“Fine. Two hundred thousand dollars keeps the case out of court.”
Hammond harrumphed under his breath, then twisted in his seat. “Say something, Dennis. Explain to her that she’s being ridiculous.”
“She’s not being ridiculous,” Murphy said, then tossed her another shimmering smile. It faded as he directed his attention to Leo. “Mr. Kopoluski, here’s our dilemma. In America, the newspapers have to be free to report the news as accurately and openly as they can. Lots of times, people don’t like what the newspaper says. But if everyone brought a legal action against a newspaper every time they didn’t like what the newspaper said, our newspapers would lose their freedom. You can see how that’s a problem.”
“Is problem, yes,” Leo agreed, looking grim. “Is problem I get sickle, lose job, sleep in YMCA bed too tiny to roll over without I fall on floor. Is problem I have no tuna with mayonnaise, I go hungry, because stupid newspaper does this to me. I lose freedom, too, because stupid newspaper put my name on front page. This is problem, too.”
Gail was impressed. That Leo could provoke sympathy in her was understandable—she’d known him for two years, and she always felt sympathy to victims of the system. But he’d stated his case with passion. Between his sincerity and her legal training, they might just pull a decent settlement out of the negotiation. “Two hundred thousand dollars could make the problem go away,” she said.
“It would set a bad precedent,” Hammond objected. “No way am I going to pay this fellow two hundred thousand dollars to shut up.”
“Oh, I do not shut up. Shut up is something I do not do.”
Now might be a good time to give it a try, Gail thought, but she only patted his shoulder and proceeded. “I’ve put a figure on the table, Mr. Hammond. I haven’t heard anything from you.” If, after a bit of back and forth, they settled on one hundred thousand dollars, she believed Leo would be a happy man.
“The figure you’ve put on the table is laughable,” Hammond complained. “We have a figure on the table, too. Ten thousand dollars. Take it or leave it.”
“We’ll leave it,” Gail said briskly, snapping her file shut and rising to her feet.
“Wait a minute,” Murphy murmured, his voice as forceful as it was muted. He reached across the table and covered Gail’s hand with his, as if to hold her in place. But it was an unfair maneuver. His touch made her crazy. He had to know that. He’d touched her deliberately—just as he’d kissed her deliberately on Saturday. He was trying to break her down with his sex appeal.
She steeled herself against the warmth in his clasp and the answering warmth in her abdomen. She steeled herself against any and all tactics he might use on her. With a poise she had to fake, she slid her hand out from under his and stared at him. “We came here to negotiate in good faith,” she said. “Your client clearly has no interest in negotiating. We’re wasting our time.”
“We’ll negotiate,” Murphy promised. His eyes seemed to reach into her, the way they had the first time she’d met him. She remembered the feeling she’d had then, that he was looking beyond her face to scrutinize her mind. This time, though, he seemed to be doing more than searching her thoughts. He was planting one thought of his own: Don’t give up. We can work this out.
Slowly, with a dramatic display of reluctance, she sat back down. “We’re listening,” she said.
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
Next to her, Leo flinched. Across from her, so did Hammond. Murphy only gazed at her, as if no one else was in the room.
“One hundred twenty-five,” she shot back.
“Seventy-five,” Murphy said.
“Split the difference.”
“Done.” He turned to Hammond. “It’s cheaper than a law suit.”
“What’s cheaper?” Hammond squawked. “I don’t even know what number we’ve agreed to!”
“One hundred thousand dollars,” Gail told him. “Draw up the papers and fax them to my office. Come, Leo. We’re done here.”
“I get money?” he asked, blinking as if he’d just awakened from a dream-filled sleep.
She shoveled her file into her briefcase and stood. “Not immediately.”
“When I get money?”
“I’ll explain it all to you in a few minutes. Mr. Hammond, it’s been a pleasure.” She reached across the table and shook his hand, although he held his fingers limp, as if he’d been drained of energy. Then, once again steeling herself, she offered her hand to Murphy. “Have your secretary send the papers to...my secretary.” She smiled faintly, well aware that Murphy knew she had no secretary.
