Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance

by Braden, Magdalen

  “You are the most unnatural female.”

  Elise ignored her. “I have until July to make Blackjack go away.”

  “What happens in July?” Christine asked.

  “Partnership retreat.”

  “Oh. I thought they didn’t announce the new partners until February.”

  “Right. But it’s an open secret that they talk at the retreat. You know, in the locker rooms after nine holes of golf or a couple sets of tennis.” She deepened her voice. “‘Who do you think would be good?’ ‘I don’t know, the blonde in Bankruptcy’s easy on the eyes. What about you?’ ‘Well, we’d better cross out Elise Carroll’s name. She’s too high profile to be a Fergusson partner. So unseemly, dating a judge. Harrumph!’”

  Christine laughed. “I’m pretty sure the last partner who actually said ‘Harrumph’ died twenty years ago.”

  “You think death stops their influence? I swear they conduct a séance to see what Fergus Fergusson and Hamish Leith have to say about each year’s crop of senior associates.”

  “C’mon. Surely it’s all about our billable hours?”

  “That too. But even if your numbers are stratospheric, they can just make you a permanent associate and bypass partnership entirely.”

  Christine took a swig of her beer. “I’m not sure I want to make partner anyway. Too many meetings with idiots like my boss.” Christine’s feelings about Edgar Stone, head of the Bankruptcy and Reorganization Department, were nearly incendiary.

  “Yeah, I know, but it’s the only way to make real money.”

  Christine goggled at her. “Have you looked at our pay stubs? We’re way overpaid.”

  “Not after we pay our law school loans, we’re not.”

  Christine inspected her beer bottle as though the ingredient list mattered.

  Elise stared at her. “Tell me you have law school debts.”

  Christine shrugged. “My parents paid my tuition.”

  “Why didn’t I know this before now?”

  “Because of that look on your face, that’s why. It’s like a dirty admission to come from one of those families that can lay out that kind of money.”

  “Jack’s family didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s what Geoff told me. Jack played blackjack to make the money for law school.”

  Christine pushed at Elise’s hip with one foot. “You are making that up.”

  “Nope. That’s how he got the nickname.”

  “Huh. I’m even more impressed with him.”

  “You’re so easy.”

  “Well, you have to admit, the total package is pretty damned fine.”

  “And he smells good,” Elise said grumpily. When Christine’s face lit up, Elise slapped her forehead. “I should never have admitted that.”

  “Oh, no, tell me more about how he smells. Remembered-to-use-deodorant good, or hot-guy-pheromones good?”

  Elise scowled at her. “C’mon, Benedict Arnold, help me out. I don’t want a relationship with this guy, but I can’t piss off the partners. I need Blackjack to get tired of me and go away.”

  “Okay, first thing—stop waiting for him to act. This is like litigation. It’s all about moves and countermoves, positioning and strategy,” Christine said. “You’re playing defense, that’s your problem. You need to take the offensive.”

  Litigation strategy. Interesting. Elise downed a slug of her beer and considered her enemy tactically. “The trouble is, he’s one of those men—you know, good-looking, confident if not arrogant, and exuding a charisma that makes people go along with their plans. I dated guys like that back in college. They all over-promised and under-delivered.”

  “So what did you do with them? Hell, how’d you get rid of Bart Mather?” Christine asked.

  “Easy. I slept with him. They all leave after they’ve gotten what they think they want.” Elise paused. She’d learned how to dislodge guys in college and law school without hurting anyone’s feelings. Of course, the cunning and guile that worked in college wasn’t the way to deal with a sitting federal judge.

  Christine ducked her head. A curtain of shining blonde hair shrouded her expression. “So sleep with Blackjack. I bet he’s good in bed.”

  Elise nearly spit out her beer. “Are you nuts?”

  “Not at all. Give him what he wants. No matter what they might say, all guys just want sex.” Christine peered at her with narrowed eyes, as if calculating how well this strategy would work.

  She had a point. Plus, Blackjack did smell really good.

  “I’ll think about it.” Strange how the memory of his just-out-of-the-shower scent was still vivid in her mind.

