Chapter Nine
Chap-ter Nine
“A dam, be-fore you go, can I speak with you a mo-ment?”
They’d been just about to leave this mau-soleum filled to the brim with mem-o-ries of his mother, and Adam stepped away from Dina with a sigh. She smelled so good. Turn-ing his back on his fa-ther, he brought Dina into the liv-ing room and made sure she was com-fort-ably en-sconced in a chair by the win-dow. He placed a hand on her shoul-der. Be-neath the pale pink cash-mere sweater, he could feel her del-i-cate bones. The con-trast be-tween soft and sharp al-most made him groan. He wanted to let him-self be over-whelmed by her tex-tures, not by his fa-ther’s com-mands or by whis-pers of his mother’s un-hap-pi-ness. “I won’t be long,” he whis-pered, be-fore re-turn-ing to the foyer and his fa-ther. “Sure, Dad.” He fol-lowed his fa-ther down the hall.
Click-ing the heavy door shut be-hind him, he stood in his fa-ther’s home of-fice, the man’s in-ner sanc-tum. He waited for the other shoe to drop. Be-cause there was al-ways an-other shoe.
“I’ve con-vinced Bradley to stay with us, but you’re not al-lowed to work with them.”
“Ever? They’re on re-tainer.”
“Doesn’t mat-ter. And you’ll have to work with-out a para-le-gal for now.”
“How about I con-tact the pres-i-dent of Bradley and apol-o-gize?”
His fa-ther squared off the pa-pers on his desk. Adam stared. His fa-ther liked or-der-li-ness more than any-thing else. He didn’t want to think where that left him.
“I can’t have you any-where near them right now. The agree-ment I made with him is ten-u-ous at best. I have only our best peo-ple work-ing with the com-pany. And if you say or do any-thing that hits them the wrong way, they’re gone. I won’t risk it.”
“I swear it wasn’t me, Dad.”
“I wish I could be-lieve you, but you’ve screwed up twice be-fore this. If you were any-one else, I would have fired you.”
Adam ran a hand through his hair and tried to ig-nore the sud-den nau-sea that made the food they’d just eaten threaten to come right back up. There was noth-ing left to say. He rose from the chair, his body leaden. As he turned to leave, his fa-ther stopped him.
“That pro-mo-tion you want? I need to see a com-plete change in how you con-duct your pro-fes-sional life, Adam. Be-cause there’s no way I can jus-tify pro-mot-ing you with-out sig-nif-i-cant changes in your be-hav-ior. That means you need to put your work first and your per-sonal life sec-ond. Too many peo-ple have seen how you rush through things, and it causes doubt and dis-trust. You have my last name, and with that name comes re-spon-si-bil-ity. You, more than any-one, have to be above re-proach. That ap-plies to your per-sonal life as well. No more sto-ries around the of-fice of how you’re rush-ing out early to hit a club or stag-ger-ing in late in the same clothes you wore the day be-fore be-cause you were with some ran-dom woman. This Dina of yours seems like a good start. Let’s see if you can keep her.”
Keep her, like a cov-eted toy? Or maybe a grade point av-er-age? Or pos-si-bly a wild an-i-mal need-ing to be tamed? What the hell did his fa-ther think of him? The irony of his fa-ther push-ing him to com-mit to one woman, when he couldn’t even keep Adam’s mother from leav-ing, wasn’t lost on him. The is-sue begged for a much longer dis-cus-sion than he had the time for right now. Dina was wait-ing for him in the liv-ing room. In-stead of ris-ing to the bait, he nod-ded.
“Thanks for din-ner.”
His fa-ther fol-lowed him out of the of-fice and back to the liv-ing room, where Dina was wait-ing.
“It was a plea-sure to meet you, Dina.”
Dina smiled, looked be-tween Adam and his fa-ther. “It was an en-light-en-ing evening. Your house is beau-ti-ful and din-ner was lovely. Thank you.”
Be-tween mem-o-ries of his mother leav-ing and ad-mo-ni-tions from his fa-ther, Adam couldn’t get away from the house fast enough. He ush-ered Dina out the door. Swing-ing his car around, he drove down the long drive-way. When he could no longer see the house in the rearview mir-ror, but had not yet reached the street, he put the car into park.
