by Mika Lane
Was she kidding?
This woman was goddamn gorgeous. I breathed a sigh of relief and extended my hand to a tall, curvy blonde with glasses.
“Oh, hi,” she said, yanking them off. I never understood why women were so embarrassed about glasses. “I’m Maizy.” She extended her hand and laid a smile on me that just about knocked me over.
Eva beamed, obviously pleased with her match, and certain I’d never again fuck one of her set-ups on the first date. Yeah, I’d be paying for that mistake for the rest of my days.
Eva scurried off, probably to watch from a distance. That’s how she was.
“I’m…uh…Anson.”
Holy shit. This was what the law firms were producing these days? My new friend took a draw on her wine, but she looked longingly at my bourbon.
“You like bourbon? You want some?” I asked, gesturing at the bar.
She looked around sneakily. “I’d better not. At least not yet.”
There was fear in her voice. She knew what my sister-in-law was all about, clearly.
I led her to a small sofa. A strategic move—no one else could sit with us.
“So you’re a lawyer, huh? At my sister-in-law’s firm?” God, she had great legs. I hoped she wasn’t a bitch like Eva.
“Oh, no! Hell, no.” As soon as she said it, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes scanned the room again, like she was in enemy territory.
Christ, who’d traumatized this woman?
She leaned closer. Her hair, which was piled on top of her head in a messy knot thing, smelled great.
“I’m not an attorney. Just a paralegal.” She straightened her back and lifted her chin. “Yes, I’m a paralegal, I mean. Sorry. Didn’t mean to say just.”
“Awesome, I’m glad you’re not a goddamn attorney.” Oops. It was my turn to look around the room as if the firing squad were warming up. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it.”
She snickered conspiratorially and clinked her glass against mine.
“I thought you were going to be some uptight attorney like all Eva’s other friends. I mean, look around this room. Must have the biggest proportion of dick heads of any party going on in Manhattan at this very moment.”
She pressed her lips together, but a laugh escaped anyway. She threw her head back, cracking up. The whole room turned to look at her. I supposed that was a too-loud laugh for the sensibilities of the others. But I freaking loved it.
Eva called everyone to the table, and of course, she was the type of hostess who told everyone where to sit. Regardless, some other sap was trying to grab the seat right next to Maizy, but I cock-blocked him big time.
“Ugh, sorry, dude. This is my seat,” I told him as I set my ass in it. Maizy didn’t notice a thing as she gently put a white linen napkin on her lap. The other dude might have scowled for all I knew, but with my back to him, I had no idea. And couldn’t have cared less.
“Have you been here before, Maizy? To Eva and Todd’s?” I asked.
“Nooo,” she replied, shaking her head. She leaned a bit closer, which I liked. “I was shocked I was invited. I’m pretty sure Eva doesn’t like me. In fact, I’m absolutely sure she doesn’t like me.” She shrugged. Apparently, she didn’t lose much sleep over Eva. Neither did I, but then, she wasn’t my boss.
“You know, Maizy, you need to be sure to give me your number before the evening is over.”
“I might be able to do that,” she said with that goddamn killer smile.
Shit.
Chapter 3
Maizy
How freaking weird was it to be invited to my boss’s house for dinner? The woman usually acted like I had the plague, as if spending too much time with a commoner like me would tarnish her Harvard pedigree.
Her friends weren’t much better. So when her brother-in-law arrived, I nearly cried with joy. Someone who wanted to talk to me.
I’d taken Eva’s suggestions to heart and dressed as unsexily as I could. I even wore my glasses instead of my contacts, but the women in the room still eyed me warily as the only single.
I wouldn’t have minded giving those bitches something to really talk about.
But Anson. Wow. He was nothing like his short, bald brother Todd, beleaguered spouse of Eva the evil. No, the family must have spent all their good looks karma on the younger brother Anson, because there was pretty much nothing about him that was less than perfect with his unkempt red hair and facial scruff. He reminded me of that prince of England, whose name I could never remember, but whom I’d had a crush on since I was a kid.
