She was a fantastic secretary; don’t get me wrong. There was just something about the doe-eyed twenty-five-year-old who filed my papers and booked my appointments calling me “Ms. Roberts” that made me feel about twenty years older than I was. After all, she wasn’t that much younger than me. And after a year and a half as my secretary—and more than a hundred corrections from me each time she said “Ms. Roberts”—it seemed high time that she started addressing me by my first name.
“I’m sorry, Ms...Harper,” she stammered.
“Don’t worry, Molly,” I said soothingly. “Everything okay?”
“Um, yes,” she said. “But you have someone waiting downstairs in the lobby to see you. He’s not in your appointment book, though, so I didn’t know whether you wanted me to have reception send him up or not.”
I checked my watch and frowned. I didn’t have an appointment until four o’oclock, and it was only two. This wasn’t exactly a business where people did drop-bys, either. I was on the thirty-fourth floor of a Wall Street office building; it wasn’t like my office was just a Midtown storefront where people with random ideas they wanted patents for could stream in and out.
“Molly, I don’t think we had anything scheduled until later in the afternoon,” I said finally. “Right?” I certainly hoped not; I had a ton of paperwork to do for a few clients whom I’d met with last week.
“No,” she said hesitantly. “But the man downstairs insists you should be expecting him. I told him that he wasn’t on your schedule, but he asked me to come in and check with you.”
“Well, who is it?” I asked, starting to feel annoyed. Not at Molly, but at the stranger outside who felt he was due a meeting with me.
“He says his name is Matt James,” Molly said.
“Matt James?” I repeated, dumbfounded. What could he be doing here? I flashed briefly back to our “date” at my firm dinner and blanched when I realized that any of my co-workers could see him in the hallway. Great, now they’d all think he really was my boyfriend, and I was being über-unprofessional by letting him come visit me in the office. What could he possibly want anyhow?
“Um, Harper?” Molly asked hesitantly, and I snapped my focus back to her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. I was painfully aware of the fact that I was blushing. “Er, okay, send him up.”
Molly nodded, looking a bit confused, and walked back out to the waiting area outside my office door. I hurriedly shuffled through the admittedly messy stack of papers on my desk and shoved them into one of the big drawers to the left of me. Then I quickly reached into my desk drawer, where I always kept my little container of Tarte blotting papers and mattifying powder, and quickly blotted as much nervous moisture as I could from my forehead, dusting powder onto my pink cheeks to conceal my blushing. I hadn’t had a chance to screw my face up too badly since coming back from Jill’s, so the rest of me looked relatively decent. I quickly shoved the little purple compact back into my desk and tried to look busy.
Not that I cared what Matt James thought of my appearance. I mean, why would I? It’s not like I liked him.
“Hey, Harper,” Matt’s deep voice rang out a moment later as Molly pushed the door open. She shrugged at me as he entered. I looked up, still pretending that I was working on something very important, because after all, I didn’t want him thinking that I just sat here and goofed off. I didn’t. I had a job. A serious job. So there.
“Hello, Matt,” I said, trying to sound as formal as possible. “Please. Have a seat. What brings you here today?”
He grinned at me as he crossed the room and sat down. Despite my best intentions, I couldn’t help noticing how cute he looked. His thick, nearly black hair was unkempt and floppy, but in that intentional way common among the MTV crowd. It should have looked ridiculous on a man who was in his late thirties, but somehow it didn’t. His green eyes looked particularly bright this morning, and his tan deeper than it had last time I’d seen him, leading me to wonder if he spent weekends in the islands—or twenty minutes a day in a tanning bed. Hmph. Flake.
He was dressed in dark-washed Diesel jeans, a black blazer, and a gray ribbed T-shirt that wasn’t too tight but still showed me the contours of his well-developed chest.
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the inexplicable pull I was feeling toward this guy whom I’d never date in a million years. After all, he was just a flaky actor. And he had seen me at my most embarrassing. Not good.
“You’re looking lovely this afternoon, Harper,” Matt said as he settled into one of the overstuffed leather chairs that faced my desk. He appeared to be smirking, or at least smiling with a slightly smarmy edge, so I wasn’t sure whether he was actually complimenting me or disguising a little dig.
“Thank you,” I said stiffly, all of a sudden aware of how uptight I must look in my blue starched blouse and my fitted black Ralph Lauren skirt suit. I cleared my throat. “Is there something I can help you with, Matt?”
“I see,” he said, flashing me his wide, white-toothed signature grin. “No time to beat around the bush, right? You’re all business.” His expression was amused, which made me quietly simmer. What did he think this was, some kind of game?
“Well, this is my business, Matt,” I said slowly, not caring that I sounded patronizing. “And you’re the one who came to see me. So is there something I can do for you?”
He just smiled infuriatingly at me and craned his neck to look around my office, slowly taking it all in as I waited, tapping my fingers impatiently on my oak desk, trying to ignore the uninvited attraction I was feeling for him.
“Nice office you have here,” he said finally, looking back at me and nodding his approval.
