The Perfect Deception (The Perfect Match #3)

Chapter One

Chap-ter One

A fter read-ing the email from his fa-ther, Adam dropped his head in his hands and mas-saged his tem-ples. Freez-ing rain pat-tered against the win-dow of his of-fice, the sound of it mak-ing his head pound. An-other dead-line missed? This made the third time that a case he was work-ing on was tanked due to mis-fil-ing a mo-tion or miss-ing a dead-line. How the hell had this hap-pened? His stom-ach turned at the tone of his fa-ther’s email. He had to fix this. Now. As he walked the long hall-way to his fa-ther’s cor-ner of-fice, he glanced at his friends and co-work-ers out of the cor-ner of his eye. None of them seemed to have this prob-lem, or did they? Out-side his fa-ther’s of-fice, he paused to draw a slow, steady breath. He hadn’t missed the dead-line. His pa-per-work was com-plete. It wasn’t his fault. His fa-ther would have to be-lieve him.

With a nod to his fa-ther’s sec-re-tary, Di-ane, he knocked on the cherry wood door. He heard a muf-fled “come in,” and he en-tered. His fa-ther didn’t look up, so Adam sat in the black leather ex-ec-u-tive side chair across from his fa-ther’s mas-sive ma-hogany desk, crossed his arms, and waited to be ac-knowl-edged while star-ing at his fa-ther’s shock of thick, white hair. He’d spent count-less hours of his life star-ing at that proud head. The scratch of the foun-tain pen on the lined le-gal pad grated against his eardrums, but he re-frained from in-ter-rupt-ing him, even if he sus-pected the writ-ing was a stalling tac-tic. It usu-ally was. Noah Man-del was the best cor-po-rate lawyer in the state of New Jer-sey, and had forged his rep-u-ta-tion care-fully. Adam knew bet-ter than to mess with him.

From the time Adam was seven years old and his mother walked out, his fa-ther had made it clear that work came above all else. When Noah’s wife left, she’d taken what-ever af-fec-tion he’d pos-sessed. Adam learned early on that at-tach-ments to peo-ple, even those re-lated to him, could be fleet-ing and only caused pain. Main-tain con-trol, pro-tect your rep-u-ta-tion and never let any-one get too close.

Fi-nally, his fa-ther laid his pen on the desk and fixed his hawk-like gaze on his son. That stare still made Adam flinch, even at twenty-nine years old, but he re-sisted the urge and main-tained his out-wardly smooth facade. His fa-ther hated signs of weak-ness, per-ceived or oth-er-wise. The two men re-mained silent, un-til his fa-ther spoke.

“We have a prob-lem.”

“We?” Adam asked.

“Don’t get cocky.”

“I didn’t miss the dead-line.”

An-other si-lence greeted that state-ment. “That’s what you said last time, and the time be-fore that.” His fa-ther slid the let-ter from the court across his desk. “This let-ter says oth-er-wise.”

Adam frowned as he skimmed the let-ter. His gut tight-ened. The dead-line to file the re-spon-sive plead-ing had been last Mon-day at mid-night. He’d given his para-le-gal, Ash-ley, all the ma-te-rial she needed to file, had seen it in her pos-ses-sion and left the of-fice. But this let-ter from the ad-ver-sary stated the court had never re-ceived it. There-fore, their ad-ver-sary was fil-ing a de-fault, re-quest-ing the court to is-sue an or-der that they won the case. In other words, Adam’s client lost. “I have no idea what hap-pened, Dad. I gave her the mo-tion and told her to file it. Did any-one ask her about it?”

“Yes, Ash-ley says you never gave her the fi-nal doc-u-men-ta-tion.”

“That’s in-sane. I gave her ev-ery-thing she needed in a manila en-ve-lope for her to mail.”

“Did you see her mail it?”

“No, I left to go out with some peo-ple from work.”

“So you were drink-ing.” His fa-ther’s eye-brows raised in dis-ap-proval.

“I had two beers. I wasn’t drunk. I never have more than that when we go out. And that was af-ter I gave her the ma-te-ri-als.” His rep-u-ta-tion was too im-por-tant to him, and too es-sen-tial for his ca-reer, to ever lose con-trol. Two beers with co-work-ers was his max.

“I’m not ac-cus-ing you of drink-ing on the job. No one has ever smelled al-co-hol on your breath.”

