Just For Her: A Cerasino Family Novella (Cerasino Family Novellas Book 3)

by Abbie Zanders

I wanted to know more, but Miriam returned, and nothing more was said on the subject. We concluded our meeting, and I said I’d be glad to help in whatever legal capacity I could, if it came down to that. After reviewing the case, I was more inclined to share Allison’s concern than Miriam’s lack of it.

  They both thanked me profusely even though I really hadn’t done anything than listen and accept a file. I said as much.

  “You have,” Miriam insisted with a smile, her eyes sparkling as she clasped my hand in hers. “You have a good soul, Mr. Cerasino, and the heart of a protector, just like Ally. I can see why she said you were the right man.”

  I glanced at Allison. Our eyes met for just a second before she lowered her gaze.

  I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t think of myself as a protector. That was more my brothers’ thing than mine. Nick had been a Marine before becoming a best-selling author. Vinnie was a cop. Dom, a firefighter. They risked their lives to help others. What did I do? I put on a suit and waged the majority of my battles with words from the comfort and safety of my office.

  Still, I couldn’t help but feel flattered she thought so.

  “It’s my pleasure, and may I say, I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that.” That was the truth, though the thought of not seeing Allison again wasn’t a pleasant one. Yeah, I knew she was only going to be around for a few more days, and I’d be better off saying good-bye now, but I didn’t want to.

  “We should go.”

  “I’ll walk you down.”

  We rode the elevator down in silence, and I followed them to their car. Most people had already left for the day. Me? I was looking at another late night, a good part of which would be trying to find the information I needed in the mess Stella had left in her wake. All I could think of was how useful Allison’s organizational skills would be.

  Also, how much I’d enjoy spending more time with her.

  “Do you have plans for tomorrow?” I asked Allison suddenly as I opened the passenger door and Miriam climbed in.

  She seemed surprised by my question. I was kind of surprised myself. “Not really. Why?”

  I hurried around to the driver’s side and opened that door as well. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to come by and help me out for a few hours.”

  “Me? What can I do?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. It wasn’t easy for me to ask for help, but with Irene being out until Monday, I didn’t have much choice. I could postpone and reschedule some things, but that would put me even further behind.

  “You’re extremely organized.”

  “She is,” Miriam said, peeking at us from within the vehicle. “Some might even say anal.”

  Allison scowled at her sister while I had to keep my lips from curling into a smile. My siblings often said the same thing about me.

  “I could really use those skills. My former assistant left me with a bit of a mess, and as a paralegal, you understand the importance of proper documentation.”

  Yeah, that sounded good. Not sophomoric at all.

  Chapter Nine: Allison

  I bit my lip and appeared to consider it as I slid behind the wheel, but that was only to keep from appearing too eager.

  “I’d pay you for your time, of course,” he said, as if that were what was giving me pause.

  Hell, I’d do it for free. I loved creating organization out of chaos. And bonus: I’d get to spend the day with Paul Cerasino.

  “I suppose I could do that,” I said calmly, but inside, I was doing a series of fist pumps.

  “Great. Will eight o’clock work for you?”

  “Perfect. See you then.” I started the car, anticipation bubbling inside me. I took a moment to surreptitiously appreciate the view as he was walking away.

  “I think someone likes you,” Miriam sang softly.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Are you kidding? The air was practically cracking between you two.”

  The possibility that those tingles I’d been feeling weren’t wholly one-sided was a thrilling one, but unlike my romance-loving sister, I lived in the real world.

  Was Paul Cerasino a hot, successful, intelligent, golden-hearted Italian Stallion? Absolutely.

  Was I—a healthy, young single woman who valued those qualities—attracted to him? One hundred percent.

  Were we going to spend a few hours together, fall in love, and indulge in a torrid, steamy love affair? Hardly.

  “Save it for your stories,” I said on an exhale, ignoring my body’s response to that last thought, which, unfortunately, was accompanied by images of hot office-desk sex. “He’s just in a bind—that’s all. His receptionist is out and he fired his assistant earlier today.”

  We pulled up in front of Miriam’s apartment building. Despite the unseasonably warm evening, a chill ran up and down the length of my spine as we got out of the vehicle. I held back and looked around but saw nothing unusual as we entered the building.

  “Why did he fire his assistant?” Miriam asked over her shoulder.

  I didn’t want to go into detail about Stella’s territorial behavior, especially with Miriam waxing romantic notions about Paul and me. Besides, my theories were based primarily on supposition, not hard evidence.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she wasn’t doing a very good job.”

  “And suddenly, you appear, just when he needs you most.” She grinned. “It’s fate.”

  “Enough,” I said irritably.

  I reminded her that I wasn’t going to be around long enough to think about starting anything, and that I was only taking him up on his offer because I liked keeping busy. She wisely said no more on the subject, but her eyes were twinkling when she wished me sweet dreams a short while later.

  I WAS UP EARLY, EXCITED by the prospect of having something useful to do. And maybe, just maybe, part of me was looking forward to spending the day with Paul too. Admittedly, I had had some pretty sweet dreams.

