Leave Me Breathless
Page 2
Some guard dog she turned out to be. She hadn’t even noticed him or seen Mark do his check. What if someone had come in carrying a gun instead of a paper and a coffee cup, then what—
“Have a good night?” She asked the question without turning around.
Or maybe she was paying attention.
Still, Ben appreciated having an uninterrupted minute to study her. From a pure male appreciation standpoint he had to give her points. She stood about five-eight with a body more curvy than athletic, which was just his preference. He took in her nice round ass and the way her black pants showed it off. A matching short blazer highlighted her trim waist and straight blond hair pulled back in a ponytail at her neck hung partway down her back. Even though those soulful brown eyes weren’t glancing at him right now, he’d bet that same mix of pissiness and frustration remained from their meeting yesterday.
Yeah, staring at her every day wouldn’t exactly be a hardship.
Dealing with that mouth would be the challenge.
Protecting that fine ass of hers from whomever seemed so determined to chase him down and take him out would be the biggest issue. No way was he letting her step into danger over him. That meant he’d have to watch over both of them, make sure Emma stopped drawing attention to herself, run his office, and hear a case or two. Not exactly what he had in mind when he left the military for the calmer life of a practicing law.
“Uh, hello?” Callie turned around to face him as she talked.
There it was. Flat lips and angry eyes. The look of pure pissiness she did so well. “Sorry. I’m having trouble getting started this morning,” he said.
“Why?”
“Let’s just say there’s a reason I don’t live with Mark.”
A night of listening to his brother drone on about Callie’s shooting abilities without divulging one interesting piece of information about the rest of the woman sure didn’t help Ben’s sour mood. Neither did the lack of sleep due to Mark’s old-man snoring. Ben planned to kick his brother to the downstairs guest bedroom tonight because the one right next door didn’t have enough soundproofing to cover the noise.
“Is your brother cramping your style already?” she asked, her smile suggesting that she found the situation funny.
That made one of them. Ben motioned for her to step out from behind his desk. “You seem awfully concerned with my love life.”
Callie took her time getting to the front of his desk and dropping into the guest chair there. She started to put her feet up but stopped when he stared her down. “The only way I can protect you is if I know about the people around you. That includes the women you date, sleep with, and know. Also includes your staff here, friends, and—”
“I get it.”
She flipped through a small notebook as she clicked her pen. “Then let’s start with the women.”
“I’d rather start with my impressive staff.”
Her gaze made the slow trail up until her eyes met his again. “Excuse me?”
“Your word, not mine.” Though he did use it as a test. Wanted to see if Ms. All Business All the Time could get thrown off task, and now he knew. “I’m talking about the other people in this office. Since you’re going to be here until Mark lets you leave or we kill each other, we may as well get going on the introductions.”
“We need to work on our background story first.”
Ben waved that suggestion off as he sat down. Today would be filled with enough boredom without adding more. “I got it.”
She handed him a file anyway. When he didn’t immediately reach for it, she dropped it on his desk, letting it smack against the wood. “I’ve worked up some information for our cover.”
“I said I got it.”
“Then you get that I’ll be with you during every case, and at lunch, and any private discussions you have with lawyers.”
As far as he was concerned she took her job a bit too seriously. “Are you going to follow me into the bathroom as well?”
“I might.”
He leaned back in the chair and tapped his fingers together in a triangle. “Don’t you think people are going to find it a bit strange that you’re stapled to my hip?”
“This Samson guy—”
“Administrative Judge Samson.”
“He already sent out an e-mail to everyone in the building explaining the new assistant program.”
“Leave it to Mark to take care of…” Something clicked in Ben’s head. “Wait, how do you know about the e-mail?”
She bit her bottom lip but stayed quiet.
That couldn’t be a good sign. “You were on my computer?”
He knew the answer but wanted her to own up to the misdemeanor. Maybe apologize.
“I was checking for e-mail threats.” She scribbled down something on the lined paper. “Get used to it.”
She sure didn’t sound sorry to him. “You were violating my privacy.”
“We can call it whatever you want.”
“How about illegal? I could have you arrested.”
Callie snorted. “Oh, please.” She made the annoying sound a second time as if trying to prove her point.
It was hard to threaten someone who refused to be afraid. “Which reminds me, how did you get in the office this morning?” he asked.
She reached inside her blazer pocket and flashed a courthouse I.D. badge at him. “I also have a key to the suite and my own desk.”
Ben followed her head nod to the small setup perpendicular from his under the window. How in the hell had he missed that? Instead of a two-shelf small bookcase filled with mementos from his pre-lawyer days there was a place for her complete with fake files and a black briefcase he’d bet was empty.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“You don’t get a vote.”
She needed to understand how this arrangement was going to work. Her pushy demanding act was not the right answer. “The governor who appointed me and the electorate that keeps me here would disagree.”
