by Moriah Jovan
Bryce released her after a while so she could leave and turned back to the table to gather his papers and laptop and Blackberry, to put his briefcase back together before he confronted Giselle. He talked to his interns, piled his things into the box one of them carried, and gave them instructions.
He took his time, sorting through the remnants of his closing argument, feeling his client’s grief and his own wrapped up in it, but now . . .
She was at the back of the room and he didn’t seem to hurt quite as much. “Stalker,” he muttered, still feeling the sting of her parting shot at the library. He’d be damned if he appeared too eager to talk to her after that.
She awaited him patiently as he dawdled, then strolled up the aisle toward her, the very last person out of the courtroom. He never imagined she could look like that in a million years and the thought crossed his mind that he could certainly stand to look at her for the rest of his life.
Tight oxblood leather pants clung to her legs like a second skin. She had heavy Doc Martens on her feet. Though a voluminous white cotton blouse floated around her torso, he could see the curve of her breasts through the laces that held the front together. Her honey corkscrews fell to her shoulders, a wide fringed-and-beaded black scarf from her forehead to her crown holding her hair away from her face. A small dog could’ve jumped through the golden hoops that hung from her ears. Her face was slightly flushed and whatever way she’d made up her eyes—he didn’t remember the name of that stuff—only enhanced her exotic look.
She might intimidate him a little if he didn’t know how she responded to him.
He stopped in front of her, glaring at her. He smelled her perfume and felt the amusement that rippled his way. “Stalking me?” he snapped
She pursed her lips and thought about that for a few seconds. “You tell me. Your secretary all but drew me a map once I told her my name.”
His jaw clenched. Of course she’d have noticed that.
“I want to talk to you,” she continued, somewhat breathily. “I’ve needed to say something to you since December and I— I just haven’t been able to.”
“So say it.”
“Mmmm, that’s going to take a while. Tell you what,” she said, pushing herself off the wall. “How about you meet me at Kauffman Garden at six?”
He considered. Finally, he figured that if this was all he would ever get from her, he’d take it and tuck it away in his memory.
“Fine.” Unwilling to leave her, her scent, her humor, but needing to make his point, he walked away and didn’t look back.
* * * * *
22: NO ONE BRIGHTER THAN YOU
Giselle stood in the V between her open car door and her car, facing west and watching the sun on its course toward the horizon. Waiting.
She had dressed carefully in a sundress of navy linen with white polka dots. The modest bustline fit closely and didn’t show a hint of cleavage between the triple spaghetti straps. Over that, she wore a light white short-sleeved shrug. The full bias-cut skirt fell from the empire waistline to her knees. Navy sandals gave her another four inches of advantage.
She’d replaced her black hair scarf with a white one. She’d removed the kohl and kept the makeup to a minimum. She’d changed out her gold hoops for pearl studs.
This was her Sunday best.
Though she had invited Bryce to wring her out and hang her up to dry on her own sins, she refused to look and feel like a ragamuffin during the ordeal or give him any more reasons to think she would use her body to get something from him.
Six o’clock came and went. Her pinging nerves settled into acute disappointment. So, he had decided to show his contempt for her by standing her up. Well, she supposed she deserved it. Twenty minutes later, she still waited because she didn’t know what else to do. Her nose stung. She blinked back tears. She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. Several cars turned in the lot, but she couldn’t see them, wouldn’t look, and didn’t know when he drove in and parked, or if he drove in at all.
She only knew when he appeared next to her and settled himself back against her car. She couldn’t see his face because she didn’t turn toward him, embarrassed and deeply regretful that she had ruined her chance to be with this man. He would not look kindly on her deceit, but at this moment, she only cared that he’d shown up after all.
“You rang?” he said after a moment. Ooh, still angry.
She pursed her lips, screwing up her courage to say what she had to say.
“I lied to you.”
She felt his body shift against the car as if she had startled him. He said nothing for a long time. “Is that why you’ve been brushing me off?” he asked, his voice grainy and hoarse.
“Mostly, yes.”
Another few seconds ticked by in silence. Silence was good, she guessed. At least he hadn’t raged at her, run her character into the ground. Yet. And he hadn’t asked her what she’d lied about. Interesting.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. He wore the same clothes he’d had on in court today, with the exception of his suit coat. The sleeves of his white dress shirt were folded and bunched at his elbows, he had no tie, and the two top buttons at his neck were undone.
“Has anybody ever told you that you’re too hard on yourself?”
Where did that come from? “No.”
“They should’ve.”
She didn’t know what to say. He seemed to want to talk about something completely different from what she had meant for them to talk about.
“I’m not as honorable as I should be. Why should anyone cut me any slack for that?”
“Is that what you want to be?”
“Honorable? Of course.”
“Define it.”
She turned then and looked up at him sharply. “Define it?”
“Define honor. What it means to you.”
Huh. “What do you want me to say? It’s whatever that’s noble and virtuous that I’m not.”
“Surely you have your own definition.”
She barked a humorless laugh. “There are no words to describe what true honor is. I only know I don’t see it in my mirror.”