“What are you do-ing?” Dina asked. “Is ev-ery-thing al-right?”
He gripped the wheel with both hands at ten and two, as in-structed years ago by his driv-ing teacher. His thumbs rapped out a beat on the wheel only he could hear. He bowed his head. He just needed a mo-ment to re-group…
“Adam?”
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, in-hal-ing her co-conut scent that per-fumed his car. Un-like the other women he’d been with, her fra-grance didn’t make his eyes wa-ter. It re-minded him of the beach. Turn-ing to-ward her, he reached out and cupped her cheek. She stared at him, a quizzi-cal look on her face. He ran his thumb over her cheek-bones be-fore bury-ing his hand in her hair. His life was turn-ing to shit, and all he could think of was her.
“I…You….” He groaned and pulled her to-ward him, brush-ing his lips against hers. They were soft, giv-ing, like ev-ery-thing about her. Af-ter the in-tractabil-ity of his fa-ther, he wel-comed the change.
He needed the change. But he needed Dina more.
She gripped his shoul-ders as he kissed her. She tasted like wine and choco-late. His hands drifted down her back, mem-o-riz-ing the out-line of her body be-neath her sweater. In a cor-ner of his mind he won-dered if his hands were as dis-tract-ing as hers were for him. Be-cause hers were cur-rently play-ing with the hair on the back of his neck and send-ing chills down his spine.
The thought came to him in a rush of panic. She was go-ing to leave him, just like ev-ery-one he’d ever cared about deeply.
He leaned for-ward, de-ter-mined to make her stay. The gearshift dug into his rib, but he ig-nored the jab, need-ing to get closer to her. Pulling her against him, he traced kisses along her jaw. He nuz-zled the skin be-hind her ear, smil-ing as she gasped. His hands roved her body, slip-ping un-der her sweater, slid-ing up her sides and stroking her breasts. Heat shot through him straight to his groin. He groaned. When her mouth opened, he plunged his tongue in-side. She stilled be-fore her tongue meet his.
He was mov-ing too fast, he knew it. He shouldn’t rush her. She was the only woman who made him feel good about him-self. He needed her to like him, to care about him, to not leave. How was he sup-posed to achieve that?
She raised her hands to his face and pulled away so their noses touched. He wanted her mouth on his. He reached, but she stilled him with her hands.
“Shh,” she said. “What’s the rush?”
He tilted his head and rested his fore-head against hers as his breath-ing slowed. He was afraid if he didn’t rush, she’d find a rea-son to leave. But she was right, he was mov-ing too fast. He pulled away. She re-ally was go-ing to leave him.
Turn-ing back to the wheel, he swal-lowed. “Sorry. I’m sorry about that. It won’t hap-pen ag—.”
Now it was she who leaned over and pulled his face to-ward her. She kissed him long and deep be-fore pulling away. Again.
“I didn’t say stop. I said slow down.” She placed her hand over his on the steer-ing wheel.
Flip-ping his hand, he grasped hers and kissed it.
“Sorry, I got car-ried away.”
“And you were avoid-ing some-thing?”
How the hell could she know that? “My fa-ther said some things…” He stopped.
“…that up-set you.” She fin-ished his sen-tence and he smiled.
“That ob-vi-ous?”
She nod-ded. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. Never. “Maybe some other time.”
She ran her hand through his hair. The touch of her fin-gers against his scalp was send-ing shards of elec-tric-ity down to his toes.
With a sigh, he put the car into drive.
Out-side of her apart-ment, he turned to her.
“Thanks for com-ing with me tonight.”
“If you want to talk, just call.”
He leaned over and gave her a chaste kiss on the mouth. He wanted more than “talk,” much more, but he’d al-ready moved too fast. With Dina, he needed to move slowly.
Three days later, and Dina could still feel the im-print of Adam’s kiss on her lips. She shiv-ered at the lit-tle jolts of elec-tric-ity run-ning through her body at the mem-ory of his touch. When she closed her eyes, she could smell his scent.
This was ridicu-lous.
