LITMIR.BIZ

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money to support that life, she didn’t have the time or the energy to enjoy it.

      Alexis was tired of working at this insane pace. And darn it, she wanted kids eventually, but she didn’t want to be put on the mommy track because she couldn’t routinely work eighty to ninety hours a week or because she took off a couple of years.

      That’s what had happened to every woman who’d given birth while Alexis had been at Swinehart, Cathardy and Steele. And it wasn’t just her firm, or even law, itself. Even Marisa, who’d joined the firm at the same time as Alexis, and who had her mother, younger sister and a nanny living with her, had given up and now consulted from her home.

      So, it still came down to family or career. But why did women have to make this wrenching choice? Why couldn’t they do both? She’d never heard of the men in her office agonizing over it. She knew they had families. New photos of smiling wives and children regularly sprouted on their desks, although that could be so they could recognize them when they crossed paths at home.

      Still, they had something she didn’t. Something she wanted. And by marrying Vincent, she could have it. She could have it all.

      A week ago, she’d been looking forward to collapsing and sleeping late Saturday morning—maybe even sleeping the whole weekend. She so rarely had a weekend off. She’d just given herself the old pep talk, the one that said being primary associate on Vincent’s high-profile team was worth it. Worth no personal life, worth the lack of sleep, worth missing birthdays and holidays, worth never really getting to know her three-year-old niece.

      She could slow down later, she’d always assured herself at the end. That was the point when she usually slipped into her fantasy, the one filled with shopping, salon appointments, lunches and sleep, glorious sleep.

      Except, she wanted to slow down—stop—now. She wanted the fantasy now. She hadn’t felt the same sense of satisfaction that she used to feel at the end of a big project. And the oblique remarks made by her mother and sister now stung. She would never know her three-year-old niece, her sister, Leigh, pointed out, because she hadn’t seen her niece as a three year old. And unless Alexis managed a trip to Austin before May 24, Madison’s fourth birthday, she wouldn’t.

      Alexis had checked her Palm and found out that Leigh was right.

      It had given her something to think about.

      She’d been thinking about it last Friday after she and Vincent had finished work on a huge merger. Vincent had opened a bottle of champagne and the two crystal flutes she’d drunk coupled with the feeling of accomplishment and the magnificent high-rise view from Vincent’s equally magnificent office had loosened her tongue.

      Vincent had waved an arm at the lights of Houston winking at them and asked, “How does it feel to look out there and know you’re one of the best?” She’d answered, “Not the way I thought it would.”

      “Then you need more champagne,” Vincent had said. That was when he’d poured the fateful second flute.

      Alexis never drank more than one drink in a business setting. But, Vincent was her mentor and she was so used to following his advice that she’d held out her flute without a second thought.

      He’d clinked their glasses together and then she’d rashly drained hers, never tasting the pricey Dom something or other that Vincent kept chilled in his office refrigerator.

      “Well?” One thick eyebrow raised. His face was impossibly tanned. Impossibly as in, where did he find the time to have the fake tan sprayed on? Alexis hadn’t even managed to find a reliable manicurist to come to her office.

      “How do you feel now?” Vincent had asked.

      “I want more,” she remembered saying. But when he’d held up the bottle, she’d shaken her head. “Not champagne. More.”

      A smile had curved his lips.

      Now that she thought about it, Alexis recalled that it was the same smile he gave opponents before obliterating them. It was an I’ve-won-but-I’m-going-to-play-with-you-awhile smile.

      She hadn’t been an opponent, had she?

      “You’re entitled to more.” He’d named a figure.

      To her astonishment, Alexis had realized she’d negotiated a raise without even trying. “Has all this been worth it to you?” she’d asked him.

      He’d looked her right in the eyes, his blue ones so bright and so sharp they cut through her champagne haze. “Absolutely.”

      Alexis had felt herself relax until he added, “But then my biological clock runs longer than yours.”

      Biological clock. Hadn’t that become a cliché yet? And yet once he’d mentioned it, she’d realized all her unease was probably related to that same biological clock. Cliché or not, she was thirty-one and had no boyfriend and no time to find one, along with tattered friendships and blood relatives who were strangers. She’d poured out all this to an uncharacteristically sympathetic Vincent. Oh, it had been a calculated sympathy, Alexis knew that, but she’d pretended she didn’t.

      And then he’d said, “I have a proposal for you.” And that’s exactly what it had been.

      She’d been shocked and then the idea had grown on her. Though he was older, Vincent was by no means unattractive and quite frankly, he could provide a better life for her than she could provide for herself.

      And she didn’t want to hear any of this letting-down-the-sisterhood stuff, either. She’d just like to see how many of the sisterhood would turn down an offer like the one Vincent had made. Not many, and not Alexis.

      So here she was, a week later, marrying a man she admired, but didn’t love. Who admired, but didn’t love, her. Still, they both wanted the same thing—a family and children. Well, Alexis also wanted a personal trainer and a standing appointment with a masseuse, but basically, she and Vincent were on the same page.

      It made so much sense—Alexis would settle in to the marriage for a couple of months, then work on having children right away, and by the time they were well into elementary school, Vincent would be ready to take over parenting duties and Alexis would pick up her legal career where she left off. Thanks to Vincent, there would be no mommy track for Alexis. As one of the founding partners, he had that kind of power, and he was putting it in writing, right in this pre-nup that she should be paying attention to instead of mentally justifying her actions to a pair of caramel-colored eyes that still had the power to affect her.

      “Alexis?” Margaret, her lawyer, gave her a look that meant Alexis had missed something.

      In her late forties, Margaret had never married. She was hard as nails, humorless, and her roots needed retouching.

      She was Alexis’s future.

      No, not anymore. Not now that she was marrying Vincent. “Margaret?”

      “Do you agree to the terms of the preceding clause?”

      “I…”

      “There is a significant—” Margaret paused to emphasize just how significant “—monetary penalty should you return to work. In addition, there is a non-compete clause that troubles me.”

      “It didn’t trouble Alexis,” Vincent inserted smoothly.

      “We have had barely forty-eight hours to review the contract.” Margaret peered at Vincent over the top of some unflattering reading glasses. They were in no way stylish, nor had they ever been. Shopping for frames would take time, time a high-powered attorney like Margaret didn’t have.

      “I would suggest that if Alexis works for another firm, you mitigate the financial penalty,” she said.

      “I wouldn’t work for another firm.” That would be defeating the whole purpose of the marriage.

      Margaret and her awful glasses turned to Alexis. “All the more reason to take a second look at those financial terms.”

      Alexis

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