He fell silent. A good span of time passed before he spoke again. “What happened between June and today that made you finally willing to talk to me?”
Though determined not to lie to him again, she still needed to keep some things to herself for now. “I had to tie up some loose ends before I sought you out.”
“I see,” he said, though clearly he didn’t. “I don’t really recall that we’ve had enough conversation for you to have had the opportunity to lie to me.”
“It wasn’t what I said. It’s what I did.”
“Okay. So—talk.”
And there it was. Her gut clenched and she felt as if she had jumped out of a plane without a parachute. “I went to the Nelson that night specifically to keep you engaged and distracted, away from Fen Hilliard and the party. The goal was to occupy you so Fen wouldn’t be able to find you. I—” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I didn’t know who you were when I went there. Bryce Kenard was just a name to me—a favor for people who respect you enough to want to protect you.”
“But then you knew.”
“Yes. And I did it anyway.”
“What actually happened, on the bench—was that part of your master plan with this Bryce Kenard whom you didn’t know?”
“Ah, no. Most definitely not. I’d been told you enjoy good conversation.”
“Would you have done that if you hadn’t been on orders to distract me?”
She pondered that, because it hadn’t occurred to her to ask herself that. Finally, she shrugged. “I’m sure something would’ve happened between us somehow.”
“Okay. So what’s the problem?”
She turned her head and looked at him carefully, cautiously. His tone was too casual, but he still didn’t look at her. “What do you mean, ‘what’s the problem?’”
“I mean, a year and a half ago,
you and I met at Hale’s, I insulted you, you put a gun to my head and told me I was six kinds of a bastard, then I kissed you. And you ran away.”
She sucked in a long breath.
“Eight months after that,” he continued blithely, “not only were you not mad at me, you lured me to a dark and quiet place where I had my way with you. And you ran away. I’ve tried to talk to you several times since March. And you’ve run away. Was there more that happened any of those times that I didn’t notice or don’t remember?”
He knew. He knew what he did to her, taking her power away from her, overwhelming her, keeping the upper hand with her. Taking her on and making her back down. He wanted her to acknowledge it, give it words, make it real.
She declined to answer since she would let him take only so much.
“I just wanted to talk to you, Giselle,” he said after a moment, weary now. “I thought I made that perfectly clear.”
“I was ashamed because I’d deceived you,” she said, low.
He looked at her sharply. “You should’ve just told me that up front. Then I would’ve told you that I didn’t do anything to you that I wouldn’t have done anyway.” Her eyes widened a bit and she swallowed; she could feel the heat rising in her as he held her stare, one eyebrow cocked at her as if to dare her to comment. Then, casually, “Does your boss know you’re Knox’s cousin?”
Giselle’s mind went blank. “Excuse me?”
He grinned suddenly, wickedly, his teeth flashing white, pretty against his dark face. Giselle’s heart picked up its pace. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“It’s the eyes, right?”
He barked a genuinely amused laugh and wiped a hand over his mouth, then his amusement seeped away. After a very long silence, he murmured, “I . . . have my own confession to make.” He took a deep breath, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and bowed his head. “I saw you at Leah’s visitation. I overheard Knox ask you to go home with him.”
Her eyes widened and she swallowed. “Oh,” she breathed, her gut churning, “so that’s why you were angry with me at work.”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t— I didn’t—”
He held up a hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation for anything, Giselle. I was wrong and I was wrong to take it out on you.”
“Did you think—” She almost didn’t want to know. “At the Nelson, did you think I was sleeping with Sebastian, too?”
His hesitation was all the answer she needed and her nose started to sting again.
“I see.” She paused. “I suppose I can’t blame you. Apparently, the rest of society thought that, too.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure, really. You didn’t act like lovers and he’s not known for his prowess with women, so it was actually quite shocking that he showed up with any woman at all, spoke, and then laughed. The Junior League nearly had an orgasm.”
That did pull a tiny smile out of her, but . . . “I knew that’s what you thought of me, but I thought it was because of what I did with you, on the bench.”
“That’s really why you were avoiding me, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged and looked away. “Mixed bag.”
“The look on your face was— When you ran out on me, I knew I was off base somewhere. I didn’t care who you were sleeping with, Taight or whoever or how many—it was that it was Knox.”
Her brow wrinkled and she looked back at him. “I don’t understand. Why Knox but not any other man?”
He sucked up a deep breath. “Knox is my best friend from UCLA. My wife told me she’d been having an affair with him and I— I didn’t know what to believe.”
Giselle’s mind spun at those not insignificant pieces of information. “I guess I can understand that,” she muttered finally and lowered her head to stare at the ground and think. “Caught between your best friend and your wife. Loyalty’s dicey sometimes.”
“Knox made the choice for me. He walked away.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“So after Fen’s party, he and I had dinner, at his request. Well, to be more precise, he summoned me. He told me the whole shebang. Fen, the proviso, Taight.”
“When did this happen?”
“In March.”
