Legally Addicted - By Lena Dowling Page 0,2

didn’t need a butler. Having a butler in twenty-first century Australia was bloody ridiculous. Requisitioning one of the hotel cleaners for a few hours a week would have been perfectly adequate, but he had inherited Jeffrey, along with the penthouse over the hotel and the majority of his father’s assets. While theoretically only the butler, Jeffrey was practically a member of the family. As annoying as some of the older man’s habits were, Brad would never let him go. Jeffrey had a place with the Spencer family as long as he wanted it.

‘I had a woman sneak out on me this morning, and I can’t remember the last time that happened.’

Normally if he took a woman home, she would loiter around in the morning angling for breakfast, or an invitation for a second date, but Georgia Murray had left without so much as a goodbye kiss.

The stunning, blonde, blue-eyed woman had made her stealthy exit in much the same way that he had left a number of other women’s bedrooms over the years.

‘Oh dear, sir. Well, it comes to us all eventually. None of us is getting any younger. Perhaps you should think about settling down.’

The butler picked up a starched napkin and polished an imaginary spot on the tabletop, sounding tentative, as if he were testing the waters to say more.

Brad took a sip of his coffee.

Having only just reached his mid-thirties, Brad didn’t think it was time to panic. After all, based on last night he was still capable of pulling a twenty-something, even if she had done a disappearing act in the morning.

‘Yes, I must be losing my touch,’ Brad said, feigning agreement and returning to the business section of the newspaper, while keeping a surreptitious eye on his butler. He had known Jeffrey for thirty-two of his thirty-four years, and he was pretty sure that his butler was working up to saying something that in all probability, he wasn’t going to like.

Jeffrey set down the napkin and retrieved a silver tray from the sideboard, placing it on the table beside Brad.

‘Only two messages this morning, sir. One is from Mrs Spencer. She says she is finding the London summer rather agreeable and plans to stay on until September, by which time our winter should be over. She wants you to pick up her responsibilities for the Spencer Charitable Trust until she gets back.’

Brad folded his newspaper in half and swatted it down on the table.

‘Of course she does.’

After his father died eighteen months ago, the addition of taking over the chairmanship of the Spencer Corp Board had maxed out his workload, and his mother knew it. In the current economy, it was taking a lot more work to manage the corporation’s property investments, and occupancy rates in Spencer Corp hotels and resorts were down, meaning he was also supervising the activities of his hotel managers more closely. He didn’t need the extra burden of picking up his mother’s charitable activities as well.

And as if that wasn’t enough, as a sole practitioner he had no-one to share his case load with. Even though that was about to change, he still expected to be busy for a while until the new arrangement bedded down.

‘Your mother also said, and I hesitate to pass this on, but she did insist…’

‘Spit it out, Jeffrey.’

It was so typical of his mother to use Jeffrey as a go-between.

‘Try not to shoot the messenger, sir, but she said to tell you that it’s high time you found a wife who can take over management of the Spencer Charitable Trust, so that she can slow down.

So that was what this was really all about — his mother’s desire to live an endless summer, flitting between hemispheres.

‘Yes, well, you see, Jeffrey, in my experience, once the veneer of the initial romance wears off, women reveal one of two underlying motives: either spending their way through the Spencer fortune, or cosying up to my celebrity clients, neither of which makes me hopeful for the prospect of long-term marital bliss.’

For a woman to hold his attention for longer than the time required to get her into bed, she would have to want him for Brad Spencer the man, and not merely the trappings that came with being the heir to the Spencer property fortune. More than that, she would have to be comfortable with own life and in her own skin. So far that combination had proved elusive.

Although last night he had found Georgia Murray refreshingly down-to-earth, and