Adam didn’t date women like her. His fa-ther had said as much. She sus-pected he dated tall, thin, and gor-geous. No mat-ter how kind and con-sid-er-ate he was to her, the only rea-son he was dat-ing her was to help him with his fa-ther. Even if his kisses made her toes curl.
As she sat at her com-puter, she had to stop think-ing about the way the sound of his voice made her stom-ach vi-brate and fo-cus on the “lit-tle-boy-lost” look caused by what-ever his fa-ther had said to him.
“Are you ready?”
Dina jumped as Tracy’s voice sounded be-hind her and she swung her chair around. “Ready for what?”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “OMG, you can’t pos-si-bly have for-got-ten we’re go-ing shop-ping for your re-union dress now, can you?”
Crap. “No, of course not. I was just pre-oc-cu-pied.”
Tracy grabbed Dina’s arm and prac-ti-cally dragged her out of the of-fice and out into the sun-shine, where Dina si-mul-ta-ne-ously squinted and rubbed her arm.
A dull throb-bing started be-hind her eyes. “You know, I have per-fectly fine dresses at home.”
Tracy shook her head and kept walk-ing. “How old are they?”
With a shrug, Dina trot-ted af-ter Tracy, who per-son-i-fied a heat-seek-ing mis-sile as she race-walked down the crowded mid-day side-walk. She watched, mor-ti-fied, as three ran-dom busi-ness-men and two moth-ers with strollers rushed out of the way and glared at Tracy’s back as she plowed through them.
Mouthing “I’m sorry,” Dina caught up with her friend out-side a small dress bou-tique. Af-ter see-ing the scant-ily clad win-dow man-nequins, she opened her mouth to sug-gest they try a dif-fer-ent store, but Tracy had al-ready dis-ap-peared in-side.
The bell hang-ing over the door jin-gled, drown-ing out the sales-woman’s words to Tracy.
Tracy gave a broad smile and turned to-ward Dina. “You can help her find a dress for her re-union.”
The rail-thin Goth girl nod-ded. “High school or col-lege?”
“High school,” Dina replied, won-der-ing why that mat-tered.
Goth Girl gave her a once-over and turned to-ward a cloth-ing rack against the far wall. As Dina fol-lowed her, panic bub-bled in her chest. Most of the clothes she saw were in shades of mus-tard, olive, and rust. When Goth Girl pulled out a cream sheath with sub-tle ruf-fles along the hem, Dina’s jaw dropped.
“That’s per-fect,” Tracy said, grab-bing it from Goth Girl.
She had to ad-mit, it was lovely. But cream? Not ex-actly slim-ming. And the back had a huge cutout, which meant she couldn’t wear a bra.
“I need a bra, Tracy,” she whis-pered.
“No you don’t. Sticky Boobs!”
Goth Girl walked to the ac-ces-sory area and re-turned with a pack-age for Dina, who took it as her face went up in flames. They pointed her to-ward the dress-ing room and she obeyed with-out a sound, if only to get out of the awk-ward sit-u-a-tion.
Sticky Boobs.
She stared in dis-may at her re-flec-tion in the mir-ror. You’d think these things would be made for large-chested women, as they couldn’t af-ford to go with-out a bra. Ex-cept the mod-els on the boxes were al-ways waifs who looked as if they hadn’t even reached pu-berty yet. And, uh, how sticky was “sticky”? Sticky enough to defy grav-ity? God, she hoped so.
Once she read the di-rec-tions and fig-ured out how to ap-ply the sticky boobs, she picked up the dress. The ma-te-rial was soft and slid through her fin-gers. The ruf-fles cut against the bias were so-phis-ti-cated and the plung-ing back neck-line added el-e-gance. But on her? With a shrug, she put on the dress, let-ting it slide down her body and float into place.
Oy gevalt!
Who the heck was that woman in the mir-ror?
“Dina? Come on out!”
She blinked, notic-ing how her re-flec-tion hadn’t changed. Push-ing open the cur-tain, she ex-ited the dress-ing room.
Tracy and Goth Girl gasped.
“Oh my God, you look beau-ti-ful,” Tracy said. “Turn around!”
Dina obeyed, feel-ing like the bal-le-rina in a mu-sic box.
“You have to get this,” Tracy said.