  I arrived at the Wilkins building office shortly before eight and met Paul as he was exiting the lobby café with two large cups and a bag. He was once again clean-shaven, though in all honesty, he’d looked mighty hot with a day or two of scruff. His suit was a charcoal gray today with a deep red power tie. I had mentioned the man could wear a suit like nobody’s business, hadn’t I?

  I felt underdressed next to him even though I sported my nicest pair of jeans and a sweater borrowed from Miriam. I could have worn my suit, I supposed, but I’d only brought the one, and it seemed tacky to show up in the same outfit twice.

  “Coffee and breakfast.” He grinned, completely oblivious to my silent appreciation. “I hope you like muffins. I got enough for both of us.”

  I assured him that I did like muffins. What I liked even more was his thoughtfulness.

  “Thank you, but you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Says the woman who went out of her way to bring me lunch yesterday.”

  “That’s different. You were swamped and having a bad day, and I’d just added to it.”

  “If it makes you feel better, think of this as a transparent attempt to get on your good side before you see what’s waiting for you.”

  I laughed, certain that it couldn’t be that bad.

  I was wrong.

  Hours later, I sat in the conference room among stacks of files, investigative reports, depositions, affidavits, transcripts—pretty much any documentation that could be associated with a case. It was bedlam. There was no logical system. No sense of rational organization whatsoever. My OCD was firing on all cylinders, desperate to create order from the chaos.

  I was glad I’d come prepared with my labeler, assortment of clips, and colored Sharpies. Yes, I carried them with me everywhere, thanks to the nifty zipped travel kit I kept in my satchel. It didn’t compare to my much larger collection at home, but it would do in a pinch.

  Paul popped his handsome head in sometime later. His eyes widened when he saw the mess I had made, using the entire len
gth of the conference table, the chairs, and a good part of the floor to spread things out. He was probably wondering what the hell he’d been thinking in asking for my help.

  “There’s a method to my madness, I promise,” I told him confidently. “To construct, you must first deconstruct.”

  He nodded, though I wasn’t sure he believed me.

  “Did you want something?”

  “It’s lunchtime. I was wondering if you wanted to take a break and get some food.”

  I looked at the clock, surprised to see how much time had passed. Between trying to make sense of the horrendous filing system and answering the phone—I’d taken it upon myself to screen calls and take messages using the extension in the conference room—I hadn’t noticed the time flying by.

  I stood up and brushed off my jeans. The place had needed a proper dusting too. And don’t even get me started on the state of the coffeemaker. “Sure. What do you want and from where?”

  He blinked and tilted his head in the most adorable way, as if I’d confused him. “I was just going to run across the street to the park. You’re welcome to join me, or I could bring something back for you if you’d prefer.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t used to being treated like an equal. In my office, paralegals were pretty low on the totem pole and did all the things for the higher-ups, including running out for lunch. “Right. A walk sounds good.”

  He locked up the office behind us, and we made our way to the park. He suggested sliders, which sounded good to me. I even let him order for me. He insisted on paying too. I agreed but only on the condition that I get gelati for both of us afterward.

  I liked a man who could negotiate and compromise.

  We found an empty table in a shady spot and sat down to enjoy our food. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I took the first bite.

  “This is delicious,” I told him.

  “Glad you like it.”

  I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and another warning chill, like the one I’d felt the night before, made me shiver. I put my slider down, picked up a napkin, and looked around. Like the day before, there were plenty of people, and none of them appeared to be doing anything suspicious or nefarious. After a few moments, the feeling passed.

  Of course, Paul picked up on it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just a chiver.”

  “A chiver?”

  “Half-chill, half-shiver,” I explained and attempted to lighten the situation. “My grandmother used to say that happened when someone walked over your grave. Nice visual, huh?”

  He didn’t return my smile. “Does that happen often?”

  “Thankfully, no. At least, not anymore.”

  “Explain, please.”

  It wasn’t something I normally talked about, but Paul was looking at me as if he was genuinely interested, and for some reason, my automatic defensive mechanisms weren’t operating at full capacity.

  “I’m not sure I can really. It’s just a feeling I get sometimes before something bad happens.”

  He didn’t laugh or blow it off, like I’d expected. “Like a premonition?”

  I shook my head. “More like a warning.”

  “How does that work?”

  I paused and sipped my iced tea, wishing I hadn’t been softened up by smoldering dark eyes and mouth-watering barbecue. “It sounds crazy.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  I exhaled. “Let’s just say, I tend to be very aware of my surroundings.”

  “There’s got to be more to it than that.”

  “There really isn’t.” I liked knowing who and what I was dealing with. It gave me a sense of control in any situation. I told him as much.

  “Most people think they’re aware, but they aren’t,” he challenged. “Eyewitness testimony is one of the most unreliable sources of information there is.”

  He wasn’t wrong. I saw it all the time.

