by Katie Dowe
“Jared.” His silvery grey eyes took in the simple half-shirt she was wearing and the swirl of printed skirt that barely covered her thighs. Her hair was caught up in a ponytail and strands were already escaping around her face. He had been with Bianca a half hour ago and had objectively admired the chic and understated burgundy suit and light blue silk blouse she was wearing, but she could never compare to the raw sultriness of Amber Gardner. Amber portrayed sexiness that if bottled could make millions! No matter what she was wearing, it did not matter! She drew attention to herself without even trying.
“He is okay,” she said with a shrug as she searched around for another piece of material.
“Does he know you are not really interested?” His tone was amused as he stared at her and for some insane reason he felt happy that she was not!
She sat on the floor and looked up at him leaning against the mantle. “Why are you in my business?”
“Because I am your friend.”
“That gives you no reason to be.” She looked at him curiously. “How was lunch with the attorney?”
“Very filling.” He moved and came over to sit down next to her. He lifted a hand and tucked the strands of hairs behind her ear. “If you are not interested in this guy, why are you seeing him?”
She pushed his hand away. “Because I like him and I think it is time for me to start dating again.”
“Are you running out of time?”
Amber gave him a dirty look. “I turned thirty in June and I think that maybe I would like to get married and have children.”
He stared at her in shock!
“Okay, stop looking at me as if I just told you that I am a lesbian,” she told him.
“You never gave any indication that you wanted those things,” he pointed out, feeling strange at what she had just said.
She shrugged. “Maybe Grams’ death brought it on.” She picked up a piece of electric blue material and stared at it for a moment before looking back at him. “I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life, Adam.”
“You have me.”
She laughed at that and shifting her body, she moved between his long legs and settled backwards against his chest. He closed his arms around her immediately as he rested his chin on top of her head. She put her hands over his and closed her eyes, feeling the security of his muscled chest against her. “You are gone most of the time and when you are, you do not call.”
“I am not going anywhere right now,” he murmured.
“But you will be gone soon.” She twisted her head to look up at him. “Unless things are getting serious with Bianca?”
He moved his shoulders restlessly. “I like her.” He bent his head to look at her. “Why can’t I commit, Amber?”
“You are asking the wrong person, darling. I seem to have the same problem.”
Chapter 5
Amber sipped her wine slowly as she looked around the restaurant. This was her third date with Jared and as she told Adam a few days ago, she really did like him. He had tried to take their relationship to another level, but she had stopped him firmly, telling him that she was not ready for that yet.
He had told her that he respected that and he was prepared to take his time. She could not understand why. He was an attractive man, who was successful in his field and highly sought after. Not like Adam because let’s face it! No one was! But Jared was a man in his late thirties who had been married once when he was twenty-five and divorced five years later. He was also without children.
He felt her eyes on him and looked up to stare at her. “I sense a question there somewhere,” he said with a smile, his light green eyes curious.
“Just wondering why you never had children.”
He cut into his veal and made a production of it before he responded. “Abigail never wanted children.” His eyes met hers again. “She made that pretty obvious when she got rid of the child we made a year after we were married.”
Amber stared at him in horror! “I am so sorry.”
“So was I,” he said grimly. “I never found out about it until years after when I told her that we should think about seeing someone to find out what was stopping us from reproducing. That was when she told me.”
She reached a hand across the table and squeezed his gently. “That must have been awful for you.”
“It was and I was so in love with her that I thought we could get past it. But I was wrong.” He smiled at her briefly. “I spent the next few years of my freedom from her trying to bed every woman I came in contact with.” He grimaced. “I am afraid those days are over.”
“You have exorcised your demons?” she asked him teasingly, her opinion of him going up a notch or two. He should be perfect for her. He was very attractive, successful, and available, but something was missing and she had no idea what it was!
“Something like that,” he told her with a ghost of a smile. “What about you?”
Amber shrugged. “I want children and I have been thinking about it since my grandmother passed.”
“But?”
She stared at him quizzically. “No buts. I am just going to have to find the man first.”
“I would like to hope that you already have,” he told her lightly.
“Maybe.” A smile touched her lips as she looked at him, but in her heart she was not so sure!
*****
Bianca slipped out of her heels and walked over to the sofa where Adam sat with his long legs stretched out. She had invited him over to have dinner with her in the hopes that dinner would finally lead to something else. They had been seeing each other for the past two weeks and apart from a chaste peck on the cheek and his hand holding hers briefly, that had been it. She knew his reputation because it was there for everyone to see and the fact that he had not touched her or taken her to his bed was starting to worry her. She had looked at another aspect to it and wondered if she was the one who was special and he had decided to court her instead of rushing her into bed. But she knew he was highly sexed and had heard it firsthand from a friend of hers that he had been with sometime ago. Marjorie had waxed almost lyrical as she described what he had done to her and how she had felt. “He is not only well endowed, darling,” the woman had said dreamily. “But he is vastly experienced. One touch of his mouth on mine and I was shivering. Suffice it to say that I was almost begging him to take me within minutes. He was that good!” Bianca wanted to feel that as well and she wanted to keep feeling that way. She wanted him for herself and she was not going to stop trying!
