by Ellen Mint
“Here.” He tried to distract from yet another difference by picking up the first letter. “I’ll begin.”
“Okay.” She smiled brightly and passed him the letter. Emeric made certain his focus was on the old text, knowing that if he looked up into her shining face he’d lose himself.
Time moved more quickly than he’d have first expected while translating the old letters. Emeric girded himself for the slowest tick of the second hand as he’d have to keep explaining things, getting into arguments with her, and fully forgetting his lessons. But his father’s old-world tongue came back by and by. On occasion, he’d have to read it aloud to understand what was written, earning the ire of the living chastity belt in the room.
“‘To my dear friend, the man who walks in…in…’” English betrayed him, the word slipping from his grasp. He tried to find it in anything that could be understood, but it was French of all things that clung tight. “Neige.”
“Neige?” Trevor interrupted. “What is that? Some old medieval catapult? A kind of castle?”
It was Nadire who chuckled. She had her feet up on the table, her ankles crossed as she sunk deeper into a chair. It calmed Emeric’s blood to see she’d replaced those heels for short boots. “Snow,” her voice whispered as if it gently carried fragile snowflakes. “It means snow.”
“Then fucking say snow,” the American growled, scratching at the fifth letter they began.
The two polyglots looked at each other. Emeric turned his gaze on Trevor, his lips lifting in a snarl, and she snickered at the pantomime. Those two front teeth nibbled on her bottom lip, her creamy, wool-covered shoulders lifting in a shrug. His palms itched to know how soft that sweater had to be against her skin.
“So…” Nadire tried to circle back around to the professional problem at hand. “This is another earlier letter, not related to your suit?”
“I believe so.” Emeric gulped, her throw of cold water shaking him from his delusion. He could go an hour without remembering she was in the room, then he’d glance up and it was back to libidinous square one. Turning the letter over, he read the date on the back again. “Far too early to be of much use.”
“Then, perhaps we’d better serve our time to focus on those you need. Want.” Her smile faltered as she remembered they weren’t doing this for a lark, or out of the kindness of her heart. A slight frown wrinkled Nadire’s nose as she turned to Trevor.
He finished writing out the very complicated word, ‘snow’ and said, “Nope. Weir said we translate all of them. Not only for him but our countersuit.”
“Countersuit?” Emeric honed in on first the weasel, then whipped his head to Nadire. But she was a second behind him, asking the same question.
Trevor licked his lips and laughed. “Oops. Well, you’ll find out soon enough.”
“By all the…” Emeric wrung his hands through his hair, tempted to yank upon it as he paced back and forth. “You, you… potzblitz!” He stole the swear from his father, but it unnerved Trevor enough the man paused from sliding in beside Nadire.
“Was that some kind of curse?” He was clearly trying to laugh at the idea, but judging by the shiver in his spine he feared it too.
Leaning so close Emeric had to stop his breath lest he ruminate in the man’s stretch, he said, “Yes.”
Nadire chuckled, a hand quickly sliding over her mouth as if she shouldn’t have done such a thing. It was wild-eyed Trevor who kept glancing between the two beings he couldn’t possibly comprehend. But men like him didn’t get where they were by taking a breath, calculating their existence, and determining the best course of action.
No, he leaned to the woman bent over the table. She was drawing her finger over the dates, clearly trying to find something, while a leech adhered to her back. “Here,” Trevor’s hand suddenly sprung forward, enveloping over hers.
Rage throttled up Emeric’s throat, his eyes bulging as he watched the man tug her tender fingers to the side. The sight of Trevor’s filthy pinkie sliding against the edge of Nadire’s palm made him want to turn and vomit out the window. But this high up the windows were painted shut and it’d be better for him to simply hurl Trevor through it instead.
“This looks like a good start,” Trevor mused as if had any idea what they were looking at. Nadire’s calculating eyes watched, but she didn’t shake him off, didn’t order him to sit in the corner like the scowling mouth-breather he was. No, she only resumed hunting through the pack of letters as if nothing happened.
