The Media Baron's Heiress

CHAPTER 9

Tessa drove from the court with the roof down in her car. She was tired and impatiently waited at the intersection for the little red man to become green. She wanted to relax for a little while in a luxurious bath first, and then get stuck into the files again. She'd quickly stopped by at her principal's desk after today's hearings just to brief him. He had been quite pleased with today's proceedings, so was Tessa.

She was mildly distracted by the continuous tapping of the accelerator from the vehicle that was stationary in the lane next to her. She knew what that meant. She hadn't always known, until the one day Fabian had informed her when he'd been in the driver's seat of her car. Curiously Tessa coiled her head to look at the driver of that vehicle. He was a youngster, about twenty three perhaps. As she looked at him, again he challengingly pressed on the accelerator. Her eyes shifted from his, to view his vehicle. It was a German sports car, but she knew that vehicle stood no chance against hers.

She was a law abiding citizen, and her profession commanded her to uphold the law, but again that driver continued to provoke her to accept his challenge.
Are you kidding me? Your vehicle can never outperform mine.
She wanted to ignore him, but he revved on the accelerator more forcefully, and Tessa gave in to the challenge.

'You're on,' she voiced the words. Stupid boy!
When the little man turned green, both vehicles took off simultaneously. Tessa was unconcerned, she knew when that vehicle's speedometer reached one hundred, the power just cut off, and her Italian, car just got more powerful as soon as it touched one hundred. After crossing three blocks, he lost ground, and she was an entire car length ahead of him as she victoriously pulled up at the next traffic light. Again he tapped on the accelerator.

'Don't you know when to quit,' Tessa rolled her eyes at him. 'Go and play with marbles for heaven's sake!'
He had the grace to squirm, knowing she'd accepted his challenge and had beaten him fair and square.

As Tessa pulled into Scarsdale, she observed her father's Rolls Royce was parked up front. He's home early. So was she for that matter. She refused to dwell on the fact that she'd avoided going to JeTag or her apartment. She did not want to see Marco tonight, and her apartment had too much memories of everything she and Brad had done in the kitchen, the lounge, her bedroom and the bathroom. She made the excuse that the case she was working on was high profile enough to warrant her working from her retreat, but she knew she was just avoiding the truth. She allowed her mind to ponder on the call she'd received from Brad in the morning. He'd been so arrogant in that sexy voice of his. So smug that the media was unable to tail him to her place, and had got their information wrong. Armed with the stack of files in one hand she slung her briefcase over the other shoulder, and simultaneously scanned the many missed calls on her mobile. She was not in the mood to chat to anybody, so she kept it on silent and shoved it into her briefcase as she entered the living room. Her dad was visibly shocked to see her home so early, he looked at her without uttering a word.

'I'm Tessa von Biljoen,' she spoke tongue in cheek, a smile hovering on her lips.

'You brought work home,' he grinned back, noting the stack of files under her arm.

Tessa lowered her head to the multi coloured files, she was holding, 'no, it's new wall paper I'm trying out in my bedroom.'

Her father laughed, 'caught you on the six o' clock news,' his eyes held a trace of respectful pride.

'Was it my body or my brain that got the airtime?' She asked without interest.

'The case you're handling is high profile enough,' was all her father replied.

Tessa knew there was a lot of international interest in this case. A U.S. company was taking on the government of Russia for breach of contract. The company had spent a lot of time, money and resources developing electronic navigational software, and the Russian government subsequently terminated the contract and handed the business to a Japanese consortium. Tessa was studying the clauses of the contract with a fine tooth comb. She'd hired an interpreter to study Russian law on international service level agreements, but for now she was holding her cards close to her chest. It was not her first international case. She was not the bragging type, but she had a hundred percent success rate in the court room. She was yet to lose a case. She was not arrogant, she knew there was always a 'first time,' but the Russian government was not going to break her record just yet.