He didn’t call her on the fib. He only gave her hand a small, private squeeze and released it. “We’ll put it all together and fax it over.”
“When I get money?” Leo asked, gazing around the room in bewilderment. He must have expected a check to be cut right then.
“Come, Leo. Let’s talk on our way out.” She took his elbow and steered him out of the room before Hammond could come to his senses and renege on the offer.
“I get one million American dollars?” Leo asked as she guided him down the hall, through the reception area and out to the elevators.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” she told him. “It’s an excellent settlement, Leo. Much more than you could have hoped to get out of a court trial.”
“One hundred thousand? I am rich now?”
“Relatively speaking, yes. It’s enough money for you to sign a lease on an apartment and support yourself until the story blows over. Or you can move to another town where no one’s heard of you.”
“I buy car? Beemer with rag-top roof?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t blow this money on a car, Leo. Use it to support yourself until you get a job.”
“When I see this money?”
The elevator arrived, and she ushered him inside. “Soon. A few weeks, maybe. A couple of months, tops. You won’t get the full hundred thousand, of course,” she added, a tiny thrill of triumph rippling through her. “I took your case on a contingency, remember? My office gets one third of it.”
“One third, is not bad. I still buy rag-top Beemer with how much I have left.”
She sighed. How he chose to spend his windfall wasn’t her business, but if he burned through it and came whining to her, she would have no sympathy for him. Maybe she could talk to his former boss at the St. Peter’s. Maybe the social workers there could give Leo some guidance, help him to open a bank account and budget his funds.
“Use this money wisely, Leo, or else you’ll wind up with nothing. And then your old life of crime will pose a temptation.”
“I do not do crime. No more. You ask my parole officer, Mr. Jenrette. He will say, Leo Kopoluski does not do crime.”
The elevator stopped with a slight thump on the basement level. Gail led Leo out into the underground garage, then paused. “Leo, let me ask you a question, okay?”
“You are great good lawyer,” he said. “Best good lawyer in Arlington. You ask any question, I will answer.”
“You wouldn’t...” She sighed and peered up at him, gauging his response. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about nannies stealing small appliances, would you?”
“Nannies? What is this, nannies? Babushkas? What you call, mother’s mother?”
“Grandmothers? No. Nannies are like baby-sitters. Nursemaids. Someone who comes to a person’s house and takes care of that person’s child.”
“I see. Yes. You think I get job doing this nanny work? I take care of little babies?”
Their voices echoed against the stark concrete walls. “No. I was just wondering, given your past experience stealing electronic gadgets, whether you might have heard anything about baby-sitters robbing their clients. Through the grapevine, as it were.”
“Grapevine? You think I hear about this through grapevine?” Leo grew incensed. “Like I talk to these people that are criminals, that because of them I go to jail, terrible thing, because of this stealing? I do not do that, Miss Gosb
ozha Saunders! I do not steal. I am how you call clean, Miss Gosbozha Saunders!”
“Leo.” She gave him a placating smile and patted his arm. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“Is good thing that you do not accuse me! You are my lawyer, my best good lawyer! You must respect that I do not do bad things anymore. You must not think these bad things about me!”
“All right, Leo, I—”
“Because I do not steal calculators. No more. I go to jail, and now I am clean, straight like spear. No more I do these things. For two years! I work at helping others, I work to make world better place for others, I am good, clean man with two suits that I wear. I am no robber!”
“I know, Leo—”
“That bad newspaper, it pays me money because of bad things it says. You say bad things, now? You call me these bad things? Maybe you pay me money, too. American dollars money.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said with a light laugh. She was used to prickly clients; given that her career entailed representing the sorriest specimens of humanity in court, she rarely had the privilege of defending a charming client. Leo Kopoluski was one of the more amiable ones. Compared to some of the full-bore tantrums she’d had to put up with from her clients, his little snit wasn’t worth noting. “I never said you were a robber, Leo. Of course I respect you. I wouldn’t have taken on this libel action against the newspaper if I didn’t. All I did was ask you a question.”