Adam re-frained from cring-ing at the com-ment.

“But your ea-ger-ness to go out and party made you sloppy. Again.”

One time. He’d rushed through an as-sign-ment for a case one time two years ago and his fa-ther never let him for-get about it. He’d been metic-u-lous since then, but his fa-ther didn’t care. “No, Dad, I wasn’t sloppy. I made sure ev-ery-thing was in or-der be-fore I left.”

“So what hap-pened?” His fa-ther leaned for-ward, his gaze pierc-ing.

Adam gripped the arm-rests un-til his fin-gers ached. “I have no idea.” Why wasn’t his fa-ther in-ter-ro-gat-ing Ash-ley?

“So you don’t re-mem-ber? Now you’re black-ing out when you drink?” His fa-ther glared at him. “I thought you said you only had two beers.”

“I did. Why isn’t Ash-ley here be-ing ques-tioned?”

“Be-cause I’ve al-ready talked to her and she swears you never gave her any-thing to file. Be-tween miss-ing this dead-line on the mo-tion, mess-ing up the dead-line for fil-ing that ini-tial com-plaint on the Bradley case, and your slop-pi-ness two years ago, you’re prov-ing that your head isn’t in this game.”

“Dad, the Hyde case was two years ago and the Bradley case was a mis-un-der-stand-ing.” The ex-cuse sounded lame to his ears, but he wasn’t go-ing to give away any more in-for-ma-tion. Not un-til he fig-ured out why his cases were sud-denly be-ing called into ques-tion. “I’ve been on top of things since then, I swear. Maybe some-thing is fishy with Ash-ley. She’s been act-ing odd around me lately. We should be look-ing into her and why she’s fab-ri-cat-ing this story.”

“I didn’t raise a son to slough off blame to some-one else. This firm has our name on it. That means the buck stops with me. And you. It’s dis-hon-or-able to try to blame some-one else for your mis-takes. Do you have proof that you gave her the mo-tion? You didn’t have one with the Bradley case, didn’t you learn your les-son this time? And why, if you were so con-cerned about do-ing your job cor-rectly, would you have left be-fore the fil-ing was com-pleted? You don’t need me to an-swer that ques-tion for you, do you?”

Adam flexed his fin-gers as he waited for the bar-rage of ques-tions to stop. “I’m sure there was some-one around who saw me give her the file, Dad. As for leav-ing be-fore she fin-ished fil-ing, since when do I have to mi-cro-man-age a para-le-gal?”

His fa-ther held up a hand. “Adam, that’s enough. Our name is on the door. This is my firm. You have a stan-dard to live up to, one that you are fail-ing at, at the mo-ment. I’m not go-ing to warn you again.”

Adam’s eye-lid twitched, and he rose and walked to-ward the door.

“Oh, and Adam? I know you’re work-ing to-ward that pro-mo-tion to ju-nior part-ner, but with this lin-ger-ing over your head…”

Adam gripped the door-knob, will-ing his tongue to lis-ten to his brain and re-main silent. No one who ar-gued with his fa-ther ever won.

Dina pulled her car out onto the busy Mor-ris-town street, her lat-est pile of li-brary books on the seat be-side her. The best part of be-ing a li-brar-ian was her ac-cess to books—thou-sands and thou-sands of vel-lum-smelling, page-crack-ling books. She smiled as she came to a traf-fic light. Shab-bat ser-vices tonight fol-lowed by a week-end of read-ing. It was just what she wanted to do on the cold-est week-end of the year.

As she left the town proper and headed into the out-skirts, she drove over one of the many huge pot-holes the county had yet to fix. Her car con-tin-ued to bump af-ter she’d passed it and she pulled over onto the shoul-der. A freez-ing driz-zle was fall-ing and she hugged her coat tighter around her. Great, just what my frizzy hair needs , she thought as she bent down to look at the tire. Flat.

She popped the trunk and rooted around for the jack. With her warn-ing lights flash-ing, she po-si-tioned the jack be-hind the rear wheel and be-gan pump-ing, watch-ing the car rise. She rubbed her chilled hands to-gether be-fore try-ing to re-move the spare from its com-part-ment. Head-lights lit her view of her trunk and she turned as a car pulled up be-hind her. A man got out of the car and she fin-gered her cell-phone in her pocket. At rush hour, there were plenty of other cars on the road, but she backed up a lit-tle and reached for a crow-bar, also in the trunk.

