore black slacks with a white button up shirt. It wasn’t tucked, and the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

  My attention went to his face and I was struck with the realization that I knew him. The guy in the door was Spencer Grant, the son of Heather and Steve. I hadn’t seen him in years, though one thing was for sure, he was still the epitome of hot.

  Spencer was eight years older than me and my schoolgirl crush. I felt my cheeks going warm as I thought of being a teenage girl and practicing kissing on my pillows, imagining I was kissing Spencer. As a girl, I could only dream, I was just a kid in Spencer’s eyes.

  “Spencer, hi,” I blurted out. Embarrassment flooded my system. I was still that dorky girl with the little crush.

  “Do I know you?” he questioned as his eyes studied my face. I adored his blue eyes. They weren’t a striking blue, but a deep sapphire that was dominating and irresistible. His eyes widened. “The Reese kid, Melissa?”

  “Megan, actually,” I corrected. Of course, he wouldn’t remember my name. I was just the little teenage girl running around his parent’s pool while he lived in the pool house.

  I hadn’t seen him in years, the last I heard he was in Europe. It seemed he returned in the same condition, still hot, and still very much unattainable by dorky Megan, I sighed.

  I’d seen his twin brother on a few occasions in the past years, who went on to go to Stanford Business School and was now the CEO of a tech company in Silicon Valley. From what I’d heard, Spencer didn’t take the route, but I took it all as hearsay.

  “Yeah, Megan. My dad said an intern would be here, helping out and shit,” he informed me as he came fully into the office. He stood in front of me, practically towering me with his height. I worked to swallow my nerves.

  “I’m the intern,” I noted, my voice sounding small.

  “Cool, cool,” he remarked, running his fingers through his short chocolate brown hair. “Okay, Meg, let’s get started, I guess,” he said, as he found his way to his desk and threw his feet on top. “This shouldn’t be too hard, I’ve got my own intern.” I frowned, now understanding the good influence part. He didn’t appear to be the working type at all. Maybe the rumors about him were true.

  “Please, call me Megan,” I insisted. “Also, I’m only supposed to be helping you out for the day or so, to get you acclimated with the office.”

  “Nah, I like Meg and I think I’ll keep you for awhile,” he said, giving me a playful wink. A buzzing hit me between my thighs. That was quite unexpected. I let out a groan of frustration.

  I was in for a long day with him, and possibly longer. Grabbing a chair, I pulled it to his desk. I now wished I was down in the archives with the others, not doing the obvious task of babysitting. Though babysitting a hottie like Spencer, it couldn’t be too terrible.

  Chapter Two

  Spencer

  She’d grown up. I knew it as soon as she had muttered out her little curse and bent over to retrieve her earring from the floor. She wasn’t the little girl I had seen around, in years past, anymore. The little girl who would fly around the building, going office to office in search of something to do, as long as her bitch mother wasn’t around.

  God, I couldn’t stand that woman. Uptight, and too harsh, but she was a damn good lawyer, not that I’d ever tell her that. If I was honest, she scared the shit out of me when I was younger. Not anymore though, she could bark up this tree all day long and I still wouldn’t give a fuck.

  The woman in front of me, though, was a whole ‘nother can of worms. At twelve years old, she could run circles around girls her own age. She studied far more than was normal for a girl in middle school, and she could play three different instruments, as well as speak three languages fluently. My mom used to drag me to different recitals to hear her play. She’d always tell me that I should aspire to be like Megan. At twenty years old, I didn’t give a flying fuck about a little girl playing the cello.

  Now, that little girl was all grown up, sitting in front of my desk with her cute pad of paper and pen and looking at me like I had grown two heads. How long had I been in la-la-land dredging up shit from our past I had worked ages to forget?

  “Alright, Meg. What’s first on the agenda?” I leaned forward in my chair, linking my hands and placing my chin on top of them to stare at her.

  “How should I know? It’s my first day!” she retorted, looking both embarrassed and full of nerves.

  It was cute to see her flustered like this. Ever since walked through the door and caught her ass in the air, she had been in a constant state of serene panic. When she thought I didn’t know who she was, I had to hold in my laugh at her shock. And then to make matters worse, I had purposely called her the wrong name. How could she think I didn’t know who she was? We had spent so much time together growing up. Just because we hadn’t seen each other for a number of years didn’t mean I wouldn’t recognize her.