Dina bit her lip. “I don’t know. I mean, the dress is lovely, but, is it me? I have plenty of ‘me’ dresses at home that I could wear…”
Tracy marched over and gripped her shoul-ders. “You are not wear-ing one of your old dresses to your high school re-union. You’re wear-ing this one.”
Goth Girl nod-ded her agree-ment. “It’s über stun-ning.”
Dina an-gled her-self so she could see her back. “But, it’s so…”
“Per-fect,” said Tracy.
“I don’t know.”
“Trust me. You want to wow the mean girls from high school and this is the dress to do it. Be-sides, Adam won’t be able to keep his hands off you.”
“Kim, can I talk to you a minute?” Adam stood out-side in the park-ing lot Fri-day evening.
Kim looked around and nod-ded. “What do you need, Adam?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I didn’t mean to put you in an awk-ward po-si-tion the other day, but I’m re-ally con-fused and was hop-ing you could help me. Why am I sud-denly the bad guy with the par-ale-gals?”
She opened her back door and stuffed her brief-case and purse in the back-seat of her mini-van. “We’re a tightknit group. We’re not al-ways treated well by some of the lawyers and we stick to-gether. What you did to Ash-ley re-ally got to us.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t blame her with-out cause. I gave her the mo-tion to be filed. I ac-tu-ally handed it to her be-fore I left and I clearly stated the dead-line.”
“So you’re call-ing her a liar?”
Adam shrugged. “I wish I wasn’t. But I never would have ex-pected her not to own up to her mis-take. And cer-tainly not to have all the par-ale-gals rally around her.”
“Re-ally? So if a para-le-gal screws up and forces you all to lose a case, you re-ally think she’s go-ing to ad-mit it? We have to have each other’s backs.”
“Are you say-ing you’d lie?”
Kim closed her eyes. “No, but I’m say-ing it’s awk-ward to be work-ing with the boss’s son and ex-pect fair treat-ment, es-pe-cially in-di-vid-u-ally.”
“Wait a minute, hold on. I’ll ad-mit I’ve been care-less in the past. I’ll even ad-mit to rush-ing out oc-ca-sion-ally. But when I mess up, I ad-mit it. You know that, Kim. I’ve ad-mit-ted mis-takes to you. And I’ve never blamed any of you for some-thing I’ve done. So why are you so will-ing to be-lieve her over me?”
“Ac-tu-ally, Adam,” she said as she got into her car, “I’m try-ing to stay out of it com-pletely. We do have each other’s backs. I’ve had good ex-pe-ri-ences work-ing with you and I ap-pre-ci-ate all the help you’ve given me. But in this case, I’m keep-ing my nose out of ev-ery-thing. If you have an is-sue with Ash-ley, or any of the other par-ale-gals, talk to them. Please leave me out of it.”
Kim started her car and drove away, leav-ing Adam alone un-der the lamp-light. Mut-ter-ing a curse, he climbed into his own car and left. Ten min-utes later, he pulled into a bar he and the other lawyers fre-quented.
“Adam!”
This late on a Fri-day af-ter-noon, the bar was crowded with happy hour rev-el-ers, but de-spite the noise, Adam could eas-ily hear Ryan, one of the lawyers he worked with. Al-though go-ing to a bar prob-a-bly wasn’t the wis-est choice, Adam wanted to find out from Ryan what he knew of Ash-ley’s work. Maybe if other lawyers were hav-ing the same prob-lem, he could use that as proof he was telling the truth. It was weak, but it was the best he could do. Fol-low-ing the voice, and look-ing out for the raised hand hold-ing a beer, Adam pushed his way through the crowd at the door. He made his way to-ward the other end of the bar.
“You want the usual?” Ryan asked. Turn-ing to the bar-tender, he or-dered Adam a beer be-fore ad-dress-ing him again. “Haven’t seen you around the of-fice much.”
Adam shrugged, took the beer from the bar-tender, and swal-lowed deeply. He’d need about twelve of these to re-lease all his ten-sion, but one was a start. “About that. How has Ash-ley been work-ing out for you?”
Ryan laughed. “What do you mean?
“When you give her dead-lines, mo-tions to file, etc. Does she meet them?”