“You look like you could use some help,” the man said as he ap-proached. He wore a wool over-coat, which flapped open, re-veal-ing a dark suit and a pressed blue shirt. His hands were stuffed in his pock-ets. The icy driz-zle speck-led his shoul-ders and his tawny hair with a sil-ver halo. Moss green eyes glowed in the dim light from the pass-ing cars. He re-minded her of a moun-tain lion.

“Nope, I’m fine, thanks.”

“Are you sure? It’s freez-ing out here. I can have you back on the road in a few min-utes.” He was a head taller than she was, and he smelled like cloves. De-spite his un-needed as-sis-tance, Dina had to fight the warm feel-ing of home his smell sug-gested.

“Fifty per-cent of women know how to change their tires, and I’m one of them.” Dina picked up the crow bar, pre-par-ing to change the tire her-self.

He backed away, hands up, the vein in his neck puls-ing. “I was just try-ing to help. Never mind. I se-ri-ously can-not win with women,” he mut-tered.

She swal-lowed. Maybe she’d been too harsh. Be-fore she could soften her tone, or ask him what he was talk-ing about, a po-lice car pulled up and rolled down the driver side win-dow. “Ma’am, is ev-ery-thing okay? Sir, is there a prob-lem?”

“I’m fine, but thanks. It’s just a flat,” she said to the of-fi-cer.

“Sir?”

He grinned. “Noth-ing, of-fi-cer, I was just of-fer-ing to help her change her tire.”

The of-fi-cer nod-ded, but turned to Dina any-way. “Ma’am, do you need as-sis-tance?”

“I’m al-most done.” Why did no one be-lieve she could do this?

“Are you sure?”

“Of-fi-cer, I re-ally am fine and he was just try-ing to help me.”

The of-fi-cer scanned the other man. “What’s your name?”

“Adam Man-del.” He stood up straighter, thrust-ing his shoul-ders back.

“Ma’am?”

“Dina Ja-cobs.”

He ex-ited his car and ap-proached them. “Can I see some ID?”

The man named Adam tipped his head, be-fore dig-ging his ID out of an ex-pen-sive-look-ing leather wal-let and hand-ing it to the of-fi-cer. Dina gave hers as well. The of-fi-cer scanned them both be-fore re-turn-ing them. “Okay, I’m just go-ing to wait in my pa-trol car un-til you two get on your way.” He pulled up past her car and waited.

Dina looked at the Good Samar-i-tan and felt bad for him. Chances were he hadn’t had any other mo-tive than to help her, and now he was be-ing eyed sus-pi-ciously by the cop. He strode back to his sports car, and she heaved a sigh. “Wait!” she called out.

She jogged to-ward him, try-ing not to slip on the icy pave-ment. “I didn’t mean to get you in any trou-ble. I think I over-re-acted. I ap-pre-ci-ate your try-ing to help me.”

His stance re-laxed and he smiled, warm-ing her de-spite the cold weather. “I didn’t mean to come on too strong, hon-estly. Last chance if you want me to help you with the tire, though. You look cold.”

She was, even if his green-eyed gaze acted like a heat ray. “That would be great.”

He handed her his keys. “Sit in my car and get warm. You can turn on the mu-sic if you want. I’ll be done in a jiffy.”

She climbed into his BMW and turned the ig-ni-tion key. The mo-tor purred. Heat blasted from the vents and she sighed in de-light as she sank into the but-ter-soft leather seat. The dash-board gleamed, look-ing like some-thing you’d see in a fighter jet. She had no idea where the con-trols were even if she wanted to turn on the ra-dio. Five min-utes later, he be-gan walk-ing to-ward her, so she got out of the car.

“All fixed,” he said.

“I re-ally ap-pre-ci-ate your help-ing me out. Can I buy you a cup of cof-fee?”

He hes-i-tated. “Nah,” he said, “I’m good.”

“Are you sure? You look pretty cold…and wet. It’s the least I can do.”

He rolled his shoul-ders, the wool of his over-coat glis-ten-ing from the mois-ture. “Fol-low me to the diner?”

She nod-ded and waved to the cop, who pulled out onto the road be-hind them. As she drove, she re-al-ized she’d never be home in time for Shab-bat ser-vices. Oh well. She was thank-ing him for a mitz-vah . There were worse rea-sons to miss tem-ple.