  Lose the pigtails and the braces, add a nice rack and ass, and she was still the same girl I watched light up the stage at dance classes when my mom made me go pick her up on days cases ran long. The last time that happened was the last time I saw her. I had left for Europe the next day and hoped I would never look back on the life my parents wanted me to live.

  They couldn’t seem to understan
d that I wasn’t my twin brother, Chase. I didn’t want to be a lawyer or a CEO. I didn’t want to wear a suit and tie. I wanted freedom, and moving to Europe to “Study Abroad” had been the freedom that I had needed. And now, here I was, back in their stuffy office, wearing the closest I would ever come to a suit and tie, and sitting in front of the girl who had scribbled my name on a notebook and accidently left it in the receptionist waiting area when she was thirteen.

  At the time, I had been grossed the hell out. Looking back, it was sort of charming, minus the underage aspect of it.

  “Are we just going to sit here all day, Mr. Grant?” she asked, impatience dripping from every word.

  “I suppose that would be a valuable waste of our parents’ assets. Since today is also my first day back in the game, why don’t we go over the giant stack of shit, your darling mother asked me to look into, Megs.”

  “It’s Megan!” she haughtily said.

  I couldn’t stop the smirk that lifted the corners of my mouth. She apparently hated the name Meg. I thought it was cute, and I planned on using it as often as I could, but for now, it was just too much fun to mess with her.

  “Alright, how about Peaches? Yeah, I like that better. Peaches it is!” I said, standing abruptly, catching her off guard, as I walked around to her side of the desk.

  “You’re incorrigible, you know that?” she screeched, standing up as well, dropping her pen in between us.

  We both stared at it for a second, waiting to see what the other person would do. If she bent over too much I’d have a great view down her top, and see how mother nature had gifted her since our last meeting. But if I bent down and retrieved it, I could glance at her legs again. Most men either liked tits or ass, I liked the legs, and hers were some of the finest I had seen this side of the pond.

  Black heels around her dainty feet, sheer stockings, and if I hadn’t been mistaken when she picked up her earring, the stockings were connected to fucking garter belts. Yeah, she had grown the fuck up while I’d been gone.

  Deciding I could use another dose of those mocha legs, I bent down to pick up her pen, mere seconds after she had dropped it. Unfortunately for me, she decided to bend down at the same time, our heads banging together, making my brain ricochet around my skull.

  “Fuck”

  “Ouchie”

  “Wow, Peaches? Ouchie?” I said, rubbing my head and handing her the pen I had snagged first.

  “What is IN that head of yours, Spencer? Concrete? Bricks?” she said, mocking my motions as she rubbed her own forehead.

  “Mom always told me I had a head full of lead. Guess she was right.” I laughed.

  “I remember her saying that.” Megan giggled. “She’d always say to me “Megan, get your school work done so you don’t end of with a head full of lead, like my baby boy, Spencer.”

  I groaned at the memory. My mom loved to make fun of me, but she knew, as well as the rest of the family, that I was smart. I wasn’t bragging or anything, it was true. I had skipped two grades and graduated at sixteen. I hated being the smart kid, and started acting out after high school which was when the “head and lead” comments started. It wasn’t that I didn’t like having an IQ higher than most people, it was the expectations that came with it. To get away from it all, I did stupid shit.

  Nothing I did was ever too bad, mostly stupid petty stuff, like stealing beer from the gas station or driving my car at ninety down the freeway, but of course, when my parents got the call from the local police station every time I did something dumb, they’d always get down on me. I’d act right for a few weeks before I was at it again. The thrill of pushing myself out of the box I had been told I had to fit into was too good to stay away from, and then when my parents suggested I go to Europe for a year to study abroad, I jumped at the chance.

  Shaking my head, I pulled myself back into the here and now.

  “Alright, Peaches. Let’s get some coffee and then get cracking on these cases.”

  “By all means, Mr. Grant, lead the way,” she said, motioning towards the door.

  As much as I hated being in these halls again, it was slightly comforting to know where I was going. It was like going to visit your dear old grandma. Her house smelled like cat piss, but it was comforting, in a morbid sort of way.

  Deciding against the breakroom on our floor, preferring the coffee vendor in the lobby, I took an unexpected turn, away from our assumed destination, and headed towards the elevators.

  “Where are we going, Spencer? I thought you wanted coffee?” she whispered, loud enough for the receptionist to hear.

  “We are, Peaches, I just decided I want to get coffee from the original Starbucks in Seattle? Is that a problem?”

  Her mouth hung open, inviting flies.