  “Any messages?” Elise asked as she passed Kim’s desk after lunch on Friday.

  “Nope. Nothing.” Kim’s husky voice held a whiff of a laugh. Humiliating to be that obvious, even to one’s assistant.

  Eleven days after Blackjack’s announcement and one week since his last message, Elise had come to the curiously demoralizing conclusion that he’d actually given up his pursuit. No liqueur-laced-chocolate come-ons in her voice mail, no surprise visits, no gifts, not even flowers. Jeez, you’d think when a judge fell madly in love with you, you’d at least get some flowers. But no, all Elise got was heartburn from jumping every time she heard the phone.

  As the office was emptying out on Friday evening, the phone rang. “Ms. Carroll, please hold for Judge King,” a crisp voice said.

  Why was a Third Circuit Court of Appeals judge calling her? Geoff hadn’t assigned her to an appeal, had he? A woman’s voice broke Elise’s concentration halfway through a mental list of their recent cases.

  “Elise? This is Anita King.”

  “Judge King. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m calling about the Roundtable on Women in the Law next month. I’m on the planning committee, you know.”

  “Yes, Judge,” Elise said. News to her. She’d RSVP’d her attendance, but surely all they needed from her was a generous donation.

  “Well, we’re short a moderator for the panel on the role of gender in the courts. I was wondering if I could ask you to pinch-hit?”

  Elise admired that question mark at the end, uttered as if she sincerely had a choice. “Of course.”

  “Look, I hate to impose, but could you come over to the courthouse and collect the materials? That way there’s no risk I’ll forget to get them to you.”

  “I’d be happy to, Judge,” Elise lied.

  “Wonderful. I’ve told the US Marshals to expect you, dear.”

  Judge King hung up and turned to face him. “Are you sure about this, Jack?”

  Her smile didn’t mean anything. Anita King’s eyes always looked friendly. She could eviscerate him in oral argument with the same expression. Well into her seventies, she was in her prime as a jurist. Even in her own chambers, relaxed and ready for the weekend, she was sharp and professional.

  “Frankly, I’m not sure about anything,” Jack said. “I’ve been wrong-footed from the moment I saw her. I can’t blame her for thinking this might be a sick joke at her expense.”

  Judge King’s smile softened. “Oh, don’t worry. That part I understand. I knew the moment I met Harry that he was the one.”

  “Really?” Her husband was the head of nuclear medicine at one of Philly’s hospitals. Hard to picture them young and just about to start dating.

  “Oh, yes. Back in college. Harry was in the cafeteria, chatting with some blonde floozy. When I saw him I knew.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I waited until they were nearly done eating, then as I was carrying my tray over, I may have ‘accidentally on purpose’ tripped and spilled some water on her sweater. She dashed off to the ladies’ room and I stayed to apologize profusely to Harry. By the time whatsername came back, Harry and I were old pals and she was last week’s news.”

  Jack considered this carefully. “The key thing is that Harry didn’t know what you were doing. I woul
dn’t have announced my feelings for Elise if I’d had a choice.”

  She shrugged. “Doesn’t your generation do everything differently these days? Like posting your relationship status on Facebook?”

  “I refuse to be on Facebook. Bad enough I show up in Philadelphia Magazine and the gossip columns. Anyway, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in anything that could be called a relationship.”

  She looked up at him blandly, waiting. Frankly, it was just as uncomfortable as standing at a lectern arguing before her. She’d mastered the disbelieving stare.

  “Yes,” he stated firmly. “A long time. I’ve escorted women to various events, but that’s not dating. Those women knew going in that there wouldn’t be wedding bells.”

  Her unnerving stare got, if anything, chillier. “You can dismiss them, but your escorts were some fairly high-profile women. Wasn’t there a news anchor? I think of you every time I see her face on that billboard above I-Ninety-Five. And a scientist at Penn, I believe. Lots of letters after her name. Are you really telling me you felt nothing for either of them?”