  It had even been the subject of a lecture in one of my classes. In the middle of the class, a man ran in, grabbed the professor’s briefcase, and ran back out. The whole thing took less than a minute. Afterward, we were all asked to write down a description of the man and our account of what had occurred. The results had been astoundingly different.

  My eyewitness account had been dead-on. I had even been able to correctly identify the masked “suspect” as one of the professor’s TAs based on the way he’d moved.

  Because I paid attention.

  “All right. Without turning around, tell me about the people sitting behind us.”

  I didn’t take offense. He was a lawyer. He wanted evidence.

  “Directly behind us is a woman with a dog. She’s thirty or so, slim and attractive. Shoulder-length brown hair with blonde tips and a red headband. Red leggings and a lightweight gray hoodie. Her dog is a Lab–German shepherd mix, probably around eighty pounds or so. She’s been looking over this way ever since we sat down, like she knows you or something.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Farther back and to the left, two small children are hiding behind a multiflora bush, giggling, while their mother pretends to search for them. One’s about four, the other about two. The mother is young, early twenties at most. Shall I keep going?”

  “That’s incredible. What other superpowers do you have?”

  I knew he was teasing, but the praise was welcome all the same. He seemed genuinely impressed with my keen powers of observation, and that made me feel good. Most people just thought I was paranoid and weird.

  I decided to take it a step further. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I’m good at reading people too. In fact, I can create a fairly accurate profile of someone within the first few minutes of meeting them. Sometimes, I don’t even have to meet them. I can simply observe them for a short time and just know.”

  “Are you ever wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Not to my knowledge.” I wasn’t bragging, just being honest.

  “I bet that’s a useful skill to have.”

  I couldn’t keep the bitterness completely from my voice. “It should be, but people believe what they want to believe.”

  “Miriam,” he guessed.

  I nodded.

  I’d known in those first moments of meeting Caleb that he wasn’t right in the head, but Miriam wouldn’t listen. He told her what she wanted to hear and convinced her that I was jealous of their relationship, painting me as a control freak who didn’t want her to have her own life. Miriam, who I’d shielded from my father’s abuse since we were kids, had already seen me as bossy and overprotective, and Caleb built on that.

  It had nearly destroyed me.

  “Do you know how frustrating it is to know someone is lying through their teeth and not be able to do anything about it?”

  He nodded somberly. “Yes. Unfortunately, that I know.”

  We gathered up our wrappers and tossed them into a nearby garbage can, and then, as per our agreement, got some gelati to take back with us. We didn’t speak along the way, and I wondered if maybe I should have just done what I normally did and kept my mouth shut.

  “Are you sorry you asked?” I couldn’t help but ask as we rode the elevator up to the sixth floor.

  “No,” he assured me. “But there is one thing that bothers me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What gave you that chiver?”

  I wondered that myself. It was the second time I’d felt one in as many days, and I didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Probably the woman with the dog. She was shooting daggers at my back the whole time.”

  He chuckled. “You are good. That was Nancy. She’s a friend of Stella’s and probably not very happy with me right now.”

  I nodded even though I wasn’t convinced. Oh, I’d felt her unfriendly stares all right, but unless she’d been walking her monster dog past Miriam’s apartment at the exact moment we got back from Paul’s the night before, she wasn’t the source of my chiver.

&
nbsp; Paul went to his private office, and I returned to the conference room to continue the Herculean task of organizing the case files. The ones from the past twelve months were in the worst condition. Things prior to that had had at least some semblance of logical order to them.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess what had changed. What I couldn’t figure out was why Paul had taken Stella on as an assistant to begin with.

  My theory, based on spending some time with Paul, was, she’d seen an opening and jumped on it. Probably given him some kind of sob story, maybe even told him she wanted to pursue a career in law and just needed someone to give her an opportunity. Paul was an intelligent guy, but he also had the kind of innate chivalrous instincts that might override his common sense.

  That was the kind of thing that was so frustrating to me. Decent people making allowances and excuses for others because they believed everyone had some good in them and that good would prevail if just given a proper chance.

  My mother had believed my father was a good man who’d fallen on hard times and that, as his wife, it was her duty to stand by him, no matter what. Miriam had believed Caleb’s irrational possessiveness came from some soul-deep love, not because he was a controlling asshole.

  And me? I got to watch the people I loved get hurt, and when it all went to hell, I would try to pick up the pieces.

  Chapter Ten: Paulie

  I hung up the phone, pleased and surprised that I’d accomplished everything I’d wanted to and then some. I’d almost forgotten how productive a few hours of uninterrupted work time could be.

  I stood and stretched, and then I went in search of Allison. It had been hours since I’d last seen her, and I was craving a fix. I told myself that it meant nothing. That I was in need of a break and simply sought her out because she was there.

  Yeah, I wasn’t buying it either.

  I found her exactly where I’d left her.

  “Hey.”

  She was sitting on the floor, sorting through a bankers box, when she looked up and smiled at me. I felt it right in the center of my chest.

  “Hey yourself.”