Eva’s server—yes, she had a fucking server for her dinner party—brought us our soup. Mine was a strange watery concoction with a carrot floating in it, but it was surprisingly tasty.
Anson leaned closer to me.
“She always makes shit like this. And brings in maids. So idiotic,” he whispered.
It was then that my shoulders began to shake. Then my hands, so I set down my soup spoon. I pressed my hand over my mouth to control my laughter, but the harder I tried not to laugh, the worse it was.
Didn’t they call that the church giggles?
Anson was watching me struggling to keep my shit together, when he, too, was struck with laughter. His face turned beet red, and his blue eyes filled with tears.
“Hey, guys,” Eva called out. “Why don’t you share the joke with us?”
She had no idea how that would fuck up her evening. So we didn’t.
I cleared my throat and pushed my chair from the table. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” I scurried to the restroom. I felt bad about abandoning Anson, but at this point, it was every woman for herself. He was related to those people. He would do whatever the hell he wanted. I, on the other hand, could not. I had to deal with Eva at work on Monday. The harder I laughed, the worse it would be. That’s how she was.
I ran into the restroom and took a few deep breaths to shake off my nerves.
There was a knock at the bathroom door.
Shit, didn’t this place have more than one bathroom?
“Maizy?” a muffled voice said. “Maizy, you okay?”
I yanked open the door to Anson.
“God, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t take it. I guess I was nervous, and that set me off.” I stepped out of the bathroom and joined him in the hall, taking several more deep breaths.
“Whew. I’m fine now,” I said, moving back toward the dining room.
But before I could, Anson’s hand grabbed my wrist.
“What are you—?”
His lips brushed over mine, quietly and gently, as if asking permission. I was shocked as hell, but hey, he was a nice-looking guy, and according to Eva, I was the resident floozy anyway.
“Hmmm, mmmm,” came the throat-clearing sound from behind me.
Anson and I snapped back from each other, and I gestured toward his mouth so he could remove the red lipstick I’d smeared on him.
Eva stood there with a smug look on her face. I couldn’t tell if she was disgusted with me or pleased with her matchmaking skills. Maybe it was a bit of both.
“Hey, Eva. We’re heading back to the table,” Anson said. He still had a smudge of red on his upper lip.
“Good,” she said, looking from one of us to the other. “Dessert is being served.”
I smiled brightly at her as we headed back to the table, laughing fits long gone.
“Share a cab home?” Anson asked as the evening ended with everyone heading for the door at once. Geez, it seemed like they couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.
“Heading across town?” I asked.
“I am. Let me call at Uber.”
Our ride sped through several red lights on the way to my place. Just another night in Manhattan.
“Would you like to get together again, Maizy?”
Oh, shit. I’d thought that moment might be coming. And I’d not come up with a good response. What the hell. Honesty it would be.
“You
know, Anson, thank you. I’m super flattered—”
“Oooh, that doesn’t sound positive.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” I nodded. “I feel a little weird about dating one of my boss’s relatives.”
Perfectly legit reasoning.
“Okay. I get that. I really do. But look at it this way. Neither of us can stand her. I mean, I only tolerate Todd because he’s my brother. But he’s as big an elitist asshole lawyer as she is.”
Oh, god. He was going to wear me down. Not that it was hard to do.
He turned in his seat to face me. “So the way I look at it, Maizy, is that if we don’t stick together, we’ll be eaten alive by these jerks. We need to partner. In solidarity.”
I looked at him to see if he was serious. We burst out laughing.
“I’ll think about it, Anson. Really, thank you. Put your number in my phone, would you?”
He got the Uber driver to wait while he walked me up to the door.
“I don’t even know what you do for work,” I said.
“Oh. Finance. You know that gig. Not quite as cliché as a lawyer. But I suppose we’re getting there.”
