Can't Help Falling
Page 35
“For someone who is so unbelievably articulate in the courtroom, you sure have a lovely way with words when it comes to yourself,” Richie said drily.
John pushed the pads of his fingers against his forehead as if he could massage through the bone and straight into the headache that always seemed to brew right there. “I play enough mind games at work to want to do that in my free time.”
“Ah,” Richie said with a sage nod. “Say no more. She was one of those.”
Richie had already turned back to his desk, and John usually took every opportunity of averted attention from his chatty officemate to get as much work done as possible, but something about Richie’s words made him pause.
“One of whats?” he asked Richie’s back and then silenced another one of his mother’s phone calls.
“A game player. Someone who has their own set of rules. Who sets traps and then greedily rubs their hands together when they watch you fall ass-first right into them. Trust me, I know the type. Sounds like you dodged a bullet.”
Still a little stymied by his friend’s assessment, John turned back around and woke up the twelve-year-old monitor that sat like a heavy, judgmental toad on his desk.
John considered himself to be an excellent judge of character—you kind of had to be in a courtroom—and that had not been how Mary Trace had seemed to him. But at thirty-one years old, with a grand total of one and three-quarters girlfriends in his entire life, John wasn’t exactly an expert on women. Maybe Richie was right.
His computer belched an error message at him and John groaned, his mind getting pulled back to the task at hand.
Seven hours later, he emerged from the Brooklyn Supreme Court onto Jay Street, his messenger bag over his aching shoulder and his suit coat over one arm to keep it from getting wrinkled. It was that fleeting time of year in Brooklyn when there was very little difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures. The eight o’clock breeze kissed him through his cotton dress shirt. Welcome to the world, John.
Unfortunately, most of his world existed within the walls of the building behind him. These brief, warm-breezed, pre-sunset moments were simply the garnish at the edge of his plate. The real meat and potatoes lived inside the messenger bag slung across his hip. He strode purposefully toward the subway, ignoring the siren’s call of Shake Shack, and jogged down the dingy yellow-painted stairs to his train.
Forty minutes later, he emerged in his neighborhood, the sun already down and a deep regret lodged in his gut that he’d talked himself out of fast food. All he had waiting for him in his fridge were salad fixings and half of last night’s veggie stir-fry. Oh, joy.
John thought about calling his mother on the walk to his apartment but decided to wait until after he’d fortified himself with dinner.
He had just let himself into his third-floor apartment when a colorful blur snagged his attention. Actually, it was two colorful blurs. John’s mother, in a bright purple dress, her salt-and-pepper hair piled up on her head, stomped out from his kitchen, holding John’s cat, Ruth, who scrabbled and wheeled in Estrella’s arms, attempting to get away.
“Ma,” he said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
His stomach plummeted.
She’d found out what had happened on the date.
Don’t miss Flirting with Forever by Cara Bastone, available January 2021 wherever HQN Books and ebooks are sold.
www.HQNBooks.com
Copyright © 2020 by Cara Bastone
ISBN-13: 9781488056017
Can’t Help Falling
Copyright © 2020 by Cara Bastone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at CustomerService@Harlequin.com.
HQN
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.Harlequin.com