Chapter 13
Murphy’s Laws of Love #9
“There is no difference between the wise and the foolish when they fall in love.”
They looked at each other without speaking for several moments. She wasn’t sure what she should say or wanted to say, but she knew whatever it was, it would be embarrassing.
Toni flapped her arms. “Well, this is a box full of awkward.” To avoid saying more, she walked over to the balustrade and looked out at the gray expanse of Lake Sammamish. She could feel his gaze on her back, and it gave her chills. Putting her elbows on the rail, she looked down at the pool. Oh, crap!
She turned and squinted at him. “You heard.”
After a moment, he nodded. “Yes, some of it.”
“Well, it was just girl talk, we—”
“Don’t. There’s nothing to explain.” He stood and strode to the stone balustrade yards from her and, facing the house, leaned on it with his elbows. “I’m sorry you two find me difficult to understand.” He turned to spear her with an intense frown. “Untrustworthy.”
Seeing his narrow-eyed frown, Toni turned away to face the lake again.
For a nerve-wracking length of time, the only thing to be heard was the wind whispering through the pine needles. When BJ spoke, he sounded tired. “I have no idea what to do for Bonnie or you to be understood.” The sun broke through the cloud cover, suddenly throwing light and shadow across the patio terrace. “Personally, I find most people a mystery.”
Toni glanced at him. Sunlight caught the gold in his hair and made his eyes bright and haunting.
He took a step closer. “You certainly are.” The amber timbre of his voice, his electric blue eyes focused on her as though he would devote all his considerable intellect to understanding her sent a shiver down her arms. It was exhilarating, frightening. She was being drawn into a spell he was weaving and fought it. She tensed when he took another step closer.
Eying her, he froze for a moment and then looked away, saying in a somber voice, “If you feel you can’t work with me, I won’t hold you to the contract.” That instantly brought her back to reality.
Damn it all! What was wrong with her? She wanted lead counsel, but she absolutely had to limit the use of his potions. They scared her shitless. With a slap to the stone rail, she turned back to the table, and sat down. “Tell me exactly what you want my help with, and then I’ll let you know whether I am still willing to continue working with you.”
After a moment, BJ came back to his chair and sat, again placing his clasped hands in front of him on the table. “Fair enough.”
Before he could say anything else, Toni pointed at him. “You swear you haven’t experimented with your sex scent, on me or anyone, besides the one time with Bonnie?” Toni’s reaction to him first seeing him today was uncomfortably strong, far outside her previous experience with men.
BJ cocked his head and silently studied her. She tensed, fighting the feeling he could see every hidden secret, and was measuring her worth. She’d have been far more comfortable if he’d undressed her with his eyes. “Yes, I swear.” He frowned, squinting at her, an unsettling expression. “I wouldn’t when you and Bonnie are so concerned about the formulas’ use.”
“Duh.” Toni instantly regretted her sarcasm. “Yes, it’s scary powerful, and as I said, insidious.”
“You’ve felt the effects of the cozy formula. What makes you think I used the other on you?” He gave her a puzzled look. “Did you experience something out of the ordinary today?”
Toni opened her mouth and then shut it. Christ and holy pigeons . The same question again. She couldn’t tell him what she’d felt. She waved away his question, quickly saying, “No, of course not. I was watching Bonnie’s reactions. She is so-so enamored with you.” Idiot! Why couldn’t she keep her mouth under control around him?
BJ sighed loudly. “You think the only way that could happen with such an intelligent woman is if I ‘seduced’ her with my formula?”
“It crossed my mind.” She shrugged. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that you seem to have gone from zero to sixty in no time at all. It’s unnerving, okay?”
“After Bonnie’s explanation?”
Toni just cocked her head, waiting.
He scrunched up his face and said, “Zero to seven.”
“What?”
“I haven’t had sex with sixty women, only seven.”
“Only? You—You’ve slept with seven women? Since when?”
“I didn’t actually sleep with all of them, but since the beginning of June with Chris.”
“That’s more than two a month! Trolling for them in bars or renting them by the hour?”