He pulled his Beamer into an empty spot, leav-ing the one clos-est to the door and the light, for…dammit, he didn’t re-mem-ber her name. Un-like his lack of mem-ory about Ash-ley, this mem-ory lapse could be fixed. He shook his head, try-ing to dis-pel the thought. Well, what-ever her name was, she seemed sweet enough and she shouldn’t have to walk through a dark park-ing lot alone. He took the stairs two at a time and waited for her in the foyer, star-ing at the team pic-tures on the walls and the mul-ti-col-ored stacks of busi-ness cards in the rack. A mo-ment later, her non-de-script-look-ing car pulled into the spot he’d left for her and she joined him.

“Hey, I just re-al-ized, I don’t re-mem-ber your name,” he said. He hid his em-bar-rass-ment with a smile.

Her round face red-dened, but she laughed. It was a beau-ti-ful laugh. “It’s Dina Ja-cobs.” She held her hand out and he clasped it, find-ing it softer and smaller than he’d ex-pected.

“Hello, Dina Ja-cobs. I’m Adam Man-del.”

She pulled her hand away and clasped both of them to-gether in front of her. “I know. Shall we sit down?”

She was ner-vous, he thought, as he fol-lowed her and the host-ess to their booth next to the win-dow. His neck heated. Was she al-ways like this or was it in re-ac-tion to him? Did his anger at his fa-ther spill over to his ac-tions with her? As he slid into the booth, he made a con-certed ef-fort to re-lax his mus-cles and to for-get about the ac-cu-sa-tion—at least for now.

Their booth over-looked the park-ing lot and the high-way, so it didn’t pro-vide much of a view. The faux-leather menus were huge with page af-ter vinyl page of ev-ery-thing you could imag-ine. It was an in-de-ci-sive per-son’s hell. Luck-ily he was just hav-ing cof-fee.

“You know what you’re or-der-ing al-ready?” Her menu was open, and she was scan-ning each page, as if she’d never seen such a plethora of food be-fore.

“You in-vited me for cof-fee.”

She snorted, which he some-how found re-fresh-ing and adorable. “Oh, please. It’s din-ner-time. You can’t pos-si-bly tell me you’re not hun-gry.”

Well, when she put it that way. He stud-ied the burger sec-tion.

“So, other than res-cu-ing women on the side of the road, and al-most be-ing ar-rested by a cop, what do you do?”

“I’m a cor-po-rate at-tor-ney, work-ing in Mor-ris-town.”

“I’m a li-brar-ian at the main li-brary in town.”

If any-one fit the stereo-type, it was Dina. Match-ing pink sweater set, frizzy black hair pulled back with combs—all she needed were read-ing glasses hang-ing around her neck. But she wasn’t old enough for those. She looked around his age.

“Did you al-ways want to be a li-brar-ian?”

“I’ve al-ways been more com-fort-able in the imag-i-nary worlds cre-ated by books, so yes, I did. I sup-pose you don’t get to read books much.”

“Why would you as-sume that?” He worked hard to main-tain his im-age. Be-tween his de-signer suits, well-groomed ap-pear-ance, and his JD de-gree, the last thing any-one would ever mis-take him for was an id-iot.

Her eyes widened. “Be-cause cor-po-rate law prac-tice re-quires tons of hours, and I’d as-sume a lot of read-ing of law ma-te-ri-als. You prob-a-bly don’t want to spend what lit-tle down time you have read-ing for plea-sure.”

He leaned to-ward her, arms on the ta-ble. “You’re around books all day, right?”

She nod-ded.

“Do you read when you go home?”

She nod-ded again.

“Then why would you think oth-er-wise of me?”

She blinked. For the first time he no-ticed her eyes were vi-o-let.

“You’re right. I made a snap judg-ment based on your car and your clothes, and I don’t know what else.” She played with her wa-ter glass be-fore con-tin-u-ing. “If I weren’t al-ready treat-ing you to din-ner, I would now.”

He sat back in the booth. “There’s al-ways dessert.” He winked. He couldn’t tell who was more sur-prised, he or Dina. Be-cause de-spite her in-cor-rect as-sump-tions about him, he was start-ing to en-joy him-self.

She ran a hand through her hair, fin-gers get-ting caught in the tiny knots caused by the rain. “So, what do you like to read?”

