“What we need is to get an inventory of the assets,” Sadie said into the receiver of her cell phone. Yes, it was a Saturday. Yes, she was on her way to a wedding. Yes, she was working. Sue her. Seriously, she could take it and probably end up with a decent settlement for herself. She was just that good.
The grin playing across her mouth illustrated her confidence when it came to all things legal.
“Can you bring that when we meet next week? Be sure to include all the important details,” she continued on.
“Assets?” her client Tonya Marshall asked.
“The fish.” Always aware of her surroundings, Sadie looked both ways before crossing the sleepy street in front of the church. She gave her extremely pregnant best friend, Marlee, a gesture to follow once she had the all clear of no traffic, pausing to grip Marlee’s arm and help her step off the curb.
Marlee’s center of gravity was seriously wrecked.
She was like two weeks overdue with her son—Sadie’s nephew—so that explained that. Marlee was Sadie’s best friend. She was also married to Eli.
“They’re not assets,” Tonya said into Sadie’s ear, her voice breaking. “They’re practically my children.”
Shit.
Sadie looped her arm with Marlee’s as they reached the other side of the street.
According to the law, the fish were assets. According to her client? Nope.
“Of course not,” Sadie said, giving her bestie an eyebrow raise she hoped would transmit her promise to be done with the call soon. She infused her tone with sympathy for Tonya. “That’s only the legal term. It's what we'll use when we talk to the courts. You and I”—she emphasized the I—“both know they’re so much more than that.”
Assets. Nearly a million dollars in marine life. The children Tonya and Rex never had. Uh-huh, the fish were all of those things.
She quickly finished the call with Tonya as they approached the solid wooden door of the Presbyterian church.
“Everything okay?” Marlee asked.
“Totally.” Sadie opened the chapel door.
“Are you going to start talking about how jellyfish aren’t really fish again?” Marlee asked. “Because I still don’t buy into that. Even if Google says you’re correct.”
Fine, so maybe Sadie had gone a little overboard in research to understand Tonya’s case. Some of the things she’d learned were actually interesting. Way more interesting than the time she’d represented a pornography producer and had to learn all about the ins and outs of that industry for his divorce. Sadie had always thought she was up with the times. That was before she’d learned food porn was really a thing. She’s never been able to look at a lettuce wrap quite the same way.
“Are you freaking out about the case again?” Marlee asked.
Sadie would’ve liked to say no, but honesty prevailed. She nodded.
Marlee touched the sleeve of Sadie’s dress. “You know the whole first case thing is bull.”
Logic said Marlee was correct, but the dip that happened in Sadie’s gut said she still bought into the philosophy of her first managing partner. He believed the first case given to a new hire would determine their future.
One case became the final determination of whether the person would keep their job at the firm.
For years, Sadie watched her cutthroat industry spit out those who lost in favor of those who didn’t. The strongest prevailed. So the weight she put on Tonya’s case as her first in Denver was more than any other in her career.
She refused to lose. She learned quickly—a guppy in a school of piranhas trying to make her mark on the ocean that was Denver, Colorado. Her guppy status would quickly turn to shark status. She’d see to it.
Marlee squeezed Sadie’s arm, her lips pinching as she stood utterly still. Sadie was on baby-watch while Eli was in the wedding party. She waited with Marlee—this was the third contraction since they’d started driving over to the church.
“Maybe I should take you home?” Sadie asked when Marlee finally relaxed.
Marlee shook her head.
“Because we don’t have to be here. We can get you home, and I can rub your feet or whatever.” It’s not like Sadie was really an invited guest at this soiree. She was simply her pregnant best friend’s babysitter. Her best friend who really should go somewhere she could put her feet up. Marlee wasn’t having it though. She pushed forward through the doors as though Sadie hadn’t said a word.
Marlee was like twenty-five billion months pregnant with their kid. That wasn’t Sadie’s approximation of Marlee’s due date, but it’s what Marlee had said on the car ride over. She was ready to give birth at literally any moment.
