“I stopped in for some juice,” Avery said. “But while I’m here, maybe you could explain why you haven’t been returning my texts. Is she the reason? What am I saying? Of course she is.”
A couple nearby heads swiveled in their direction, probably because Avery’s volume was on the increase. As always, when someone was upset, he kept his tone low and reasonable.
“Avery, I told you I wouldn’t be seeing you anymore,” he reminded her.
“No, jackass. What you said was that you were busy at work and would call me in a few days. That was three weeks ago.”
His conscience squirmed guiltily. That did sound like something he’d say.
He opened his mouth with no real idea of how he could smooth things over.
Avery saved him the trouble by dumping her cup of juice in his lap.
Iced juice.
Yelping, he leaped to his feet, dimly aware of the gasps and snickers all around him. Ashley the barista, in particular, gave a loud snort, which he did not appreciate.
Ah, but Avery wasn’t done with him yet.
“Great glasses,” Avery said to Gorgeous. “Dolce & Gabbana?”
Gorgeous, looking startled, touched her frames. “Uh, yes. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Avery hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and gave the woman a rueful smile. “Let me give you a piece of advice, girlfriend. This one?” She jabbed a finger in Jake’s direction; he winced. “He’s good for about three orgasms for about three nights.”
“Avery,” he growled.
“So enjoy it while it lasts,” Avery continued. “But don’t get your feelings involved. Okay? Gotta go, people. Bye.”
Avery wheeled around and swept through the glass door—thank the Good Lord—but the damage was done. Not that he’d been on firm footing with Gorgeous anyway.
Looking grim, she was gathering up her books and laptop and cramming them back into her bag with jerky movements. “I’m leaving, too.”
Fully aware of how ridiculous he looked with the juice stain down his crotch, he tried to do some major damage control. If she walked out of here now, he was certain both that he’d never see her again and that her memory would haunt him for a good long time.
“That’s never happened to me before,” he said quickly.
“Right,” she said, yanking her bag’s zipper closed. “Whatever you say.”
“I know that looked bad,” he continued, lowering his voice because he was anxious not to give the avid onlookers anything else to laugh about, “but we never had a, uh, real relationship. We just, uh, hooked up.”
“It’s none of my business.”
She turned to go. He gave it one last shot. That was his nature. He fought for the important things in life. And he knew, on some instinctual and inexplicable level, that she was important.
“Wait,” he called after her, not caring who was listening. What was a little more humiliation on top of what he’d already endured? “At least tell me your name.”
She swung back around and gaped at him with more horror than he thought was necessary under the circumstances. “Oh, my God. You have no idea who I am, do you?”
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good.
He froze, thinking hard and fast.
Had they met before? And, if so, how could he ever have forgotten her?
“No,” he admitted. “Who are you?”
Her eyes, which were now a definite and stormy gray, flashed so much ice at him that he felt his veins constrict with the cold.
“Someone you’ll never be hooking up with, buddy. You can count on that.”
Chapter 2
This. Could. Not. Be. Happening.
Charlotte Evans tried to regulate her panicked breathing the following Monday morning, which wasn’t easy while sprinting up the back staircase of Hamilton, Hamilton and Clark. In a pencil skirt and heels.
She should be sitting at her cubicle on the lower level―affectionately known as The Dungeon—of the law firm’s redbrick building, with all the other typing pool peons. She should be keeping her head down and tapping out ninety words per minute so that the work in her inbox didn’t continue to multiply until it smothered her.
Now was no time for a personal crisis.
The appellate brief she was currently working on needed to be filed with the Third Circuit by noon.
N-O-O-N. Which was―she checked her watch―less than three hours from now. Three short hours! How in God’s name was she going to decipher all the microscopic red edits by then? And how was she going to finish―
Later for that alarming thought. Reaching the firm’s reception area, which was on the fourth floor, she took a deep breath, smoothed her skirt and crept through the heavy fire door.
As usual, the stately leather and mahogany made her feel like a clumsy little kid again, as though her mother would show up and smack away her hands if she touched anything too expensive or precious. Which was pretty much anything in the reception area, where clients had their first impression of the firm. There were oversize windows framed by striped silk drapes, potted palms in every corner, Oriental lamps and rugs that probably cost more than her beat-up used car was worth, and a crystal chandelier that sparkled like flawless diamonds against the carved ceiling moldings.
Meredith, the receptionist, gatekeeper and queen of all she surveyed up here, sat at her post behind the granite counter. Her headset was in place and her phone-answering voice was singsong perfect.
“Good morning. Thank you for calling Hamilton, Hamilton and Clark,” she was murmuring into her mic. “How may I direct your call?”
The only thing out of place on this floor that showcased the extreme elegance of one of Philadelphia’s most prestigious law firms, Charlotte thought, was―
“Mommy!”
Right over there. The two-year-old boy taking the M&M’s out of the Waterford crystal candy jar on the nearest coffee table and alternately eating them and hiding them in the dried moss in one of the palm’s pots.
Wonderful.
“Hi, cutie.” Grinning and stooping, she caught Harry, her shrieking son, as he sprinted across the seating area. “Shhh,” she told him, even though she knew it was a useless exercise, because Harry only had one volume, which was loud, and one speed, which was fast. “We use our quiet voice and walking feet at Mommy’s work, okay?”
“I am using my quiet voice!” Harry informed her, his gray eyes wide and affronted.
Ignoring the disapproving glance from Meredith, who was still talking into her headset and pushing buttons on her phone, Charlotte settled Harry on her hip and gave him a discreet mother’s once-over.
The first thing she noticed, due to the telltale area of flattened black curls in the back, was that his hair hadn’t been combed. So that was a demerit right there. On the plus side, he’d brushed his teeth. On the minus side, though, he was sporting dried toothpaste on the corner of his mouth. Oh, and a swath of what looked like dried syrup on one chipmunk cheek. Nice.
Continuing on to the clothes front, there was bad news: he was wearing his Bugs Bunny pajamas. With the feet. Which might explain why his Velcro gym shoes were on the wrong feet, but, then again, might not.
The bottom line? Her adorable and generally clean son had returned from a night with his father looking like a refugee.
Typical.