“I didn’t have one. Nobody would take my case.”
Nick’s heart dropped. “So you handled it yourself?” he asked. When she nodded that it was so, he felt like crap. For some reason he always thought she’d just drop it after he turned her down, that she’d understand how futile her crusade really was. But she didn’t think about dropping it, she had, in fact, petitioned the court again. The idea of her trying to maneuver through the mumbo jumbo of the legal system hurt him, because he should have been helping her whether it was a good case or not, and he knew it.
He pulled out a notepad and pen and exhaled. “What’s her name?” he asked her.
Simone looked at his pad and pen and then looked at him. “What’s whose name?”
“Your sister?”
“My. . . You mean you’re. . . I mean . . . You mean you’re going to take the case? You’re going to try and get Shay back for me?”
When Nick said yes, that was all it took. A smile that melted his heart crossed her pretty face and she leapt from her chair and threw her arms around him, her small body slamming so hard into his that he had no choice but to hold her too. She was practically in his lap as he held her, her feet off the ground and her knees in the seat between his legs.
It started out as nothing more than a thank-you hug for Simone, an innocent gesture that she felt he richly deserved. But now it was something different. Something strong, intense, and different. She felt his arms move around her waist, and they felt good to her. And when he pulled her closer against him, that felt good too. Better than good. It felt wonderful to her. She even closed her eyes as he held her, as every fiber in her body seemed to be contracting in a kind of exhilarating comfort. No one had ever held her like this before, where she felt protected and warm and finally in somebody’s loving care. She wanted to cry. That was why she let him pull her closer against him. She’d never, not ever, felt like this before.
Nick was feeling it too as he held her, and although he tried his best to accept her hug for the sweet little gesture it undoubtedly was and keep his hands off of her, he couldn’t do it. Her body felt too good against his, as if it fit perfectly in his arms, and they found themselves holding onto each other far longer than either intended. But it was Nick, who knew better than to be holding this woman the way he was, who relaxed his hold on her just enough for her to get the message. And they finally parted.
Both seemed shaken by the remarkable sparks that flew between them, especially Simone, who couldn’t begin to explain how glorious she felt. And it wasn’t just because he was going to help her get Shay back, which meant the world to her, but also, in an unexpected way, she felt like she was getting something too. She sat back down in her rightful place at the table and could hardly take her eyes off of Nick. She may have made a big fool of herself tonight, she thought, but she didn’t even care. It felt good, and it felt right, and if it never went any further than it went tonight, she’d still be grateful.
Nick may have been equally touched by the intensity of their attraction, but he was far more astute than Simone at not showing it. He, instead, began questioning her about Shay, and writing down everything she was telling him, deciding to focus all of his attention on the task at hand. Simone, however, couldn’t stop staring at him, at that big, beautiful man she now had on her side. All her life she was fighting alone, praying and fighting and losing every battle. She knew it was her fault, she knew she was somehow going about it the wrong way, but she didn’t know a better way.
Now, she thought, as she watched him work, God had sent her somebody to fight with her. And not just any old body, but Nick Perry himself, the lawyer of lawyers, according to a business magazine she was reading a few weeks after she first met him. She remembered feeling warm inside when she saw his picture on the cover of a magazine in her doctor’s office. He was standing in front of his law firm with his large arms folded and his beautiful smile on grand display. She remembered thinking how his wife must be very proud to have someone like him, until she read that, to her amazement, he wasn’t married and never had been. And her warm feeling turned into regret. He seemed to have liked her once, she thought. What could have been if she had only been able to handle it.
“Rescue me, Simone!” Jules yelled playfully as she hurried to the table, with Jeremy hurrying behind her. “He wants another dance.”
“Another dance?” Simone said with a smile, not even Jeremy could knock that smile off of her face tonight. “Y’all been out on that floor for a long time.”
“I know,” Jules said as she sat down. “It was great.”
Jeremy sat down too, just as exhausted as Jules. “I’m getting old, y’all,” he said. Then he looked at Nick. “I know you,” he said.
