yes, I like you. No, I do not care if you think your lingerie model neighbor is hot,” I lied. “I’m here because you’re in trouble and David Proctor trusts me. I’m your attorney, and yes I’m young and I’m female, but because I am your lawyer, you cannot flirt with me, okay? Just pretend I have a dick instead. You know what I mean?” I asked, exhausted from trying to get all the words out of my mouth as fast as I could.
He sat and looked at the steering wheel for a beat, taking it in. Then he turned to look at me, a vaguely puzzled smile on his face. “You are weirder than I gave you credit for,” he said. “Pretend you have a dick ?”
I sighed. This was harder than I thought. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want there to be any issues between us: there can’t be,” I said, and it was true. No one needed or wanted their job more than me. One hundred thousand in debt down, two hundred thousand to go, I reminded myself. “And I don’t want to hypothesize about whether you think I’m pretty or not,” I said, even though I desperately, pathetically, insanely wanted to know if he did in fact think I was pretty. “Let’s just get off this topic. And never go there again.”
“Because?” he asked me. He was looking at me with a sober expression on his face. Not humorous. Not distressed. Just level.
“Because I need to keep you out of jail.” And I won’t concentrate on my work if all I’m thinking about his your hot body. “And I need my job.”
“Well, those things are important to me, too. But I won’t pretend you have a dick,” he said. “You’re too pretty to have a dick.”
I felt myself beam at him, basking in his sneaky compliment, until I reminded myself I shouldn’t beam. I composed my face. “Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s go get started.”
“You’re the boss,” he smiled, and his smile had only the hint of an illicit gleam in it. But it was enough that I felt a small, illicit gleam in my heart, mirroring his, shine back towards him. Even though that shine could never burn.
Chapter 6
“ W ell , let’s get started,” Walker said. “It’s already late.” I looked at the clock: it was seven thirty.
“This is pretty early for me, actually,” I said, as we went into his house and I examined the gleaming grey-tiled floors in his immaculate mud room. He motioned for me to follow him; I did so nervously, my heels echoing on the tiled floor.
“I like that sound,” he said, nodding at my heels. I glared at him. “I’m just kidding. Sort of.”
We walked into his vast kitchen and my jaw dropped: it was amazing, just like out of a design magazine. I didn’t know how he’d modernized the old building, but the ceilings were soaring and all of the appliances were so new they looked like something out of the future. But the room was beautiful beyond that. The walls were painted a warm, inviting green color; there were colorful original paintings carefully positioned throughout the room, all softly, expertly lit. I’d never seen the type of stone that comprised his island and countertops, but it sparkled from within, like it was magic, like there was light shining out from inside. “This is incredible,” I said. I’d never been in a more beautiful room than this kitchen. “It’s like a kitchen for people who are too good to exist in the real world — it’s like a movie set.”
“I probably am too good for the real world,” he said, but when I glared at him again he laughed and I knew he was just teasing me. “I hired somebody to do it, of course. But all of those are my sister’s paintings — Adrian — she’s really talented.” He sounded proud.
I went over and looked at them. “Is this what she does for a living? I thought you said she was still in school.”
“She is — she’s getting her Masters at the MFA School. She wants to start a gallery. She’s been painting and dragging me to the Museum her whole life."
“These are wonderful,” I
Jen McConnel
Lloyd Corricelli
Lorelei Moone
Jayne Castle
Anthony Summers
Juliet Waldron
Vina Jackson
Melanie Jackson
Joe Hart
Linwood Barclay