When Clara did arrive home later that night, I was too slow to catch her before she could scurry up to her bedroom, clutching her jar of Branston Pickle. She was bloody fast for someone with such short legs.
I felt like I was losing my mind. She was invading all my thoughts. Her soft lips when we kissed, her big brown eyes so unfocused without her glasses and blinking up at me, her lavender and citrus scent, her small, upturned nose that wrinkled when she was deep in thought. It was all driving me insane. And now, smelling her perfume in rooms just after she’d left them as she expertly avoided me was starting to make me angry. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in me but didn’t have the courage to tell me to my face. I knew I shouldn’t have taken advantage of her, and I did want to apologise for that, but I wasn’t some sort of monster she had to avoid.
Well, fine, she could have it her way. Any further attempt on my part to approach her could well be categorised as sexual harassment. I was a barrister, soon to be a High Court judge. I could not be sexually harassing my employees.
I was disgusted with myself for having been so willing to chase around after her anyway. There were plenty of women whom I very much did not have to chase – Ophelia Montlake included. Granted, she had low-key annoyed me with how aggressive she was in her approaches, but maybe that was better. Maybe it waseasier to be with a more confident woman who knew what she wanted.
I was ready to draw a line under my obsession with Clara. If she could ignore me, then I could ignore her. But Ozzie needed her, and I wasn’t going to tolerate her leaving.
These were my not-so-fun thoughts when a knock on my office door later that night interrupted my brooding.
“Yes,” I snapped.
Ozzie was with his mum, and the staff had gone home for the night, so there was only one option left for who could be there. After a brief pause that made me roll my eyes, I called out again in irritation. My patience with Clara’s goddamn hesitancy was waning now that I was so sexually frustrated.
“For God’s sake, Clara. Just open the fucking door.”
The door opened then, and Clara popped her head around it, looking across at me with a nervous expression that made me feel like a bloody monster again. Christ, I wasn’t going to leap on the woman; she didn’t have to be so goddamn worried. I raised my eyebrows. In spite of my annoyance, my heart was hammering in my chest at the sight of her. But I refused to allow her to see how she affected me. If she found me so repulsive that she’d felt the need to hide from me for the last three days, I wasn’t going to go around begging.
“Hi,” she said, still with just her head poking around the door. “Am I interrupting anything important?”
“Clara, I am always doing important things,” I told her, uncaring that I sounded like an arrogant dickhead. “Especially when I’m in this office.”
She looked like she wanted to run then, but after closing her eyes for a moment, she seemed to make a decision.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice, and I gritted myteeth. Her relentless apologies weren’t as cute now. “This will only take a moment. If I could just really quickly speak to you.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “But if you want to speak to me, then you can do me the courtesy of coming into the room like a normal human being.”
“Oh yes, of course,” she said, her face falling. She looked really upset now. To be honest, I felt like a bit of a prick, but I wasn't going to fall for her kicked-puppy routine anymore, not when I knew that she could kiss like that.
She came into the office and sat in the chair in front of my desk, clasping her hands on her lap and looking down at them to avoid eye contact, as per bloody usual.
I sighed.
“Clara, can you please get on with what you want to say?” I told her.
“Yes, of course,” she whispered, but her next words were so quiet that they were a struggle to make out.
I frowned. “Clara,” I snapped, “for the love of God, drop the shy act. I had my tongue down your throat less than seventy-two hours ago. I’d really rather that we communicate as adults. That involves you actually speaking at a normal volume and maintaining eye contact with the adult that you’re addressing. Understand me?”
Her eyes flew to mine. There was that flash of fire that I loved before she quenched it. She cleared her throat to speak again. This time, I could at least make out what she was saying.
“Look, I came to say I’m sorry.”
I blinked at her. “You’re sorry,” I said slowly, then pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. Good God, what was wrong with her? She was coming to me to apologise for not being interested in me? My God, this had asexual harassment lawsuit written all over it. If my colleagues in chambers knew what I was up to, they would think I’d lost my bloody mind.
“Clara, I?—”
“It doesn’t... you don’t have to...” she stuttered out, before something flashed across her face and she leapt to her feet. Her hands were trembling before she bunched them into small fists at her sides. “I was totally inappropriate.”
She wasn’t whispering now, far from it. What the hell was going on?
“It was very,verywrong of me to grab you like that. When you hugged me after Ozzie’s breakthrough, I’m afraid I...” she broke off, and her face flooded with colour as she sank back into the chair. She briefly looked out of the window before forcing herself to meet my eyes again. “I have a ridiculous crush on you,” she told me in a surprisingly firm voice.
My mouth fell open in shock as my mind raced to catch up with what she was saying.
“AndthenI came onto you when you were vulnerable and grabbed youwithout your consent.”