Simone cleared her throat. She knew just saying his name was going to make her giddy. “Jules, Jeremy, I want y’all to meet Nicholas Perry. He’s my lawyer.”
“That’s right!” Jeremy said, extending his hand to Nick. “I knew I knew you. You filed a couple of malpractice suits against Bay General and a few of my friends got canned bad, man. You won big time.”
“Bay General? Doctor?”
“Surgeon,” Jules said proudly.
“I saw you operate in court,” Jeremy said. “You’ve got skills my friend.”
“But I’m sure you weren’t impressed.”
“You lawyers are gonna be the death of doctors yet. All these frivolous law suits.”
“One of those Bay General ‘doctors’ removed the wrong limb from one of my clients. Her right leg, to be precise. Another one of those ‘doctors’ gave the wrong anesthetic to one of his patients and turned a fine young woman into a quadriplegic. I doubt seriously if the victims would call those lawsuits frivolous.”
“So you’re Simone’s attorney?” Jules asked to change the subject, sensing a rise in temperature at the table.
“Yes,” Simone said smilingly. “He’s going to help me get Shay back.”
“Not again!” Jeremy leaned back and bellowed. “You’re still on that kick?”
“It’s not a kick, Jeremy, okay?” Simone said. Then she looked at Nick, refusing to let Jeremy rain on her parade. “Jules is my sister, Mr. Perry. My oldest sister.”
Great looking sister, Nick thought, as he shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Jules.”
“Isn’t she pretty?” Simone asked and Jeremy immediately looked at Nick. But it was Jules who quickly interceded.
“Don’t put that man on the spot like that, Simone,” she said with a smile and Nick smiled too.
“She’s very pretty, Simone,” Nick said.
“Isn’t Simone pretty?” Jules asked smilingly as she grabbed her sister’s small shoulders and leaned her against her. Jeremy, however, laughed.
“In her dreams,” he said.
“Anyway,” Jules said, to forestall any Jeremy-Simone confrontation, “I think it’s wonderful that an attorney of your caliber would represent my sister. Thank-you, Mr. Perry.”
“She’s a very persistent lady,” Nick said. Simone heard this and beamed. Jeremy, however, chuckled.
“Yeah, she’s persistent all right,” he said. “A persistent pain in the—”
“As I was saying,” Jules said, “I’m very glad to hear that she finally has some representation. I told her countless times not to keep worrying those Georgia courts with petitions her GED-educated behind doesn’t even know how to complete.”
Simone was a little stunned by Jules putdown, especially since Jules didn’t even seem to realize she had put her down, but Nick noticed it.
“I think she did fine,” he said. “Better than many lawyers could have done.”
Jules seemed surprised by such praise and so was Simone. Simone, in fact, felt like walking on air. In all of her twenty-three years on the face of this earth she’d never known anybody, let alone some big shot lawyer like Nick Perry, praise her in any way. Jules, yes, always received praises, and deservedly so, in Simone’s eyes. But for Simone it had always been crit
icisms and put downs and cynicisms that made her sometimes wonder herself if there was something about her that just rubbed people wrong. Even her mother once told her that she was like “the Christmas gift you give to somebody else.” She was only ten at the time, and her mother didn’t explain what that meant exactly, but even then Simone knew it didn’t mean anything good.
“Today is her birthday, you know,” Jules said, sensing something more than your standard lawyer-client relationship between her sister and the very attractive Mr. Perry. He appeared much older than Simone, which concerned her, but then again, she thought, maybe that was what somebody like Simone needed.
“Whose birthday?” Nick asked. “Simone’s?”
“Yep. She’s twenty-three-years old this very day.”
Nick nodded. She was older than she looked, which was good news, although she was still very young. “Congratulations, Simone,” he said to her with another one of his special smiles. Simone, who’d never felt so footloose and fancy free like this before in her life, could only beam. It was her birthday and she was celebrating with the sister she loved and Nick Perry, the man she once thought had nothing but one thing on his mind where she was concerned, but now she saw him so much differently.
