I don’t even know where to start with him. Maybe that’s the problem. James isn’t the kind of man you can sum up in neat little sentences, and God knows I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve sat in my office—glass walls, city lights at my back, a courtroom’s worth of arguments at my disposal—and I still can’t explain him in any way that makes sense.
He doesn’t ask for your attention. He takes it without trying. The moment he walks into a room, everything shifts. The air, the pace, the noise—all of it bends around him. And it isn’t loud, it isn’t flashy. It’s quieter than that. Stronger than that. Like gravity.
At first glance, you think you’ve figured him out. Tall, broad shoulders, the kind of presence that makes men straighten their ties and women pretend not to stare. His face looks like it’s been cut from stone, jaw tight, eyes steady, posture carved from years of discipline. You see him and you tell yourself: I know this type. I’ve beaten this type in negotiations. I’ve broken this type in depositions. I’ve run circles around this type my whole career.
But then he smiles.
And that’s when you’re fucked.
Because it isn’t the polished smile of a politician or the practiced charm of a man who knows he’s handsome. It’s something else. It’s sudden, alive, dangerous in a way you don’t see coming. It’s sunlight breaking through steel, and you feel it before you realize you’re leaning in, before you realize you’re letting him past defenses you swore no man could ever breach.
That’s what he does—he disarms you. One moment you’re standing tall, every inch the partner, the executive, the woman who doesn’t say yes to anyone. The next, you’re caught off guard by the warmth in his laugh, the weight in his silence, the way he looks at you like he knows exactly what you’re thinking and exactly how you’ll try to hide it.
And you want to fight it. Of course you do. You remind yourself who you are, what you’ve built, how hard you’ve worked to stand where you stand. But when he leans close, when his voice drops low, when that storm behind his eyes flickers just for you… you don’t fight. You can’t.
There’s an energy in him that’s impossible to name. It isn’t recklessness, it isn’t arrogance. It’s something contained, like fire behind glass. You sense it, you crave it, and you know if he ever let it out, it would burn you alive. And yet, for reasons you’ll never understand, you want that burn.
It’s confusing, infuriating even, because James is not the kind of man who fits into neat categories. He’s not just power. He’s not just charm. He’s both, at once, in a way that leaves you unsteady on your feet. One second he looks untouchable, immovable, the kind of man you’d never dare to cross. The next, he tilts his head, that grin curling at the corner of his mouth, and suddenly you’re laughing with him, leaning into him, wanting more of a joy you didn’t even know you’d been missing.
It isn’t fair. Men like him aren’t supposed to exist, not really. Not in boardrooms, not in courtrooms, not in the polished glass towers where people like me live our lives. And yet here he is.
James Alexander is the exception. The man I shouldn’t want. The man I can’t walk away from. And the truth—the one I’ll only ever admit here, now, to you—is that I don’t even want to.
The Charm of a Gentleman 