“Glad you think so,” I said drily. My patience was wearing thin. The longer he sat here, the more I noticed the strong curve of his jaw, the adorably curly ends of his thick shock of hair, even the thickness of his dark eyelashes. Not only did I not have the professional time to waste on Matt James today, but I didn’t want to keep noticing all his numerous attractive features. I was sure he went for twenty-one-year-old blonde starlets or something—not over-the-hill, destined-to-be-single-forever attorneys. So why waste my time noticing his perfect cheekbones, his well-defined triceps, or his perfectly straight teeth?
Besides, I knew I was still blushing. I hated that he made me blush.
“I hope you don’t mind me just dropping by this way, Harper,” Matt said, finally refocusing his attention on me. Man, he flashed that smile of his around a lot. I tried to resist its sparkle. I cleared my throat again.
“It’s fine, Matt,” I said brusquely. “But I do have quite a lot to do today. So if you’ll just tell me why you’re here...” I let my voice trail off and raised an eyebrow at him. He finally seemed to get it.
“Right,” he said with a nod. “Sorry. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to talk.”
“Matt,” I said slowly, as if talking to a child. “You’re in the neighborhood every day. Your studio is right down the street. And it’s not like we’re friends. Why would you stop by for a chat?”
“Not exactly a chat,” he said, looking momentarily wounded and then quickly flashing me another of his incredible smiles. I had to admit, they were starting to melt my tough veneer. But I couldn’t let him see that.
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even.
Matt shrugged, stretching out his long legs and leaning back. “Fine, fine, I’ll cut to the chase, if you want,” he said, looking resigned. “I was actually hoping you’d be willing to talk to me about your job.”
“About my job?” I repeated dubiously. I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about.
“Right,” he said, nodding eagerly. “See, I just got a raise at work. They’re going to be increasing the number of scenes I’m in this season.”
“Congratulations,” I said, still completely confused about what this had to do with me.
“Thank
s. Anyhow, I was hoping you could... help me. I mean, I think I do a decent job of portraying a lawyer now. But most of my scenes are out of the courtroom. This next season, the writers want to give me more courtroom scenes. I just want to make sure I nail them. I need someone to help me make my scenes authentic.” He paused and looked at me imploringly. “I need you.”
I coughed and tried to ignore his last words, because of course what he meant was he needed me to help him with his scenes. Still, it was hard not to feel at least a little bit of something when a drop-dead gorgeous man sitting mere feet away told me he needed me. Especially a drop-dead gorgeous man who was not under the mistaken impression that I was a dumb blonde. Which, of course, made the possibility that he was actually flirting with me astronomically slimmer.
“Matt,” I began. I paused and continued, trying to keep my voice flat. “Flattered as I am by your interest, I’m a patent lawyer. Not a criminal attorney like your character. I’m rarely even in the courtroom.”
Matt nodded. “I know,” he said urgently. “But you went to law school. I know you know how to practice criminal law. In fact, I know you were a criminal lawyer for your first year out of school while you studied for the patent bar.”
I looked at him, startled. “How did you know that?”
“Emmie told me.”
“You asked her about me?” I demanded, well aware that my cheeks were growing even hotter. I just hoped that this wasn’t as obvious to Matt as it was to me.
He nodded and shrugged. “I was curious,” he said casually. “Anyhow, will you help me?”
I studied him for a moment.
“I don’t even understand what kind of help you’re asking for,” I said finally. The truth was, I didn’t know how I was going to say no to him. I suspected that few people were able to; he could probably charm his way into just about anything.
“Nothing big,” he said with a shrug. “I just want to come in sometime this week and talk to you. Pick your brain, so to speak. About legal terminology, closing arguments, courtroom behavior, that sort of thing.”
I looked at him dubiously. He must have mistaken my hesitance.
“I’ll pay you your hourly rate, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he added.
“No, no, don’t be silly,” I said with a wave of my hand. I looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Look, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to help you. But you could come one day this week during my lunch break and I can answer whatever questions you have. Okay?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “I really appreciate it, Harper. I really, really do. You have no idea how much this will help.”
I relaxed a bit and smiled back.
“Don’t thank me until after we talk,” I said, picking up a pen that lay on my desk and twirling it distractedly through my fingers. “I’m still a bit doubtful that there’s anything I can really do to help.”
“No, no, I know it will help,” Matt said, shaking his head. “Okay?”
I paused for a moment, then nodded and buzzed Molly to ask which day I was free for lunch. She consulted my schedule and called back to tell me that I had an opening on Thursday at noon. I asked Matt, and he happily agreed to be back at my office the day after tomorrow for our lunch meeting.
“Great, great!” he enthused. He stood up and reached across my desk to shake my hand, which seemed oddly formal. Still, I grasped his hand firmly and shook back, as I always did with clients. He looked me in the eye and smiled broadly. I tried to ignore the beat that my heart skipped as he did so. “I’ll see you Thursday at noon, then!”
“See you Thursday,” I murmured as he hastily made his way to my door. I tried not to notice how incredibly cute he looked from behind as he left. Because that was really irrelevant. Wasn’t it?