Jeremy, however, was also there, and she just knew he couldn’t wait to get his customary knock down Simone jab in.
“Yeah, Nick,” he said as if he could read her mind, “our Simone here is only twenty-three years old. And not a very experienced twenty-three-year-old at that, if you catch my meaning. How old are you?”
Simone looked at Jeremy and rolled her eyes. She was this close to going off on his behind right in front of Nick, something she was praying she wouldn’t be forced to do. Jules saw it too, that was why she quickly stood up. “Honey, let’s dance,” she said to him. He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.
“I thought you said you were tired.”
“I was. But I’m fine now.”
Jeremy shook his head. He knew what she was trying to do; he knew how much she hated it when he and Simone got into it. But he also knew guys like Nick Perry better than she would ever understand. He knew that a high-rent hotshot like that was going to eat somebody like that country behind Simone alive. Chew her up and spit her out. But forget it, he thought, as he stood up. He was trying to do that little witch a favor.
When he and Jules headed back for the dance floor, Simone leaned back and smiled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But as you can see me and Jeremy doesn’t exactly get along.”
“Is he Jules husband?” Nick asked as he stared at Jules out on the dance floor. Simone felt a tinge of jealousy, knowing that every man wanted Jules, but she tried not to let it show.
“No,” she said. “But they’ve been together for a long time.”
“Yeah,” Nick said as he puffed hard on his cigarette. He knew all about those long term relationships, particularly since he was in one himself and had no business even entertaining the thought of getting into another one. He stood up.
“What’s the matter?” Simone immediately asked, looking up at him.
“Nothing’s the matter. I just realized how late it is and I need to get going. I have all the information I need regarding your sister and I have your number. I’ll get on it and let you know what happens.”
“But,” Simone said, suddenly terrified that the one person in this world who could make her feel alive was about to leave her. “I mean, are you sure you have to leave right now?”
Nick looked at Simone, and that intensity in her glassy green eyes, an intensity that made it appear as if she would literally die if he left at this very moment, pricked at his heart. And he knew he couldn’t just leave her this way.
“Did you come with your sister?” he asked, and Simone could only manage to nod. She was on the verge of tears, over a man she barely even knew, and it was scaring the life out of her. What was it about him that could throw her like this, she wondered. Just because he agreed to take Shay’s case? Just because he held her in his arms? Was that all it took to win her over? The first good looking man to show her some attention and she becomes putty in his hands?
Nick exhaled. He knew he should just walk away. He knew he shouldn’t say another word to this green-eyed woman-child and just leave while he still stood a chance.
But he couldn’t.
“Go tell your sister that I’m taking you home,” he said to her.
To Simone’s own amazement, she didn’t question him, or argue with him, or look at him as if he had life bent if he thought she was going to jump at his command. She jumped at his command, going to Jules and telling her that she was leaving, and then grabbing her purse and heading out the door of that noisy nightclub with a man she was beginning to believe just might be the one she always wondered was possible.
EIGHT
She was late, over an hour late, but she wasn't about to let that hold her back. She jumped off of the bus she had caught, which turned out to be the wrong bus, had to run nearly a mile, and arrived at the Colgate building virtually out of breath. But she didn’t stop. She jumped onto the B elevator, smoothing down her wild ponytail as she caught a reflection of it on the door's shine, and rested her backpack on the floor as she took the slow ride to the eleventh floor. It had been three months since she'd heard a word about her petition to the courts, three long months, and no slow buses or even slower elevator was going to keep her from hearing what Nick Perry had to tell her now.