“Well,” he huffed. “You have answer, now.”
Actually, she didn’t. All he’d done was defend himself vehemently against a charge she hadn’t made.
But she didn’t care. She was feeling too ebullient about having won him a six-figure settlement—and without being an expert in libel law. She’d gone head-to-head with Murphy in his swanky law offices and emerged one hundred thousand dollars ahead. She’d let him touch her hand, and shake it, and hold it, and she hadn’t fallen apart.
How could she let Leo’s spasm of fury get to her? She was too happy, too pleased. She’d won, and she would never have to deal with Murphy again, never have to contend with the uneasiness, the restlessness, the downright panic he was able to provoke within her. He would never have a chance to hurt her, never have a chance to kiss her, never have a chance to inflict his bratty little kids on her again.
Except for Saturday. If she didn’t attend the Daddy School, he’d win their bet.
Well, she wasn’t going to let him win that, either. She’d bested him once, and she liked the way it felt. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to best her in Daddy School, no way. She was going to win at there, just as she’d won at the bargaining table today.
“Come on, Leo,” she said, motioning toward the row of cars where she’d parked. “I’ll give you a lift back to the YMCA.”
Looking distinctly sullen, he took a few steps toward her Volvo, then halted and spun back to her, arms akimbo. “You think I am thief.”
“I only asked—”
“I tell you something, Miss Gosbozha Saunders, you great good lawyer. Hundred thousand dollars is not enough. I want hundred fifty thousand.”
“What?”
“You tell them. You tell that newspaper that makes my name like podonky, you know what that is? Like worst thing in world, like sour chunks at bottom of wine bottle?”
“Dregs?”
“Da. They treat me like that, like I am nichevo, nothing, zero, they treat me so very very stupid my own best lawyer thinks I am thief. Hundred thousand dollars is not enough to pay me for this terrible bad insult.”
“Leo. Be reasonable. One hundred thousand dollars is a fabulous settlement.”
“Is not enough. I am worth more. And now,” he concluded, with a final rally of dignity, “I walk to YMCA. You tell these people here, these stupid lawyers. You tell them Leo Kopoluski spit on their hundred thousand dollars. You get them hundred fifty thousand, because they are so stupid they make my best lawyer think I am thief like a nanny. You do that.”
With a flourish, he spun away and walked in long, majestic strides to the ramp leading up to the street, leaving Gail alone in the cavernous gray garage, staring after him in bewilderment, wondering why he would want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Chapter Eleven
“HOW DO YOU TAKE a dinosaur’s temperature?” Sean asked. “With a six-mile-long thermometer. How can you tell if a dinosaur’s a meat-eater? Lie down on his plate. What’s worse than a dinosaur in your bath tub? Two dinosaurs in your bath tub.”
“Daddy, make him shut up.”
“She said shut up, Daddy! You said we should never say shut up to each other.”
“I didn’t say shut up to you. I said shut up to Daddy.”
“Daddy! Erin said shut up to you!”
“Why don’t you both shut up?” Dennis suggested with a laugh.
The silence in the car lasted less than ten seconds. Then Erin said, “Daddy, I want my own bedroom.”
“We’ve discussed this a million times, sweetie. We just don’t have the available room right now.” He hit the directional switch and turned left, heading south on Dudley toward the Children’s Garden Preschool for his Daddy School class. The morning sun glared through the tinted windshield, but his sunglasses kept the rays from burning his eyes. He wore faded blue jeans and a navy blue T-shirt, old and machine-washable. It looked like a great morning for rolling in the mud with Gail.
All he had to do was think about seeing her, and the sun suddenly felt warmer. So did the air in the car. So did the blood in his veins.
“The thing is, Daddy,” Erin wheedled, “the boxes keep moving.”
