The Boy Next Door by Staci Parker Read Free Book Online

deep baritone, and she saw both partners look at each other and then rub their hands over their eyes.  It certainly looked as though the two of them had been up and at the office for several hours, judging from the scattering of empty coffee cups.
    Taylor turned on her heel abruptly and walked the long way around to her office.  She was not ready to deal with any of that just yet, and she knew that if they saw her, she would be immediately dragged into the crisis.
    She could not stay hidden for long.  As soon as she sat down and logged on to her laptop, the internal messaging indicator would tell them she was online.  She grabbed a large cup of coffee from the breakroom first, and then punched the buttons that started her day.  As soon as she was online, a message came through from one of the partners telling her to get into the conference room and to bring her laptop with her.  She sighed deeply, undocked the machine, and grabbed her coffee on her way out the door.
    Taylor crossed the threshold of the conference room and was barraged from all sides by both partners, a paralegal that she had not even seen before, and the deep voice from the phone.
    “Look, Mister Morgan,” one partner tried to cut him off, “we can handle this.  Why don’t you just calm down and we will have you bailed out shortly.”
    The deep voice huffed loudly and swore at them.  “You better damn well do that!”
    On the other end of the call, the receiver slammed down.
    The elder of the two partners turned to her and announced, “We have a new client as of last night.”
    “It certainly seems that way,” she replied.
    “Well, it’s not a new client per se, just a new headache for an existing client.”
    “Anyone I know?”
    “Probably not, but he’s going to be all yours.  You make this case, you’ll make partner.”
    Taylor’s deep blue eyes widened as she sat down and opened the laptop.
    “Tell me what I need to know,” she answered.
    “You might have heard of this man, or even seen him around at a client function here at the firm.  Draco Morgan.”
    “Damn,” she whispered under her breath.  From what she knew of the man, he was huge trouble of the gorgeous kind.
    “What happened?  Someone rear end his Aston Martin or bump his Bentley?”
    “He was arrested last night.”
    “Oh shit.”  She could not stop the words even as they escaped her lips.
    “Yeah, something like that.  It was a bar fight, and he knocked the other guy out cold.  We don’t have a lot of details but we’ll try to round up reliable witnesses.”
    “Who will handle bail?”
    “I’ll go over,” one of the partners offered.  “That part should be handled by someone who actually is a partner.  Our clients expect it.”
    She nodded her agreement.
    “And we’ll probably bring him straight here if he is willing.”
    “Okay, I hope I’m ready for him.  I hear he’s a handful.”
    “Right you are.”
    One partner gathered his things, dropped his computer off in his office, and headed out to retrieve the client.  The other partner settled into his own office and the paralegal followed Taylor to hers.
    Chapter Five
    By the time the client and the partner returned to the office from the jail, Taylor and the paralegal had formed some sort of plan on managing the situation.  Once word of the arrest hit the news media, it would be nearly impossible to keep them away and she was certain that was one of the first items Mister Morgan would want her to address.
    Taylor was summoned back to the conference room with the paralegal in tow.  When she rounded the corner and entered the room, her heart stopped and her feet did a little stutter-step at the doorway.
    She had seen his picture on business journals and tabloids alike, but none of them had done him justice.  Even in the rumpled Armani slacks and wrinkled Savile Row button down that had obviously been slept in, he was breathtaking.  From his black mop of thick curls to his brooding dark