And then Dylan spoke. “Vincent, I usually advise my clients to provide for the unexpected. In this instance, a clause dealing with your possible incapacitation would not be amiss. Should your income stop, under these terms, Alexis would be penalized for supporting you.”
Dylan sure was a real lead weight.
Vincent gave him a patronizing smile. “If I had wanted such a clause, then I would have inserted it myself.”
“If you’d thought of it.”
“I did.”
“Judges like to see those clauses.” Dylan wasn’t intimidated in the slightest, Alexis would give him that, though not much more. “They’re a sign of good faith and make the pre-nup harder to break.”
“I expect an unbreakable contract from you, Dylan. Is my faith misplaced?”
“Not if your faith takes my advice.”
Sheesh. Why didn’t they just unzip their pants and get out rulers?
“Alexis has faith, don’t you, Alexis?” Vincent asked.
Dylan’s gaze flicked to Alexis at the same time Margaret’s foot nudged hers. Yeah, yeah. The clause should be there. She couldn’t help feeling that it was some kind of test, though.
“Vincent…” she began.
“If I’m incapacitated, then more than ever, I would want my lovely wife by my side.” He reached across the table and squeezed Alexis’s hand. “We’d hardly be destitute. I have a lifetime income from the firm.”
“Oh.” Wow. Maybe she’d never go back to work. Work was overrated. Spa paraffin and sea-salt scrub pedicures were not. Alexis slipped back into her fantasy as one of the rich and idle.
She heard a buzz and saw Vincent remove his cell phone. “Excuse me. I need to take this.” He raised his eyebrows at Alexis. “Briarwood.”
The next big case. One that she would have been working on with him if she hadn’t been planning a wedding in a week. “Of course,” she mouthed. But Vincent had already turned away and was leaving the room.
“Alexis, you and I need to talk.”
“Margaret—”
“But not now.” Margaret picked up her copy of the contract and stood. “I’m going to look up a couple of things.” She pointed at Dylan. “You know the rules. No discussing the contract unless I’m present.”
Dylan sat back in the chair, palms outward. “Hey. She’s a lawyer, too.”
“She was,” Margaret stated over her shoulder as she jogged out the doorway.
That stung a little until Alexis told herself that Margaret was just jealous. Who wouldn’t be?
She turned her gaze to the man across the table to find him watching her. She watched him back. He looked the same. More polished and with shorter hair, but basically the same. They might have been sitting across from each other at one of the heavy wooden library tables at school. They’d always had to put the table between them so they could concentrate on studying instead of each other.
It rarely worked then and it wasn’t working now.
Dylan had never been one of those catch-your-breath attractive men, but he made the effort with what he had and the effect was a nonthreatening handsomeness. Except now, it was threatening her peace of mind. She narrowed her eyes at his tan. Fake. When did these men have the time?
“So,” he said.
“So,” she said back. He was going to be trouble. She could tell already.
“Long time no see.”
“Commencement.” She’d stared at the back of his head two rows ahead and alternated between fury and heartbreak. But she’d recovered.
“So how have you been, Alexis?”
“Good. I’ve kept busy.”
“You’re being overly modest. The mere mention of your name strikes fear into the hearts of small-business owners everywhere.”
Was that a compliment, or not? And did she care? “I’ve heard your name bandied about, as well.”
“I’ll bet you have.”
“Usually ‘that damn Dylan Greene.’ You should change your letterhead to D. Dylan Greene.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Vincent has had to restructure a couple of deals when he couldn’t break one of my pre-nups.”
“Actually, I did the restructuring.” Hours and hours and hours of restructuring.
“You get to do the dirty work, huh?”
Alexis folded her hands on the table in front of her. Gripped her knuckles, actually. Hard. “I get the experience.”
“Which you are now throwing away.”
Alexis drew a deep breath. So much for their stilted little conversation. “Watch it, Dylan.”
“I am watching it.” He pushed back from the table and stood. Shoving his hands in his pockets he walked over to the huge windows looking out on the Colorado mountains. “I’m watching a woman throw away her career. What happened to you, Alexis?”
2
ALEXIS WAS INSTANTLY ANGRY on so many levels, she could barely respond. “Are you married, Dylan?”
“No.”
“Been married?”
“No.”
“Given birth?”
He leveled a look at her.
“Anyone given birth on your behalf?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“So you really don’t know what’s at stake for women who have children? Things are very different for men and women.”
“No duh.”
“Ooh. Like the technical lawyer-speak, Dylan.”
“I’m not speaking as a lawyer. It’s against the rules.”
“Then what are you speaking as?”
“A friend.”
“I think not.” She’d been aiming for matter-of-fact, but had hit snippy.
He smiled. No grinned, damn it. “You’re still mad at me.”
“I am so over you.” She was. She was.
“You’re still mad. Yes, you are.” The grin widened. “I must be a better lover than I thought.”
Typical. “I’ve had worse,” she told him. “And I’ve had better. You’re somewhere in the middle. Average.” Honestly, never tell a man he was the worst lover you ever had, he wouldn’t believe it. But mediocre? Now that really got to him.
