by Lauren Layne
I should have turned around and walked out the front door.
Instead, the completely foreign urge to distract her from the embarrassment of being stood up had taken over. I gave the guy half an hour to show up and make her smile.
He hadn’t.
Moron.
Or maybe I’m the moron. Because while Lara may be the pain in my ass right now, even as I want to strangle her, I can admit she looks good. More than good.
Her hair’s in its usual ponytail, but it’s pulled to one side to drape over her shoulder—a bare shoulder, courtesy of a strapless dress that’s not low-cut enough to torture me but is tight enough to make me wonder things I shouldn’t be wondering.
A server makes his way toward us. “Can I get you something to drink, sir?”
“I’ll have what she’s having,” I say, nodding at the wine.
“Very good. Shall I put in any appetizers, or are we taking our time?”
Lara opens her mouth, but I beat her to it. “Definitely taking our time.”
She rolls her eyes as the server gives a deferential nod and backs away. “Very good, sir.”
“So,” I say, leaning forward. “I’ll start. Who were you supposed to be meeting tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” she says coolly, taking a sip of wine. “I’ll start the questions. You said you didn’t know Arnold Maverick. You’re positive the two of you never crossed paths?”
“Yes, one hundred percent positive. I didn’t know the man. Now is this a boyfriend you were planning to meet, or—”
“What about a mutual acquaintance of Mr. Maverick’s?” she presses. “Someone you both knew?”
“Question for question, Ms. McKenzie. That’s the deal.”
She blows out a frustrated breath but relents. “It was a blind date.”
“Who set you up?”
“My best friend, Gabby. She can be a little . . . pushy. She’s a serial dater and doesn’t understand why I’m not the same.”
“But you agreed.”
Lara twists the stem of her wineglass between her fingers, watching as the wine swishes lightly from side to side. “Yes, it’s been a while since—” Her head snaps up. “Hold on. That was more than one question.”
“Whoops.” I grin.
Her eyes narrow behind her glasses, and she leans forward. “So you didn’t know Maverick. But you must’ve known someone from J-Conn. It was a huge company, and—”
“Christ, woman, you’re like a dog with a bone.”
She studies me. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, Mr. Bradley—”
“Nobody,” I snap. “I don’t know a damn person from J-Conn, Ms. McKenzie. I didn’t have any inside scoop. You can believe me or not believe me, but it’s the damn truth.”
I sit back in my chair, nodding in thanks as the server brings my wine and moves away again.
“Favorite food.”
She blinks. “What?”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Jesus, you’re ornery. Fine, why the SEC?”
She studies me for a moment. “Pizza.”
I’m trying so hard not to check out her body in that dress that it takes a moment to register she’s said something. “What?”
“My favorite food is pizza. How’d you get Vanessa Lewis as your lawyer?” she asks.
For a half second, I’m tempted to gloat—my getting the best attorney in the business is a win, and she and I both know it. But for reasons I don’t feel like analyzing, I don’t feel like gloating. I don’t feel like working against Lara.
I want her to see me as something other than the fucking case.
“Charm?” I say teasingly, answering her question.
“It takes more than charm to get someone like Ms. Lewis on your side,” Lara says, watching me carefully.
“Damn straight. She’s got to believe she can get a nonguilty verdict. Because you know as well as I do that Vanessa Lewis only takes on clients she knows are innocent.”
“Thinks are innocent,” she corrects. “So if you didn’t know anyone at J-Conn, how’d you luck out when they went under?”
Technically it’s not her turn for a question, but I answer anyway because it’s something she needs to hear, even if she doesn’t believe me. “Good old-fashioned gut instinct,” I say. “It bugged me that J-Conn had been sitting on a supposed big announcement for so long. Everyone else took the claims that they were releasing some game-changing product at face value. I didn’t. My gut told me they didn’t have the next Facebook or iPhone waiting in the wings, so I sold when everyone bought high.”
“So a gut feeling saved you and your clients millions of dollars,” she says, shaking her head. She takes another sip of her wine, frowns when she sees the glass is nearly empty.
“You don’t believe in intuition?”
“I believe in facts, Mr. Bradley. Intuition is nothing more than your subconscious remembering something your consciousness forgot and attributing it to some outside source.”
Aha. I study her for a moment as a crucial piece of the Lara McKenzie puzzle clicks into place. Here I’ve been approaching this thing like a game: winner, loser, hunter, prey.
For Lara, it’s different. It’s true or false, right or wrong.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She shifts uncomfortably.
“The world’s not black and white, Ms. McKenzie.”
“Maybe not to you,” she says.
And there it is, the root of this mess: we don’t live in the same world. Or, at least, we don’t look at the world through the same lens.
The sudden realization that our very realities might be incompatible feels . . . unacceptable.
The server comes over, interrupting my thoughts. “Another glass of wine, miss?”
She looks at me, and as our eyes lock and hold, something passes between us—a silent acknowledgment of . . .
Hell, I don’t know. Wanting? Wishing things could be different?
