by Anna Premoli
“What? You like the blonde? I know, right?” said Niel, following his gaze. “Very nice, no doubt about it. You always used to go for brunettes, but I guess a guy’s tastes can change over the years.”
Ryan paid almost no attention to Niel’s words. He had other things to think about. Amalia had not seen them yet, so there was still a chance they could get the hell out of there without causing a diplomatic incident – it wasn’t something he’d be proud of doing, but making a run for it was the only way to save the evening.
Too bad that his plan hadn’t taken into account the fact that his brother was already striding over towards the person in New York that he least wanted to encounter that evening. Jeez, talk about the luck of the Irish…
“Am, don’t look now but there’s a very good looking guy walking in our direction,” said Kayla with a wink.
Amalia’s eyes widened.
“Please, not tonight – I’m only here to keep you company, and I don’t even know how you convinced me to do that. If I had things my way I’d be snuggled up in bed, nice and warm with a mug of hot chocolate. After everything that happened this morning, I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
“And that’s precisely my point – what could be better than a handsome guy to make you forget all the indignities you’ve been forced to suffer? Come on, Am, don’t be so lame! If you don’t like him you can always pass him on to me!”
“Good evening, ladies” sad a cheerful, engaging young voice a moment later. Surprisingly, he actually was good looking – Kayla hadn’t been exaggerating, for once. Dark brown hair, eyes that were light blue, or maybe green – she couldn’t quite figure it out, because of the soft lighting in the place – tall, with just the right amount of muscle. If he had materialized in front of her any other night she would definitely have thought about it. She would definitely have thought about it.
“Hey there,” replied a smiling Kayla.
“So,” he asked, “are you here on your own?”
“Yes, unfortunately…” replied an increasingly taken Kayla.
“Well I’m Niel,” he said, “and over there, sitting in a dark corner somewhere, is my brother. Who is very taken by your friend. Can I ask your names?” he asked with a disarming smile. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, but Amalia couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
Kayla gave her a nudge to snap her out of her reverie – she tried to be discreet, but of course, being Kayla, failed miserably – subtlety wasn’t one of her friend’s strong points.
“I’m Kayla, and my silent friend here is called Amalia. You’ll have to excuse her, she’s not quite herself – she has had one hell of a heavy day.”
Niel’s face lit up.
“Hey, so has my brother! He was just telling me that he had to spend the morning with a real pain in the ass! Poor guy, I really think he needs cheering up…”
The look Kayla gave Amalia contained a very clear message. It said, if you don’t want to do anything, fine, don’t do it, but if you know what’s good for you, you’d better not screw this opportunity up for me. Certain at this point that there was no escape for her, Amalia gave in. “A pleasure,” was all she said as she shook Niel’s strong hand.
“So can I introduce you to my brother?” he asked hopefully.
Amalia leaned over to Kayla and whispered in her ear.
“You owe me for this, and don’t forget it.”
“No problem,” her friend whispered back with a wink. “Ok, Niel, lead us to your brother.”
*
He should have expected it. At the end of the day, despite its reputation, New York was anything but a big city and people always ended up going to the same handful of places that were fashionable at any given time. He should have known that sooner or later he would bump into her one evening. But not this evening!
He was so sick and tired of her, sick and tired of her constant presence, her perfume and her hair, that he felt like he was on the verge of doing something crazy. Like grabbing hold of her. Or touching her face. That morning he had been constantly on the verge of putting his fingers to her face as she was bending down to pick up the damn paper. Her cheeks, red from the cold of the morning, made her look like a goddamn fairytale princess. Who the hell was she, the Rapunzel for the defense?
He watched her walk across the dark room from his vantage point where he could not be seen. And to think that his dumb brother actually thought he was doing him a favor!
The moment their eyes met Amalia stopped in her tracks as though she had been tasered and clutched at her friend’s hand.
“What is it?” he heard the brunette ask.
“I just saw Ryan O’Moore,” replied Amalia in a stricken voice. “Damn it all to hell.”
Niel had noticed that the women had stopped, and he walked back over to collect them. He just couldn’t leave well alone. “That’s my brother, sitting right over there,” Niel said, pointing to their table.
Amalia suddenly turned pale. “Your brother is Ryan O’Moore?” she asked incredulously.
Niel looked surprised. “Wow, he’s only been back in the city for a few weeks. Do you know him?”
Amalia nodded, and started walking towards him again. It was obvious that she couldn’t just slip away. Not at that point. What kind of idiot was she if she couldn’t step up to the challenges that destiny had obviously decided it was going to put in her way? With a face like a death row convict walking to the electric chair she approached Ryan with an expression so weird and uncomfortable that it actually brought a momentary smile to his face.
“Assistant Prosecutor,” she greeted him formally, stopping in front of the table.
“Ms Berger. I’m very pleased to see that you’re feeling better after this morning,” he replied in the same tone. It was as though they had bumped into each other in the lobby of the courtroom rather than in a crowded New York bar.
