His expression softened. “Good. No sense in hurting the baby. It’s not his fault.”
Samantha’s heart ached. Another reason to find this guy attractive--he had a sensitive side. Then she mentally forced herself to be an attorney rather than a lustful woman for a moment. She turned around, tapping a few keys on her computer and printed out a piece of paper. She swiveled back around in the chair and handed the sheet to Ryan (yes, he was still as good looking, and she still felt as drawn to him as she had before--now she knew that for certain). “This is the lab where you’ll need to go for your test. Call the number there.” She pointed to the phone number on the page. “They’ll set an appointment with you to collect your DNA. If you’d rather, I can have my assistant set the appointment for you, but it might be easier for you so you can work it around your schedule.” He nodded his head. “In the meantime, I’ll draft this letter and send it via certified mail to Ms. Evans.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. “Anything else?”
Samantha shook her head. “Not for now. I’ll be in touch when I’ve heard from Ms. Evans.” She stood and extended her hand. Ryan shook it, standing, and she felt something…that strong hand belonged on her body. Her lips curled in a slight smile. “It was nice to meet you, Ryan. Please feel free to call if you have any questions. You’ve got my card, right?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Did I give you Rachel’s address?”
“I believe that’s in the preliminary paperwork you filled out when you first came in. Let me check, though.” She opened the thin file on her desk--Angela, the office secretary, had already typed a label and organized a few sheets of paper inside. Samantha flipped through the pages to see what information had been collected…but there was no address inside for his ex-girlfriend. “No, we don’t have it here.”
“Okay. I’ll call you later with that.”
“I can get started on the letter and add the address when you call.”
She walked him out of her office into the small lobby area. “Talk with you soon,” she said as his lips stretched into a faint smile. He nodded his head and walked out the front door. The “lobby” was really nothing more than a sofa, two chairs, two end tables, and a large, leafy plant in one corner. Their office was in the middle of a strip mall, so windows weren’t plentiful; however, the lobby had two plate glass windows on either side of the glass door. The sign “Solano and Paulson, Attorneys at Law” was not visible from the lobby; it was posted on the building well above the windows, so the view of the paved parking lot was free and clear. Samantha watched Ryan walk across the lot…his gait was steady but confident. He was tall, and she was able to tell when he’d stood next to her--well over six feet (his exact height, she couldn’t guess)--but he seemed of average height out there with nothing to gauge it by. She continued watching as he entered a black truck in the middle of the lot. The truck seemed fairly new. Quite often, she would peek at what vehicles her clients drove, assessing if they could afford the bill easily. He’d do just fine, considering his vehicle wasn’t old and beaten up. But she hadn’t been watching him for that reason today…her reasons right now were very personal--she wanted to get just one last look.
She continued watching as his truck drove off. Then she turned slowly and saw Angela sitting at the desk on the other end of the tiny lobby. Angela was a pretty African-American thirty-something woman who basically served as the right hand of Samantha and her partner Adam. Angela knew every client by name, the basics of each case, and what needed to be done. She kept the office running smoothly and made sure it was well organized, even when the partners couldn’t be trusted to do so. And she was a hell of a typist…Samantha had once thought fifty words a minute was a decent typing speed, but Angela had been clocked at well over one hundred on a good day. Samantha sometimes teased her, telling her that she could see smoke rising from the keyboard when Angela was typing. And Samantha knew Angela could multitask too…she answered the phones, set up the files, set appointments, greeted clients, kept the file room organized, and she made a great cup of coffee. And she did it all with a smile on her face and a pleasant tone in her voice. So, a year ago, when Angela had turned in her two weeks’ notice (she’d said she wanted to start a family), Samantha and Adam had given her a hefty raise and promised her as much maternity leave as she needed, as long as she stayed. They planned on hiring a temp or two during her absence, but the thought of losing Angela for good sent chills up Samantha’s spine. She knew the office would be lost without her. Yes, they could find another secretary / assistant, but Angela was so good, she had made herself impossible to replace. She made certain that Samantha and Adam never missed a court appearance, and she maintained the air of professionalism in the office by keeping them on time for appointments and making sure they were always prepared. She was like a third partner and sometimes like a mother. Samantha couldn’t envision their office without her.