“Yeah, okay,” she says slowly. “Another glass of wine.”
I lift my glass and take a sip to hide my smile as the server moves away. “So, why the SEC?”
“How long does this game go on?”
“We each get one more question after you answer this one.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I’m with the SEC because it gets me closer to my dream job.”
“Which is . . . ?”
She points at me and smiles. “That’s your last question.”
I shrug. “’Kay.” I’m a little surprised that I really do want to know more about what motivates this complex woman who’s driven by structure and rules. I know it’s not money. The SEC pays shit.
“FBI,” she says.
I choke on my drink. “What?”
“You asked what my dream job is—it’s the FBI.”
“Jesus,” I mutter, wiping my face with my napkin. “I’m starting to rethink this dinner . . .”
She smiles. “Don’t worry. I haven’t been to Quantico. Yet.”
“Admittedly this isn’t my area, but how does the SEC lead to a job with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“Well, specifically, I want to be in their white-collar division. They work closely with the SEC, so there’s a lot of overlap.”
“Then why transition at all?”
She bites her lip, then looks up. “My parents are FBI.”
“Both of them?” I ask, not able to hide my surprise.
“Yep. I was born and raised in DC. They both still live there, both still active in the bureau.”
Damn. “I bet you had zero boyfriends growing up.”
Her head snaps back a little, and I realize I’ve struck a nerve. Shit. I’m usually smoother than this.
“I just meant that had to be intimidating,” I clarify. “Every kid picking up a girl for prom secretly fears her dad’s got a gun. Both your parents had one.”
She looks at me o
ver the top of her glass. “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Go to prom.”
It’s her turn to strike a nerve, my turn to flinch. “No. But then, you probably already knew that.”
“I didn’t, actually. My research into your past is limited to details that might be pertinent to the case—relatives at J-Conn, etc.”
“So you know that I don’t have any relatives,” I say, taking a healthy swallow of wine.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” she says quietly.
“Eh. I was young. I don’t remember them much.”
“Which makes losing them in a car accident that much more tragic,” she says, leaning forward.
“Is this the good-cop portion of your routine?”
She sits back and gives me a look. “Nice, Mr. Bradley. Being a jerk is a solid, mature way to deal with your pain.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, hating that she’s right. Caustic humor’s my knee-jerk reaction to references to my childhood—both my parents’ deaths and the aimless foster-kid stigma that followed.
“I asked a girl to prom,” I say. “She said yes; her parents said no.”
Shit. Why had I gone and done that? I haven’t told anyone that . . . ever.
“Why’d they say no?”
A sarcastic deflection nearly rolls off my tongue, but I bite it back, feeling the strangest urge to be . . . open. Honest. I want Lara to know me like I want to know her.
So I give it to her straight, if a bit brief. “Even for the rough neighborhood I grew up in, I was still on the wrong side of the tracks. Nice girls didn’t go to dances with foster kids from the trailer park.” I force a smile. “But look at me now and all that.”
She smiles back, but it’s a faint one, and her watchful gaze makes me think she sees something that nobody else sees—not even Sabrina.
“I got stood up tonight,” she says after a long moment of silence.
“I know.”
She winces. “Did you know the whole time?”
“I put the pieces together. He’s a fool.”
“Nah.” She gives another of those slight smiles and finishes the last of her wine. “Just a baseball fan.”
“Mets or Yankees?”
“Yankees.”
“There you go,” I say, spreading my hands. “You’re better off without him.”
“You’re a Mets fan?”
“What, that wasn’t in my file?” I tease.
“Lots of things weren’t in your file.”
“Such as?”
She hesitates. “The woman I saw you with at lunch . . .”
“Sabrina Cross, friend from Philly.”
“You guys are . . . close?”
I lean toward her with a slow smile. “Is that professional curiosity at work there, Ms. McKenzie, or something else?”
Her only response is to open her menu and glance down at it, which is the most telling answer of all.
Obviously I’m not the only one warring with a forbidden, unwanted attraction here.
I’m torn between regret and relief, because she’s SEC, I’m Wall Street—we’re about as compatible as a wolf and a lamb.
Though, for the life of me, I’m not sure who’s who in this scenario.
14
LARA
Week 3: Friday Morning
I’m going half-blind reading boring-ass e-mails when an enormous Frappuccino appears in front of my nose.
I have to look from the frothy Starbucks drink to the person delivering it twice before I register that she’s brought it for me.
Kate drops into the chair on the opposite side of the conference room table, taking a sip of her own drink. “It’s a peace offering, Ms. McKenzie.”
“That or diabetes in a plastic cup,” I say, picking it up and pointing at the mound of whipped cream. “Are those chocolate shavings?”
“They are indeed. And don’t pretend you don’t want it. Ian let the cat out of the bag.”
My head snaps up, not entirely sure I want to know what Ian told his assistant. On the one hand, I hope it’s nothing so I can maintain some semblance of professionalism. On the other hand, I want to know if he’s as off-balance after our dinner last week as I am.