“What boxes?”
“Down the center of our room. Only they aren’t down the center anymore. Sean moved them.”
“Did not!”
“Did so! They’re closer to my bed now, Daddy. It isn’t fair. He moves them when I’m not looking, and then he has more room on his side.”
“That’s not true,” Sean insisted. “Unless maybe I do it in my sleep. You know what? Matt Pereira said people do all kinds of things in their sleep. He saw it on a science show on TV. He said people drool in their sleep, and sometimes they take a walk and then the police find them wandering down the center of the highway and they don’t even know where they are. And there’s drool dripping down their chins.”
“I wish you’d walk down a highway in your sleep, instead of moving the boxes.”
“I bet I could drool in my sleep,” Sean bragged. “I can drool even better when I’m awake. Wanna see?”
“No. Daddy, make him stop!”
“Matt saw this other science show on TV,” Sean continued without missing a beat. “It was this nature show, and they said chameleons have two penises.”
“Eeeeuw! That’s gross!” Erin shrieked. “That is so disgusting!”
“Don’t blame me. Matt said it’s true. He said they’ve got one on each side.”
“Each side of what?”
“I don’t know. Their bodies, I guess. Like, one in front and one in back. So they can pee in two directions at once.”
“Is that true, Daddy?” Erin sounded indignant. “Is it true that chameleons have two penises?”
“Beats me,” Dennis said. “Maybe you guys ought to quit watching so many cartoons and watch nature shows, instead. You never know when you might need to be an expert on chameleon anatomy.”
“What’s anatomy?” Sean asked.
“It’s the study of body parts,” Dennis told him.
“Like when Freddy Kruger tears people limb from limb with his fingernails,” Erin elaborated. “What are we going to do at this school today, Daddy?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get there.”
“I really liked making the sand castle with Gail. She said she would braid my hair for me. Do you think she’ll play with me today?”
“I don’t know,” Dennis said, more softly. A curling wave of emotion swept through him. He liked the idea of Gail
playing with Erin and braiding her hair. He liked so much it scared him.
When he thought of Gail, he didn’t want to think of her in terms of his children—especially since she’d claimed she wasn’t fond of children. Yet she had played with Erin. That sand castle had been grand enough to grace the pages of Architectural Digest. And now Erin was telling him that Gail had offered to braid her hair.
Mixed in with his feelings about Gail were his feelings about Erin. Did she miss having a woman in her life? Talking to her mother on the phone two or three times a week wasn’t the same thing as doing real, live, three-dimensional things with a woman. The kids were scheduled to spend a month with their mother this summer, but summer was a long way off. Did Erin need a role model in her life? A confidante? A mother-figure?
No way could Dennis expect Gail to be that mother-figure. She was quite possibly the most un-maternal woman he’d ever known. But damn, he liked the idea of her growing close to his daughter. Just thinking of it caused a knot of tender warmth to tie around his heart.
He pulled into the preschool parking lot and found a space. The kids bounded out of the car ahead of him, eager to find out what activity would occupy their time that morning. Dennis remained behind for a minute, collecting his thoughts.
Gail as a mother to his kids.
It was a mind-boggling idea.
Gail in his house. Talking to the twins. Advising them. Eating breakfast with them. Accompanying their father to the Mexico Day Fiesta sponsored by the second grade classes. Reminding the kids to make their lunches—and mark their lunch bags with their names so Erin wouldn’t wind up with Sean’s tuna fish sandwich by mistake. Tucking them in, kissing them good-night...and then retiring to bed with Dennis.
Every day. Every night.
How could he let himself think this way? He’d never even eaten a meal with her, for God’s sake. He’d never watched a movie with her, argued about the latest bestseller with her, added up her monthly stack of charge-card slips or fallen asleep with her. She might have icy feet. She might snore. She might hog the blankets.
Damn, but he wanted to find out. He wanted to sleep with her, and wake up with her, and begin his day by gathering her into his arms and nuzzling her golden hair.
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