“Thank you for the rose. It’s beautiful.”
Jo wasn’t looking at him. It was if she were speaking quietly to her dessert.
“You’re welcome.” The second word came out on a dry rasp despite the chocolate and cream coating his tongue.
Then she looked at him with those dark, amazing eyes and he almost fell forward. They were so clear that their depth felt infinite, and their gaze cut clear through him until his soul lay bare before them.
She looked back down at her dessert but didn’t take another taste.
He waited, barely hearing the buzz of laughter over something that enveloped the rest of the table but left them alone together.
“I have to work late tomorrow.” Again that quiet comment in the direction of her dessert.
“How late?” He held his breath not really daring to understand what he thought he understood.
“How late do you have to work?”
Angelo struggled to get his thoughts moving. “On a Wednesday, I can be done by nine.”
Jo looked up at him again.
For the length of three breaths she said nothing, merely studying him.
“That sounds good,” was all she said and returned to her dessert.
Angelo looked down at his own Panna Cotta, then up the table.
He was pretty sure that someone was asking him a question, but he couldn’t hear it over the pounding in his ears.
Chapter 14
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!” Jo wanted to pound her head on the desk. Not that it would solve anything.
The whole discovery process had been completely screwed up. A dozen filings with the court would be necessary to straighten it out before she could even initiate a serious review of the key case documents. And she should really start writing those now. She’d need at least five interrogatories, and probably more. She already had a deposition list going and it was only the fifth or sixth day she’d been working on the case.
Muriel would know what else she needed to do to fix this mess. Jo hated it when they didn’t bring her in right at the start of a case. This one had muddled along for months in the lower courts before anyone realized that it was going to become a major piece of litigation with ramifications easily reaching into the billions. Arctic Ocean mineral rights, oil reserves, fisheries, Northwest Passage navigation... The list was rapidly growing.
Some idiot in Juneau, with no real knowledge of Maritime Law and apparently wholly unaware of the applicability of International Sea Law, had advanced the case to Alaska’s Supreme Court. It should have gone straight to Federal. Instead, there were now dozens of interest groups suing and countersuing with no idea that most of their noise was meaningless but would take months of work to sweep aside.
Why had she sent Muriel home? Just because the woman had a date was no excuse. Muriel had remained uncomplainingly until Jo had used up very possible second, including her time to go home and change which was just plain cruel on Jo’s part. It was only in a fit of martyrdom that she’d told Muriel to finally go and have fun. What had Jo been thinking when she did that?
Then there was Renée Linden’s parting comment last night still churning about in Jo’s brain like a nasty little whirlwind wreaking destruction upon any line of reasoning.
Not once in all of yesterday afternoon and evening that they’d been together had Renée mentioned that she was recommending Jo for the position, making it especially hard for Jo to turn down something that hadn’t been offered. Nor had Jo found a way to even once intimate that she’d discovered that is what the woman was planning. Because Jo would sound like a fool if she were wrong.
Yet, at the end of the evening, Renée had rested a gentle hand on Jo’s forearm and said, “I knew you would be wonderful at this. So many think it is about doing the job. You and I know that it is about finding the right people to do the job.” And then she’d disappeared into the dark Seattle evening before Jo could get her verbal-acuity feet back under her and even consider forming an intelligent response.
And then there was Angelo.
Okay. Somewhere in the middle of the night she’d finally understood the ugly emotion that had swamped her at seeing Angelo and the beautiful Melanie together. Jealousy. What did she have to be jealous about? One kiss. Okay, two if you counted the ice cream kiss from the bike ride. Being a guy probably meant that he did, but being a sensible member of the female gender, she definitely didn’t.
Yet she did.
Okay, damn it! Two kisses.
They’d shared two kisses totaling something on the order of ten seconds. Perhaps longer. She wasn’t so sure about how long that second kiss had lasted. Hard to estimate time when your mind blanked beneath the electric-shock wave of sensation.
But none of it should be enough to justify jealousy.
And then once she’d absolved him from the crime of flirting with Melanie, beyond his being male and Italian and Melanie being drop-dead gorgeous and a close friend, what had she done? She’d invited him out on a date.
What kind of a date started at nine on a weeknight? When she wasn’t working, she’d normally be in bed with a good book by nine. That damned Grisham novel still sat there untouched. That wasn’t like her either.
If she wasn’t herself, who was she turning into?
She flashed momentarily on the opening of Alice in Wonderland. The part where Alice can’t make sense of her world or remember her multiplication tables and decides she must not be Alice after all, but rather a sad little girl named Mabel and she weeps a pool of tears.
“I must be Mabel.”
“Really? I thought you were Jo Thompson. Did I bring these to the wrong office?”
Jo jerked upright in her chair to see Angelo leaning against the doorjamb of her office holding a small white box.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to find your office by your screams. Strange thing to do all alone in the night.”
“How did you get in here? And what’s in there?”