He looked confused for a moment. “You can rent women for sex?”
“Seriously?” She tried to comprehend the cultural deprivation, the movies, and lack of internet curiosity that would keep him so unaware. “Uh, yeah, the oldest profession and all that.” Toni didn’t hide her incredulity. How could any person be such a weird combination of sexy man and na?ve innocent? “You seem to have become quite the pick-up artist.”
“Artist?” He smiled. “No, barely a journeyman. Not all the experiences have been pleasurable, but I’m learning.”
She rubbed her forehead to give herself time to think and finally said without hiding her irritation, “Well, then you don’t need my help romancing women, so what do you need?”
“Why are you angry with me now?”
“I’m not angry with you.” She drummed her fingers on the glass top of the table.
“Your body language says you are.”
“Well, screw my body language.” She crossed her arms under her breasts. “Just tell me what the hell you want me for.”
He balled his fists, but his intense gaze made her suddenly aware of the innuendos thrown out by her last two sentences, and her face prickled. The edgy male presence focused on her made her nerves sing on high alert.
Whatever he saw gazing at her led him to sit back and open his fists.
Why was she angry? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was continually unable to keep her composure around BJ and she prided herself on her lawyer’s cool with men.
She opened her eyes. “I apologize if I’ve sounded angry. Frankly, your formulas scare me to death.” She waved a hand at him. “And you, the one responsible for them keeps changing. I’m not sure who you are, let alone if I can trust the new you.” She placed her clasped hands on the table, mirroring his posture.
Raising his eyebrows, BJ calmly said, “I think I understand. Most of the time I don’t feel I’ve changed that much, but you’re right, I have. I like the changes.” He looked off into space for a time and then said, “You’ll have to tell me what I need to do for you to trust me.”
Toni sighed, feeling the tension dissipate, relieved to have finally cleared the air. “Let’s start with exactly what do you want me to do in these field tests?”
He nodded. A serious expression made his brow furrow. “With your unique set of experiences, not only with romance, but your exposure to one of the scents,” he said, opening his hands, palms up on the table as though expressing an evident conclusion, “You can be a knowledgeable observer. As a lawyer, you have training in being objective, and you have studied nonverbals.”
Toni gave him a revolving hand motion to continue.
“First, I need ‘control events,’ me interacting with women without the scent to generate a baseline for my interactions. Then I will wear increasingly stronger concentrations of the scent to gauge their effects. I need you to observe, to record, and compare women’s reactions in public places. I don’t want it too powerful.”
“Why only you? Wouldn’t it be quicker and more informative to have several men try it?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t want other men to be aware of the formula, which they would have to be for any field tests, particularly when I haven’t established what strength the solution should be.”
He placed an open hand on the table. “Imagine the consequence if one or more of the men had too strong a concentration? What would they do? What would they want to do if they knew what reactions the scent could incite? Who could I trust?” He waited for that to sink in. “One of your worries if I’m not mistaken.”
Toni nodded, reassured by what he had considered and wanted to avoid.
“If I’m doing the test, then I have firsthand information and am in a better position to counter any adverse effects.”
Toni nodded again. What he said made sense, but she still felt uneasy about her part in it. “So how long will these field tests take?”
“I would imagine no more than a couple hours a night.”
“No, I meant in weeks.”
BJ stared off into space and then looked at her. “I think a month, if you can give me two or three nights a week.” He cocked his head and gave her what she took to be a tolerant expression. “Will that still meet our contractual deadline?”
A month of ten or more meetings with Doctor Blue Eyes. Toni stared at her hands, thinking of her experiences with Starling so far, her reactions to him just today, feeling his presence across the table as a physical pressure on her skin.
How much trouble and complications had he blithely created for her already? Crap and high water. Caressed by the evening breeze, goose bumps dimpled her forearms.
Yet in one more month, she could have the formula sales and what she’d dreamed of for so long, the youngest lead counsel of any major corporation. And she’d be in a perfect position to influence the final product, limiting the effects Bateman coveted.