“Thanks.” He turned his lazy gaze on her, his silvery eyes unreadable as she came to sit next to him after handing him the glass of wine. He looked over appreciatively, admiring the gleam of her blonde hair that was loose around her face and the way the green silk blouse clung to her breasts. “How was work?”
“You don’t really want to hear about the courtroom, do you?” she teased him.
“Possibly,” he said mockingly, his eyes holding hers as he sipped the wine. “I find the workings of the justice system highly fascinating.”
She laughed at the blatant untruth. “I am sure you do.” She wished he would take her into his arms. She wished she had the right to move over and cuddle against him, resting her head on his broad shoulder. She wished she had the familiarity Amber had to just touch him without thinking or wondering if she was going to be rejected! “I have always wanted to be a lawyer.”
“Why?” he asked her curiously. “To right the wrongs of the world? To fight for the underprivileged in society or to balance the scale of justice?” There was a slight tinge of distaste in his voice that had her looking at him in surprise.
“You don’t believe in our justice system,” she concluded.
“Do you?” he asked, one thick brow rose.
“I happen to be a part of it and I believe in it most of the time.”
“I suppose that is why you became a prosecutor instead of a defense attorney?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “The system works,
Adam . Yes, there is corruption in the system as there are in any system, especially when it comes to government, but there are people who fight to make a difference.”
“Tell that to Amber.” A whimsical smile touched his lips and sent a dart of pain through Bianca’s heart. They could not go one date without the woman standing between them and she was getting sick of it!
“Let me guess,” she said with a forced smile. “Amber is not a fan of the justice system.”
“She is a radical who believes that poor people do not get enough time and effort to win a case against them.”
Bianca tamped down the frustration and addressed the issue. “I defended a fifteen-year-old African American boy a week ago. He was caught shoplifting and that was his third time. The defense wanted to send him away to juvie, but I had him investigated because I knew that there had to be something that was causing him to constantly get in trouble.”
“And what did you find?’
“He had lost his mother to cancer a year ago and had no idea who his dad was. He had been shuffled around from foster home to foster home and had been molested in the process. He was angry and confused and was lashing out to get some attention.”
“What did you do?”
“I managed to get his sentence reduced to a misdemeanor and ended up getting help for him. I check on him every now and then and promised him that I will do that as he straightened his life out.”
He stared at her for a moment and nodded. “I applaud you.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “I wish there were more of you.”
“I guess you can tell Amber that and give her some hope.”
His lips curved into that same smile when her name was mentioned and Bianca felt the helpless rage! “I suppose I will.” He turned to her suddenly and reaching out a hand, he lifted her chin. “You are different from the others.”
“You mean the other women you are used to?” The rage was replaced by something else- hope that he was starting to think of her other than just a distraction.
He inclined his head as he looked at her. “I am trying to do something different in my life.”
Her heart raced at that! “I am not sure what you mean by that.”
“It means that I am thinking of changing my lifestyle.” His hand dropped and he continued to sip his wine without embellishing much to Bianca’s distress.
“Are you sure you can?” she asked him lightly.
“I sure hope so,” he said with a grin. “I don’t want to hurt you, Bianca.”
“I don’t want to be hurt by you,” she whispered, hoping that this was the moment he would pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. But in one lithe movement, he got to his feet.
“I am taking it slow.”
She tampered down her frustration and rose to her feet as well. “That’s fine,” she lied.
*****
She invited the woman standing in her way to lunch. Bianca had spent last night staring up at the intricate pattern on her ceiling as she contemplated her plight. She was fiercely attracted to Adam Whitmore and she was starting to suspect that it was more than that! She was smart enough to know that he was not feeling the same way about her because he would have taken her to bed by now. On the other hand, he had told her that she was different and she liked that, but if it meant that he was never going to touch her then she did not want that! So she had placed a call to the one woman who Adam respected above all others and the only one who could influence him. It was desperate and she hated herself for doing it, but she had to do something!
She forced a smile to her lips as Amber Gardner came striding into the exclusive restaurant, her gait calling attention to the cuffed denims she had that exposed her long brown legs. To make up for the casualness of the jeans, she had paired them with a figure-hugging, white, man-type shirt that looked great on her. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an untidy mess, but she managed to look as if she had stepped from the pages of a sports magazine. Every male eye was turned to her as she made her way to the table. Bianca was wearing an expensive pin-striped pantsuit with her blonde hair in an elegant chignon and she had only been given a cursory look. Amber had men’s eyes glued to her and the frustrating thing about it was that she did not seem to notice or even care. The woman’s confidence was unbelievable! She did not have money or fame, yet she behaved as if she owned the world. No wonder Adam was so fascinated and so damned hooked. Bianca forced herself to smile at her as she took her seat and kept the smile as the eager, besotted waiter came rushing over, waiting for her to make her choice. She looked up at him and smiled and the man almost salivated! “Sorry to keep you waiting, honey.” She skimmed the menu again and ordered a salad.
