by Diane Castle
“What about clothes?” I asked. “Can I borrow your clothes? I like that one shirt that’s kind of sheer. You can’t get away with wearing that around here, anyway.”
“Whatever you need,” Miles said altruistically, fingers clasped in front of his chest in a choirboy pose.
Nash rolled his eyes. “I’ll also see what I can rustle up from the county’s local shelter,” he said.
Miles looked offended. “Hey, don’t hate on the sheer shirt.”
“I wasn’t hating,” Nash said. “I was just thinking about minor inconveniences like judges, who may appreciate sheer clothing but not condone it in the courtroom.”
I sighed. “It’s late,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Why don’t you go home and come back in the morning? In the later morning, I mean. There’s nothing else we can do right now anyway.”
Miles and Nash both put up a weak protest, but I could tell they were tired and wanted to leave.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Really. I think I’m going to be okay.”
Miles stood up and kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll come by and spring you out as soon as I can.”
“Leave Lucy here,” I said.
“I don’t think we can do that. Hospital regulations. I had to practically bribe intake just to get her in this room.” Miles scooped her up and held her over the bed. She wagged her tail and licked my face tentatively. I gave her a big kiss goodbye.
“Don’t worry,” Miles said. “I’ll take good care of her.”
“Let her sleep in your bed,” I said.
“Okay,” Miles said.
“If she sheds, maybe some hair will wind up on your head.”
Miles scratched Lucy behind her ears. “I knew you were good for something,” he said in a cooing “talking to dogs” voice. “I just didn’t know for what until now.”
My eyelids sank shut as they both shuffled out in exhaustion.
***
Miles arrived back at the hospital at ten a.m. with crisp, clean clothes, a bottle of vanilla-scented spritzer, and a freshly shaved head.
“Wow,” I said. “Who are you?”
Miles groaned. “Shut it. I feel like a skinhead.”
“And you look like one, too,” I chirped. Despite the circumstances, I was in kind of a good mood. The lidocaine gel the doctor had prescribed for my burns kept them from hurting, and plus, we were definitely onto something. If PetroPlex was behind the violence (which I was 95% sure they were), and if I could find out whatever little piece of information they thought might be worth killing over, I could use it as leverage to get a quick, high settlement and a very large paycheck for myself just in the nick of time—maybe even before summary judgment. Assuming I could simultaneously keep myself out of harm’s way, that is. Maybe if the info were really good, I could get a high enough settlement to get out of this town and start my own law firm. How great would that be?
“Get dressed,” Miles said, tossing the clothes on the bed. Jeans, a tank, and the sheer shirt I had admired. Ugh. I was willing to bet the jeans didn’t fit my behind. I could never find jeans to fit my curvy behind. If they did, they were always too loose at my waist, which was petite.
There was something in his face I didn’t like.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He hesitated. I immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion.
“Lucy!” I gasped.
“No, no,” he said.
“Then what?” I started to get up.
Miles put his hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down.
“Actually, you might want to stay sitting down for this.”
What on earth? “Spill it,” I said.
Miles took a deep breath and gazed up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes as though gathering the strength to spit out what he was about to say. “PetroPlex has replaced their lead counsel in this case,” he finally said.
I felt relieved. “Is that all?” I said. “Holy cow, I thought you were going to tell me something terrible.”
“With Dorian Saks,” he finished.
“What!” I was instantly out of the bed. “As in Dorian Saks, my ex fiancé?”
Miles cowered in the corner. “I’m afraid so.”
“As in, Dorian Saks, diamond ring big enough to have its own zip code, mansion in Highland Park, never having to eat Ramen noodles ever again Dorian Saks?”
“You eat Ramen?” Miles asked, horrified.
“Never mind,” I said, trying to calm down.
“There’s more. Dorian wants to meet with you this afternoon.” Miles ducked for cover.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!” I clawed at my hair, my face. “He’s already in town? PetroPlex did this on purpose!”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“And he didn’t care. Anything for a buck.”
“Maybe he wanted to see you again.”
“I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t want to see him! Ever again!”
Miles tentatively crept out of his corner and patted my back softly. “I’ll go with you.”
“And what?” I could feel my head floating through the ceiling. I could see my own body. This couldn’t be. This could never happen. Part of the reason I was okay with living in Kettle, Texas was because I knew it was a place in which Dorian Saks would never, ever set foot.
And yet, he was here. Here! How could this be? How could I work with him in the picture?
A worried nurse poked her head in the door.
“Don’t worry,” Miles assured her. “Trial lawyer antics.”
She disappeared hurriedly, no doubt repulsed. Medical people hate trial lawyers. Something about medical malpractice and frivolous suits.
“You didn’t tell him about the fire, did you? Say you didn’t tell him about the fire.”
“No, I didn’t tell him.”
“If he finds out about the fire, he’ll know I’m destitute, and he’ll use it as leverage against me.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell him.”
“What if he finds out anyway? I can’t do this. I can’t talk to him. Miles, we have to get rid of him somehow!”
“Chloe, calm down. I’ll go with you.”
“No flipping way. No! You don’t know him. You’ve never seen how he works. You’ll be in love with him in five seconds.”