  “What was there to feel, other than mutual respect? I dated those women because I knew they were focused on their careers. We had fun. That’s hardly the same as seeing someone with an eye toward marriage.” He lifted his hands, helpless to explain it. “I’ve never looked at a woman and experienced what I did last week in court.”

  “When you saw Elise, you mean.”

  He felt his face grow hot and tight. So much for keeping his cool. “Yes. She’s—” He got flustered. He could picture Elise as though he’d shaken her hand ten minutes ago and not ten days. He still didn’t know how to explain what had happened. “It was like my heart knew her already no matter what my brain tried to say. I felt something compelling.”

  Her expression soured. “Well, it’s a lifetime appointment, so they can’t throw you off the bench. Still, couldn’t you have handled it differently? Did you have to proclaim it in open court?”

  Her reproach stung. “I had to say something. Judicial ethics. I wanted to grant her motion, but if I had, I couldn’t have asked her out on a date the next day. You know how that would have looked—everyone would have blamed Elise for trying to seduce a judge. And if I’d waited until the litigation was over before I asked her out—well, you know how long cases can drag on.”

  “Yes, I understand that you had to recuse yourself, but why give that reason? Why not just say you’d discovered you had stock in Keri-Age?”

  “I’d put all my investments into index funds and blind trusts before I got confirmed. And anyway, I couldn’t lie. It might have been okay if Elise had been as dim as Bart Mather, but then she wouldn’t be Elise. She made me state for the record my reasons for recusal. What else could I have said?”

  Judge King pursed her lips. “I don’t know. Surely something rather less dramatic than stating you were in love—are you in love with her?”

  Jack shifted uneasily. He really didn’t want to talk about this. Oh, what the hell. Maybe it was like yanking off a bandage. “When she came into chambers, what I’d felt in the courtroom was a pale memory. She’s gorgeous, smart, and understandably wary of me—she kept edging toward the door.” He laughed. “She wanted to escape while I just wanted to kiss her. At that point, I’d no second thoughts about the ‘in love’ declaration.”

  “Hmm. Not your normal approach to starting a relationship, I can see that.” She pursed her lips. “What would have happened if you’d met Elise Carroll somewhere more neutral—this Roundtable, for example?”

  He’d asked himself the same question. “I’d have talked to her about something casual, oh, like women judges. Then I would have asked her out.”

  “Right. What if she’d said no? Because she has to know your reputation for dating women who are absorbed with their careers. It could be she wouldn’t have wanted to date you then either.”

  Turned him down? He frowned. The way he imagined these alternate scenarios, Elise chatted with him quite happily. She was bright and funny. They had something in common, although he never bothered to name this conveniently-shared interest. Maybe she liked to cook. It didn’t matter. In his imagination, she smiled at him—she was relaxed and having a good time.

  “I don’t know. In my fantasy she always says yes,” he said.

  “Jack, I agreed to help you get her over here, but I won’t let you turn a blind eye to her autonomy. She’s likely to say no, and frankly, if she does I’m backing her up.”

  “How can you know that she’ll say no?”

  “Because Ms. Carroll isn’t one of your billboard bimbos. She sees herself as a regular girl—excuse me, woman—and she sees you as a sort of celebrity. Which you are, in your way.”

  Jack glanced at the clock. Elise should be arriving any minute. His clever plan was starting to feel like a Hail Mary pass with ten seconds left in the game. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Anita King was right. This ploy might have bought him another chance, but there was a limit to how much he could do this way. He couldn’t trick a woman into dating him.

  Think. It was a problem. He solved problems all the time, it’s what had made him such a good prosecutor. “Is there any way I can appeal to her generosity? Sense of fair play? Convince her of my neediness?”

  Judge King laughed. “You have it bad, don’t you? To answer your questions, no, no and no. You can’t trap her, and she’s always going to turn you down. I won’t let you hound her. You may have to let this one go.”

  Jack rubbed his face. He wasn’t accepting no as an answer—yet. But he recognized that Judge King was right. He could only push so much.