  “Relax. I just want coffee from the cart downstairs.” I said, putting her out of her misery.

  Her mom had really done a number on her. Megan was uptight, and starting to develop what I liked to call “SUTAS or Stick Up The Ass Syndrome” and that was not going to work for me, if she was going to be assisting me past today.

  Punching the button for the elevator, Megan and I waited in silence. Once it arrived, I let her walk in first, before joining her and selecting the ground floor.

  “So what have you been up to the last eight years, Peaches?” I asked.

  “I’m stuck with that nickname now, aren’t I?” she sighed heavily.

  “‘Fraid so. Should have sucked it up with Meg.” I smiled.

  “Well, if you must know, I just finished my first year at Harvard, and will be going back once the semester starts, and of course, I’m interning here. That’s about it.”

  I could tell there was more that she wanted to say, but she bit her tongue.

  “And are you still dancing?” I asked.

  “Not really. I joined a dance group at school, but my mom forced me to qui-- Wait! You couldn’t remember my name thirty minutes ago, but you remembered I used to dance?”

  Busted!

  “Peaches, I spent a majority of my adolescent life being dragged around to all of your performances because of the relationship between our parents. You honestly didn’t think I’d remember you?”

  I watched as the pupils in her dark chocolate eyes dilated at my statement, before her eyes scrunched together in anger.

  “So, the whole Melissa thing was a joke?” she asked, her arms crossing over her chest, clearly not amused.

  “Bingo, Peaches” I said, giving her my signature wink.

  “You are absolutely--”

  “Incorrigible, yeah, you said that earlier,” I laughed, looking up to see what floor we were at.

  Turning away from me, her arms remained firmly crossed over her chest, and the smoke coming from her ears was visible. When the door opened a few moments later, I almost expected her to stomp out, but when she didn’t move, I turned to her.

  “Come on Peaches, it’s coffee time. My treat,” I said, extending my hand out to her.

  Ignoring my peace offering, she marched through the doors and headed to the corner coffee cart, leaving me behind to stare at the way her long shapely legs stomped forward in an almost unlady like fashion. She was a spitfire, something I never would have guessed she would turn into when she was older.

  I had started out the day royally pissed off at fate for putting me in the shoes I was currently filling, and working for my parents when I swore I never would. Now, I was almost a little happy with fate. She was giving me a little gift in Megan and I was going to love getting under her skin. Just like that, my day had turned around, and I was going to enjoy every fucking second of it.

  * * *

  Once our caffeine fix had been satisfied and we had resumed our positions at my desk, I grabbed the stack of papers and files that had been dropped off when I first came in.

  “We need to separate these by nature of the case, who is handling it, and the severity. Once that’s done, we’ll need to start the research on the most pressing one, and
set up the client interviews,” I told her, handing her a stack to look through.

  “What am I looking for in regards to nature of the case?” she asked, biting her lip in this sexy ass way I didn’t want to think about. She was like my kid sister, for fucks sake.

  “You’re going to Harvard Law, right, Peaches?” I asked, a little bit of condescension lacing my words.

  “I already told you I do, Spencer.”

  “Then, that means you have a brain in that skull of yours. Figure it out,” I said to her, looking back down at my stack of folders.

  The humph she made at me was unladylike and I had to tamp down my smile. She was like a never ending fire, constantly spitting out her flame at every passing moment. She was nothing like her mother, the Spawn of Satan, but kitty had claws and knew how to use them. I had to admire her for that.

  Around lunch time, I looked at my watch. We had made it through three quarters of the stack and were ahead of schedule. Leaning back in my chair, I looked at Megan, waiting for her nose to come out of the file it was currently buried in. She hadn’t made it past as many files as I had, but not everyone had my genius brain power.

  “I could go for a taco,” I told her, catching her off guard.

  When she looked up and blushed, I knew where her mind had been.

  “Excuse me?” she squeaked out, embarrassment flooding her features.

  “Tacos, Peaches. You know, shell, meat, cheese? What the hell is on your mind?”I asked her jokingly.

  She stood up abruptly, putting her hands on her hip in obvious irritation. “I was thinking about the case in my hand, not my stomach. I’m not hungry!” she said matter of factly.

  At the exact moment, her stomach made a rumbling sound, betraying her previous words.

  “Well, Peaches, it sounds like your appetite disagrees with you. Come on, let’s take a break and get some food.”

  “Fine, but no tacos,” she said, grabbing her purse.