Not quite as cliché as the single femme fatale in the office, either. But I was dealing with it, nonetheless.
After all the excitement of having been to my boss’s house, I couldn’t wait to fall into bed. Before I did, I went to fetch the usual glass of water for my nightstand. And who was standing there in the middle of the kitchen but my sister Sparkle. Naked, of course. Holding her pet rat.
“Spark, why can’t you wear clothes in the house?”
I don’t think I really cared that she walked around naked. It just seemed like since I was the big sister, I should say something about it.
Maybe I was the jerk. Maybe I had an issue with nudity.
“Maiz,” she started, “I swear, if you walk around the house naked once in a while, you’ll understand why I do. It’s so freeing.”
Not sure I bought it.
“Here. Say hi to Cher.” She thrust the little white rat in my face. I had to admit, he was cute. Even though he had a woman’s name and dropped little brown turdlettes all over the place every time Sparkle let him out of his cage.
Anyway.
“So, I survived the dinner,” I said.
Sparkle’s head snapped in my direction.
“Right! Tell me!”
“She wanted me to meet a guy. Her brother-in-law.” I shook my head. Saying it out loud kind of creeped me out. Dating someone related to my boss? It would be weird if she were nice, but considering I wasn’t her biggest fan, and I was pretty sure she didn’t like me either, it was downright gross.
“And?” Sparkle asked.
“He was pretty cool. Very nice looking.”
“Wow. Score. What’s not to like?”
“Ugh, not sure about dating him. But I do want to find someone. Apparently, being single is holding me back professionally.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I didn’t tell you? Eva took me aside at the big party for the firm and told me I was a threat to the wives since I was young and single.”
“She. Did. Not.”
“Can you believe that shit? I mean, what is this, the nineteen-fifties? Now I’m the office hussy.” I headed for my bed, and Sparkle followed. Naked, of course. Cher ran across my bed, dropping a tiny poop.
“Spark, can you believe someone would look down on me because I’m not paired off? Such a bunch of judgmental fucks.”
“Ugh. Terrible. I don’t know how you can stand that profession. Lawyers suck. Hey, you could always become a yoga teacher like me, you know,” she said.
“Yeah, and then I could change my name to something like Sparkle, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Sparkle suits me much better than that stupid name I had before.”
“I don’t know. I never thought Sunday was such a bad name,” I said. “Anyway, one of us has to have a real job. How the hell would we pay the rent?”
“Hey, no fair. I help with the bills.” She gave me her little sister pout. “Oh. I know what you should do. I have an idea.”
She bounced on her toes and waved her arms wildly.
“Okay. What’s your idea?”
“They have those matchmaking agencies.” She jumped from the bed and ran toward her room, her naked butt jiggling the tiniest bit. Ten seconds later, she returned to my room with her laptop.
“I’m pulling one of the sites up right now. Okay, here’s one that’s local and it has good reviews. It’s called VIP Match.”
“But I’m not a VIP.”
She perused the webpage. “I don’t think you have to be a VIP. Let’s see…Oh. Shit. It costs five thousand dollars.”
“What?” Who would spend five thousand dollars to get a date?
Apparently, enough people to keep VIP Match in business.
“Forget them. Not worth five thousand dollars.” She clicked on her keyboard, presumably scrolling through all the possibilities.
“Hey, here’s one where the guy pays.”
“Are you sure that’s not an escort service?” I asked.
She clicked several more times.
“Ummm…yeah, looks like it is,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Hey, maybe I should give it a shot. I could make some money and get my promotion at the same time.”
Well, that was one option.
Chapter 4
Braden
I don’t know what I hated more—lawyers, or the freaking awful offices they worked in. All kinds of fake wood paneling, furniture from my grandmother’s era, and oriental carpets. Law firms must have been single-handedly keeping rug stores open.
