Balancing Act (The Santa Monica Trilogy Book 3)

by Blake, Jill

  “That’s a pretty mellow attitude.”

  “I guess. At least you didn’t drag it out. Some women would have, just to make their opponent squirm. Just because they could.”

  She raised a brow. “Sounds like you’ve been hanging out with the wrong women.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m beginning to realize that.”

  She couldn’t think of an appropriate comeback. Just as well, since their waiter arrived and seemed intent on describing in meticulous detail all the night’s specials.

  “So, what next?” she said, once they’d ordered. “Do you still have to deal with the city council, now that elections are over?”

  “Yes, but it’s not as bad as it could have been.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know they’ve been making noises about possibly rescinding our DA.”

  She nodded.

  “We don’t have anything in writing yet, but a few of the members have indicated that they’re willing to renegotiate the agreement so that we can move forward with the project. Provided we make certain modifications.”

  “Like what?”

  “Again, this is all preliminary talk. But we may end up converting some of the commercial space to residential use, to create a few additional low-income housing units. Not as many as you were asking for,” he said, forestalling her next question, “but enough to satisfy the new city council. And we’ll probably add another hundred-fifty to two hundred underground parking spaces. Which should help relieve some of the congestion you were nattering on about.”

  She stared at him. S&L was voluntarily making the changes Angie and her client had asked for in the lawsuit? Okay, maybe on a smaller scale, but still. Unbelievable. It didn’t even matter that Zach had managed to slip in a snarky comment. In fact, his backslide into sarcasm was a welcome relief. At least it was something familiar in the midst of a landscape that seemed to be shifting beneath her very feet from one moment to the next.

  “Wow,” she finally said. “How did all this come about?”

  He finished off his wine and topped up her glass before pouring himself another. “Apparently, while you and I were closeted with the judge, our VP of Development was negotiating with a high-tech startup that wants to expand its operations to the West Coast. I talked with their point man earlier today, and we’re this close to signing them on for a long-term lease. If that happens, we’ll be able to recoup all the losses from the conversion, and then some.”

  No wonder Zach didn’t seem particularly fazed by the concessions S&L was being forced to make. “Sounds like a win-win,” she said.

  “We’re hopeful.”

  When he grinned, Angie noticed a tiny chip in his upper left canine. The imperfection was so small that she wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been paying such close attention. It didn’t detract from his looks at all. If anything, it enhanced his appeal, made him seem a little more human.

  She wondered how it had happened. She waited until the waiter served their food, then asked. “Do you play hockey?”

  He raised a brow at the apparent non sequitur. “Not anymore. Why?”

  “You have a little chip, right here—” she pointed to her own corresponding tooth.

  “Ah.” He cut into his scaloppine al limone. “Nothing to do with hockey.”

  “Okay, now you’ve got me curious.”

  “I fell.” He nodded toward her plate. “How’s the gnocchi?”

  “Good. Want to taste?” She offered him a bite from her fork.

  He wrapped a hand around hers and leaned in. She caught her breath as his lips closed around the tines.

  “Well?” she said when he finally released her hand.

  He finished chewing. “Very good.”

  “I meant about your story. You can’t just stop in the middle.”

  He resumed eating his own entrée. “I used to work construction during the summers. Whatever project S&L had going on, I was there. Getting to know the business from the ground up.”

  “When you weren’t hanging out at bars.”

  “Right.” He flashed the grin again.

  She could totally picture him: hot, sweaty, muscles rippling with every movement. Wearing nothing but low-hanging jeans, heavy work boots, and a tool belt. Oh, my.

  “So anyway,” he continued, “we were tiling a roof. I slipped.”

  “You what?” Her fantasy image fizzled. “Oh, my God. How old were you?”

  “Seventeen or eighteen. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  She stared at him, appalled by his casual attitude. “How can you say it wasn’t a big deal? You fell off a roof.”

  “I didn’t fall off,” he said. “Dad’s a stickler for safety. I was wearing a full body harness hooked up to a secure anchor. Other than a few minor scrapes and bruises, I was fine.”

  She let out a breath. Of course he was fine. He was sitting across the table from her, enjoying his veal, sipping a lovely Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, calmly dismissing an accident that could have easily gotten him killed.

  “Hey.” He reached across the table for her hand. “What’s going on? You look a little pale.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

  “What?”

  She shook her head, taking comfort from the solid weight of his hand over hers, the warmth of his skin, the feel of his thumb brushing across her knuckles. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  His brow furrowed, as if it had never occurred to him that any other outcome was even possible. “Well,” he said. “Now you know the full story.”

  She wondered what other stories lay buried behind the urbane façade he presented to the world. How long would it take to peel away the layers and get to know the man beneath it all? And why was she even thinking about doing that?

  She pulled away and picked up her ice water. This was supposed to be a fling, wasn’t it? An opportunity to finally indulge in the sexual fantasies she’d been weaving around him for years.