At this very moment, however, Samantha wished that Angela had actually been on maternity leave. Angela had seen everything (just like she always had), and Samantha could feel her eyes on her. Now Samantha wished she could just fade into the beige carpet she was standing on. Instead, she smiled at Angela and started to walk back to her office as though nothing had happened. But Angela wasn’t going to let her off that easily.
Angela had a devilish grin on her face as she asked Samantha, “What was that all about?”
Samantha tried to put on an innocent face. “What do you mean?”
“Girl, I wasn’t born yesterday. I saw you checking him out.” Samantha tried to look shocked but found herself smiling instead--she’d been caught, and there was no denying it now. “He is cute, isn’t he?”
Samantha shook her head. “You have no idea.”
Angela laughed. “I might be married, but I’m not blind.”
Samantha chuckled along with her. “Gotcha.” Samantha felt herself wanting to talk about what had happened. “But, you know, it’s more than that. He’s…” She found herself unable to describe what she felt.
Angela lowered her voice. “Samantha, what are you thinking? You can’t get involved with a client.”
“I know that. But I can look, can’t I?”
Angela frowned. “You definitely did your fair share of that.”
Samantha was starting to wonder why Angela was acting like a boss rather than an employee; but she realized that even though Angela was a few years younger than she was and really had no right to speak to Samantha that way considering she was Samantha’s employee, she only had her best interests at heart. Angela knew that Samantha couldn’t properly handle Ryan Craig’s case if she was involved with him. Samantha nodded and smiled. She definitely didn’t want to hand the case over to Adam, even if she did find this guy impossibly attractive. This was her case. She planned on saying nothing more; fortunately, she didn’t have to. At that moment, the women could hear Adam though the closed door of his office…his voice was raised enough that even if they had still been talking, they would have paused to hear what he was saying.
“Goddammit! That is unacceptable, and you know it!”
Samantha furrowed her eyebrows and asked Angela, “Anyone in there?”
“No.” She looked down at her phone. “He’s on line two.”
“Who’s he talking to?”
“DA. Trying to get a plea bargain on the Newman case.”
Samantha nodded as Adam’s voice drifted back into the lobby. “If that’s the best you can offer, I’ll see you in court tomorrow.”
Angela’s lips curled into a slight smile. “He hung up on her,” she said as the little red light on the phone extinguished. “I’d say he’s just a little angry.” Her dark brown eyes twinkled at Samantha, her cheeks rounded in a smile.
Adam stormed out of his office door to the front desk. His jaw was clenched. His voice was lower but still held some tension. To Angela he said, “Prep the Newman file. We’ll be choosing a jury tomorrow.” He turned to walk back to his office and hesitated,
looking at both women. “What’s going on?”
Again, Samantha resumed the innocent look. She shook her head, feigning ignorance.
Angela wasn’t letting her off the hook, though. “Samantha’s client just left.”
Adam looked confused. “And?”
Angela’s large smile returned, her white teeth gleaming. “And he is quite hunky.”
Adam shook his head. “Hunky, huh?” His light brown eyes moved from Angela to Samantha. “What? Did he ask you out on a date?”
Samantha almost felt like she was being questioned by her father. “No!” She sighed, starting to feel a little irritated. “That would be inappropriate. But just as Angela said earlier, I’m not blind.”
Adam smiled slightly and shook his head. “Well, I just got off the phone with Braden. She’s not budging on the Newman case.”
“No plea bargain?”
Adam scoffed. “A lame one.” He paused, running his hand through his black hair. “Shit. I hate going to court.”