She rolled her eyes. Made quite the dramatic scene of it, too. “Must you talk like that?”
“Like what?”
“All hoity and superior.”
He tried to remember the last time someone fought him this hard and showed so little respect for his position. He came up with an answer fast: never. “Was it the word ‘electorate’ that upset you?”
She threw her notebook on his desk. “To be honest, most everything you say annoys me.”
He was starting to see why she no longer had a job with the FBI. That mouth could not have been an asset in a rule-oriented, follow-the-chain-of-command government agency. “Right back at you, sweetheart.”
“Tell me something. Is your problem with me or with women in general?”
Definitely with her. “I happen to love women.”
“So I’ve heard.”
The playboy chatter echoed in his head. Not exactly the reputation he wanted or sought. “If you’re getting your information from gossip, then you have the facts wrong.”
“Why don’t we get started and you tell me what the truth really is?”
“Isn’t it your job to know this stuff already?”
She shrugged. “I’d like to hear it from you.”
“I’m not playing that game.”
“This is serious.”
“It’s a waste of time, but if we’re being forced to do this you first need to meet the rest of the group.” He glanced over the daily schedule his secretary Elaine printed out and placed on the corner of his desk each night. “Then you get to sit through my trial calendar.”
“Meaning?”
“If you survive the first day, I’ll be stunned.”
She smiled, but it faded when he didn’t reciprocate. “How bad can it be?”
“Spoken like someone who never had the pleasure of listening to lawyers whine about missing documents for hours on end.”
“What?”
“Have you ever been shot at?”
Interesting. “You’ll hope for an outbreak of gunfire by the time lunch rolls around.”
Callie didn’t even make it to eleven o’clock. By ten seventeen, just over an hour into something called the Motions Docket, she almost did a face-plant into the desk in front of her. Sitting at the front of the room and five feet from Ben stopped her, but only barely.
Thanks to the stack of agreements and waivers she signed that morning for Mark, she’d likely be arrested if she even tried to close her eyes. As it was, she only got to keep her weapon strapped to her side after engaging in United Nations-style negotiations with the county sheriff, the man in charge of providing protection for the courthouse. He insisted the gun-carrying activity be limited to his men despite the clearances Mark had secured. She threw around Judge Samson’s name and won the argument. It paid to know people in power, or at least pretend you did.
But there was an even bigger problem with her dozing-off plan. With Ben looming above her on the raised dais he’d probably miss a quick nap, but everyone else could see her just fine.
Lawyers dressed in indistinguishable dark suits lined the pews at the back half of the room facing her. Ben had introduced Callie at the beginning of the docket only as his new assistant. A few of the older gentlemen exchanged questioning looks, but no one said a word. Good thing or she might have been tempted to draw her gun. Would have added some excitement to the otherwise headache-inducing boredom of the rest of the morning.
But nothing so interesting had happened during the last hour. As Ben had called case numbers, groups of attorneys filed up to stand at two long tables in front of Ben to argue about damn near everything. Through it all the blasting air-conditioning helped her stay awake, but the steady hum of the lights and recording equipment kept lulling her back into dreamland. She lost count of the number of missing documents and destroyed documents referenced. The entire process made her rethink the benefits of being employed.
Ben did provide some entertainment. Sure wasn’t a hardship to stare at him, either. He asked questions and broke up childish arguments between lawyers who should have known better. And the way he took notes suggested he was engaged in the circus around him. Callie had no idea how he did this part of his job. Being in charge of a big courtroom with its soaring ceilings and historic paintings probably had to appeal to a guy who liked to be in control, but this dry stuff lacked the sexiness of television courtroom scenes.
“We’ll take a ten-minute recess.” Ben banged the gavel and reached for the top file on his stack.
Then nothing.
The room grew quiet. No one moved, but everyone looked at her. It took her a few seconds to remember her one required line in this whole dreary scene. “All rise.”
Ben smiled as he passed by her and whispered low enough not to be picked up by the microphones surrounding them. “Little slow there, Ms. Robbins.”
“I think I lapsed into a temporary coma.”
“Won’t be the last time.” Ben opened the door behind the bench and walked down the short hallway connecting the courtroom to his private office.
They made it to the threshold before Ben’s law clerk, Rod Banks, appeared out of nowhere. Rod had a clean-cut conservative look about him with his oxford shirt and pressed dress pants. The kind of kid you’d feel comfortable opening your front door to if he rang the bell. Someone you half expected to be selling Bibles.
Callie didn’t like him at all. She was pretty sure the feeling was mutual. Until she showed up, Rod had been Ben’s go-to person. The one who got to sit by Ben’s side in the courtroom, as if that was some freaking prize. But now she held that job. Rod smiled through the change of power, but she saw something stormy in his blue eyes.