“I suggest, given how long this will take,” she began, staring at both of them, “that we divide and conquer.”
“Caesar?”
“Please don’t tell my father I quoted him,” Nadire whispered to herself, a hint of a smile darting through her eyes.
Emeric felt it himself, the beastly rage abetted and he bowed slightly. “You have my word.”
His reprieve didn’t last long, as Trevor—knowing an opening when he spotted one—nearly bent over Nadire’s back. A sticky palm moved to grip onto her shoulder, probably rub it, then her neck, as he breathed his foul odor all over her.
Barely thinking, Emeric lashed out, his long fingers locking around Trevor’s wrist just before he touched her. The barbaric rage burning inside glared at the cretin slinking deeper into himself. Trevor tried to act indignant at another man daring to stop his attempt at copping a feel, but Emeric wouldn’t let go—his grip tightening.
With an easy throw, Emeric shoved Trevor off of the woman between them. As the other male in the room slid back, fingers rubbing his sore wrist, the realization of what he did struck Emeric. She wasn’t his. He didn’t even want her. He just…
He didn’t want someone as disgusting as Trevor to have her either.
“Could we focus?” Nadire asked, giving no indication if she’d wanted to be rescued or not. “Here, I’ve doled out the letters based upon who can most easily translate them. Now, given the animosity I suggest…”
Her words faded to a dull whine. Trevor was still glaring, no doubt planning to peacock his way into making Emeric’s life more miserable. But his challenger wasn’t paying attention. Both hands dug into the table, Emeric shrunk into himself, wondering why he couldn’t walk away from her.
And what that fact would cost him.
“Sweet lord.” Nadire yawned, stretching her arms wide. In leaning back from her eternal hunch over the ancient manuscript, she failed to take into account the man sitting beside her. The back of her hand nearly splattered into Emeric’s face, but he was quick to catch it and protect his nose.
An apology rose from her lips, but as he twisted his fingers to curl around her palm, all of them tenderly stroking upward, her brain shut off. His eyes burned into hers, reminding her that they’d spent nearly eight hours beside each other and hadn’t ripped their clothes off.
Yet.
If he fluttered his trailing fingertips down to her wrist, she could make no promises.
“Is that the time?” Trevor spoke up, snapping both out of their dizzy spell. Most of the day Nadire had control over it, her libido kept in check by forcing her eyes upon the problem instead of the, dear Jesus, handsome man in the room.
Somewhere after lunch, he lost the suit jacket, reminding her that it was a whole lot of toned muscle under that cotton shirt. And the pants? They cupped tighter to his buttocks than she had. More or less.
Tugging out her phone, Nadire moved to inspect the clock when she caught Emeric looking at a watch. “You wear one of those?”
He twisted it around, the quartz face revealing a shifting moon and sun motif. With a smile, he said, “Easiest way I know of to tell the time.”
“I’ve always thought a phone more than sufficient.” She chuckled, realizing it was past the dinner hour and getting later.
“Really? You don’t have a sentimental watch gifted to you by a celebrated master craftsman that you tenderly wind every night before bed?” He was playing with her. Deep down Nadire knew it, knew that the Hellswarth
s had to be up to something new. And she needed to have a talk with both her father and Mr. Weir about this supposed countersuit. But, mother Mary protect her, she was giving in to Emeric’s charms.
“Not even close. I had a cuckoo clock for about a month before I disabled that cursed thing,” Nadire muttered from the side of her mouth while packing up her work. It all went into the golden box which would remain in Mr. Weir’s safe. Emeric wasn’t pleased with that decision, but it did put the onus on their lawyer should the letters vanish.
Tossing her head, another thick strand of hair slipped out of her flimsy ponytail holder. “I doubt you could even come close to guessing what I do before bed.”