BY THE END of the workday, I had finished the patent paperwork I needed to do and met with a regular client of mine, Larry Bond, the director of development for Fisher Pharmaceuticals, a small drug manufacturer that brought me a lot of my business thanks to its productive research department. This year already, I had secured patents for the firm on two new eczema skin creams and a birth control patch with a low dose of progesterone. Today’s meeting had been about a new pain relief medication that was in the final stages of development. Larry had wanted to get the patent ball rolling early, so we had pored over paperwork and documents most of the afternoon. I couldn’t help but think, as we batted around statistics and figures, how completely unglamorous my job was. Boy, was Matt James in for a shock if he thought he could pick my brain about ways to spice up his portrayal of defense attorney Patrick Carr, lawyer extraordinaire. I was probably the most boring lawyer in Manhattan. Even though I loved it, patent law wasn’t exactly full of made-for-TV excitement.
Between my busy day at work and unwelcome thoughts of Matt and his infuriatingly adorable smile, I had almost forgotten about the fact that I was more than halfway through The Blonde Theory. I didn’t feel like I had learned much except the inevitable truth that I already suspected: Most men liked dumb blondes a whole lot better than they liked me.
THAT EVENING, FREE from The Blonde Theory for one night, at least, I had just changed into sweats and settled back onto the couch with a lap full of paperwork from the office when there was a knock at the door. I looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. Nine forty-five. What, was today National Drop In Unannounced On Harper Roberts Day or something? First Matt James and now a random evening visitor at my apartment?
I sighed and shifted my paperwork to the couch. Then I padded to the door, opened it, and blinked into the hallway. It took me a moment to recognize the man standing there. He was dressed in dark jeans and a button-down collared shirt, and his sandy hair was combed back.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out, sounding much ruder than I’d intended to. I immediately flushed.
“Now what kind of a greetin’ is that for the man who came to your rescue with a load of towels the other day?” asked Sean O’Sullivan, the handyman who had responded to my overflowing toilet crisis call on Saturday.
“Oh no,” I groaned, slapping myself on the forehead. “I’m such an idiot! Your towels! I told you I’d be here Sunday for you to pick them up, didn’t I? I am so sorry.”
“?’Tis no big deal,” he said, grinning at me. “You shoulda heard me inventin’ stories for the benefit of my flatmate, though, about where the towels had gone to.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated again, feeling horrified with my own rudeness. I had, in fact, washed the towels. But then I had vanished to go on my series of blonde dates, with no thought to the generous handyman at all. “You should have called. I would have brought them over.”
“Didn’t have your number,” he said with a shrug. “Just your address. Besides, I was on my way home from having drinks with a friend anyhow. You were right on my way.”
“A date?” I asked before I could stop myself. Embarrassed, I clapped my hand over my mouth. Why did I keep blurting out the rudest questions around this poor guy? My foot seemed permanently poised to be inserted into my mouth in his presence. There was just something about his cleaned-up appearance and the faint whiff of cologne I could smell in the air that had made me assume he had been meeting a girl. But it was none of my business.
Instead of looking insulted, though, Sean just laughed. “As a matter of fact, yes.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Turns out it didn’t go very well.”
“No?” I asked, despite myself.
“No,” Sean echoed. “A bit of a daft bird, she was.”
“Daft bird?” I asked with a small smile, halfway between confused and amused at his choice of words.
Sean nodded solemnly. “She wasn’t that bright, if you get what I mean,” he said. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms.
“I thought guys liked girls like that,” I grumbled darkly, the sting from the first four Blonde Theory dates still fresh in my mind.
“No,” he said, knitting hi
s brow. He looked concerned. “What, is that what some bloke told you?”
I shook my head and sighed. “Just what I’ve learned over eleven years of dating in this city.”
“Maybe you’re dating the wrong guys, then,” Sean said with his easy smile, his blue eyes twinkling at me.
I frowned and thought about it for a second. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked finally, not sure if I should take offense or not.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that as an insult, ma’am,” he said, leaning away from the door frame, taking a step back, and looking a bit abashed. “I just meant, well, a nice woman like you should be able to meet a nice guy who appreciates you, is all.”
“Yeah, one would think,” I grumbled. I felt inexplicably annoyed at him, although there was really no reason to be. I looked at him for a moment, then shook my head. “Listen, I’ll get those towels. I really am sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“You could invite me in for a second so we’re not conversin’ here at your doorstep,” Sean said with a smile.
I hesitated, then smiled back. “Yes, yes, of course, come in while I go get the towels.” Sean nodded and followed me inside, where he waited in my front entryway while I went back to my bedroom to get the stack of towels I had folded after taking them out of the wash. My mind was on his comment about me dating the wrong guys, so much so that I felt almost lost in a fog of thought as I walked back to the entryway with the perilously high stack of towels. I placed them on the counter in the front hall. “Here they are, good as new,” I said. “Thanks again, so much, for letting me borrow them.”
“Of course,” Sean said, winking at me. “It’s not as if I was goin’ to let ye live in a swamp, now.”
I laughed.
“You definitely saved me,” I agreed. Sean smiled then reached over to the counter to pick up the stack of towels.
“Do you need some help?” I asked, feeling guilty. “I can help you home with those if you want. It’s the least I can do.”
The Blonde Theory Page 16