Niel’s eyes darted back and forth between them several times and then he laughed. “You mean I’m trying to introduce you to the only girl in New York that you actually know?” He continued smiling, easing the tension around the table.
“Not exactly the only girl…” Ryan added hastily, hoping to play down her importance and their relationship. “But yes, Amalia and I are old… acquaintances.”
“Very old,” she agreed, almost too quickly “Since we were at Yale together.”
She had probably felt that it was her duty to clarify this before Ryan’s brother started imagining who knew what scenarios, but at that point she could have clarified whatever the hell she wanted and Niel would still have continued to scrutinize them with that dangerous look in his eyes. Ryan knew that it was his fault and that he had ignited Niel’s curiosity himself with his bizarre reaction to the sight of Amalia, but he had found her in front of him so many times that day that he had no longer been able to control himself. He was a human being after all.
“Well in that case we must celebrate!” said Niel, ignoring the evil looks Ryan was giving him. “Amalia, Kayla, please – take a seat.” He was enjoying his brother’s discomfort and had no intention of letting him out of the thumbscrews.
Kayla didn’t seem particularly interested in leaving, in part because she was very clearly interested in Niel. She pretended not to notice the anything but subtle signals Amalia was sending her and, rather than turning on her heel and walking out, she gave Amalia a shove instead that caught her by surprise, knocking her into the booth right next to Ryan. Any closer and she would actually have been sitting on his lap, so all things considered she’d actually been lucky.
“It’s always such a pleasure to see you,” said Amalia sarcastically, turning towards Ryan. Now it was obvious that she was stuck there, they might as well try and behave like civilized people. “Though deep down in my heart of hearts, I actually hoped that I’d already contributed enough to your good mood for this week.”
“You hoped in vain, apparently,” said Ryan.
“Listen, let�
�s just get one thing cleared up – it’s nothing to do with me that we bumped into each other like this,” said Amalia. “I wouldn’t want you thinking that I’m stalking you or…”
But a finger on her lips cut her off mid sentence.
“Relax, I know it was just a coincidence. An unfortunate coincidence,” said Ryan softly, bringing his face closer to hers so that she could hear him over the music.
They stayed like that for a few long seconds: he with his finger pressed to her mouth, she with her eyes wide with shock at the unexpected physical contact.
Ryan knew he should never have touched her. Yet he had done. And now, like an idiot, he could not bring himself to remove his hand. Amalia had a full, soft mouth, in stark contrast to the rest of her face which seemed to have been carved with almost geometric precision. The contact should have been fleeting and unimportant – it was only a finger touching a mouth, after all. But at that moment it seemed anything but.
This was insane – what craziness was going through his head? He forced himself to retract his hand, but made the mistake of looking at the lips he had been touching a moment before as he did.
Unaware of the emotions raging inside Ryan, Amalia frowned down at the table and ran her tongue over her lips, perhaps in an attempt to erase the memory of his touch. And when she decided to look up, she was astonished to find that he was staring at her. Insistently.
“What?” she asked. “Have I got something in my teeth?”
“No, you have nothing in your teeth,” confirmed Ryan, snapping out of the trance that touching her face had put him in. This girl was bad for his mental health and he needed to avoid her like the plague.
He stood up without knowing how to get out of the booth, but he did know that he had to escape before he managed to make a total fool of himself. “Listen, I’m really sorry but Niel and I have really got to go.”
His brother looked up in disbelief.
“We have to go? Now?” he asked, amazed and visibly disappointed. Yes, Ryan knew that to his brother what he was saying might sound crazy – he had just met a gorgeous girl and wanted to spend the evening with her. But he just couldn’t risk being next to Amalia for a second longer. He had just touched her lips, for God’s sake!
And his hands trembled with the desire to touch the rest of her.
“What, can’t we stay another half an hour?” pleaded Niel.
Ryan’s eyes widened. Half an hour squeezed up next to Amalia Berger in that tiny booth? He wasn’t that much of a masochist!
“Niel,” he replied with a peremptory tone that made it sound like an order, “we have to go now.”
“Poor Niel,” said Amalia, turning to him, “You should know that your brother isn’t particularly fond of my company and that he does his best to avoid it as much as he can. It’s been happening for years: as soon as I appear, he vanishes,” she explained, sounding almost amused.
Niel seemed undecided as to what to do, but then loyalty to his brother prevailed. “Ladies, it was a real pleasure to meet you, but it seems that we have to go. I hope I get to see you again soon, though.”
Ryan looked at him in alarm.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said dragging his younger brother behind him.
Amalia and Kayla stayed in the bar a little while longer, although Amalia’s mood had darkened. She had forced herself to put that awful morning behind her and had bothered to make herself look presentable so she could spend a nice evening out with her friend, and instead had once again run into Ryan. Amalia didn’t have much faith in horoscopes and all that crap, but at that moment she would really have liked to know exactly what problem the stars had with her and how long they were planning on punishing her. She hoped that she’d already suffered enough with the last week of torment.
“So that’s Ryan O’Moore…” said Kayla, as she reflected upon on the scene that had just played out before her eyes.