Not this moment.
Gah, Sadie hoped she didn’t have to deliver this kid herself. They hadn’t covered that type of thing in her constitutional law course.
Sadie let out a deep breath and followed her friend. Onward.
Together they entered the door and…freaking hell, it was Roman. Smack-dab ahead of her down the aisle. Right at the front of the chapel.
Her world tilted, tipping her on her ass. Not literally. She remained standing, but barely.
Maybe delivering a baby would be better than running into her old fling? Possibly?
The totally reasonable expectation that he’d be at the wedding of his brother did not include the expectation that he’d be the literal first person Sadie saw upon arrival.
Roman stood right next to Sadie’s brother, wearing a full tuxedo—black slacks, suit coat, and a pressed white shirt with a bow tie situated around the collar. He was not a man a girl forgot. First, he was tall. Like, really tall. And built like a tank. His muscles seemed to sprout muscles—and over the years, they’d had little muscle families take up residence. His hair was still cropped short, but not as short as it’d once been.
Holy crap, he looked good enough to lick. Nibble. Gorge herself on.
Fine, this was fine. She was Sadie Howard. She could handle a dash of Roman.
Quickly, she moved her focus, hoping he wouldn’t feel her stare and look her way.
It didn’t work.
Her gaze stumbled back to his and he held her eyes with some kind of magical Roman warrior god power. His lips spread into a grin that transported Sadie back to all those years ago. To a time when she was only a hopeful law student ready to take on the hallowed halls of the University of Denver.
His mouth parted just slightly, his expression one of confused concern, a touch of desire, and…was that regret? Nope, not regret. The last part was definitely a solid heap of ambition.
The time she’d spent mastering facial profiling for jury selections had trained her to get all of that information from just the slash of his eyebrows and the turn of his mouth.
Perhaps she should leave. Was it really running away if she had a boatload of other things to do instead of staying as an uninvited guest?
One glance at Marlee’s belly reaffirmed why Sadie couldn’t take off. She couldn’t leave because Marlee wasn’t leaving.
This was just fine. No big deal. Sadie did her best to obscure her face and hide behind the usher. She seriously considered dropping to her hands and knees to crawl between the pews to her seat as she followed her best friend and weaved through the wedding guests milling about the back of the chapel. The wedding wasn’t scheduled to start for another fifteen minutes, so the friends and family were doing what friends and families do best—some sat in the pews, some stood, everyone gabbed.
“Doesn’t he look amazing?” Marlee asked, giving Sadie’s biceps a quick squeeze before she could do the pew-ducking thing.
Say what now?
Marlee didn’t know that Roman was the guy.
Oh, Marlee knew there was a guy. Of course, she did. They were best friends—the kind who once had matching necklaces to prove it. So, no, Sadie couldn’t keep something like that away from Marlee for long. But Marlee didn’t know the who of the situation and Sadie had never volunteered that information. It had never seemed impor
tant.
Except, why did Marlee make it a point to tell Sadie that Roman looked amazing?
Sadie shifted her gaze toward her friend. Her friend who was openly staring at Eli, not Roman.
Right. She wasn’t talking about Roman.
“He does. Look amazing,” Sadie said entirely too belated. “Eli does.” Her tongue tripped over Eli’s name.
Smooth. Just call her Smooth Sadie. Call it a personal rule, but she didn’t run away. She did, however, often make a pit stop to collect herself when life—or one of her client’s exes—threw her curveballs.
She just needed a second to get herself in order. Check that there wasn’t food stuck in her teeth or a twig in her hair. Not that the twig thing had ever happened, but you couldn’t be too careful when facing an ex-flin—
“Eli has seats for us up front.” Marlee tugged Sadie straight toward Eli and…Roman.
Sadie’s stomach fluttered. She stalled, stopping Marlee. “I’ve got to use the ladies’ room. Are you good?”