Then came the stuffy, stuck-up attitudes. It started with the people behind the front desk. When I first started having to hire attorneys, like when my music began to take off, I’d walk in and, of course, I stuck out like a sore thumb among all the suits. I mean, every profession has its uniform, and mine was worn Levi’s, some sort of old concert T-shirt, and a leather jacket with a hoodie underneath. If it was really cold, I’d bust out the down puffer.
I almost felt sorry for the attorneys and all their workers having to wear those fucking monkey suits. They looked so uncomfortable and…expensive. What if a little of your lunch spilled down the front of one of those jackets? If good old mister dry cleaner couldn’t work one of his miracles and get the stain out, you were screwed out of a couple thousand bucks.
Not that I couldn’t afford to dress that way if I wanted to. I could buy any of those fuckers at that firm ten times over if I wanted to. But I was practical. I wore clothes I didn’t have to worry about. If I spilled on them, or left them behind in some hotel room, it didn’t matter.
I simply did not give a shit.
I had bigger things to worry about. Like my fucking music label licensing my work for a fucking car commercial. I was seriously so steamed about that, I couldn’t see straight. And when I had an issue like this, the lawyers usually came to me for our meetings. But my schedule had been so whacked with the release of my new album that I broke down and went to their offices for a change. I also felt a little bad I’d canceled on them so many times.
But just a little. I paid those fuckers through the nose. They could kiss my ass once in a while.
So. Back in a law office. I’d forgotten how much I hated them. I’d always felt these leeches made money off the back of other peoples’ hard work. But they could come in handy once when you needed them.
“Mr. Darby?” a hot-as-shit tall blonde asked me. “I’m Maizy Strong.”
“Call me Braden.” I stood and took her hand. Damn if she wasn’t almost as tall as me with her skyscraper heels. And I was six-foot.
“Actually, call me Brade.”
I followed the sexy secretary down a long hall past a bunch of dickwad lawyer offices to a conference room with windows featuring a view of the whole of lower Manhattan. I knew without a doubt I was paying for that view with the monthly fees
they charged me. At least I got to enjoy it for the hour I was there.
I was surprised when Mary—or whatever her name was—sat down with me at the huge conference table. Secretaries usually made themselves scarce after offering coffee or water. But, hey, I didn’t mind this looker keeping me occupied until my lawyer came in.
In fact, what a great idea. Keep the dudes happy in the company of a beautiful female, and meetings were always sure to go well.
But my sexy secretary didn’t offer me anything to drink. In fact, she pulled some big black eye glasses off the top of the hair piled on her head and opened the folder she’d had tucked under her arm. Out came a pen from behind her ear, and she took a long look at me.
“I’ve been a fan of your band’s since I was in middle school,” she said.
Shit. Way to make a guy feel ancient.
“That’s very nice of you to say.” Always be polite with the fans. Even if you are paying them.
She flipped through some papers.
“Mr. Darby—I mean, Brade—your case is pretty straightforward. We’ve handled a couple similar ones for other entertainers. The rulings have always been in favor of our clients, so you’re in good hands.”
“Um…excuse me, Marcy, I think you said?”
“Maizy. M-A-I-Z-Y.”
“Ah. Gotcha. Maizy. I believe I had a meeting scheduled with a lawyer-type person. I appreciate your keeping me company, but I don’t really have time to hang out with a secretary. Nothing personal, I hope you understand.”
Huh. Well, I guess she didn’t understand because she gave me the stink-eye of all stink-eyes. I bet if I hadn’t been a client, she would have told me to go fuck myself.
I wouldn’t have minded. I’d been told that before.
She placed her hand flat on the table on top of what I guessed was a folder of my problems and rolled her shoulders a bit. Kind of like she was getting ready for a fight.
Oh, shit. Guess I’d said the wrong thing.
“Look, Marcy—”
“I’m Maizy, sir. Maizy. I’m sorry about the misunderstanding, but I am your legal representative. I work under the supervision of Eva Crabtree, one of the firm’s senior partners. I will be handling your case at the preliminary stages.”