She nodded to Starling. “It will, with time to spare.” She gazed out at the vista of deep green forest hugging the dark lake thinking, and after a time closed her eyes. Damn. She was starting to do the Starling Stare.
“Based on Bonnie’s description, watching women react to the fragrance could be really embarrassing, even in, or especially in, a public setting.”
BJ pulled back the corner of his mouth, staring at the patio tiles. “Yes, but I will weaken the formula to one-tenth that strength. Doing the experiment in a private place with a limited number of women could be even more problematic.”
Toni cringed at the legal problems inherent in such a private scenario. “Yes, a public place is better, but not by much. There could still be legal ramifications from the experiments.” Toni inwardly smiled. She could use them to limit the formula’s future use.
He rapped the table decisively. “Then all the better to have a lawyer involved.”
She looked at him across the table for a moment, trying to assess the man and her responses to him—and failed to come to any reasonable conclusions —again “Fine. Let’s do this.”
~ ~ ~
After nearly three hours of barhopping, Toni felt more like a jaded voyeur than an observer in a field test. Starling’s quiet confidence talking to women left her feeling she’d watched Justin Bieber sing the baritone aria from the Barber of Seville, flawlessly.
Since she’d known him, he’d demonstrated a seemingly complete absence of any embarrassment or nervousness over social challenges that could render most adults babbling idiots. He had changed, now wielding a social affability she’d never imagined he could ever possess. He hadn’t known how to make small talk or flirt as far as she knew, so what was he doing now? It was becoming maddening. He never failed to bat one thousand. Starling could easily walk away with Seattle Player of the Year. And this was without his scent.
She rubbed her forehead. Starling had said tonight was a control session, to get a baseline, to establish a norm. Ha, a norm? With Starling? Anyway, he wanted to build a picture of the typical response to him without his formula. That way, he had patiently explained by comparison any differences could be noted when he used his ‘sex scent.’
She smiled. He hated it when she called it his ‘sex scent.’ It felt good to irritate him. That she proved able to do better than anyone. He seemed capable of charming any woman—except her. He never tried and that was beginning to eat at her. He trusted her. He needed her but wasn’t interested in her. That stung. And if Starling turned his flirting power on her? What would she do?
As disconcerting as his performance was, Starling was efficient, she’d give him that. She reached for her brown ale and watched him sip his own sparking water and lemon farther down the bar at Kells. He wore a tailored shirt, brown with white vertical stripes, emphasizing his shoulders and narrow waist. He wore tan slacks and expensive shoes, a very important detail in the dating game, while his sports coat remained slung over the bar stool next to him.
They had visited every pub and bar on Post and First Streets in Seattle. In each one, he’d enter, order soda water at the bar, check out the action, and then go into his routine.
She hadn’t realized how many available women frequented the downtown watering holes on a Wednesday night. In Kell’s Pub, one of her favorites, the dark wood, intimate booths, and a wide bar area were perfect for Starling’s purposes.
As in the other bars and cafes, he’d glance around until he caught the eye of a woman. He seemed to prefer groups. She could see how that would feel safer for the women and easier for him to walk away while he got three times the responses for Toni to observe.
Here he made eye-contact via the mirror behind the bar. The three women in the nearest booth ate it up. Much more subtle, Toni mused. With eye contact via the mirror having been accomplished, he gave the three women that high watt smile of his and went back to his drink. Okay, Starling was flirting nonverbally. The three young women appeared to be from the surrounding office buildings by the look of their business suits and heels, out to have a drink, like what Toni’s Crew did after work. The willingness to flirt with cute guys was always there.
Even though her job was to catalog women’s reactions, Starling’s unrelenting performance is what kept her watching. She wrote down what she saw him do too, hoping to find errors, a false step. It would have made her feel better.
It had taken her a while to note all the body language Starling employed, but she thought she’d identified most of his wide-ranging repertoire. Currently, he was caressing his water glass while sucking on a lemon slice. He made a noise with the lemon that drew the attention of the women in the nearest booth. He offered them a self-deprecating expression of embarrassment in the mirror and the women chuckled in response.
