by Kathryn Shay
She said, “Towels?”
He pointed to the left. “Right there.”
She bent over to open the storage space. She thought she heard him groan. Tense again, she fished out two towels and threw him one. He turned his back to her.
Muscles rippled across his torso as he bent over to dry his legs. He had a trim waist, and powerful legs, if he could swim like that.
She felt like groaning, too.
Turning away, she sat on the bench and dried herself off and stood. He kept his back to her. Another boat sped by, its motor roaring, causing a wake so she had to grab onto the seat. When it passed, she faced him. “Is something wrong, Paul?”
He said, “I don’t know.” His voice was gravelly. He turned. “Are you okay?”
She took a long time to answer. Then she said, “No, I’m not.”
“Should we go back?”
“If you want that.” Longing seized her. As if she was sleep-walking, she crossed to him and laid her cheek on his chest. “But I don’t.”
He seemed to relax. Then he said, “Thank God.”
* * *
The bathing suit stuck to her. Of course, he was fumbling badly, like a kid in the back seat of his car. “Hell, whose idea was it to swim?”
“If you’ll let me…”
“No way.”
He had to kneel to pull the spandex over her hips, down her legs. She helped him by kicking it off. And she was naked, gorgeously naked. Small but full breasts, a narrowed waist, beautiful limbs. Since he was still on his knees, he kissed her belly, her abdomen, her middle. She tasted like salt water and woman. She was taut and supple at the same time. He felt a yank on his hair. “Up,” she said.
“It’s up all right.” He stood then pressed his groin into her. “It has been since you stepped onto the boat.”
She undid the tie of his trunks and started to push his suit down. Meanwhile, he kissed her neck, untied her ponytail, and though her hair was wet, he ran his fingers through it. He felt his trunks fall, and he too kicked them off as she had.
Then he picked her up. The sensation aroused her. They made it to the lower cabin. She held on tight, her face buried in his neck. He stumbled when she sucked at his skin, but when he reached the main bedroom, and said, “Fuck.”
“Uh-huh,” she laughed. “Let’s.”
“No, the beds aren’t together. It forms a queen.”
“All we need is some flat surface, Paul.”
He found one. And their world exploded.
* * *
Afterward, recrimination descended on them. He was flat on his back and she lay face-up, too.
Then she rose and braced her arms on his chest. “What did we do?”
After a bit, he answered. “Lay down again, so I can hold you.” She fell back on the mattress, then settled against him, with his arm clamped around her.
He turned on a light, as it had gotten dark.
“Hmm,” she said. “This is nice.”
He kissed her head. “Oh, yeah. Let’s stay like this for a bit. I want to treasure the sensation.”
They were quiet a long time.
He rubbed her arm, up and down, his fingertips grazing her. Finally, he spoke. “I think the question is, ‘What are we going to do now?’”
She nuzzled into his chest. “I think the question is, ‘Why did we do this?’”
“We certainly weren’t thinking straight.”
“It was the champagne.” She mumbled the words, not believing them for a second.
“It was the sun.”
“It was how you looked out of a suit and tie.”
She felt his chest rumble. “You, too. For the suit.”
Again, they quieted.
Then Hayley rose again on her elbow, stared into eyes that were satisfied. “There are so many reasons to regret this.”
“We were chided by our bosses, forbidden to work together. How can we end up a couple?”
“Think of the conflict of interest,” she added. “If we continued this and former clients, especially those who lost, found out about us, they could suggest we tanked the verdict for each other. Even though we didn’t, the suspicion, the scandal could ruin our careers.”
“We do have equal numbers of wins. That would support the theory.”
She played with his chest hair. “Should I say, ‘This was great while it lasted?’”
“Should I say, ‘This can never happen again.’”
Hayley felt emotion well inside her at the notion, and his fist curled on her arm at the thought.
“We don’t have a choice, honey.”
“I know.”
Paul’s body turned tense. “I’m not satisfied with once.”
“Me, either.”
“And after tonight, we go our separate ways?”
“Yes, but I want one night together before that happens.”
“I do, too, Hayley. I do.”
Chapter 3
* * *
Wearing a ballcap and sunglasses, Paul drove around the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn, about twenty minutes from where he lived. He buzzed down the windows of the ordinary car he’d bought to go unnoticed, so he could soak up the sounds and scents of the Polish culture. A band playing the mazurka and the polka partner dance sent its music into the streets. Smells of bread, sausage and sauerkraut filtered over to him. The area was home to a large Polish-American community, but it had been invaded by trendy shops and restaurants. Still, traditional Polish shops thrived.
Paul made this trip every so often since he came back east. His heartbeat sped up like it always did when he performed this macabre ritual. To dilute the negative thoughts, he considered stopping for dinner. But he decided not to since he could run into any number of people in his family. Most of his brothers and sisters lived nearby. Some of their older kids could be working in any establishment.
Chiding himself for wanting to stop, he continued on, steered away from the commercial area and took a right onto Fourth Street. As he headed down it, nervous anxiety took him away from thoughts of Hayley. It had been three days since they were out on the boat and had sex. He’d convinced himself they didn’t make love. She was a goddess, though, with her long auburn hair cloaking her naked body as she rode him.