“Totally good.” Marlee was already on an eye lock with her husband and Sadie was a very extraneous member of their party of three.
Sadie couldn’t help it as her gaze slid to Roman’s.
His eyes were pinned to her like a thumbtack in corkboard. He mouthed her name and she felt it straight in her bones and, more directly, in the intimate spot between her legs.
Yes, her first ever weekend fling smiled at her and the air snapped like it was alive.
Holy hell, when life was screwing a girl over, it sure didn’t take time to get to know her first. It just went right in for the main event. No dinner, no drinks, no night at the movies.
“I’ll be back. Hold my seat.” Purse gripped in her now sweaty hands, Sadie tried to pull her gaze away from Roman’s but it held like it was Velcro’d. She took control of the moment, tore her eyes away, and did her best saunter out of the chapel, down the little hall, and into the ladies’ room.
Thankfully, it wasn’t one of the restrooms with a bunch of stalls. Nopers, it was a little one-person room big enough for just Sadie to stave off a momentary panic attack with a quick pep talk in the mirror.
C’mon Sadie. Get it together. You don’t do sweaty hands. You do calm and collected. You are a shark in the courtroom.
A force to be reckoned with.
She did her best to channel Courtroom Sadie, who took no shit from anyone.
It didn’t work.
Courtroom Sadie had taken a recess.
The truth was that seeing Roman shifted something inside her in a way she hadn’t experienced in a long, long while. Like the time she’d discovered that one mascara that did amazing things for her lashes, but then they had inexplicably discontinued the brand. Until, years later, she found it again on the shelf at Ulta and got so excited that she texted her girlfriends—Marlee, Becca, and Kellie—just to ensure they knew the news too.
Like that.
But way more whoa.
Except this time, she wouldn’t be texting anyone because no one—absolutely no one—knew about her fling with Roman Dvonakov. She did have some pride, after all.
She’d considered telling Marlee who Roman was, but in the end, she hadn’t. And then she’d met Oliver and he became her rebound guy. The rebound guy she’d dated for a lengthy amount of time. The one who screwed her six ways to Sunday when he lifted her internship right from her grasp. The internship that would’ve shaped her trial career. Oliver weaseled his way into the position using her as his conduit to meet the attorneys at that firm. The legal circuit was cutthroat, and Sadie had realized it several mediocre orgasms too late.
She took another eight deep breaths, stuck her Ann Taylor pastel-pink clutch under her arm, and opened the restroom door.
Roman waited smack-dab in the middle of the hallway, giving her no opportunity to stealthily avoid him. Damn.
She met his hopeful gaze, and oh man, she sunk like she’d whacked straight into an iceberg in the Atlantic.
She shook her head in solidarity with herself—past, present, and future Sadie all together in one moment of utter nooope.
That smile though.
God, she’d missed that smile. That smile sliced straight through her heart.
“Rome.” She glanced at the camera in his hands. The camera he’d named Louise.
It was still Louise. Always had been for this guy.
“Nochnaya babochka.” His deep voice filled the air between them, immediately heating the space she had tried to ignore between her thighs.
“Hi.” She stopped herself from fussing with her hands, her hair, her purse. Since she didn’t know what to do or what to say, she did what she always did. She talked. “Imagine running into you here.”
“It’s my brother’s wedding.” He leaned against the wall like it’d been built just for him.
“I mean here, outside the ladies’ room,” Sadie corrected, gesturing to the image of a woman in a skirt on the door.
“Ah.” Roman gave a little lopsided half grin that made her half-wish he’d invite her to break her solid no-double-dipping rule.
Hey, it didn’t just apply to chips.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Great. I’ve been great. Really fabulous. You? What have you been up to?” Casual chapel chitchat was clearly not her jam.
“Also great. I’m back.” He thumped his chest, careful not to whack Louise. “Started a photography business in Denver.”
“Yeah? That’s great. Good for you.” Sadie chucked him on the biceps. Like he was her brother.
