Off Limits(70)
“Wow, that’s pretty big. Quite a lot for a five year anniversary.” I knew from the first time I met Layla Nova that she was the woman meant for my father. After my mother had walked out back when I was only three while in the process of taking Dad for quite a lot of money, he’d spent over a decade in a funk. Oh, he was a devoted father, and a hell of an attorney, but that was it. He never dated, he never had a girlfriend, he just worked or spent time with me. By the time I was an upperclassman in high school, I thought that perhaps Dad was going to be a bachelor for life.
Then, during my senior year in high school before doing my undergrad work at USC, he’d met Layla Nova. Tall and vivacious, she was a perfect balm to my father’s wounded soul. I still don’t know how she got through his emotional defenses, but she did, and by the time Dad introduced me, I could see in his eyes the truth. He was head over heels for her, and after she spent the weekend at his house in Beverly Hills with the two of us, I could see why.
There was only one dark corner to the whole thing. “Uhm, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, Dad, but you said four. Is Alix going to be there?”
My Dad’s sigh told me everything I needed to know. “You know, Kade, it wouldn’t hurt for you to at least be more forgiving when it comes to your stepsister. Give it a try. For me, please?”
If he only knew. “Okay, Dad, I’ll try. Uhm, let me clear my calendar. I’m pretty open right now, and I’ll email you exactly when I’m getting into town. Think you’d mind if I drove?”
“It’s your time, son. Although with that Lexus you drive, I can see why. Just make sure you’re here by next Friday.”
“I’ll be there, Dad,” I said. We hung up, and I immediately called my secretary, Monica, and my paralegal investigator, Vince, into the office. “All right, Monica, I need you to clear my calendar starting this Tuesday until Thursday of the following week. Vince, whatever Monica can’t clear, I’m putting in your hands. There shouldn’t be too much, just routine paperwork and continuation on the Carter case. Think you guys can handle it?”
“I’m good,” Monica said. She was an experienced secretary, who I hired on the advice of my father. His advice to me coming out of law school was that a new lawyer should always have an experienced secretary to help as a guide through the areas of the law that they didn’t teach you in law school. Dad’s wise words had paid off, even with the higher salary she demanded over a younger secretary. “Uhm, there is a deposition scheduled on Thursday, you want that pushed back?”
“What’s the case?” I asked, looking at my schedule on the computer. “Never mind, I got it. The Dufrense case. Nah, don’t push it back. Vince, you take that one, you’re good for it. Just go by the script I leave, and if you have any urges to strike out on your own, keep it within reason.”
Vince, in addition to being my paralegal, was studying for the bar exam himself. He was a good guy who’d come up the hard way through the legal system, taking night classes while working a full-time job as a short-haul truck driver. I finally hired him as a paralegal six months ago while he finished off law school. He was a good investigator and had connections that often came in handy when dealing with some of the people my clients worked with or grew up with. “No problem, Kade. So, Dufrense and Carter.”
“Thanks. Okay guys, I’ll have my phone on me, but I’d prefer if you don’t call. It’s my Dad’s anniversary.”
After Vince and Monica left, I sat back and pondered the situation. Finally, unable to clear my head, I left the office, taking a walk along the river. The Willamette River cuts Portland in half, and along a lot of it there are walkways and other pedestrian-friendly areas. As I walked, my mind kept swirling around the idea that I’d be seeing Alix again.
My stepsister is four-and-a-half years younger than me, and at twenty-one was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Tall, with long, blonde hair that framed her face, crystal blue eyes, thick, bow-shaped lips and a pert little nose, she’d been sought after as a fashion model from her early teens, doing her first professional big shoot when she was only sixteen. I’d read somewhere that Alix was her generation’s first “sublime English Rose,” which I had no clue what it meant until I looked it up. Regardless of the name of her look, Alix had a face that was so beautiful it could stop a riot or start a war. Helen of Troy had nothing on her.
The rest of her was just as amazing. At five ten, she had curves in all the places a man dreams of, especially up top where, for a fashion model at least, she was quite gifted. A stomach you could see yourself licking wine off of led to a waist that flared out into hips that you wanted to hold in your hands and squeeze, and legs that wrapped around you in your dreams. Or at least, that was what they did in mine.
But there was my problem. You see, besides those dreams, I also had darker, more forceful ones. They started when I was at Stanford Law and, as part of the student experience, was sharing an apartment with a couple of other guys. Nothing abnormal about that, and they were pretty decent guys overall.
Alix had just turned eighteen at the time, and she’d gotten featured in one of those bikini spreads. Being college guys, of course my roommates had a copy, and they constantly teased me about it—partly because they knew it annoyed me, but mostly because she truly was hot.
That was around the time that I began to see Alix as a sexual creature and not just a stepsister, and it tore me apart. Because in addition to her beauty, there was a dark side to Alix that I didn’t like. Raised a total Daddy’s girl, Alix thought that her father, Paris Nova, was the epitome of perfection. From all accounts, and from her own words, I learned soon after meeting her that Alix practically worshiped the ground Paris walked on.