Angela opened a large black book on her desk. “Need me to clear the rest of this week’s schedule?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess you better.” He looked at Samantha again. “Would you be able to cover me this week if you need to?”
“Always got your back, partner.”
He smiled, finally a little calmer. “I know you do.” They had done it for each other for ten years now. They made a good team--Samantha sometimes had to remind herself of that on those occasions when she was tempted to jump ship and work for a large firm. She and Adam had met in law school, both fiercely independent. They knew, being new lawyers, that opening their own office would be hard if not stupid, but they didn’t like the idea of putting in one hundred hours a week just trying to impress someone else; they didn’t want to have to bow to anyone else’s idea of what was right. So when Adam had inherited a small sum from his grandmother during their last year in law school, he’d sunk the money into the business and asked his best friend Samantha to be his partner. They had been young and idealistic, ready to change the world. Time had changed that some, however, as the first three years had been difficult. Their clientele was small, and they couldn’t afford any office help. They wound up putting in the same hours that they would have for a big firm, simply because there were only two of them there. Today their office was still in the same building they’d started in, but finally, five years ago, they’d remodeled because they could at last afford to. As their reputations grew, so did the business. And they began to prosper. After the first three hard years, they were able to afford an assistant, and Angela had proven herself to be worth more than her weight in gold. She hadn’t been the first, though. Their first assistant had been a disaster, and both Adam and Samantha breathed a sigh of relief when she quit because she’d said it was too “stressful” to work for such “demanding” people.
But Adam and Samantha’s history was much more than just their partnership. After being good friends their last two years in school and during the first two years of their partnership, they had become lovers. In the early days, they had simply had no time--or energy, for that matter--to pursue relationships. One night, though, they’d been working late on a particularly difficult case together, trying to decide a strategy for court, a case Adam had been handling. Samantha had given him an idea that he’d said was “absolutely brilliant.” He’d been smiling at her, weariness beginning to show in his eyes…but the fatigued look had slowly changed, the smile had slowly faded…and just as she could register what that new look was in his eyes, he was leaning all the way across the small table in the “conference room” in the back of the building, and his lips were pressing hard on hers. She didn’t even question her response. She’d leaned back into his kiss, and before she knew it, they were ripping each other’s clothes off and pushing the papers aside to make love on the table. To this day, she still remembered his hairy chest, his firm, toned body, the cute little dimples in his ass. He was normally clean shaven, but that night, she remembered, he’d had some stubble that kept scratching her chin and cheeks, and it hadn’t bothered her a bit. But he’d been a great lover…and they hadn’t realized it until then, but all the unleashed passion and feelings they’d had for one another rose to the surface. And they stayed together for the next two and a half years until Adam had finally ended it, telling Samantha that their relationship interfered with their work. She’d been hurt, more deeply than she would have imagined--Adam had been her best friend for so long, and when he’d wanted to end the relationship, it had felt as though a part of her life was being ripped away. It took a while, but she got over it. Their friendship was strained for quite some time, but Samantha tried to be an adult about it. The worst part was when, several months later, Adam started seeing someone else. So Samantha decided to try to get over it and dated a few men as well. But none were satisfying…none were Adam. Over the last year, she’d decided she didn’t need a man, and she dated once in a while, but she didn’t search for a relationship. Most men just didn’t interest her. The truth was that--deep in her heart--she still had feelings for Adam, and maybe part of her still hoped that they could pick up where they’d left off. But today, for the first time in seven years--since she and Adam had first made love--she’d met someone…Ryan…and Adam hadn’t entered her thoughts once. She hadn’t mentally compared Ryan to Adam like she had with every other man she’d dated or slept with since they’d broken up. She hadn’t wondered what Adam would think of him; she didn’t care. Samantha felt a small smile creep on her face with that realization. She was finally over him.
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Table of Contents
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Part II
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Also by Jade C. Jamison
Connect with Jade C. Jamison Online
Chapter Three
Tangled Web Page 14