He wasn’t her brother.
He watched where her small fist bounced off his skin, but he didn’t move. The skin on her knuckles heated where she’d touched him.
Whatever spark had been between them before, it clearly hadn’t dimmed with time.
No touching, Sadie. Bad Sadie.
She did her best not to do a full body scan now that he was so close. He’d notice and then things would get super awkward because Roman knew he was hot. Always had known that. And Sadie didn’t need to indulge him.
Except, well…maybe a little glance wouldn’t be bad.
She did a quick—really barely noticeable—scan of him, tip to toe.
Dang, Roman had turned into a man. More of a man than she even remembered him to be. Before, he’d definitely been male, but something in him had changed fundamentally. Like, at the molecular level, he was the same guy she’d known, but better. Mature.
She did a full shiver in response to his proximity. If there had been a spark the last time they saw each other, then this time, there was a full-on sizzle.
A glance up and, yes, he knew exactly what she was up to. There was no question, with the way his eyes glittered, that he knew he’d just been—
“Sadie Howard just checked me out,” he singsonged.
No use in lying. “Yes, I did.”
“It’s okay,” he said, his dimple popping. “I checked you out earlier. When you came in with Marlee.”
Well, crap. Sadie glanced down at her tan dress. Maybe she should’ve gone with something that showed a whole lot more cleavage and a whole lot less blah.
“I heard you’d moved away,” he said.
“Where’d you hear that?” The answer seemed important for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
His eyes scanned her face. What was he trying to see? “I asked Eli.”
He’d asked about her? Apparently, not recently, because, “I moved away and then moved back.”
That admission clearly caught him by surprise.
“Now I’m back and you’re back,” she said. “And everyone is great.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Who knew I’d run into Denver’s best defense lawyer right outside the bathrooms at my brother’s wedding. Small world.”
Once, she’d dreamed of being a trial attorney. Roman knew that.
Sadie had learned quickly to avoid anyone who interfered with her career and her life, especi
ally when they were men who wanted to share her bed, too.
By the time that internship prospect had dissolved, the other spots were all spoken for. What was left? Well…
“I’m a divorce attorney,” she said.
Then it was Roman’s turn for his expression to falter because, seriously, who would’ve guessed this was the path she’d end up on? He recovered quickly, rearranging his expression back to neutral.
“Let’s have dinner,” he said, the suggestion spoken with such certainty it was practically a proclamation. “I’ve always wanted to share roasted chicken with a divorce attorney. It’s been a personal dream of mine.”
“That’s your dream?” Sadie asked. “I always thought you wanted more from life.”
“We all have secrets.” Roman moved a hair closer.
Without intending to, without planning it, Sadie took a small step toward him. “What are your other secrets?”
The charge between them magnified to the point where she swore if she tried really hard, she would be able to see it.
“Come to dinner with me and I’ll tell you another.”
The crackling between them intensified. All she had to do was reach out, run her palm along his jaw, and stand on her tippy-toes to get a Roman-hit like she didn’t even know she needed.
Roman leaned toward her so they were sharing the same air.
Her cell rang, severing the moment. She fumbled for it, swiping her thumb across the screen to see who was calling.
Saved by her mother.
“Mom,” Sadie said, stepping away from Roman. “Hi.”
“Hi, baby girl,” her mother said. “How’s Marlee?”
“Still pregnant.” Sadie turned slightly away from Roman. He didn’t move, however.
Her mom let out a long sigh. “Let me know if that changes.”
“You know you’ll be my first call. I already promised four times.”
“Sometimes a future grandma just needs to keep checking.”
Of course, she did.
They said their goodbyes, Sadie staring into Roman’s eyes as she finished her call.
The moment she hung up, Roman pounced.
“Have dinner with me, Sadie. Please.” No more fun-loving Roman. This guy was on a mission.
Do Me a Favor: A second chance, hilarious rom com! (Mile High Matched Book 4) Page 4