“I was surprised when I got your call for us to have lunch.” Amber looked at the woman seated in front of her. “If you brought me here to pump me for info on Adam, you are wasting your time,” she said bluntly.
Bianca sat back in surprise at the woman’s forthrightness.
Amber smiled at her look. “Adam did not tell you that I speak my mind?”
“He left that part out,” Bianca said dryly as she sipped her lemon water. “He is very fond of you.”
Amber stared at the woman in amusement. “And that pisses you off.”
Bianca started and had to fight to keep the shock out of her face. “Not really. It’s just that he-”
“Talks about me when he is with you,” Amber said, interrupting her. They waited until the waiter had served them their meals. “I talk about him when I am on my dates as well.” She shrugged a little. “It’s a given that we share a bond, a bond that cannot be broken. We have been friends for a very long time now and no matter how long I have not heard from him, it does not matter. We always pick up where we leave off.” She dug into her salad and crunched on the fresh lettuce for a second before continuing. “It will always be like that, no matter who we are with.” Her dark brown eyes met Bianca’s. “You are going to have to decide if you can deal with that.”
“Can Jared?” Bianca asked her, stung by the supreme confidence in the other woman’s tone.
Amber laughed. “I have not asked him and he has not said anything to me.”
Bianca leaned forward. “I more than like Adam, Amber.”
“I am sure you do.” Amber looked at her for a moment. “Let me give you a bit of friendly girl-to-girl advice: Don’t give in too easily. Adam Whitmore gets bored easily and if he knows that you are desperate to be with him, he will use you and be done with it.”
“You don’t think he is capable of falling in love?”
Amber thought about it for a moment. “I think anyone is capable of falling in love, but men like Adam have women falling over themselves to be with him. It does not give him time to do the chasing. Men are born to chase, honey, and women are born to be chased! It does not matter how far we think we have come in society, that’s the reality of it. Adam never had to chase a woman in his life and that is the problem.”
“So you are saying I should be aloof and pretend that I am not interested?” Bianca asked her. “Is that what you are doing?”
Amber looked at her startled for a moment before she burst out laughing! “He is my best friend and will always be, but that’s where it ends.”
*****
“What’s this?” Amber asked as she opened the door to let him in later that evening. The lunch with Bianca had bothered her for some reason and she had forced herself not to explore it. When Adam had called her a few hours ago to tell her he was coming over, she had almost told him no, but in their relationship she had never done that before and she had no intention of doing so now, certainly not for some obscure reason.
“I am going to be cooking you dinner,” he said as he made his way to the kitchen. Amber trailed after him in fascination and watched as he took out the package of steak and ingredients to make a salad. The last things he pulled out were a bottle of Costa Passion and a loaf of French bread.
“Can you actually cook?” she as
ked, climbing onto the stool and propping her chin on her hand as she stared at him.
“I was seeing this lovely French chef a few years ago and she taught me some things,” he told her with a grin.
“Spare me the details,” she told him dryly.
“I will certainly not tell you how during the course of the lesson I taught her some of mine.” He flashed her another devastating smile as he searched for pots and pans.
“You are such a slut.”
“But you love me anyway.” He leaned over and touched his lips to hers, moving away when he felt the insane urge to deepen the kiss.
She did not respond to that but said something else. “I had lunch with your girlfriend earlier.”
He stopped and stared at her. “Why?”
“She wanted to find out what was there between us.”
He turned around and turned the stove on. “We are best friends.”
“I told her that.” She waited for him to turn back to her and when he did not she continued. “She is falling in love with you, Adam.” Amber watched as his broad shoulders tensed. “She is trying her damnedest to make you fall in love with her.”
“I like her,” he said with a careless shrug.
“And that like will lead to love?”
He finally turned around and his eyes were amused. “She asked you to be her advocate?”
“She was trying to get me to tell her how to get beyond your liking her and on to the next stage.” Her eyes searched his handsome face. “Is that going to happen?”
“I don’t want to discuss it,” he told her abruptly. “I changed my mind. Grab the cutting board and start helping out.”
Amber knew him well enough to know that he was evading her questions and she also knew him well enough to know that she was not going to get anything out of him. She also knew that it was frustrating him that he could only like Bianca and nothing else. So she dropped the subject – for now. She hopped off the stool and came around to look for the cutting board but not before she ran a slender hand over his muscled arm. “Thanks,” she murmured.
“What for?”