“And how does Vincent rank?”
She couldn’t believe he’d asked that. “You’re not the first to imply that Vincent must have selected me to be on his team because I slept with him, but you’re the most unexpected. That was unworthy of you, Dylan.”
He blinked. “I wasn’t impugning your legal skill.” Watching her carefully, he continued softly, “You’re marrying the guy.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s a safe assumption you’ve slept with him.”
They stared at each other and Alexis knew that she must not look away. Didn’t dare blink. She was good at this game. Her eyes were so dark people remarked on them. She used cosmetics to emphasize them and she practiced chilling expressions that revealed nothing.
However, eyes were one thing. The blush she was horrified to feel creeping up her throat was something else. She, who could bluff anyone, could not bluff Dylan.
She blinked.
And he pounced. “You’ve never slept with the guy.”
Alexis darted a look toward the doorway. How mortifying if Vincent or Margaret caught them discussing such a subject. “That—is—none—of—your—business.”
Dylan sat on the edge of the table. “But I’m fascinated by your logic—or the lack thereof. What the heck are you doing, Alexis?”
“I’m thinking with my head and not with my heart. ‘If more people thought with their heads instead of their hearts, we’d be out of a job.’ You said that.”
“I did. Go on.”
“Well,” she deliberately lowered her voice, injecting a sultry quality, “you know that first, wonderful rush of passion, when two people can’t get enough of each other, when they’re blind to anything else about each other as long as they can be entwined for hours and hours…?”
His eyes had darkened. Alexis thought he might even be drooling. He nodded and
swallowed.
Deliberately breaking the mood, she sat back and threw up her hands. “It never lasts. And then you’re stuck with what’s left. And you look around and think, ‘Ick. I can’t live with that. What was I thinking?’ And then you realize you weren’t thinking. You were seduced by the sizzle. This time, I evaluated the rest of the man first. And he’s some man.” She gave Dylan her best seductive smile. “I’ll fire up the sizzle later. And you know I can.”
For a moment, she would have sworn that she had him, then he said, “Better make sure you’ve got some good wood.”
“Don’t be crude.”
“Hey, I’m just saying that if you want little sizzlers, you’re going to have to build the campfire with something.”
“And explain to me why you care about my campfire?”
He reached toward her and she thought he was going to touch her. She just stopped herself from flinching as he tapped the contract before her. “I want to know if successful career women selling themselves as high-priced wives is the new trend.”
“You’re being deliberately insulting.”
He eyed her speculatively. “I might be trying to shake you up and see if all your cylinders are firing.”
“Do you ever use plain English?”
“I thought the statement about selling yourself as a high-priced wife was pretty plain.”
“I look on it as protecting my future and the future of my children.”
“I’m listening.”
He was. And Alexis wanted to explain. “I want children and the thing is, a woman risks a lot careerwise these days. As soon as she’s visibly pregnant, she loses her edge. If she becomes angry, it’s hormones. Sad? Hormones. Aggressive? Hormones. So it’s ‘let’s not put too much pressure on the little mother.’ Give her the routine cases. Don’t let her start long-term litigation, because she’ll be taking maternity leave. And from then on, she’s on the mommy track, because she can’t work the long hours she has been because children get sick and she’ll have child-care problems. And guilt. Let’s not forget the guilt. I have seen it happen over and over again. For some reason, men don’t have these problems. He takes time off to meet with the kid’s teacher and he’s a caring and involved father. She takes time off and she’s allowing her children to interfere with her work. I don’t want to have to choose between my children and my career, so I’ll take time off in the beginning and go back to work when they’re older. The beauty of it is that I’ll pick up right where I left off. That’s what it says in the contract. My lovely, lovely contract. So don’t talk to me about throwing away my career. I’m preserving it.”
Dylan regarded her for a moment, then moved closer on the table until he was sitting right next to her, and then he stared at her some more.
She didn’t want him staring at her and she didn’t want him sitting next to her. He was too close. He made her too aware of him as a man, a man that, in spite of herself, she still wanted. After all this time, it wasn’t fair that her body would betray her this way.
Alexis looked down at her copy of the prenuptial agreement, flinching when Dylan nudged her chin upward with his knuckles. “You’re not in love with him.”
“How could you possibly know how I feel?”
His voice deepened. “Because I remember how you look when you think you’re in love.”
What a low blow. She had been in love. She’d thought Dylan was The One. “Someone once told me that there’re all kinds of love and not all of them come with a ring. This time, I get the ring.”
YEAH, HE’DSAIDTHAT, TOO. Had actually used it again, it was such a good line. But she was missing the point. Dylan indicated the contract. “That’s not a ring. It’s a noose.”
“I’m well aware of your feelings on marriage.”
He gave a huge mock sigh. “Alexis, Alexis, Alexis.”
“What?”
“This isn’t the same. Back then, we’d both worked very hard. And we were going to be working very hard. In different cities. Remember? You were staying in Austin and I was going to Houston.” An awful thought occurred to him. “You didn’t go with the Swinehart firm because it’s in—”
“Of course not.” She spoke with ego-deflating scorn.
