CHAPTER TWO #2
She blushed and nodded once even though he didn’t ask anything.
Melanie was older than her by about eleven months.
Royce was five years her senior. She felt terrible knowing that he was thrust into something so unexpected with no background information.
He handled it so well, though, that it amazed her.
He was calm, collected, and brilliant. “I’m so sorry. I feel like an idiot.”
“We’ll talk in a moment when it’s more private. We’re here.” He nodded to an elegant pale stone building that looked like it was built in the early nineteen hundreds. It was very beautiful and elegant.
All traces of annoyance were gone now. Boy, he switched moods quickly.
The limousine pulled up to the curb. Vern got out and opened the door for Lance. Once again Lance held out his hand and assisted Tammy.
“I’ll get the bags sir.” Vern turned and went to the trunk of the car.
She stood staring up at the architecture. “It’s lovely.”
“I thought so too.”
Vern brought the luggage around and Lance dismissed him.
“Very good sir,” he said respectfully and went back to the car. The doorman came out of the building and proceeded to help Lance with the bags. “We’ve been expecting you Mr. Hartley. How was your flight?”
“It was fine.”
Tammy noticed the doorman was an older man, probably mid-sixties, and when he tried to help Lance with the bags, he stopped him, tipped him and picked them up himself.
“Thank you sir.” He smiled generously and made himself useful by opening the door.
Tammy didn’t even try and argue with him about her luggage this time knowing it was a waste of effort. He was going to do what he wanted anyway.
“Good day Mr. Hartley,” the concierge said from behind the counter as he walked by.
Lance nodded and made his way to the elevator.
Once inside, his removed a key out of his pocket, inserted it in the lock of the elevator and turned it. The light came on above the key to indicate Penthouse.
Tammy just didn’t know what to say. People treated him like he was royalty and he just acted so casual about it.
Lance was confident, but he wasn’t a snob.
He cared about people. It was obvious to her then, that money didn’t change everyone.
He was in a different context here, and he was still the same Lance that worked the ranch with his own hands.
Soon the doors opened to the ninth floor and a private marble tiled landing.
“Good day Mr. Hartley,” said a woman’s voice in greeting.
“Hello Mavis,” he answered as he stepped into the gallery where a woman in a pink uniform with a white apron was waiting. She was slender and petite.
She was probably around forty, and had short curled black hair with a few grey streaks through it. She had a big smile for her boss.
“Would you please make up the spare room next to mine? We have a guest. Tammy—” he looked at her.
“Easler.” She finished knowing he was asking which name she used.
“My grandmother’s maiden name on my father’s side.
I changed it.” He already knew Easler was her last name, but hearing Van Allen, probably made him wonder how to address her back in her home town around people she knew. So, she settled it.
He nodded not needing and explanation.
“May I?”
Tammy looked back at the housekeeper who indicated to the suitcase. “Certainly.”
She picked it up and smiled at her. “I’ll have your room ready in twenty minutes ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She felt like she was a terrible burden now. Lance had proffered himself for her, and now he was putting her up.
The woman left.
“I feel guilty. I can stay in a hotel.”
He shook his head. “None of us would have that. I have plenty of room.”
She breathed deeply staring up at him. It was to stop the tears from filling her eyes. She started to feel the emotional burden of meeting her family again. Thankfully, he spoke distracting her.
“Okay, now we talk. Come with me.” He carried his bag in one hand and took hers in the other and led her through a long wide hallway.
She could really get used to his hand on hers.
If, after five years, only meeting her family made him do this, she’d endure her mother’s disdain over and over again.
Oh, she hoped that he wasn’t angry with her. He was so unreadable.
They walked down a long hallway to a set of double doors. He opened one to reveal a large bedroom. She looked up at him questioningly. “My room. We won’t be disturbed here.” He closed the door behind them.
“Lance I—“
“One moment.” He lifted his luggage and disappeared down a hall for a moment. When he came back his hands were empty.
She was too anxious to know why he put herself out for her, but wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. “W—why did you—I mean—”
“Sit down.” He indicated with a sweep of his hand to the bed.
It surprised her that she listened so quickly because he was being a little demanding and Tammy never took orders from anyone except the doctors—at work. Maybe it had something to do with that inscrutable honeyed stare and the sound of his soft husky voice. She sat on the edge of the bed.
“He was an ass. She was horrible,” he finally said.
She looked up at him as he stood there, handsome and foreboding, giving nothing away in his expression, as usual.
Could he possibly look any more striking?
Yet he was right about her family. “He’s always an ass.
And she was always horrible,” she agreed without hesitation.
Was that the semblance of a smile? She felt her own mouth pull a bit.
“A spoiled pompous ass. It pissed me off.”
She laughed that time, her eyes twinkling and to her shock he actually smiled down at her.
In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him angry, not even when Richard and her mother were staring down their noses at him.
His self-control was impressive. She would have never guessed that it angered him.
If anything, she thought he was annoyed with her for not telling him anything about her life.
Then she remembered what he’d told her back home.
It doesn’t matter Tam. No one’s judging you here. We all know who you are, here, now.
He pulled one of the Queen Anne styled chairs away from the wall so when he sat down facing her, their knees nearly touched.
He rested his elbows on the armrests and interlocked his fingers.
Then his eyes met hers and she ceased laughing, but kept a smile.
He was really a pleasure to look at, even in all of his seriousness.
“We need to get our story straight. Your mother is obviously going to make this experience a living hell for you, and your father is too intelligent not to catch on that this is a sham. Then there’s the pompous ass, still looking at you with lust in his eyes. ”
He was spot on about all of it. She didn’t know how he deduced this after just meeting them for a brief moment, but she was certain he didn’t get his degree out of a Cracker Jack box.
Lance went to Harvard and graduated with honors.
She nodded in agreement and he began talking.
She couldn’t help but hang on every word.
“My favorite color is red. I like expensive wine, but would take a good cold bottle of beer on a hot day after working in the fields over that anytime.” He stopped and waved a hand at her. She realized it was her turn. He was telling her a little at a time probably so she could remember it better.
“Okay then. I like blue, or green but deep hues, not pastels. I like white wine more than red, and I’ll agree with the beer on a hot day.
” She had a vision of him on the range back home as he tilted back that handsome head full of perspiration and dust, to swallow a nice cold beer after working under the hot sun with the cattle.
She felt her tongue trace the edge of her bottom lip and quickly stilled it with her teeth.
Her eyes met his again and she saw that his eyes briefly flicked there.
If he saw that gesture he didn’t say anything and she was very grateful.
It would have embarrassed the hell out of her.
“I practiced law for ten years in New York. Then I moved to Billings and opened my own law firm with two partners. It was very successful. It made me filthy rich. Then I sold my share to them a few years later. It was even more—lucrative.” He paused studying her expression before he continued.
There was a glint in his eyes over that last word.
“I made some great investments from there. I guess you could say I’m semi-retired.
I find I’m happier at home with my family.
I hold an office in town that I work out of mostly pro bono, part-time, and every now and then I come here or Billings to consult just to keep my feet wet. ”
Again, no expression, just a brief nod to indicate it was her turn. Instead she asked questions. That piece of information opened up a world of interest, and she couldn’t help herself. “New York? What kind of law? Which firm?”
“Mostly capital murder cases. And I was the Assistant to the District Attorney.”
She tilted her head in surprise. “Wow, an ADA I would have never guessed.” A public servant, like her?
His modesty was endless. She was sure that he could have gotten a better paying job at a private practice.
She’d heard he was a great lawyer, not good, but great.
Yet, he volunteers his time to help others?
His next words answered her curiosity about his career path.