  Would it be rude to just ask for the check and drag Zach off to the nearest private space they could find? She glanced at his plate. Still half full. Maybe they could take a quick break. The women’s restroom was private, and it had a lock…

  This was insane. She had to get a grip. Wasn’t this the very type of behavior she’d condemned him for all those years ago? Besides, she wasn’t into having sex in public places. It was so…low class. And then there was the ick factor. Seriously, who knew what kind of germs could be picked up from the counter or door of a public restroom, even in an upscale restaurant like this? Her apartment might not be tidy, but at least she knew it was clean, and she’d changed her sheets just this morning.

  “What are you thinking?” he said.

  She glanced at him. How would he respond if she just said it out loud: I want to strip those clothes from your body and lick every inch of your skin?

  She took a hasty sip of water before she blurted out anything that couldn’t be taken back. Casting around for a safe topic, she fell back on the generic first-date question regarding career. “How did you end up going into law?”

  Rather than reel off a glib response along the lines of what every applicant offered when interviewing for admission to law school, Zach studied her for several long moments. “My parents divorced when I was in college,” he finally said.

  When he lapsed back into silence, Angie prompted him. “And…?”

  “You never met my mother, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” he said. “She had a real problem with anger management. And impulse control. It was one of the reasons Dad often let me tag along with him even when I was a little kid. Much safer to be on a construction site than at home with her.”

  Angie couldn’t fathom growing up in such an environment. “I’m sorry.”

  His lips curved into a smile devoid of humor. “I used to pray they’d get divorced. A lot of my friends’ parents were divorced, and it didn’t seem so bad. Then wh
en I was ten, I walked in on her with my rugby coach, and I thought, this was it.”

  “But it wasn’t…?”

  He shrugged. “S&L was just starting to turn a profit then. I guess she wasn’t willing to let that go. And Dad was working too hard to pay much attention.”

  “They say love is blind.”

  “It must be deaf and dumb, too, because they stayed together another decade after that. She had a thing for sports—or at least the coaches. After rugby, it was soccer, then baseball. The only team sport she didn’t manage to ruin for me was hockey—and I’m guessing that was because the coach was gay.”

  The contrast between what Zach was describing and Angie’s own happy childhood was so stark that she found herself at a loss for words. As difficult as it must have been for him growing up, she sensed that he wouldn’t welcome any expression of pity from her. His pride and strength of will—and even his attitude toward women—were probably a direct outgrowth of those early experiences, and whatever she said at this late date wouldn’t make an iota of difference.

  But the fact that he was willing to trust her enough to open up this much was a testament to how far he had come. Was it enough for her to trust him, though? To set aside all the assumptions she’d made and defenses she’d built over the years of observing Zach with other women?

  “Anyway,” Zach continued, “she kept jerking Dad around. When they finally did get divorced, she nearly bankrupted him. He had to scramble for years to recoup.”

  “I never knew.” She hesitated. Oh, to hell with self-restraint. If he didn’t want her sympathy, he could tell her that directly. She touched the back of his hand, relieved when he laced their fingers together. “I’m so sorry. It sounds like you and your dad both had a pretty rough time.”

  “It would have been a whole lot easier if he’d had some legal savvy.”

  His knee bumped hers beneath the table, and she had to remind herself to breathe. “So you figured you’d get the legal savvy your father didn’t have?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But why real estate law? Why not family law?”

  He looked at her. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  She dropped her eyes to their joined hands. It appeared that confession time was over. Not that she minded. He had already told her more than she’d ever expected him to.

  A thrill shot through her as he stroked the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. She cleared her throat. “I kind of fell into it when I was at Baker/Roth. And then I realized I liked it. Nice when you can do what you enjoy doing.”

  “Sure is,” he agreed.

  “So you enjoy working at S&L?”

  She watched his face light up as he described the rush of negotiating an acquisition, participating in every stage of planning, design, and construction, and ultimately seeing a piece of dirt transformed into something beautiful.

  When the waiter came to clear off the table and offer them a dessert menu, she sighed and reluctantly drew back.

  “You can’t go wrong with the Tiramisu,” the man said, as he ran a crumb scraper over the tablecloth. “And if you like chocolate, you should try the Tartufo di Cioccolato. It’s chocolate gelato dipped in milk chocolate, covered with chocolate sprinkles, and served with chocolate sauce.”

  Angie barely registered his description. For once, food—even a decadent chocolate dessert—held very little interest. How could it, when all her attention was focused on the man sitting across the table from her?

  The man who was at this very moment leaning forward, asking her a question. “What would you like?”

  What she would like was to wrap up this dinner, and get Zach home and naked. What she settled for was a breathless request for the check and a silent prayer that they wouldn’t get stuck in traffic.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Zach followed Angie up the stairs. Throughout dinner, he kept getting distracted by the way she looked in that body-hugging dress. Now, with her delectable ass swaying in front of him, pulling the fabric taut against her thighs, he could barely suppress the impulse to reach out and grab.