Suppressing the memory, he went farther down this street and pulled over so he had a clear view of the small two-story where he’d grown up. He knew some of his siblings had bought houses close by. Side-by-side were Jakub’s first, Aleksander’s next and Zofia’s last. Antoni had moved to Virginia and he believed Lena still lived with their parents. They’d be sixty-five now. When he left, they hadn’t even turned fifty.
Paul sat there a long time, and as usual how the split occurred assaulted him…
“What is this?” his father bellowed, waving an envelope.
Shocked, Paul backed away. “Where did you get that?”
“I found it in your dresser. You are giving up the Covitz name when you go to that fancy school?
Ignoring the breach of privacy, Paul tried to explain himself. “Yes, Pa. I’ll…have a smoother time at Yale and in the law field if my name is Americanized.”
Matka, who’d come into the kitchen, started to cry. “You are ashamed of us, syn?”
“No, Matka, never.” He raked a hand through his hair, trying to think of a way to soften what he was about to say. “I, um, I didn’t want you to know about this.” He stopped for a minute because he was getting emotional. “But the kids at school, some of them, call me a dumb Pollack.”
“That is your reasoning?” Pa bellowed. “You can’t tolerate a bit of trouble?”
“I have tolerated it, Pa. But I worked hard to get a scholarship to Yale and I want to succeed there.”
“If you do this, if you become Paul Covington, and denounce your given surname, you are no longer my son.”
“You’re disowning me?” Friends and neighbors in the Polish community uttered the word a lot like they said cancer.
&n
bsp; “Do not come back. On vacations or summers. I won’t have you in my house.”
Later, as he was packing, Matka had come to him…
Prosze, syn. Your father, he does not mean what he said.
He disowned me, Matka.
I did not.
You can’t see me. He won’t allow it.
I will arrange to see you. Promise me you will stay in touch.
All right, I promise…
So Paul had packed up his car for college and left without saying goodbye to anyone. He called Matka a few times, but once Pa caught her talking and told him never to call again. Even his brothers, who’d vowed to keep seeing him, had to stop because Pa said he’d disown them too. Though after Jakub moved out, he’d come to see Paul at college.
And now, Paul was a lonely man. He longed for Matka to smooth down his hair, to play catch with Pa, to go to bed and have his brothers all around him. He’d gotten the success he’d sought, but lost much, much more in the process.
* * *
Sipping lemonade, Seth sat across from his cousin, and good friend, on the deck of her lake house in Hidden Cove. She’d come up for the weekend and asked him to meet her here. She didn’t include Alessia, Gideon or Rafe in the invitation. “So, Red, what’s up? You sounded sad on the phone.”
“A little bit sad. Thanks for driving out here to see me.”
“No worries. I would have come to New York if you wanted.”
Seth, a Legal Aid attorney, was the closet Casella cousin to Hayley’s age, which made them playmates for years. After their parents had a big falling-out and split up their families, he and Hayley stayed in contact without telling anybody else. To boot, they’d both chosen law as a profession. They both fought for the underdog.
“Is work bothering you?” he asked, watching her closely. Her face showed some delicate lines around her mouth and eyes, not there the last time he saw her.
“No, work’s going well. Except I spent a night in jail.”
He recoiled. “What?”
She explained the contempt charge and how she’d spent the fourteen hours with her nemesis.
“At least you weren’t in the general population. Is that what’s got you down?”
“Not exactly. Paul and I, well, we were nemeses but we talked a lot that night and got to know each other.”
“I’m shocked. I’ve seen you in the courtroom together.”
“That’s not all, Seth. After the trial, we spent the day…and the night…on his boat.”
“Day and night?”
“Yes, and exactly what you’re implying did happen. We had sex.”
Hayley wasn’t shy about telling him something intimate. They’d learned about sex together, unbeknownst to their parents, when they nagged Ronan and Rafe to tell them that stuff until the guys finally related the facts of life. Seth couldn’t imagine his Aunt Bridget sitting them down for the talk with Hayley and Finn, though later, his own parents gave it to him.
“Are you troubled because you think you did something unethical? Because I don’t.”
“No. I’m troubled because I want to see him again.”
“Doesn’t he want to see you?”
“He does.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“After the jail thing, his boss and mine decided we couldn’t argue cases together again.”
“Then there’d be no conflict of interest.”
“The legal world is small and sometimes small-minded. Seriously, I wouldn’t care what people said if we were suddenly seen around town as a couple. But my boss would. And his bosses. Even the cases we argued might be questioned.”
“That’s an issue, I guess.”
“Yeah, we came to the same conclusion. We can’t risk a relationship. And might as well stop the whole thing before it really begins.”
Reaching over, he took her hand. “Honey, it’s okay to feel sad about that.”
She shrugged. “I wish I could stop thinking about him. And us. Together.”
“That’ll pass. Remember that cute guy at college that you thought was the love of your life? In the end, you were glad he dumped you and you forgot all about him.”
“I suppose.”
“In any case, you haven’t spent much time with him. It’ll be easier to get over than a serious relationship which lasted decades.”