“One question at a time, counselor.” He moved easily across the room to sit in one of the client chairs across from her desk. He looked gorgeous. His faded jeans were tight fitting, not because they were tight, but because he had such good muscle under them. His shirt was unbuttoned only two buttons from the neck, but that was at least one too many as it hinted at his strong chest and raised her temperature in an unseemly fashion. She almost asked him to stand and turn around for a moment just to see that wonderful taper from shoulder to hip, then lectured herself sharply to behave.
They were just getting together for a date, which she was really too busy for anyway. She’d make them some tea in the office kitchen, they’d share whatever treat he’d brought and now set in her In Basket, then she’d send him on his way.
“I got in here because your building guard is Manuel’s cousin, Manuel is my sous chef, and we feed her when she finds someone she wants to really impress.”
“So you just bribe your way into any building you want?”
“Oh,” he sat back and folded his hands behind his head looking perfectly relaxed. “We chefs have our ways. To answer the rest of your question, the outer door to your offices is unlocked and I found your office because it is the only one with the light on. And also, you know, the screams.”
Jo fought the heat that rushed to her cheeks and reached for composure.
“The door was unlocked because it’s a secure elevator so the last one to leave, tonight being me, actually usually being me, would lock up. But courtesy of Manuel’s cousin, her master passcard to the elevator, and your relationship with her…”
“Don’t go there,” Angelo cut her off. “Won’t do you any good. Dora’s nineteen, good at her job, and a lesbian. Our relationship is purely caloric.”
Jo would give good money to know how he looked so relaxed when she so wasn’t.
/>
# # #
It was a damn good thing Dora had been the security guard on duty or Angelo would have had no compunction about turning around and sprinting out the door when faced with the edifice that was the sixteenth floor entrance to Stanley, Tu, Rolfmann, and Thompson. Every single thing about their offices had reeked of intimidation and power.
First, the thick glass doors with the four names in gold leaf, didn’t open like doors, with handles. They shot aside with a soft, “whoosh!” like they were from Star Trek. Not some clunky supermarket door either. One moment the things were there blocking him out. The next moment they were gone, and the fittings were so seamless it was hard to tell where they’d gone into the sides of the ebony archway that dared the intruder to pass beneath. He half expected a Stargate vortex to shimmer to life and swallow him whole.
Five feet into the office, they’d magically reappeared behind him like an invisible cage. He’d considered returning to the elevator just to make sure he could escape if needs be, but he knew if he started down that road there’d be no turning back.
The lobby was all dusky blues: the carpet, the leather furniture, the walls. Even when the lighting automatically came up, it was subtle and indirect. The ceiling appeared to be fathomless glass, as if you could look up into it forever and never find yourself. Behind the receptionist’s desk, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows threatened to spill you over a dozen stories down into Elliot Bay. Even at night, it looked precipitous. A bad place for anyone who feared heights.
Offices ranged right and left along the Sound-view face of the building.
The only light had been at the end of the left-hand corridor, which is how he had arrived at Jo’s equally intimidating corner office. The walls were dark-smoked glass. The photographs of wilderness sunsets and morning vistas were framed in bright stainless steel which appeared to float off the glass walls like magic in some futuristic art gallery. They offered the only color other than the dark wood of Jo’s desk which was covered with a large, ocean-blue map. That was then buried deep in files that appeared to have been deposited in stages like layers of stone. There was no clock, but rather a projection of one from somewhere behind the glass. The clock face, very similar to the giant one looming over Pike Place Market that he could see many stories below through her window, simply shown deep red on the smoky glass.
And in the middle of all the futuristic reek of power had been Jo with her head down in her hands.
That’s when he’d found his equilibrium. No matter how high-powered she might be, no matter the trappings around her, she was a woman obviously deeply tired and frustrated.
Somehow, her heartless office made her, by contrast, so much more human. A human Jo Thompson he could deal with. The power-suited Counselor Thompson, name partner of the law firm, that one scared the shit out of him. So, he would just pretend that one wasn’t present. He glanced down at a glass coffee table and spotted a copy of something called the ABA Journal and the cover had a picture of Jo and three guys grouped around her but a half-step behind her. They were probably Stanley, Tu, and Rolfmann. Angelo absolutely was going to pretend that he hadn’t seen that.
And she looked so distressed that he reset his agenda even as he watched her. Tonight she didn’t need an eager lover, he hoped that’s what she’d been suggesting. Tonight she looked as if she needed a friend.
“So, what’s going on?” He’d just ignore her question about how he looked so relaxed, because if he thought about it, he wouldn’t be.
“Everything. Nothing. It’s… I’m…” Then she scrubbed her face for a moment and flipped a fistful of hair back over her shoulder. “I’m a mess.”
“But such a beautiful mess.”
“You’re so Italian.”
“Sue me,” he grinned at her.
“Don’t tempt me, Angelo. At this point that might just cheer me up.”
“So if you sue me, do I get to see more of you, or less?”
She slipped a bright pink pen behind her left ear which held her hair back on that side, leaving the other side free to spill strand by strand forward over her right shoulder. He had to blink to resist the mesmerizing movement of sliding hair like liquid midnight.
“I’d see you more because of depositions,” she tapped a stack of notes, “and discovery,” she slapped a tall stack of files then had to grab and recenter them to keep them from falling.