“Judge, I was wondering if I could talk to you later,” he said.
Rod didn’t say “alone,” but Callie knew it was implied.
Ben looked up from the file he was reading and circled around Rod to head into his chambers. “Is it an emergency?”
“No.”
“Then as soon as I’m finished with this afternoon’s docket.”
Good Lord, she had a whole second half of the day to live through. Callie vowed to strangle Mark later for this assignment. First, she had to put the kibosh on the private meeting with Rod.
She closed the door before the clerk could follow them inside Ben’s private office. Then she turned to Ben. “You can’t meet with him.”
Ben glanced up, squinting at her. “What?”
She grabbed his file and dropped it on the coffee table in front of his couch. “No one-on-one meetings.”
“I was reading that.”
“I’m talking.”
Ben sat down and slipped his arm along the back of the sofa. “Rod is my clerk.”
“I know the players in this game. So?”
“The worst thing he’s ever done is lie about his golf score at the country club.”
Ben unclipped the hook at the top of his robe. For a second, she lost her train of thought. Not that she could see anything under the big black garment. No, it was the way his long fingers moved. With precision and a smoothness that had her mind wandering to his activities outside the office. She loved strong hands. Loved it even more when a man knew what to do with them.
“Callie?”
Right. “Rich people can blow things up, too, you know.”
“You think Rod is the stalker?” The joking tone of Ben’s voice told her what he thought of the theory.
“I have no idea, but I don’t plan to give Rod a chance to be alone with you.” She sat down next to Ben. Close enough to let him see how serious she was but far enough so that they didn’t touch. “He could have a knife, a gun—”
“You watch too much television.”
“And you don’t understand just how dangerous this situation is.”
“Really? Let’s see.” He sat up straighter and started ticking off a list on his fingers. “I have my brother up my ass, Emma’s calling every two seconds, journalists want quotes for the newspaper, the administrative judge is insisting I take a vacation, and you’re falling asleep in my courtroom.”
Ouch. “You saw that, huh?”
“It was tough to miss.” Ben’s mouth broke into a sexy little smile. “I heard you snore.”
“That’s not true.” At least she hoped it wasn’t.
“And why do you think I stayed awake? One of us had to know what was going on in there.”
She cleared her throat. “Either way, no meeting with Rod.”
“I’m willing to placate Mark, but I need to be able to run my office.”
“Let me shortcut the meeting for you. Rod is going to complain about my presence here. He feels threatened and pushed out. He wants to be the one sitting in that courtroom with you, although I have no idea why, because it sucks.”
“Thank you. I aim to please.”
She ignored the sarcasm. “Rod definitely doesn’t like the fact that my desk is in here with you.”
Ben exhaled loud enough to be heard on the next floor down. “You’ve been here less than a half day and already you’re making trouble.”
“Imagine what will happen if I have to put a bullet in the kid.”
“He’s twenty-four. You can’t be that much older.”
“Thirty, and there is a world of difference between a kid like that who has had everything handed to him and me.” Rod had every opportunity open to him. She tripped through the past two years and was only now getting back up off her ass again.
“Feeling judgmental today, are we?”
“I’ve done some background research on you and everyone who works for you.”
“Interesting.” Ben smacked his lips together as if he had gone into deep contemplation. “When did you find time for that?”
“Last night.”
“Very enterprising of you.” He shifted his weight, edged a little closer.
She could smell the citrusy sc
ent of the soap on his skin. “I have my talents.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
The room shrank. Callie knew that the laws of physics made that impossible, but the air grew thin and his hand now rested just inches from her knee. “Uh…?”
His eyebrow kicked up. “Yes?”
“Are you flirting with me, Your Honor?”
“Of course not.” The hitch to his voice said differently.
That would be a disaster. Fun but dangerous. She knew how this scenario played out. She went through these cycles of attraction. Someone would appeal to her, they’d connect, the sex would consume her, and then she’d lose.
One of them had to exercise some common sense. From the way her palms started sweating and the rush of excitement that just shot through her stomach, it better be her before she lost all control. “In addition to the fact I don’t like you all that much and have been tempted to shoot you several times since meeting you—”
“Thanks again, this time for refraining from homicide.”
“—it would be a conflict for you to be involved with anyone who works for you.”
“Well argued. You could be a lawyer with that reasoning. Except that you’ve forgotten one very important fact.”
That was quite possible, since she couldn’t remember anything at the moment. “Which is?”
“You work for my brother, not me.”
Chapter Three
“Tell me Callie’s story.” Ben took the cap off the bottle and slid the beer across his kitchen counter to his brother. With dinner over, Mark fired up the laptop. That meant Ben had a short window to grab his brother’s attention before he drifted off into law enforcement worker mode.
“What do you want to know?” Mark shuffled his papers, scanning them for something, but didn’t bother to look up.