“Marriage was impossible then. Neither of us was ready—” he hadn’t been ready “—and I figured you knew it. But you got serious all of a sudden.” Maybe he’d been naive, but he’d thought they could keep in touch as they began their careers. After all, it was what they’d worked for. What they’d talked about. What they’d wanted. Serious life commitments could come later.
“It wasn’t all of a sudden,” she snapped. “I was expecting something entirely different that afternoon. I thought you were going to propose.”
He’d long suspected as much. “I’m sorry. Truly I am. But if we’d stayed together then, we wouldn’t be together now. Not with both of us having the kind of careers we’ve had.”
She didn’t say anything and it irked him. “Marriage would have held you back. You know it’s true. Come on. Admit it.”
“Maybe it would have held you back.”
He just shook his head.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Alexis looked to the side. “You’re right. Happy now?”
He wasn’t. He wasn’t at all. Not because of the wrong timing for the two of them, but because his conscience was telling him she was making a big mistake now and he should stop her. Funny, he never remembered his conscience being this loud before. However, it still made a valid point. Marriage to him wasn’t right for her then, and marriage to Vincent wasn’t right for her now.
“Anyway, every relationship I’ve had since has fallen apart. So instead of basing a relationship solely on mutual attraction and hoping that everything else works out, Vincent and I are basing our marriage on affection, compatibility, respect and shared goals and interests. If we find passion, great. But passion fades. At least I know we’ve got something solid left.”
“Yeah. Over a hundred thousand solids each year.”
She gave him that blank look she was so good at. “You’re flirting with an ethics violation.”
They both knew he’d gone way beyond flirting. He tried for a lighter tone. “I thought I was flirting with you.”
“Your technique needs work.” She checked her watch. “Where are they? I’m supposed to meet with the hotel wedding coordinator.”
“Do you mind me asking what the hurry is?”
“I mind you asking on principle. But the truth is that I wanted to get married here and they had a last-minute cancellation. I could have the booking if I agreed to use all the bride’s choices. There’re too many dripping pearls and way too much netting, but other than tweaking the menu and canceling the karaoke machine, I can live with lilac and white.”
So. Alexis was using someone else’s wedding to marry Vincent. Could she be more unsentimental? Yes, Dylan did wish more of his clients thought with their heads instead of their hearts, but Alexis had carried it to the ultimate extreme.
“But can you live with this?” He picked up the contract and flipped through it. Folding it open to a section he’d hoped her lawyer would have flagged,he set the document in front of her.
She didn’t even glance down. “We’re not supposed to be negotiating the contract without my lawyer present.”
“We’re not negotiating. But due to the time constraints, I thought if there was language to which you objected, you could point it out and while I’m sitting here, I could get a start on making it more acceptable. It would save time.” He tried one of his soothing smiles, which of course, she didn’t buy.
“I would not dream of taking away any element of surprise that Margaret has planned.”
“You’re not supposed to be the one who’s surprised.” Dylan had begun to have doubts about Margaret. The clause in question could be interpreted as allowing Vincent to have mistresses in certain circumstances, the cost of which would be deducted from the payments due Alexis. Why hadn’t
she or her lawyer caught that? Had her lawyer been raised in a convent? Clearly, the woman had no clue as to the devious workings of the male mind.
“What do you care?” Alexis asked him.
He…just did. He didn’t expect her to understand because he didn’t quite understand. “Because I don’t want to have to waste my time defending this thing in court when you realize what you’ve signed.”
And that pretty much violated a whole slew of the canon of ethics. He’d get a few moral points, though, not that they would do him any good if Alexis reported him. He didn’t think she would, but the fact that she could was bad enough.
As for Vincent finding out…Dylan would never practice law again.
“What do you mean?” she asked him.
He’d already said too much. “Look at it this way—you know what you’re getting out of the deal, but ask yourself—what’s Vincent getting?”
She gave him a slow, wide smile. “Me.”
WELL, SNAP HER GARTERS if that wasn’t the most impressive thing she’d ever heard in her life. And her death. A hundred thousand dollars a year. Sure, a dollar didn’t go as far now as it did during Sunshine’s life, but from everything Rosebud reported from reading newspapers, a hundred thousand dollars was alot during this life, too.
The dark-haired woman with the awful haircut had not only convinced the silver-haired fellow to marry her, he was paying for the privilege. Well done. Sunshine applauded her, though Alexis couldn’t hear her. It was always heartening to see a sister in sin make good. Women had certainly come a long way.
Sunshine sat on the back of the chair behind Dylan—nice Welsh name—and massaged his neck and shoulders. He wouldn’t feel anything more than a vague relaxed feeling, but Sunshine thought he deserved some relaxing, poor tense baby. The man had itchy pants for Alexis, sure enough, and Sunshine was just in the right spot to know.
But Alexis was way beyond him. Alexis was looking out for Alexis and Sunshine was all for that. From what she’d overheard, it appeared that Mr. Cutie Pie here had had his chance and failed to take advantage of it.
Can't Buy Me Love Page 3