They continued to eye Starling as he nursed his drink, the man still communicating nonverbally. Just when she thought he’d given up, he seized an opening. The women had emptied their peanut and pretzel bowls. He grabbed two full bowls from along the bar and walked over to the women, trading them full for empties. The grateful women made polite chitchat.
Toni furtively glanced their way while he stood and talked. Unlike the other pubs, these women didn’t immediately invite him to sit down, and there was head shaking, which he accepted with a smile.
The bartender was supposed to see to the peanut and pretzel bowls, but the guy remained intent on striking up a conversation with Toni, efforts which she’d had to shut down twice now. She couldn’t talk and observe at the same time, no matter how cute the bartender might be.
Starling went back to his bar stool. Throughout the exchange, Starling had made sure she had a clear view of his face and two of the women facing her. The most exasperating thing continued to be her inability to hear what Starling, or the various women said to each other. How did Starling make them laugh ? She frowned, the increasing frustration making her antsy. Fuming over the unanswered questions, she threw back the rest of her ale, but it went down the wrong way and she began to cough. Embarrassed, she growled to the bartender for water.
How in the hell did he suddenly attain James Bond cool? Where did that confidence and skill come from?
Going back to watching, Toni chuckled. When Starling left, the women’s expressions were priceless: surprised disappointment. They’d assumed he’d continue to try turning their ‘no’ to ‘yes.’ He wasn’t pursuing and they didn’t want him to quit the game. The group huddled and then bought him a drink, which gave him a reason to go back and sit with them.
Starling made it all look easy. He hadn’t lost his considered way of speaking, or staring off into space before answering at times, but now with his relaxed demeanor it worked for him. He was thoughtfully considering what the women said while they waited expectantly.
Once sitting in the booth, Starling began to work his nonverbal kung fu. Once or twice in the first few minutes, he found an innocent reason to touch one or more of the three, admiring earrings, or where they had pretzel crumbs on their sleeve, bumping shoulders during a laugh, etc. etc. It amazed her how many variations Starling could invent on a theme to accomplish his subtle, touching seduction.
After watching him go through his paces again for the eighth time this evening, she’d had enough. Toni nodded at her watch when Starling glanced at her. He quickly ended the social tête-à-tête as he had all evening. He pulled out his business cards and gave them each one—which didn’t fail to impress and reassure the ladies that this hunk wasn’t a serial killer, but had a doctorate and a steady job, and could be researched online. The next move was theirs. Tactically skillful.
And then, grabbing his coat, he left. These women obviously thought he’d stay longer, the one brunette clearly hoping for the entire night. Following the game plan, Starling left Kells while Toni stayed at the bar to write down her observations on a sheet that Starling had provided at the beginning of their barhopping. He wanted her to record her thoughts while they were fresh. There were lots of boxes to check next to specific descriptions. Finishing, she met him outside on the sidewalk.
Starling waited half a block down the street. It was close to 10 p.m. Seattle was getting foggy. Wrapped in gray, the city lay still, traffic sounds muffled by the mists. Even with other people on the street, they were isolated by a curtain of fog.
He watched her approach, a soft expression turning up the corners of his mouth.
“Okay, what are you smiling about?”
He took a deep breath and looked down at the observation sheet held in her hand. “Was I?”
She waited, eyebrow raised.
His smile returned as she tapped her foot. “It’s your long-legged walk.”
“My what?”
“Your walk. You’re very graceful but so determined in your stride as though you’re challenging the world. You throw out your hips first, and then your body follows.” He met her gaze. “It’s a pleasure to watch.”
If she’d found her voice, Toni knew she’d have sputtered. He was constantly demolishing her equilibrium like a child casually knocking over blocks. To avoid having to respond, she handed him the last observation sheet.
He looked it over for a moment and then nodded. “Is it time to call it a night?”
“Yes, it’s a night.”
He grinned, saying, “I appreciate you driving me to the hotel,” and turned to go.
The awkward question she’d avoided asking all evening impelled her to grab his arm. “Hold it, Casanova. Where the hell did you learn how to pick up women?”