you he was breathtaking,” she heard Jackie say. Before she could reply, he turned and their eyes locked. She stood rooted to the spot as he shrugged off his camel hair coat and draped it over the back of his chair. His actions were slow, deliberate, all the while holding her gaze. Goose bumps danced up her bare arms. It felt like she was the one removing layers.
“I don’t suppose I can convince you to switch tables, can I? You’re not interested in dating anyway. I’ll give you both my twelve and fifteen.”
Eyes still glued to the lawyer, Roxy shook her head. “Sorry, Jackie, no can do. Not this time.”
Grabbing her tray, she purposely served her other tables before making her way toward him. With her back to that stare, his pull diminished a little, though she could still feel him watching her with every move she made. Reminding her of his existence. As if she could forget.
Finally she had no choice—or customers—left and sauntered her way to his table.
“You’re a difficult person to pin down, Miss O’Brien,” he greeted. “I went by your apartment first and some guy told me you were ‘at the bar.’ I took a chance and assumed he meant here.” He smiled, as though being there was the most natural thing in the world, which it was decidedly not. “We never finished our conversation from earlier.”
The guy had to be joking. “What was there to finish? I pretty much heard everything I needed to hear when you insulted me and my mother.”
“You misunderstood. I wasn’t trying to insult you. Had you stuck around, you would have realized I was merely pointing out your story has some very questionable holes in it.”
“My mistake.” Misunderstood her foot. If that was his idea of a misunderstanding, then she was the Queen of New York. “Next time my life is turned upside down by a deathbed confession, I’ll try to make sure the story is more complete.”
She tucked her tray under her arm. “Is there anything else? I’ve got customers to wait on.” He wasn’t the only one who could be dismissive.
“I’ll have a Scotch. Neat.”
Great. He planned to stick around. Maybe she would let Jackie have the table. “Anything else?”
“Yes, there is. You forgot this.” Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out a gray envelope. Seeing it, Roxy nearly groaned out loud. “Your mother took so much effort to preserve the collection. Seemed a shame to break up the set.”
She felt like an idiot. Figures she’d mess up her grand exit. She never was good at stage directions. “Thank you. But you didn’t have to drive all the way here to return it. You could have mailed it back to me.”
“No problem at all. I didn’t want to risk the envelope being damaged. Besides…”
Roxy had been reaching for the stack, when his hand came down to cover hers. “I figured this would buy me a few more minutes of your time,” he finished, his eyes catching hers.
Warmth spread through Roxy’s body, starting with her arm and moving upward. Glancing down at the table, she saw his hand still covered hers. The tapered fingers were almost twice the size of hers. If he wanted, he would wrap her hand right up in a strong, tight embrace. Feeling the warmth seeping into her cheeks, she pulled free.
“For what?” she asked, gripping her tray tightly. Squeezing the hard plastic helped chase away the sensation his hand left behind.
“I told you. You left before we could finish our conversation.”
“Given what I stuck around for, can you blame me? I’ll go get your drink.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said as soon as she’d spun around. “You’re going to need a lot thicker skin than that if you want to go after the Sinclairs.”
Roxy froze. What did he say?
“That is why you came by to see me, isn’t it?” he continued. “Because you want to make a claim against Wentworth Sinclair’s estate?”
She was afraid to say yes, in case the other shoe dropped on her head. Slowly she turned around to find the lawyer looking more than a little pleased with himself for having caught her off guard. Was he trying to tell her she had a case after all?
So help him, if he was playing with her….
“Look, here’s the deal.” He leaned forward, gold cuff links catching the light. “Your case is a long shot. Both parties have passed away, and the only proof you have is a pile of love letters. Not to mention thirty years have gone by. The courts aren’t exactly generous when it comes to claims that old. Truth is, scaling Mount Everest would be easier.”
“Thanks for the recap.” And here she thought there was something to his comment. “If that’s what you came all the way over here to tell me, you wasted the gas.”
“You’re not letting me finish again.”
Roxy stopped. Although hearing him out seemed like a waste of time to her. How many times did she need to hear him say her case wasn’t good enough for him? “Okay,” she said, waiting. “Finish. My case is harder than climbing Mount Everest. What else do you need to tell me?”
A slow smile broke out across his face. A confident smile that stilled everything in her body. “Only that I happen to really enjoy mountain climbing.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I’LL, um, go get your drink.” Spinning around, Roxy made a beeline to the bar. It was the only response she could think of. Did he say what she thought he said? He was taking her case?
“You look like a truck hit you,” Jackie remarked when she reached the bar rail. “What happened? Richie Rich turn out to be a creep?”
If she weren’t still in a daze, Roxy would comment on the hopeful expectancy in the other woman’s voice. “Not a creep. My lawyer,” she corrected.
“I thought you said you didn’t have one,” Dion said.
“I didn’t think I did.” She still wasn’t sure. She didn’t trust her ears. For that matter, she wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Mike Templeton. There had to be a catch.
Quickly she looked over her shoulder. There he sat, stiff and formal, arranging what looked like paperwork on the table. He certainly didn’t seem the type to lead someone on.
“If you’re serious,” she said, when her rounds finally brought him back to his table, “then what was all that business about Henry Hudson and not having proof?”
“Had to figure out how loyal you were to your story somehow, didn’t I?” he remarked, raising the glass to his lips.
“Un-freaking-believable.” It was a test. If it weren’t such an amazingly bad idea, she’d pour Scotch in his lap. She still might. “Do you have any idea how pis—How upset I was?”
“From the way you stormed out, I could hazard a guess. But that also tipped the scale in your favor. Either you truly believed your story or you were a damn good actress.”
She