He'd phoned two hours earlier, or, to be precise, his secretary had phoned, with a request that she meet with him. They had an appointment set up for her, but that would have been three days away, and Simone wasn't trying to hear that. She wanted to see Nick today, as soon as humanly possible. The secretary had to place her on hold and, undoubtedly, get some clearance from the man himself, but she returned to the phone and stated that Mr. Perry could see Simone for a few minutes at 2, if she could make it over that quickly. Simone declared that she could, hung up the phone, told Bellini she had to go, and took off. All she had to do was mention that it was about her petition to get her sister back, and Bellini understood. Everybody at the Sky diner understood. Simone appreciated that.
But now she was late, because no way could she have caught two buses and made it within the hour, but she had to see Nick Perry today, especially since she knew it was about Shay.
The secretary, whose nameplate said Irene Grayson, wasn't pleased at all by Simone's late arrival. Simone stood in front of the large oak desk in her jeans and jersey, her backpack and wild ponytail, and told the secretary that she tried with all she had to get here on time. Irene, however, was blunt, telling Simone that Mr. Perry was already in a meeting and had one scheduled shortly thereafter. Simone, however, volunteered to wait, that surely he could spare her a moment of his time if she was already in place and ready to go. The secretary, who had been fielding Simone's calls for the past three months, who knew better than anyone that she was one hard cookie to crumble, made clear that she couldn't promise her anything, but that she was free to wait.
Simone, relieved, took a seat in the leather chair in the secretary's office, just outside of Nick's office, and tried not to panic. The news could be bad, and that was why he was in no great hurry to tell her about it, or it just as easily could be good, too. There was no way of knowing with Nick Perry. She had thought, three months ago, on the night of her birthday, that they'd made a connection, that somehow he was going to be a significant part of her life for some time to come. He had held her in his arms, and had driven her home. And she had melted in his affection. She just knew he would be calling her the very next day, or, even better, stopping by the diner just to make sure she was still all right.
But he didn't phone, and he didn't come by, and as one day turned into another day and everyday yielded the same results, she knew then that what she'd experienced on the night of her birthday and what he'd experienced were two different things. She had thought his actions proved that he had wante
d her in his life somehow, while he, apparently, had wanted no such thing. Even when she'd get up enough nerve to call his office and inquire about her case, her boldness left her unsatisfied. The call would be directed, not to him, but to his secretary, to Irene, and she would dutifully ask Simone to hold on while she informed Nick of the call. But instead of Nick answering, Simone would always be shuffled to one of his many paralegals or to another attorney in the office or, on one occasion, to Mark Grier, who told her in no uncertain terms that Nick Perry was an extremely busy man and as soon as he heard anything at all about her ridiculous case, he would gladly contact her immediately to be rid of her. Since Simone already knew what Mark Grier was made of, she ignored him, and kept making her inquiries.
Nick Perry leaned back in his tall, swivel chair and watched his girlfriend stalk back and forth across his office floor as if her life depended on her movement. She was upset, the way she usually was lately, as she retold the anger, the embarrassment she felt when she, once again, wasn't chosen. Nick, who was no good at comforting a woman who didn't really want to be comforted, could only repeat his pet response: “They'll be other jobs, babe,” he said.
"Not on the cover!" Delia blasted back, her dark, pretty face snarling at him with a contempt he was becoming accustomed to. "This is a cover shot, Nicky, you know that! A cover shot. Do you realize the last time I was a cover girl?" She said this with a crack in her voice, and before he could answer, she burrowed on: "Three years ago, that's how long! Three years, Nicky! And you should see that little anorexic they picked! Over me! Me, Nicky! Gianni Versace once said I had what it took. Versace had said that. And I can't get a cover shot?"
And probably never would again, Nick thought with some degree of sadness. Not because of the reality, but because Delia was just beginning to face that reality. She was a thirty-six-year-old woman in a young girl's game. And she knew it now. That was why she paced his office floor like a wounded animal. Her heyday was long gone and she wasn't ready to say goodbye to it. She was twenty-two when Versace had complimented her, a fresh-eyed kid in the prime of her modeling life. There was no Naomi Campbell then, no Tyra Banks. Just Delia. And she worked it. He still remembered fondly how hard she worked that thang.
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