“About the coffee?” Kate prompts, giving me a curious look. “He said he brought you one a few weeks ago?”
“Oh. Right. Right.”
I take a sip of the drink to try and cover up my awkwardness. It’s even more amazing this time around. Cold and sweet and caffeinated.
“Do you think this is what heaven tastes like?” I ask, more to myself than her.
Kate considers my question seriously. “That or cheese fries. Or that place in the Village that makes ice cream out of cookie dough.”
“Or a really good croissant. The kind that are buttery, flaky on the outside and then chewy on the inside.”
She points her straw in my direction. “Yes. Like they have in Paris.”
I feel a little twinge of longing. “I’ve never been, but yeah . . . I can imagine.”
She shrugs. “New York does a pretty good version, too. But if you love croissants, you need to go to Paris.”
I take another sip of my drink. “Someday.” After I get into the FBI and work my butt off to move up the food chain to earn vacation time and enough money for said vacation . . .
Kate takes a long sip from the straw, cheeks sucking in as she watches me. “No Paris for you, huh? Is it time or money you’re short on?”
I let out a little laugh at her bluntness. “Both. And you certainly don’t mince words.”
“Not so much, no. Five years of babysitting my boys”—she gestures out toward the office—“has evaporated any ounce of tact I once had, which wasn’t much.”
“They send you in here?”
She sets her cup on the table, rolls it back and forth between her hands. “It may have been suggested that you might be more likely to lower your guard around a female.”
“Mmm, right. Because all we girls secretly want to do is consume chocolate and gossip about boys.”
She laughs. “That’s exactly what I told Kennedy, that he insulted us both by the suggestion. But since he paid for these drinks at six bucks a pop, I told him I’d get the scoop.”
“Which I won’t be telling you,” I say, smiling to soften it.
“No, I know. But I’m going to sit here for a second anyway.” She leans back in her chair. “I just . . .” She breathes out. “You ever just need a break? Like you maybe get the sense you live for your job, only to wake up and realize you’re barely living?”
Not until recently. Not until Ian.
The thought is so foreign, so out there, I blink in surprise. Surely I haven’t let a guy I’ve known less than three weeks get under my skin.
“You don’t like your job?” I ask, to avoid saying something I shouldn’t.
“No, I love it. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more. It’s just”—she stabs the straw at the frozen liquid—“lonely, I guess.”
“No boyfriend? Girlfriend?” I ask, not wanting to assume.
“Nope.” She says it in a clipped little voice that tells me there’s more to the story.
“Anyone you’re interested in?” I ask. I keep the question casual, even though I’ve already got a good idea of who’s holding a piece of Kate Henley’s heart. The question is whether she even knows.
Her eyes shadow for a second. Oh yeah, she knows. But instead of answering my question, she shifts her gaze to me. “What about you? Involved with anyone?”
“Nope.” I wrap my lips around my straw.
She studies me. “Ian’s a good guy, you know.”
I choke a little on the Frappuccino. “What does Mr. Bradley have to do with my love life?”
“Nothing,” she says, eyes wide and innocent.
I feel a moment of panic at my mistake, then I see her slight smirk. Busted.
“You like him,” she says with a teasing grin as s
he chews her straw. “Rumor has it you and Ian had a ‘meeting’ last Friday after hours.” She adds air quotes around meeting for emphasis.
“We discussed his case, yes,” I say, the professional in me warring rather obnoxiously with the newly discovered part of me that wants nothing more than to pick Kate’s brain on everything there is to know about Ian . . . and not for reasons that have anything to do with the case.
Kate rolls her eyes. “Riiiiight. I’ll pretend not to notice that you’re blushing right now, and that every time you’re standing at my desk, you look at Ian’s office to see if he’s in.”
Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be.
“Perfect,” I retort. “And I’ll pretend not to notice the way you look at Kennedy Dawson when he’s not looking.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “Careful there, SEC.”
I lift my cup in a truce. “No more boy talk?”
She taps her cup against mine. “Not until the case is over. Then I want details.”
“Once the case is over, you might hate my guts,” I say regretfully.
“Nah. I already know how this all ends, and I’ve got a pretty good feeling we’re going to be friends.”
“Even if I send one of your bosses to jail?”
I expect her to get pissed or upset, but she just shakes her head. “Look, I’ve known Ian a lot longer than you have. Ian’s good.”
“Heart of gold and all that?” I say with a smile.
“Yes,” Kate says, her tone dead serious. “Did you know he sets up college scholarships for high school foster kids? Or that he rents out entire theme parks for the younger ones once a year?”
I sit back, a little stunned. “I didn’t.”
“He paid for my master’s in business administration. Even Matt and Kennedy don’t know about that.” She blows out a breath. “I’m worried that you’ve only researched the version of Ian you want to see—the one who’s bought a car he doesn’t need, whose black book’s thicker than the Bible.”
I keep myself from outwardly flinching, but inside, I feel like a jerk. A jerk for assuming that just because Ian makes a ton of money, looks like he does, flirts like he does, that he has no substance.