“Knox doesn’t usually meddle,” she mused, almost to herself, “so Sebastian must have been hammering him to do something. Why did you bother going?”
“You. I needed to know for sure. He knows my taste in women and he knows me well enough to figure out I’d be stewing about it. He gave me the answers but he refused to give me your phone number, tell me where you live, set up a date. Nothing. He said he wasn’t going to make it easy for me and I needed to pay penance for being a bastard to you both. That I needed to work for it so I’d value it.” He paused. “Hence, stalking. I knew where you worked and I knew you were in law school, so . . . ”
She wrapped her arms around herself, even though she had no reason to be cold. “I’m assuming he did tell you what he and I haven’t done?”
“Yes. He was very clear on that point.”
“So now I don’t know if you pursued me because Knox redeemed your low opinion of me or if you want me in spite of your low opinion of me,” she muttered. Dammit. She was going to cry. “That’s just so . . . flattering. I should’ve got a clue when you called me Lilith.”
He sighed. “When I first saw you, before I overheard your conversation— You look like a painting.”
“But you didn’t mean it that way and you weren’t subtle about it.”
“Giselle, I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Is there anything I can do or say so you’ll give me a chance?”
She laughed without humor. “I came here thinking you were going to truss me up like a Christmas goose for conning you and send me packing. Now I’m offended and you’re the one repenting. I’m a little discombobulated right now, so forgive me if I don’t know what to say.”
He remained silent for a bit. Then, “Why did you haul me into your car that night?”
She looked up at him sharply. “Because you hurt my feelings. Would you rather I have slugged you? I have a hell of a right cross.”
His mouth quirked then and she suddenly saw the humor in what she’d said. “Do you do that to every strange man who hurts your feelings?”
That pulled a puff of laughter out of her and she couldn’t help the beginnings of a smile. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Men—strange or otherwise—don’t dismiss me out of hand. You got my point, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I most assuredly did,” he said with a smirk, “and you got mine.”
She studied him, his face. Intellectually, aesthetically, she understood that his burn scars made him ugly, but to her, he was beautiful. Powerful. He’d attained godlike status in the courtroom despite scars that should frighten juries. Most people would have taken their money and hidden away from the world, but not him. Oh, no. He’d set out to conquer it and he’d succeeded.
He pushed himself away from the car and strode around the back to the passenger side. “I’m hungry. Find us a place to eat.”
It occurred to her to protest his abrupt, imperious command, but it had unexpectedly made her breathless and somewhat tingly between her legs. She figured this was a battle best left un-picked and dropped into her seat, though she didn’t bother to start the car. She watched him get in and, once he’d settled and looked straight back at her, she said, “Apologize.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but then he did a double take. “Who hit you?” he demanded, instantly ferocious, lethal. A panther.
She had forgotten that the evidence of Fen’s slap would be visible on her fair skin. A chuckle escaped her, then it turned into a rolling laugh. “Doesn’t matter, but if it makes you feel any better, the other guy looks worse.”
With the back of his hand, he reached up and gently caressed that cheek. Her breath caught. “I’m sorry, Giselle,” he whispered. “For my assumptions, for my anger. All of it, everything. And I’m sorry
for being late; I had an appointment I forgot about and I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. I was so glad to see you—” He took a deep breath. “Can we start over? Where we should’ve started a year and a half ago if I hadn’t been an ass? Please?”
His dark tan made him seem much more dangerous than at Christmas and made his vivid eyes gleam with a magical green fire. Giselle found herself entranced.
“I’d like that,” she breathed.
He flashed that pretty smile for her again and said, “So are you going to drive or are you going to let me starve?”
She laughed then. “Now, you know I’m going to pick the most expensive restaurant in town, right?”
“I was counting on it. Plaza III, I’m guessing?”
“Absolutely.”
Still chuckling, she started the car, then drove them to the steakhouse on the southwestern corner of the Country Club Plaza. They said nothing on the way. Although only a mile away from Kauffman Garden, the silence during the drive had made her a nervous wreck by the time she found a spot on Ward Parkway.
She turned off the engine and bolted out of the car as fast as she could, needing to be on her feet and away from him and his largeness, his power, his raw sexuality. Her back to him, she heard and then felt him come up behind her and splay his large hand across her back, and that—oh, that was electrifying.
His momentum took him around her and she looked up just in time to close her eyes as he kissed her. Softly at first, and then a little deeper. Her hands—she didn’t know what to do with her hands and her arms, and she oh, so wanted to touch him. Hesitantly, lightly, she furrowed her left hand in his hair and laid her right hand on his chest, her thumb on the little nub of nipple through the fabric of his dress shirt and undershirt. He sucked in a breath and she stopped thinking, stopped caring about everything as his tongue found hers.
They kissed. Long, slow, lazy. Giselle heard herself hum her desire into his mouth.
He pulled away from her finally and she opened her eyes to again find his green gaze studying her. “I’m hungry,” he repeated softly, though this time the words held so much, much more. “Come eat with me. Talk with me. Laugh with me.”