Her hair in-trigued him and he re-sponded with-out think-ing. “Ac-tu-ally, I love read-ing sci-ence fic-tion and comic books.” Dammit, why had he just told her that? He’d never told any-one about his fond-ness for those sub-jects—the peo-ple he hung out with wouldn’t un-der-stand. It didn’t ex-actly fit his im-age, at least, not the one he pro-jected. He should have said mys-ter-ies. Or thrillers. Maybe she’d drop the sub-ject.

“Re-ally? I never would have thought that about you. I’ve al-ways found su-per-heroes ap-peal-ing, though.”

He should let the sub-ject drop. “My fa-vorite is Cap-tain Amer-ica. His sto-ries make me nos-tal-gic.” So much for that idea.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

At his quizzi-cal look, she con-tin-ued. “If we get any-thing in-ter-est-ing in the li-brary. Why does Cap-tain Amer-ica make you nos-tal-gic?”

Damn. He played with his wa-ter glass. “My mom used to read them to me.”

The server came with their burg-ers. As he set down the plates, Adam used the time to try to think of a dif-fer-ent sub-ject. Any sub-ject to turn the con-ver-sa-tion in a dif-fer-ent di-rec-tion. Be-fore he could put to-gether a co-her-ent sen-tence, Dina spoke again.

“Do you like work-ing at your firm?”

He swal-lowed. Talk about chang-ing sub-jects. “It has its chal-lenges. It’s my dad’s firm. I started there be-cause it was ex-pected of me, and a smaller firm pro-vides great learn-ing ex-pe-ri-ences. But it’s hard be-ing the son of the lead part-ner, be-cause ev-ery-one watches you to see how you’re treated.” If you screw up, it’s even worse. He shrugged, let-ting his mouth spread in a half-smile. He looked around. God, he wished they served al-co-hol.

Her tone was sooth-ing. “I’ll bet hav-ing peo-ple’s eyes on you all the time must be dif-fi-cult. Be-cause even if they’re not judg-ing you, you sort of al-ways think they are.”

This com-plete stranger un-der-stood. He looked at her over his burger. Her eyes re-ally were lovely. Her long lashes made shad-ows on her creamy skin. Her lips were pretty too.

“It’s one of the rea-sons I want to move to a larger New York City firm. The hours are longer, but the sep-a-ra-tion would be worth it.”

“Do they still make their lawyers work all night? I mean, you’re not fresh out of law school any-more, right? My cousin is a lawyer and he never left the of-fice when he worked for one of those big firms.”

“I’m al-most four years out and the hours will be a lot more than here, but no, I shouldn’t need to work all night. Es-pe-cially if I can leave where I am as a ju-nior part-ner.” Which right now was a crap-shoot, es-pe-cially if I keep screw-ing up.

“Do you think you’ll make it?”

It had been a long time since he’d talked to a woman who showed gen-uine in-ter-est in him. Most of the ones he as-so-ci-ated with wanted noth-ing more than a hookup or a rich boyfriend who could spend a lot of money on them. He found him-self warm-ing to her. “I’m not sure, but I’m hope-ful.”

The bill came and he whipped out his credit card. They reached for the check at the same time. Their hands touched. A jolt of some-thing ran up his arm. Be-neath his fin-gers, her hand fit per-fectly. He wished he could sit longer like this.

“I said I was go-ing to pay,” she said.

Her voice broke what-ever spell he’d fallen un-der. When she pulled her hand, and the bill, away, she broke the phys-i-cal bond as well. His hand felt empty. He moved it to his lap, clench-ing it in a fist.

“It’s not nec-es-sary, Dina. I was happy to help.”

“I wasn’t very nice and this is my way of apol-o-giz-ing.”

He tipped his head in ac-knowl-edge-ment. “Next time, it’s on me.”

As they walked to-ward the cashier, she shrugged her shoul-ders. “Did you know about sev-enty-five per-cent of men aren’t com-fort-able let-ting the woman pay the check?”

He looked at her askance. “Can I have your num-ber?” What the hell was he do-ing?

She shook her head and he thought she would refuse, but she rat-tled off her num-ber. “You’ll prob-a-bly be a suc-cess-ful New York at-tor-ney by the time you think of do-ing this again.”

Her smile light-ened her words, but as he watched her drive away, he couldn’t help but won-der. Could there be a next time?