Miles stared at me, aghast. “I could never!”
“You won’t be able to help it.” I said. “I don’t know if I can help falling in love with him all over again. It’s good I packed up and moved here, really. What if I were still there? What if he had sucked me back in?”
“You’re smarter than that. Tougher than that.”
“Am I?”
Secretly, I knew I wasn’t. I always tried to project a strong persona, but I was all soft romantic jelly inside. I cared about my career, but all I really wanted was for Prince Charming to come along, scoop me up, and take me away. Didn’t every girl? Maybe we didn’t all expect or even want happily every afters, but secretly. . . secretly. . . we tough girls wanted the prince. If only for a moment.
“I can’t go. I have nothing to wear. I need a suit. A designer suit! Something intimidating—something I can’t buy within a one-hundred-mile radius of here.”
“You don’t,” Miles insisted. “You are not your clothes. You are you, which is way more than the sum of your parts.”
I was hyperventilating. “I can’t do it,” I said. “Tell him I can’t meet him today.”
Miles shook me. “Chloe, we don’t have time for games. Summary judgment hearing in a week, remember? I told him you’d meet him at Caliente at three.”
I checked the clock on the wall. “That is five hours from now. How am I going to get to Houston and back in five hours?”
“You are not going to Houston.”
“Galleria,” I said. “I need Galleria. And the Aveda Spa. I’m not fit to be seen.”
“Chloe!” Miles shook me again, this time h
arder. Harder, I thought, than an un-discharged hospital patient should be shaken. “We haven’t got time. And if you’ve been eating Ramen, you haven’t got the money. I know it has to have been awhile since your last paycheck.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Really?” Miles said. “I think you lost your credit cards in the fire.”
He had a point. And they were maxed out anyway. “Loan it to me! Dick pays you salary.”
Miles sighed. “You know I’d do anything for you Chloe, but you have to be realistic.” He grinned. “You know it’s just not feasible to make an Escada selection in the timeframe we have. Who can do that?”
I wanted to cry. I knew he was right. I was going to have to settle for the local Supercuts, Cover Girl from Walmart, and whatever form of clothing they had in the Rosethorn Ritzy Rags boutique. And then I would somehow also have to find a big enough gap in the space-time continuum to prep for the part of the meeting that really counted in the grand scheme of things—the legal part.
Now that all my evidence was up in smoke, I would really have to scramble to put on a good face. I was terrified Dorian would be able to see right through me—to know that I had absolutely nothing. We had been together long enough that he knew all my tells.
There would be no marriage to Dorian Saks. I got that. But I refused to accept the possibility that I also had no case. I had a case. People were dead. I had a case. Right?
CHAPTER 15
“No, no, no! All you ever wear is brown!” Miles said, in the middle of the Walmart make-up aisle. “Try violet. It will make your eyes pop, and it’ll look fabulous with your hair.”
I let Miles talk me into violet eye shadow and pale nude lip gloss before we went clothes shopping.
At the Ritzy Rags boutique, all they had was fringe, fringe, and more fringe, heavily accented with rhinestones and silver studs. I eventually settled on a relatively tame black silk jacket with only a little fringe on the sleeves and hem. I also selected a purple cami and black slacks to match. I had to select something high-cut to hide one of the burns. Once dressed, despite my injuries and fatigue, I felt like something of a lawyer again, even though the clothes were definitely not Escada quality.
At three o’clock, I was not as ready as I could have been, but I was as ready as I could possibly be in that moment, given the timeframe for preparation. I had hoped to stop by the station and drop in on Nash before now, but I hadn’t had the chance.
Thankfully, I also had not had the chance to go by the office, which meant I had not yet been forced to explain myself to Dick Richardson, so there was something of a silver lining in the situation after all. Was it small of me to notice that he hadn’t bothered to drop by the hospital?
I parted ways with Miles and drove into the Caliente lot, parking behind a clump of prickly pear cacti and a barbed wire fence. All of the grass was dead because of the July heat. I was probably the only person between here and Houston wearing long sleeves. I concentrated on not sweating.
Maybe Dorian would buy me a margarita. That would be nice. On that note, I took a deep breath and walked inside.
The interior of Caliente was poorly lit, which, when you thought about it, made sense. If you were going to order chicken-fried jalapeno rattlesnake, did you really want to see what it looked like right before you shoveled it down your throat?
The contrast between the bright light of the outdoors and the air-conditioned shade inside had me squinting. If I had not been so acutely attuned to the potential of his presence, I might not have immediately seen Dorian sitting in the bar. He had chosen the corner of the restaurant, his back against the intersection of two walls, perfectly positioned to take in everything going on inside and everyone who came in from outdoors—before they had a chance to even notice he was there. Strategic as always. He hadn’t changed.
It was the motion of him rising to his feet that first caught my eye.
I caught my breath. I felt nauseated. Exhilarated. Disgusted. Attracted to him against my will.
Dorian wore a black suit, black shirt, no tie. He was exquisitely tailored head to toe and didn’t look like he’d been out in the South Texas dust and heat at all. He’d grown his hair out a bit. It was lush and curly, falling with a studied carelessness over his perfectly proportioned brow and dazzling blue eyes. He was clean shaven. And when he saw me and smiled, the glint off his teeth put the Orbitz gum commercial models to shame.