His tongue rolled across his lips as if he was taking in a delectable slice of cheesecake while his eyes drifted below her chin. So she may be aware that her sweater choice was a bit tight across her chest, but it was incredibly comfortable and warm. That was the only reason.
“Perhaps,” Emeric damn near purred, causing her toes to clench in her boots. That tantalizing accent dropped to a whisper and he leaned so close his breath wafted down her ear. “But whom on the other hand.”
“Ms. Myra,” Trevor damn near shouted at her, causing Nadire to snap her head away from Emeric’s cursed seduction. Which she’d been a breath away from giving into. Maybe she needed a literal chastity belt to get through this. Spinning in the chair, she eyed up the other lawyer who held no sway over her. He too lost his tie and jacket, revealing that he enjoyed his time in the gym as well.
“Are you satisfied with the day’s results?”
“More or less. We got twelve letters translated. Only…” Groaning in her chest, she thought of the stack she’d carefully tugged from her father’s secret chest. “Too many more to go.”
Trevor planted his ass on the table beside her, his arms nonchalantly crossed. “Well, we have some time yet together to finish it up.”
“Indeed.” Nadire didn’t check her phone for the calendar, her internal clock already counting down to the first important day of the year, the feast of Saint Nicholas. They had to be finished by then or…she had no idea what would happen. Even the judge seemed uncertain. It wasn’t as if her jurisdiction was worldwide anyway.
Shaking off the doom hanging over her head to remain civil, Nadire nodded at Emeric. “Same time next week.”
“I will be here,” he said his body paused over his bag. Nadire was already tucking everything she had back into her purse. Absently, she reached behind to fish for her coat, when the arm slid up hers.
Turning her head in surprise, she nearly beaned Trevor in the nose. He’d lifted up her peacoat and was helping her into it. Uncertain what to do beyond playing along, Nadire waited with one arm sleeved as he moved to the second.
“You know,” Trevor said, inching closer to her ear, “I have tickets to that Broadway show, ‘All Aboard.’”
“Congratulations.” Nadire sighed, shrugging on the rest of her coat and quickly buttoning it up. “I hear they are very difficult to obtain.”
A snort erupted from Emeric, and both Nadire and Trevor turned to find the man failing to hide away a giant smirk. “Sorry, thought of something particularly hilarious for a moment.”
“Well, if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to,” Nadire said while hefting up her purse and heading to the door.
“But it’s eight at night?” Trevor mumbled dumbstruck, her father’s precious letters in his arms.
At the doorframe, Nadire paused and glanced over her shoulder to look at him, “Not everywhere.” She turned to leave when Emeric snatched up his briefcase and gave chase.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said, then gave a very pointed look at Trevor while helping to escort Nadire to the elevator.
Neither said anything on the walk to it, both swinging their heads to watch and listen for the various other lawyers burning the midnight oil. She thought it a sad life until she remembered her plans to put in at least another five hours in the workshop before she could even think of sleeping. Pathetic lives all around.
It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed that both crumpled against the wall in exhaustion, their masks of being two clients and nothing more slipping away. “God’s balls, that was backbreaking,” Nadire groaned, digging a palm into the small of her back. All the muscles in her body were in agony from the irregular lean she had to do while translating.
“Your father’s handwriting…”
“Is bloody atrocious, I know. You should have seen the books before I took over. There’d be random grocery lists in there. I found one from the eighteen-hundreds with an awful poem about tigers overlaid atop the fiscal quarter data.” Nadire whined about the simple things because it was easier than facing the truth. And Emeric laughed for the very same reason.
They’d decided to give into Trevor’s complaining and started with the earliest letters. They were also the hardest as it was a lot of old German often written in shorthand slang. Three times he’d had to call his father to have a clue what anything was. It wasn’t the work that unnerved Nadire but what they began to uncover—a friendship so deep it lasted across the centuries.
Her father wrote to him about everything. Major problems with the local populace, the reason why Nadire and Aaron were born in the Swiss Alps instead of anywhere near what became Turkey. People didn’t trust a man who never aged or died, requiring the family to keep on the outskirts of society. And the only man he seemed to share in that woe with was Mirek.
