Chapter 18
NATHAN
“Two of the grilled chicken with salad.” I hand my menu to the waiter.
Arianna looks across the table as if amused. “And I will have the champagne mussels, please.” The waiter takes her menu.
Oh, so she wants to order herself. Stupid me, of course she would. “That’s one grilled chicken with salad and one mussels.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter replies.
“And a Manhattan, please, for the lady.” That was her drink from the first night we met.
“And a Macallan single malt on the rocks, for the gentleman,” she counters, remembering mine from the same evening.
“Yes, ma’am.” He bows his head in acknowledgment then leaves.
“Is this where you usually eat?” she asks, breaking eye contact with me to look around at the two-star Michelin restaurant.
“No.” I’ve only been here a handful of times.
“So this isn’t just dinner for you?” She raises a perfectly plucked brow.
I rest my forearms on the table and lean closer. “Of course it is. It’s just dinner.” It’s not, it’s a date, and she can see right through my invisibility cloak.
“Right.” She tucks her lips into her mouth to hide a smile.
“What made you become a legal secretary?” I ask.
“Wow, straight in for the kill, just like that?”
“I want to get to know you better.”
“Why?”
“Because we work together every day.” I shrug.
“Well.” She considers her answer. “I wanted to do a job where I could help make a difference.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
Her whole face lights up and I believe her when she says, “I do. I love it, actually.”
“So why did you apply for the records job?”
“I told you why.”
She did, but I still don’t believe her, or she never would have accepted being my secretary so quickly. We work long hours, and the paperwork can be tedious, and yet she’s never complained. Not once.
Dedication is one of her strengths. She’s also tenacious and determined and everything she does for me makes my job easier. Like a dream come true, she’s been sent from an otherworldly planet directly to me.
Switching the focus away from herself and onto one of my cases, she says, “I think if you threaten the pharmaceutical company with negligence, deceptive practices for actively falsifying clinical trials and failure to warn, they’ll back down and agree to an out-of-court settlement.
” And while I hate that she doesn’t want to talk about herself, I appreciate her passion for my work.
If she had gone to law school, I know she would have breezed through it, because she’s capable of being a lawyer herself. She’s so fucking smart and clued in. Caring is a huge part of my job, which Arianna seems to understand.
“I agree.” For the next hour Arianna and I eat and talk work and tactics. While it might have been my plan to invite her out for dinner, she seems to have railroaded me, and I still don’t know that much about her.
I swirl the last of my ice around my glass then ask her, “Do you have many friends, Arianna?”
“Not many. My best friend is Maeve.”
“How did you meet her?”
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear before she answers, “When I was moved to a foster home. Maeve was assigned to me on my first day at my new school as my buddy and we’ve been friends ever since. She’s like family to me.”
“Foster home?” How did I not put the facts together? With no family, foster care is where she would have been placed and that makes me feel unsettled. Volunteering for the foster kids’ charity makes sense now too. She wants to give back.
She’s kind.
I grew up in a loving family home, with three brothers who may have driven me insane, but while my childhood was noisy and busy, it was wholesome. And I was loved. I still am.
She adds, “After the accident, I was placed in care with a woman named Jean. She was amazing.”
“You were well cared for?”
“Yes,” she replies with confidence, smiling fondly.
I’m relieved; not everyone in foster care has the same experience.
“Is this twenty questions, Nathan?”
She’s got me pegged.
I shrug. “I just want to get to know you better, that’s all.”
“Okay. Well, here goes.” She lists dozens of things, giving me an insight into who she is.
“I love Harry Potter , Coldplay is my favorite band of all time, but I do like old eighties music, the cheesier the better. My favorite color is navy, because it goes with everything. I’m saving up to buy a house in Nob Hill, which is wishful thinking, but it’s a dream of mine.
I once fell over and flashed my panties to the entire football team in high school, which was the most embarrassing day of my life.
I love watching true crime documentaries.
I subscribe to every subscription service known to man and watch everything and anything on all of them when I get the time.
My go-to karaoke song is Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out for a Hero’.
I don’t have any children, but I would like a family.
The first concert I ever went to was a local band from our school and they were terrible.
The last book I read was called Owen and it was about a runaway groom who meets an aerobatic pilot.
She was a badass and I want to be her when I grow up.
I can quote Friends by heart. I hate liars.
My favorite cocktail is a Manhattan, which you knew already, and I think you might just be the smartest person I have ever met.
” She sounds out of breath as she says her last word.
Wow.
“You?” she challenges.
I reply, watching her closely, “I’m not a fan of fantasy movies; action is more my thing but I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie. Coldplay is one of my all-time favorite bands, and I like old eighties music, the cheesier the better.”
That makes her smile wide.
I add, “Navy can’t be a favorite color of anyone’s because it’s like black, it’s not a color.”
“It is. Like I said, it goes with everything,” she counters, sounding lighter.
“I did have a house in Nob Hill once but sold it, and had I known that’s where you wanted to live, I would have sold it to you.
I once fell over in court and split my pants in front of the jury, which was the most embarrassing day of my life.
I like watching true crime documentaries but never get the time to watch them.
I don’t subscribe to any subscription services. I’ve never done karaoke.”
Her mouth drops open in shock at that fact.
“I don’t have any children, and it’s not something I’ve ever considered before.
But all my friends have family and recently, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
” I clear my throat, as I have never admitted that to anyone.
“The first concert I ever went to was a local band from our school and they were dreadful. The last book I read was called The Regulation of Healthcare Professionals .”
“Sounds riveting.”
“Great bedtime reading,” I reply sardonically.
“And recently someone named Arianna stepped into my life. She’s a badass, even though she doesn’t think she is, and all the women in the office want to be her when they grow up,” I continue, not stopping when her eyebrows lift in surprise as I go through her list because I memorized everything she told me.
“I can quote every law and regulation off by heart. I hate liars. My favorite drink is a Macallan single malt.”
“On the rocks.”
I nod. “And I think you might just be the smartest person I have ever met.” I repeat her verbatim.
“That can’t be true.” She disagrees with me, shaking her head.
“It’s true.”
“Thank you.” The skin of her cheeks pinken.
“We have lots in common, Arianna.”
“We do.”
And we are fucking great together in bed and I want to take you home and let you fuck my dick raw.
“We’re a great team.” I back up how good we are together outside of the bedroom because in the office we are the dream team.
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, as if letting the words sink in.
“We don’t make sense,” she whispers.
“Do we have to?”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
Tell me about it, baby.
She taps the screen of her phone to check the time and gasps. “Wow, it’s getting late and we have an early meeting at eight tomorrow.”
I raise my hand to get the waiter’s attention and ask for the check, annoyed that my time with her tonight is ending.
“I’ll have Jenkins drive you home,” I inform her.
Outside, I hold open the car door for her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Arianna.”
“You’re not coming?” Sounding shocked, she stops getting into my car.
“I’ll catch a cab back to the office. I have some work to do before tomorrow’s consultation.”
“You work too hard. You should try and get some sleep, Nathan.” Reaching up, she cups my face and part of me wishes she was really mine and she could touch me like that whenever she wanted. “You look tired. Don’t work too late, okay?”
I had the best night’s sleep when she stayed over at my apartment, which I found odd.
I nod and before she slides into the car, she rises up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “Thank you for dinner.” Her lips find the shell of my ear. “Goodnight, Nathan.”
Ask me to come home with you.
“See you in the morning, Arianna.”