  He wanted to run his hands over every damn curve that his eyes had been feasting on, sink his fingers into that thick mass of hair, cover her lips with his and ravage her mouth.

  His fingers flexed, imagining the feel of her: the silky slide of her hair against his hand, the supple smoothness of her skin beneath the gossamer shawl where the dress dipped low in the back, the nervous tension of her muscles as he skimmed her waist and hips and cupped her ass, the slight quiver of her inner thighs as he stroked up between them.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, listening to her fumble in her bag for the keys. A distraction, that’s what he needed. Otherwise the evening would be over before it had even begun. He floundered for something, anything, to temper the fire raging through his veins, falling back on an old standby: a mental roll-call of Supreme Court justices, in reverse order, starting with the most recent appointment. He was up to William Brennan when he heard her curse beneath her breath. His eyes flew open.

  She’d managed to unlock the door, but in the process had dropped her purse. The contents spilled across the landing at their feet.

  Zach knelt to help her gather her things, barely noticing what he was picking up. His attention was too focused on the close-up he was getting of her long, sleek legs in their impossibly high heels. He pictured those legs wrapped around him as he sank into her slick heat, the bite of those heels against his back as she squeezed tighter and milked him until he spilled himself inside her.

  Fuck. If he hadn’t already been hard as tempered steel, that image would have done the trick. He wanted her. Now. In every which way. Up against the wall. Bent over a desk. Draped over him in bed. Fast, slow, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was burying himself inside her again and again until she was gasping his name and pulling him over the edge with her.

  Their fingers brushed as they both reached for the last item: a square foil packet that communicated better than any words that he was not alone in his desire. She licked her lips, and it was almost his undoing.

  “Angel.” His breath hitched.

  She leaned into him, maintaining eye contact the entire time, and tucked the condom into the breast pocket of his sport coat.

  As far as invitations went, that was unmistakable.

  He surged to his feet, bringing her up with him. Her mouth tasted of black cherries and plums, sweet and intoxicating, like the wine they’d been drinking earlier. His hands spanned her waist, pulling her closer, aligning their bodies until she was plastered against him, clutching his shoulders for support.

  Blindly, he maneuvered them over the threshold, shouldering the door closed and plunging them into darkness. Without knowing the layout of her apartment, he did the only thing he could to avoid breaking their embrace. Keeping her firmly anchored against him with one hand, he pivoted, so their positions were reversed. Another step, and he had Angie backed up against the door, his hand cradling her scalp as a buffer against the hard wood.

  His tongue tangled with hers. Dimly, he heard a soft thud—her purse hitting the floor?—and then it was just the sound of her breathing and his heart pounding like a jackhammer in his chest.

  Time slowed. The world outside faded away. There was only this room, this woman, this moment.

  He inhaled her scent. Subtle, sophisticated, erotic. Like Angie herself.

  With his lips, he traced the contours of her face, familiar despite the fact that until just a few weeks ago, he’d never touched her. But her image was seared across his brain as indelibly as the ceramic glaze on a prized Ming vase. And so, too, was the softness of her skin, the slope of her cheek, the stubborn angle of her jaw.

  She trembled as his fingers grazed the hollow of her throat, then followed the line of her clavicle to where the wrap began. He pushed it from her shoulders, and she let go of him to allow the material to slither to the floor.

  And then her hands ret
urned, one palm resting briefly over his heart, the other sliding down his chest and abs to tug the shirt from his jeans. That was as far as she got before he caught her hand and brought it back to his shoulder.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered against her skin.

  “Why?”

  Instead of answering, he drew a finger along her décolletage to the low V between her breasts, dipping beneath the edge of the fabric as he slowly retraced the path, inching ever closer to the nipple before finally closing his hand over her breast completely, kneading, plucking, teasing the peak to full attention.

  He followed with his lips and tongue, drawing the neckline of her dress and bra down and out of the way, sucking the nipple into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, before releasing it and blowing on the wet skin. He repeated the process with her other breast, until she was panting and moving restlessly against him.

  Only then did he continue his exploration of her body, fingers tracing each rib, the dip of her waist, the outline of her hip and thigh, all the way down to where the skirt ended, and then slowly raising the hem as he worked his way back up.

  Easing his knee between her legs, he gripped the back of her thigh beneath the skirt and lifted, until she was nearly draped over his hip, completely open to him. Warm skin gave way to a damp triangle of silk, and he groaned.

  His already engorged flesh flexed against her and she responded by rocking her pelvis, wringing another strangled sound from his throat. He clamped down on her hip, stilling her movement. Then he returned to what he’d been doing, stroking beneath the scrap of material that covered her sex. Up and down along the seam, dipping just the tip of his finger inside and then spreading the moisture along the delicate folds toward the little nubbin that was just starting to protrude from its hood.

  She gasped, tipping her head back. “Please…”

  “Please, what?”

  “I need—”

  He sank his finger deeper inside, using his thumb now to rub circles around her clitoris. “This? Is this what you need?”