made in the shipping business, she had more money in her trust fund than her grandchildren’s children would ever be able to spend.
Or maybe until he realized she wasn’t the clingy type and was perfectly content living alone? Or maybe until he learned that aside from her family, her career ranked at the top of her list of priorities?
“Are you allergic to cats?” she asked suddenly.
He slathered butter on his pancakes. “No. Do you like dogs?”
“Very much,” she said. Brooke was allergic, but Katie had recently acquired a cocker spaniel, which she’d taken to spoiling whenever she visited her sister.
“I know you like hard rock,” he said, pouring a generous amount of syrup over his pancakes.
She salted and peppered her eggs, then mixed them with her hash browns. “My tastes vary,” she admitted. She liked everything from hard rock to hip-hop to the stuff from the sixties and seventies her mother used to play so often, in addition to classical and opera. In fact, she was supposed to accompany her grandmother to a chamber music performance Sunday afternoon. “Let me guess, you’re a country boy at heart.”
He shook his head and his grin turned sheepish. “Motown. None of those CD remakes or compilations, either. Vinyl or nothing at all.”
She’d like to see him in nothing at all. “Temptations or Four Tops?” she asked, reining in those baser thoughts that could lead her straight to a broken heart.
“Temptations. Especially the earlier stuff before they cut David Ruffin loose.” He cut into a sausage link, then dragged it through the syrup pooling on his plate. “And before you ask, Smokey Robinson is a songwriting genius.”
“If we’re talking old school, I prefer Lennon and McCartney. Or Elton John and Bernie Taupin. But a man who knows his Motown…?” She plucked a strip of bacon from her plate. “Impressive. So what brings you to Boston, Sebastian? Escaping an ex-wife? Girlfriend, maybe?”
His crooked smile had her pulse thumping pleasantly. Among other, more intimate places.
“Is that your way of wanting to know if I’m single?”
She took a bite of her bacon, smiled and nodded.
“Single. Never been married. You?”
“Same,” she said. Although, she’d been close once. Dangerously so. Two and a half years ago she’d been twenty-four hours away from walking down the aisle at the perfect society wedding when she’d discovered her fiancé hadn’t stopped dating. The jerk.
“And you’re in Boston because…?”
“Work,” he said, cutting into his pancakes.
“Work? What kind of work?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
She couldn’t help herself. She laughed.
He smiled. “Don’t start,” he said, his tone laced with humor. “There probably isn’t a lawyer joke I haven’t heard.”
“It’s not that,” she said, then burst out laughing again. So much for her wanting to be just Joey tonight. Well, she thought, at least he’d understand the demands of her job. Not that it really made any difference. Beyond tonight, anyway.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m a lawyer,” she admitted. “A litigator, actually.”
His smile slowly faded. “Yeah?”
Uh-oh. So much for all those intriguing possibilities. She wondered how long it’d take him to get to the door.
“What firm?”
Her own smile waned and she frowned. Wait a minute. Didn’t he say he was from Miami? Wasn’t the new head of…
Oh no. It couldn’t be the same…it just couldn’t be him.
This was more than a coincidence, it was insane. And unfair! The first time in months she’d actually been attracted to a man and he was off-limits? So totally not fair!
“Samuel, Cyrus and Kane,” she said.
He pushed his plate aside as if he’d just lost his appetite. She could relate. Hers had already evaporated.
Over the table, he thrust his hand toward her, which she automatically took. “Sebastian Stanhope,” he said, and gave her hand a brisk, impersonal shake. “Samuel, Cyrus and Kane’s new—”
“Head of litigation,” she finished, and dropped his hand. “And my new boss.”
3
“DID YOU SAY BOSS?”
Joey reached for her leather jacket and jammed her hand into the pocket for the small wad of bills. “That I did.” She peeled off a twenty and dropped it on the table. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Stanhope. See you Monday.”
She scooted from the booth, her movements jerky as she shrugged into her jacket. A mixture of disappointment and deep frustration, which she couldn’t entirely discount as sexual in nature, collided inside her.
“Joey, wait.”
“Some other time,” she said, knowing it was a lie. Then she hightailed it out the front door.
A blast of cold January air bit at her exposed skin and whipped her hair into her face. A bone-deep chill instantly settled over her. Shivering, she shoved her hair from her face before tugging up the collar of her jacket, looking for warmth. With her hands tucked inside her pockets, she hunkered down and hurried to her car, which was sitting across the street at Rosalie’s.
The lot was deserted with the exception of her sporty red BMW parked under the hazy glow of a security light. A silver SUV with a Florida license plate sat a few yards away. Stanhope’s.
Still shivering, she pulled out her keys and pressed the button for the keyless entry to unlock her car. Just her rotten luck. Finally, she meets a guy who doesn’t have jerkwad written all over him, one who would actually understand the concept of billable hours and the demands of being a career-hungry associate attorney in a large firm, and he was as off-limits as they came. No way could she allow anything interesting to happen now—not with the revelation of Sebastian Stanhope being her new boss.
“Shit,” she muttered and yanked open the door. She climbed into the driver’s seat and fired the engine before tugging the door closed with a hard slam. And things had been going so well, too, she thought. Well enough that she’d been seriously considering that a brief affair might not be such a bad idea after all.
She cranked up the heater and sat trembling in the cold, cursing and giving the engine time to warm. Sometimes, life just wasn’t fair. Maybe she should’ve gone to Chassy tonight and hung out with her half sister, after all. But no, tonight she’d wanted to be just Joey and what had it gotten her? A whole lot of nothing except an ache between her legs she so wanted Sebastian to ease.
His