“In person,” confirmed Amalia with a sigh. “But I’m glad to see that not all of his family is as hateful as he is. His brother Niel at least seemed like a nice guy – strangely normal, too. I’m pretty amazed, I admit it.”
Kayla handed her one of the glasses of wine that the waiter had just brought over to their table.
“Niel is not bad at all, temperamentally and physically. I mean, he doesn’t have the rough round the edges handsomeness of his brother, but…”
“What handsomeness?” muttered Amalia, taking a large gulp of wine.
“I mean, now that I’ve seen him I can understand why you fell for him back in the day.”
“He is not handsome. More than anything else he’s… boring, don’t you think?”
Kayla didn’t seem to agree.
“Boring? Erm, no! I wouldn’t say boring! He’s striking. I mean, I thought he was very masculine. Handsome features, strong nose, strong jaw. And those beautiful cheekbones! My God, he has cheekbones to die for… you know how obsessed I am with cheekbones.”
“Are you done talking nonsense?” asked Amalia.
“Actually, I’ve only just started…” teased her friend. “What is he, six two, six three?” she asked in an almost distracted tone.
“I think he’s closer to six four,” Amalia found herself answering.
“A guy you can wear high heels with, sweetheart. And one of those who can sweep you up in his arms like you were a feather. If I were you I’d give it a bit of thought.”
Amalia let out a bitter laugh.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr Deputy Prosecutor doesn’t care very much for my company. And he makes for the hills as soon as he sees me. But that’s fine, because the dislike is mutual,” she felt compelled to point out.
“Sure, sure it is…” said Kayla, as though humoring someone a little bit dim. “But are you absolutely sure that he turned you down a decade ago?”
Amalia sighed again and knocked back another gulp of wine. “Can we kindly not add causing cirrhosis of the liver to the list of unpleasantnesses for which I blame Mr O’Moore? And anyway, what the hell do you mean? What do you mean ‘are you sure’? Of course I’m sure! I’d summoned up all my nerve and for the first time in my life I decided to make the first move with a boy! After a lecture I went over and introduced myself. And do you know what he told me?”
“What?”
“And I quote: ‘I know who you are’. With exactly that hateful tone of voice. At that point I should have worked out what was going on and walked off. But no, I had to insist and not listen to my instincts! So I asked him if he wanted to go for a drink with me one evening. And guess what? He said that he doubted he would ever be free to come out for a drink with me! I mean, okay, I might be dumb, but there’s a limit… So, do you still think I got it wrong?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” admitted Kayla finally. “Sounds like he was damn rude, if you ask me.”
“Thank you for the confirmation! You should have been there, he made me feel like a total idiot! I mean, for God’s sake, I was one to try and ask him out. But I made my mistake, I got burnt and I learned my lesson. So, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not have anything else to do with Ryan O’Moore.”
Kayla gave her a serious look.
“That’s understandable. It’s actually very wise of you. But there’s something about all this that just doesn’t add up…”
Amalia felt like banging her head on the table at her friend’s insistence. “Which would be…?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Look, your instincts might be terrible, but I rarely get it wrong. And I would bet whatever you want that the new assistant district attorney was actually anything but indifferent to your charms a few moments ago.”
“I thought so too when we first met. But as you can see, we’re both wrong. Me ten years ago and you tonight. It seems to happen when he’s around. And now can we please stop talking about him? I mean, like, for ever?” she begged.
Her friend had the good sense to drop the subject.
“Who was it we were talk
ing about? I’ve already forgotten…”
7
As Judge Wyatt returned to his office that Monday morning, he was greeted anxiously by his secretary who was waiting for him in the doorway.
“What’s the matter, Grace?” he asked, sounding worried. After all, it was only half past eight in the morning, what could possibly have happened in two days?
“We’ve been bombarded with phone calls,” she said, sounding frantic. “From the Assistant D.A.’s office,” she added, noting the look on Wyatt’s face.
“And what the hell does he want now?” he asked gruffly. Just hearing the man mentioned made his blood boil.
“He would like to talk to you. He’s insisting that you annul those fifty hours of community service that you sentenced him to…”
The judge laughed. “Ah yes, the ones he’s supposed to do along with Ms Berger, you mean.”
“Well, I think that’s the problem: Mr O’Moore says he’s willing to do anything – and he emphasized the ‘anything’ – in order to stay away from Amalia Berger. That’s what he said, Your Honor.”
Not that the idea of mistreating him didn’t already give him a thrill – deep down Wyatt liked nothing more than humiliating prosecutors or their assistants who were too full of themselves – but something told him that to keep him in the company of Miss Berger would be even more fun.
“Well he can forget it,” said the judge drily. “When he calls back, you can let him know that if he carries on making a nuisance of himself, I’ll sentence him to spend a hundred hours with the lawyer, not just fifty! Oh, and then send them both the new email, exactly as we agreed.”
Grace looked at him doubtfully.
“They are really not going to be very happy about that…”
Wyatt sat down decisively in his chair, picking up his glasses and preparing to read his mail.