She took a bead on him. “Are you thinking about you and Julianne?” His off and on girlfriend since they were in high school. He’d hurt her, a lot.
“Probably. This time our separation lasted a year.”
“Do you still think about her?”
“Sometimes. Especially when I see her with my mother.”
“The girl-next-door.”
“Yep. And I’m the bad boy. If any of my family knew why we broke up, they’d be shocked.”
“Maybe not. They have their own issues with women. Gideon’s divorced. Rafe was abandoned and never got over Kate. How are they, by the way?”
He went on to describe how his oldest brother, Rafe, and his wife, Kate, recently married and expecting a baby, were faring. He was glad for the distraction from Julianne Ford, the only woman he ever loved.
* * *
Paul leaned against the wall outside the courtroom waiting for his turn in front of Judge Branson. The judge who put him in jail brought Hayley back to the forefront of his mind. He’d been fighting thoughts of her for days.
Today in the early morning, he was embarrassed as hell about skulking around his family’s neighborhood last night. At about five a.m. he admitted to himself that he wanted to talk to one of his brothers or sisters or Matka. Even Pa. He realized, too—and this was almost worse—that he had no one else to confide in. He’d never made any lasting friends other than his brothers. Granted he’d been back east only a year, but he’d had time for connecting with people and didn’t do it.
Hell of a way to live, Covington.
The elevator pinged and Paul looked up from his phone. Hayley Casella walked out of it. She wore that pink suit that he’d teased her about in jail. Carrying her briefcase and no purse, she crossed the open hallway and didn’t catch sight of him until she was about ten feet away. She gave him a full, luscious smile. He smiled back.
When she reached him, she said, “Well, we finally bump into each other.”
“It’s been a week.” He searched her face. “How have you been?”
“Truthfully?”
“Of course.”
“Sad. So much so I went out to the lake house in Hidden Cove for the weekend.”
“Did you see your cousins?”
“Uh-huh. What about you?”
“Sad, too. Maybe a little mad.”
“At me?”
“No, no, of course not. At our situation.” He wanted to reach out and touch her arm, but he controlled his reaction.
“Yeah, I’m mad about that, too.” She glanced around. “Do you have a trial?”
“Yes. Embezzlement.”
“Ah, white collar crime. One of my favorites to prosecute.”
“I’m up against Steve Senge.” An ADA who worked in her office.
“He’s a good lawyer.”
“What about you?”
“I’m doing arraignments all day. I go up against your colleague John Cramer twice.”
“I’m not his favorite person.”
“Then I’ll be sure to beat him soundly.”
He grinned. She grinned.
When it was time, they both went into their respective courtrooms. Paul felt worse than he did before he saw her. And when he reached his client, his mood darkened even more. The guy was a scumbag.
* * *
Raising her chin, stiffening her jaw—something Bridget taught her to do when she didn’t want to show emotion-Hayley walked down the short aisle to the prosecution’s bench in Courtroom Three. She peeked over at John Cramer. He was older than she expected. At fifty-five, his hair in a combover, he was, well, weaselly, as Paul had described
him. He held her gaze. “ADA Casella.”
“Mr. Cramer.”
“Good luck today.”
“To you, too.”
His client arrived at the defense table. “Sorry I’m late. I had a meeting that ran long.”
“If you walk in late when the judge is already out, you’ll have a problem.”
“I didn’t.” The man’s tone was dismissive. “Now let’s sit and you can tell me what’s going to happen. I don’t have a lot of time.”
Hayley rolled her eyes. Good luck with this one, Cramer.
In ten minutes, the bailiff announced, “All rise,” and Judge Branson walked into the room and sat down. The others followed suit.
She peered down at the file of her first case, then lifted her head. “Good morning, everyone. Today we’ll hear arguments from the prosecution detailing why the charge of embezzlement against Simon Lassiter should result in bail or confinement. We’ll hear from the prosecution first.” She nodded to Hayley. “ADA Casella, you’re up.”
“The prosecution is asking the court to withhold bail. The alleged perpetrator, Mr. Lassiter, has bank accounts all over the world, and housing in places with no extradition agreement. The flight risk involving him is considerable.”
Cramer stood. “The argument the prosecutor makes is ludicrous. You confiscated his passport at the charging hearing, Judge. He can’t go anywhere.”
“Ms. Casella?” Branson again.
“We all know that people of means have ways of escaping the country illegally. Since he’s already committed one crime, why not another?”
“I’d object if this was a trial.” Cramer’s tone was condescending. “Perhaps Ms. Casella is too new to the game to know she’d be putting half of Manhattan’s alleged criminals in jail.”
Hayley went in for the kill. “Only when they ripped off senior citizens.”
Cramer’s face blanked. Apparently, he hadn’t done his research. “My client isn’t even accused of that.”
“It’s recently come to our attention that one of those clients…” She looked down as if she didn’t know the name “…was Mary Anderson. When I investigated her circumstances, I discovered she resided in an independent living community and has been managing the money of twenty residents.” She glanced at Cramer. “You should know that, Mr. Cramer. It was easy to find. Perhaps your somewhat older eyes missed that.”