Ryan wrin-kled his face. “I think so. I can’t re-mem-ber a time she hasn’t. Why?”
“Be-cause I gave her a mo-tion to be filed—handed it to her specif-i-cally—and it never made it. She claims I never gave it to her. There was also a prob-lem with a mo-tion I gave her on the Hyde case a month or so ago. Now she’s telling the par-ale-gals I’m throw-ing her un-der the bus to cover my own mis-take.”
Ryan took a gulp of his beer. “Sorry, I haven’t had any prob-lems with her.”
Adam shook his head. An-other one who couldn’t point to any prob-lems and there-fore, couldn’t help him.
“I do know she doesn’t like work-ing late, but then, none of them do. Wish I could be more help.” He eyed him over his beer. “You need to get laid, my friend,” Ryan said. “You’ll feel a lot bet-ter.”
Adam shook his head. That was Ryan’s an-swer to ev-ery-thing. In law school, Adam might have agreed with him. Hell, be-fore his fa-ther was rid-ing his ass, he’d prob-a-bly have agreed with him. But now? Now he didn’t know what the hell to do.
“Oh, do you see that one over there?” Ryan pointed to a hot blonde in the cor-ner and Adam winced. The blonde didn’t ap-peal to him. He took an-other swig of beer and shook his head.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Hair’s too smooth.”
He felt as sur-prised as Ryan looked. Where the hell had that come from?
“Since when are you so picky?” Ryan asked.
Since my fa-ther de-cided ev-ery-thing I do points to my be-ing a waste of space. “I have no idea.”
“Well, if you’re not in-ter-ested, I’m go-ing to check her out.” Grab-bing his beer, Ryan saun-tered over to the blonde.
Adam watched them as Ryan leaned in and said some-thing, the blonde laughed, Ryan held up his hand for the bar-tender. Adam shook his head. When had he be-come such a stick in the mud? There was noth-ing wrong with what Ryan and the blonde were do-ing. He’d done it count-less times.
“How the heck do I get him to pay at-ten-tion to me?”
A fe-male voice near his ear made Adam jump. He turned to-ward a brunette with an up do and heavy ban-gles on her wrists.
“Par-don me?” he asked. What kind of pick-up line was that?
“Ugh, this bar-tender is im-pos-si-ble to flag down.”
Oh. “Here, let me try. What do you want?”
Her lips curved in a smile, but it didn’t carry to her eyes. “Mar-tini.”
“Shaken or stirred?”
She frowned be-fore giv-ing him a bland smile. Dina would have got-ten the ref-er-ence. He turned to the bar-tender and raised his voice. “Hey!”
The bar-tender turned. Adam gave the or-der. Not the most el-e-gant way, but ef-fec-tive.
“You’re much bet-ter at this than I am.” She held out her hand. “Yvonne.”
“Adam.” She had a firm hand-shake and well-man-i-cured nails. The ban-gles on her arm clinked and re-minded him of change jin-gling. The noise could get an-noy-ing.
“Are you here with any-one?” She craned her neck to look past him and re-fo-cused on his face.
Her voice was raspy. He had an al-most ir-re-sistible urge to sug-gest she clear it. “Yeah.” He pointed to-ward Ryan. “You?”
“No, I usu-ally stop by here af-ter work.”
So she was a reg-u-lar.
“So what do you do?”
“I’m a lawyer,” he said. “You?”
“I’m a per-sonal trainer. Do you work out?”
God he was tired of mind-less con-ver-sa-tion. Adam swal-lowed the last of his beer. Ryan was right, he was picky. Glanc-ing to-ward Ryan and see-ing him still oc-cu-pied with his blonde, Adam tossed some bills on the counter.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Yvonne.”
“Leav-ing so soon?”
She placed a hand on his arm. He blinked, try-ing not to mis-take her nails for talons.
“Long week.”
As he es-caped the con-fines of the bar, he took a deep breath and tried to force him-self to re-lax. Drinks with Ryan hadn’t helped.
Dina’s face flit-ted through his mind and pulled him up short. His hands curled into fists as he pic-tured her springy hair. His lips curved in a smile as he re-mem-bered her ob-scure trivia and her love of knowl-edge.
Dina.
He wanted her.