But there were minor problems as well. How he was feeling that day. If the crop wasn’t coming in right. A great sale on jams at the market. It was the most pointless, piddling shit and her father kept every damn letter of it. Even hand copied his own to preserve along with Mirek’s responses.
“And your father.” Nadire’s eyes narrowed as she turned to Emeric who at the attention leaned forward to start their elevator ride down.
The son sighed, air whistling through his pursed lips, “I knew he was a ladies man in his youth.”
“Ladies man? He puts Genghis Khan to shame.” Nadire damn near combusted when she finally figured out that wasn’t a peach he was constantly referring to. When she’d passed that letter to Emeric she’d expected him to perhaps smile in approval or chuckle, but his face had turned beet red in response.
She’d been operating on the assumption the Krampus and his son were one and the same, but when Emeric had tried to hide both his father’s bed-notch letter and translation at the bottom of the pile she began to wonder. Though, he did hop right into her bed on the first meeting. And damn near every time she so much as breathed the idea.
What did it matter? Let him be a skirt chaser. He wasn’t her problem.
Nadire said it so assuredly in her head, she almost believed it.
With a ding, the elevator doors parted and they stepped into a barely lit foyer. The secretary was gone, the chairs tipped up for the janitorial staff. It seemed everyone had turned in for the night.
Walking across the scuffed tiles waiting for a polish, Nadire winced with the echoing clip of her boots. It sounded like a whip cracking the air. Emeric hovered just behind her as if he wanted her to take the lead, or to get a chance to watch her ass.
In truth, she rather liked both ideas, her hands pressing to the cool glass door and pushing out. “I hope you didn’t leave anything behind, because there’s no way of getting back in,” Nadire said while stepping into the frosted autumn air. Winter would be here soon, be everywhere. And here she was wasting her days in a law office reliving her father’s glory years.
Emeric slipped out behind her, having to slide to the side as she didn’t keep walking on. “I believe I have everything I came in with,” was his response.
“Good, because if any lawyer finds it, it’s gone.”
“Tell me about it. Like pack rats with anything shiny. Nine-tenths of the law and all,” he snickered, cutting a joke about his own profession, and bringing a smile to her face as well.
Emeric blinked in confusion, his handsome jaw twisting.
“For agreeing to this, so my father could be at home. Hopefully working.” In order for this arrangement to be possible, Saint Nicholas had to resume duties he gave up nearly a hundred years ago. Nadire prayed he at least read her notes.
Swallowing, Emeric said, “It seemed the most prudent choice. Believe it or not, I don’t wish to cause your family harm.”
Some foolish, school-girl part of her did, but the rest laughed sardonically. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Fair.” He turned to face the rising autumn moon. It was nearly orange against the dipping horizon. God save her, but she could stare at his face bathed in harvest moonlight for decades.
“Do you, um,” Emeric said, shaking her from her foolish thought. He rustled a hand through his hair. “It’s a bit late, and I thought perhaps we could get some food.”
A single laugh puffed from Nadire’s lips. Get food together. Sit at a cheesy diner, Nadire proving she could slum it just as easily as dress to the nines. Talk. Grow closer.
Most likely follow him to his hotel room and drive straight back into the bottle, so to speak. Standing near him, feeling the heat from his body the way one warmed their fingers by a fire, smelling his enchanting musk—Emeric was a drug to Nadire. And a dangerous one at that. She wanted to tell herself she could quit it at any time, but she knew one taste, one little kiss, and she’d be hooked again.
“A generous offer,” Nadire said, trying to take a step back without seeming inconsiderate, “but I have to head back North. Check on my father and his progress.”
“Right.” Emeric winced as if he expected her answer, but hoped for another. “No, no.” He too stepped away, nearly walking back into the door they exited from. “Of course, it’s…a busy time of year.”