I swallowed hard.
He rushed towards me and enveloped me in an all-too-familiar embrace.
I caught myself sinking into it for just a split second before jerking backwards.
“Don’t touch me,” I said. I didn’t think I could handle it.
“Ahh, Chloe.” He smelled like coffee and spice and everything nice. “Have some compassion and be kind to the man whose heart you’ve already broken. He placed both palms on either side of my face and kissed my forehead. “I’ve missed you.”
“Well, I haven’t missed you,” I lied. “So tell me. Why on earth did the partners at Smith Knight decide to send you all the way down here?”
“It took a lot of convincing on my part, but I finally managed to persuade them it was in their best interests for them to let me see you again.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
Without looking away from me, Dorian called the waiter over and asked for a table in the back. We sat down, and Dorian ordered. “Two margaritas, por favor.” He flashed his uber-white smile at me one more time and took my hand in his. “Or have you gotten tired of margaritas since I’ve seen you last?”
“I’ve gotten tired of plenty of things since then, including you.” I whipped my hand away and turned to the waiter, irritated.
Fifty percent of my irritation stemmed from the fact that I really wanted a margarita and wasn’t about to let him order one for me. The other fifty percent was reserved solely for Dorian and Dorian alone.
“No margarita for me. Make it a martini. Extra dirty.” I turned back to Dorian and glared at him. “Just like you and your filthy, dirty, stinking, low-down, conniving tricks. You’ve got a lot of nerve, showing up here like this, but if you think I’m going to let you throw me off my game, you’ve got another think coming.”
The waiter raised his eyebrows and faded away without a word.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Dorian said. “In fact, that’s one of the reasons I came down here. No other girl in Dallas can compete with your game.”
“A hundred bucks says that’s not what you tell them when you’re in bed together.”
Dorian shifted in his seat. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he calculated his next move. Probably he didn’t appear studied to anyone else who might have been watching him at the moment, but I knew him. Everything he said and did was calculated, down to the precise trim of his fingernails and the sheen on the Rolex watch he inevitably wore, not because he especially liked Rolexes, but because he knew they impressed juries.
“There is no one else,” Dorian said. “There never was.”
“Right,” I said. “She came to my office, remember?”
“I told you,” Dorian said. “She was my secretary. I fired her. She was mad and trying to get back at me. None of it was true.”
I slammed my fist down on the table, stood, and leaned over it, getting right in Dorian’s face. “I am not stupid,” I whispered, too angry to trust my normal speaking voice. “Don’t you dare insult my intelligence.” I sat back down, slowly. “We both know you are a lying, cheating, sorry excuse for a man and that you are here not because of me, or because of any kind of sense of human loss or personal regret, but because of the chance to get your name on the biggest named client of your career. Counsel of Record for PetroPlex, Incorporated. Mister big man. Time 100. Man of the Year. I will not—not, I tell you—allow you to get away with pretending you are here for any other reason.”
I searched his face as he digested this little speech, realizing in the pit of my sto
mach that I was hoping for, praying for, the slightest indication that what I said was not the truth—that he had come back for me after all.
His face was marble. Michelangelo’s David marble. He didn’t move, didn’t give an inch.
I felt my own upper lip twitch against my will. How could a girl feel such a mix of hurt, anger, betrayal, heat, and attraction all at the same time and never let on? The universe had no right to expect it of me. It was too much. I felt myself drawn to him again, only this time the attraction was just as strong as the repulsion that pushed me away. I felt stuck, suspended in a limbo that could not sustain itself if either of us moved a millimeter forward or back.
After a long moment, I saw the muscles in his neck tighten as he swallowed, considering what to say. He leaned forward, his eyes boring into me, as though no one but the two of us were sitting there. “I don’t think you have ever really understood any of my intentions, or me, at all.”
This time I felt the twitch in the corner of my eye. So help me, if a tear squeezed itself out of the duct and down my cheek right now, I would die of shame. “I think,” I whispered, my voice shaking, “that’s what you tell yourself in order to be able to sleep at night. You are a liar to your core. You have the unique ability to deceive even your own soul.”
“Or maybe it’s you who’ve been deceiving yourself,” he said. “Did you ever think you might be wrong? Did you ever even once consider the fact that your ego got in the way of a future that could have been truly great?”
“My ego? My ego?” I was finding my voice again. “Our issues were never about me. They were about you. You and your ego. You and how one woman just wasn’t enough for the legendary Dorian Saks.”
“I think that’s what you tell yourself in order to be able to sleep at night,” he countered.
We were locked in a battle of wills. If he had just admitted it, just broken down and admitted that he’d had an affair, that he was wrong, that he had loved me and slipped in a moment of weakness, I might have given into him.
Under those circumstances, I might even have taken him back, if he’d asked. But he didn’t. He steadfastly refused to admit that anything had happened, that he was to blame. He was a paragon of defense-attorney glory, a fortress for his clients and a fortress for himself—a characteristic that equally fascinated and repulsed me.