“Sounds good. Let’s do it.”
“But also much less socially, and never without opposing counsel in attendance to protect your rights.”
“Ah, well. Now that doesn’t sound so good. Not unless she’s very cute.”
Jo laughed then scowled at him. He’d ignore that as well.
“So what is all this mess?” He’d had Russell look over his restaurant lease renewal agreement a few weeks ago, because he didn’t understand such things. They’d made a few minor tweaks, but Russell had declared the thing really fair, so Angelo had signed. What Jo had ranged across her desk looked utterly meaningless. Overlong pages of paper had numbers running down the left side and strange blocky headings on the first page. The long, yellow legal pad already had a dozen pages folded under and the exposed page was mostly full of tightly spaced notes.
“It was supposed to be the next year of my life, but I’m afraid it’s going to be the next five. I really don’t want to spend the next five years commuting to Alaska.”
“Alaska?” Angelo did his best to hide his distress at the idea of her being so far away. Especially for so long.
“North Slope mineral and oil exploration rights,” she patted one pile of files. Then another, “Fishing rights.” And a third, “International agreements. And disagreements.” A fourth.
“All controlled by international law, superseded by case law, governmental protests, diplomatic letters, and U.N. negotiations.” She aimed a finger at various piles.
“U.N.? As in United Nations?” Angelo could feel his cool slipping once again and struggled to find it and pull it over him like the cloak of baked mozzarella on an Eggplant Parmigiana.
“Yes. It’s pretty exciting actually. I might get my first chance to argue a case in front of the U.N. Maritime Court.”
She couldn’t have named anything more impossible. The White House made more sense than the U.N. The U.N. was the place he’d gone on a high school class trip, had a toured lecture while hovered over by a dozen security guards. It wasn’t technically in New York. It was in some weird International Zone that wasn’t even a part of the United States.
“Whoa! We’re talking about that big building on the Eastside mid-town Manhattan? The one with the hundred and something flags around it?” He blew out a breath. “That’s too unreal. Let’s get you back down to Earth.” He nudged the white box still sitting in her In Basket.
She glanced at it without reaching across the piles to pick it up.
“If it’s more of your Panna Cotta I will charge you with malfeasance and criminal intent regarding the condition of my waistline.”
“Mal what? And you have an amazingly attractive waistline.”
“Intentional wrongdoing.” The waistline comment appeared to fluster her. He’d have to remember that. It was as if she’d shed a little bit more of the lawyer when he said it.
“Oh. No, it’s not Panna Cotta.” He was starting to like the way she spoke. At first it had put him off, but it was simply a different world than his own. They were both specialists, just very different specialists. The Alaska thing worried him though.
He nudged the box again and she finally gave in.
She took it and peered inside. “What are they?”
“Very decadent.”
“I guessed that much. How decadent?”
He smiled when she looked up at him with those dark eyes of hers.
“Very.”
Chapter 15
Decadent?
Jo really needed something to be decadent right at the moment. Not Alaska, not case law, not Pike Place Market, not even a triathlon. She needed something that was wholly for her. And she knew exactly what it was, but it was so outrageous she didn’t want to risk even speaking in case that somehow ruined it.
She closed the little white box and rose without a word. She left some part of herself in that leather office chair. If she’d been less tired, she might have returned to gather it back up, but at the moment she just didn’t care. She tapped the control embedded in the desk’s surface and the tight-focused overhead desk lamp faded to darkness leaving only the soft glow of the walls and the city lights from the windows. Angelo found her jacket on the back of the door and held it out for her.
Past the lobby and through the doors. She hit the button on her keyring remote. The doors snicked shut and locked, then the lobby lights dimmed to a soft glow. Nineteen stories down to the parking garage and into her BMW Z4 roadster.
Angelo whistled appreciatively, but when he would have spoken, she shook her head. She’d had way too many words today. And yesterday. And the damned day before.
He bowed his acquiescence as if he were a butler in full tails rather than a chef in jeans, a loose button-down shirt, and scuffed sneakers. He held the door for her until she was settled in her seat, then closed it gently. Climbing in beside her, he took the small white box and she fired off the car and flipped the switch to open the convertible top.
She loved this car. It had been a bonus the day she made partner and had her name added to the Stanley, Tu, and Rolfmann letterhead. The stunning magazine ad for the BMW had been her screensaver for six months and the partners had noticed and purchased it for her as a bonus for the big win she’d pulled off on behalf of the fishing corporations last year. She liked working for this firm. She truly did. But she wasn’t going to think about them anymore tonight.
The BMW ad had been a hell of an ad, the long-legged blonde in thigh-high red leather boots and a single red rose contrasted with the jet-black car with black leather upholstery. She almost missed a gear shift when she connected that Melanie must have been the model in the ad. Cassidy had found out that Russell had shot and composed it, and Jo now knew that the supermodel had been his favored subject while he was still a professional ad photographer in New York. Was it because they’d been lovers, or because she was so beautiful? Well, it was interesting either way.
Where Dreams Books 1-3 Page 41