  “Oh, stop thinking so hard,” she complained. “You’re giving me a headache. I’m a romantic, you know, and I figure if you two are meant to be together, you’ll figure it out. Both of you will figure it out. Stop assuming this is solely your problem to solve.”

  There was a knock, and one of Judge King’s law clerks showed Elise in.

  Her hair—with its gleaming silver curls—was tousled and her cheeks were rosy. Just seeing her overwhelmed his senses and snagged his breath. In the interval since the hearing, the memory of her had dimmed slightly. Now, with her standing there, his feelings clicked back on, a hundred neon signs flickering into brilliance. He couldn’t evade the sense she was his future, his life, his—everything.

  He froze, drinking her in. She was an oasis after he’d been dying of thirst.

  Elise looked over at him, a challenge in her eyes. He forced himself to stay where he was, feigning a relaxed pose against the judge’s desk. Every part of him wanted to touch every part of her.

  “How nice to see you again, Judge McIntyre,” Elise said. Her voice was like the Sahara. She turned to Judge King. “I gather this is about more than the Roundtable, Judge?”

  Anita King chuckled. “Yes, I’m an irrepressible shadchan—a matchmaker. When I heard that you’d managed to snag this one’s interest, well, I had to offer to help. You haven’t made it easy on him, have you?”

  “No, Judge, it’s fair to say I haven’t.” Elise’s deep-pink lips widened in a cheerful smile.

  She didn’t seem fazed at all by the summons to Judge King’s chambers. In fact, she appeared composed, even pleased. She looked like she knew Mona Lisa’s secret. Jack’s breath caught. Was this going to be a wasted gambit?

  “Anita, you can’t blame her,” he said to Judge King, although he couldn’t take his eyes off Elise. “I’ve mishandled this from the beginning. Any sensible lawyer would look askance at being accosted by a judge.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that.” Judge King spread her hands out in appeal. “But, dear, just consider, it took a lot of—what’s the word you young people use these days? Oh, right—cojones for him to announce his feelings from the bench.” She smiled brightly at them both. “So, what’s it to be? Are you going to make this Jewish grandmother happy or aren’t you?”

  A rhetorical question, of course. Jack wasn’t sur
e which of them was supposed to be swayed by the judge’s plea. All he could do was wait for Elise to speak.

  His moonlight girl looked—well, beautiful of course, but also calm and extremely controlled. Determined. Steely, even. Her expression didn’t bode well for him.

  Oh, shit. She was going to say no. He was going to lose this round, and he didn’t have a plan for the next skirmish. He held his breath.

  “Okay.” Elise pointed at him. “My place. Tomorrow. Seven.” She turned to grin at Judge King. “Those papers, Judge? For the Roundtable?”

  The judge’s mouth was open just a bit. Jack couldn’t remember ever seeing Anita King look nonplussed. “Of course,” she said hastily. She handed the folder over to Elise. “Thank you for helping out such a good cause.”

  Yup, that was what he’d been reduced to—a charity case.

  “I’m happy to do what I can, Judge.” Elise’s parting smile was sunny. So why didn’t Jack feel more relieved?

  When the doorbell rang, Elise was satisfied. Her house was cleaner than it had been in a long time. She’d changed the sheets, put out fresh towels, and squeezed in time for a proper bath. With perfumed bath salts, even. She was wearing her cherry-red silk shorty robe and precious little else.

  She was ready for sex. Good old-fashioned, rumple-the-sheets, make-the-earth-move sex. She smelled good. She looked good. And she felt both in control and curiously empowered by her decision to sleep with Blackjack McIntyre. She reached for the doorknob just as the bell rang again.

  “Hi.” She smiled at him. “Come on in.”

  He looked very formal. Impeccable gray flannel overcoat, open over a dashing suit. He might be infuriating, but the man could dress. Elise salivated, thinking about taking all that clothing off him, one piece at a time.

  “These are for you.” He handed her a bag with a florist’s logo. Inside was a shallow box holding an arrangement of roses and lilies in a crystal bowl.

  “Ooh, these are stunning.” She waved at the hall coat closet as she walked toward the kitchen. “You can hang your coat there.”