Want It, page 4
“Hmm.”
She met Lottie’s gaze, knowing full well the woman was assessing her. She expected another question, but Lottie just motioned with her hand. “Let’s go find him then. This way.”
She followed her down the hall. It was completely unlike the firm, which was muted in its decor. Winners Inc. wasn’t somber in any way. As she peeked into the various open doors, it seemed that each person had decorated their space the way they’d wanted. Some offices had bright colors and different textures, some more subtle palettes. They were all inviting, like stepping into someone’s living room.
A phone rang in one of the offices and Lottie paused. “I should get that. Go on ahead. It’s the office at the end. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” she murmured as she strode to the doorway, stopped the wide entrance of the office Lottie had indicated, and knocked on the frame before peeking inside.
She’d researched Jamie MacNiven. She’d seen countless pictures of him on and off the field, in all sorts of situations. She’d have recognized him if she’d passed him on the street.
In person, he looked exactly like she thought he would—urbane and polished, with thick hair and an expensive watch. Not really any different than the men she worked with, except that his suit was less traditional and more like fashion. He perched on a desk, his hands holding the edge as he smiled at the dark-haired woman in front of him.
The only thing about him that she didn’t expect was the look in his eyes directed at the woman, who had to be Rachel Morgan, his fiancée. It was how Connor looked at Louisa—like she was the only person he wanted in his world.
Rachel turned around with a polite but welcoming smile. She was a pretty woman, with light eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, which made Jules wonder what they had been talking about. “Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all.” Jamie MacNiven studied her with his piercing eyes, the same blue as his suit. “Julianne Emory?” he asked in a suave accent.
She had the urge to put her sunglasses back on because it was like he could see all the way to her soul. “I can wait outside if this isn’t a good time.”
“Don’t be silly. You have an appointment.” Rachel smoothed down her skirt. “Jamie and I can finish our discussion later. I’m Rachel, Jamie’s business partner,” she said, holding out her hand.
“She’s my fiancée,” Jamie said.
“I know,” Jules said as she stepped forward to shake her hand.
“Jamie, in the office I told you that I’m just your business partner,” Rachel protested mostly in a hiss under her breath.
Jamie smiled fondly at her. “I’m not going to hide my feelings for you, and I don’t give a damn what people find professional. We’re here to coach winning, and if they can’t see that marrying you is the best example of winning, then they don’t belong here.”
Rachel visibly melted. Then she glanced over her shoulder.
Jules shrugged. “That was kind of sweet.”
“Yes, but it’s different for women.” Rachel returned her attention to her fiancé. “They see you all over me and thinking you’re winning. They see me with your hands on me and they think I slept my way to the top.”
Jamie scowled, standing up. “Who thinks that?”
“The world.” She gestured broadly. “Tell him, Julianne.”
Jamie glanced at her.
“I’d lose every scrap of respect I’d built if my colleagues and clients saw me even in a casual setting with a man I worked with,” she said. Not that she’d ever wanted a man she’d worked with.
Now, that bad boy in the hallway? Different story. Her heart started to race just thinking about him, and she ruthlessly pulled herself back from that precipice.
“Don’t worry, Julianne. He’s idealistic, especially about love, but he gets it done.” Rachel patted Jamie’s arm, sending Jules a friendly smile as she left the office. “Good luck. I hope we take you as a client. I like you.”
“Sit.” Jamie nodded to the couch on one side of his office.
Aware of his assessing gaze, she took off her overcoat and draped it on the couch next to her purse before sitting down.
He crossed his arms. “Julianne Emory.”
“Call me Jules.” She studied him. “Unless we’re not going to be working together, in which case I’m Ms. Emory to you.”
“It’s a deal.” He grinned, crossing his arms across his chest. “So, Jules, tell me what you need.”
“To win,” she said without thought.
He nodded, not acting surprised. “It seems from your track record that you already know how to do that. It’s really quite impressive.”
Of course he’d investigated her. She’d done her research too. “As is yours. Your family has a legacy in both soccer and whiskey. I believe it was your grandfather who started a whiskey brand based on an old family recipe?”
Jamie smiled. “It’s no longer exclusively a family business, but yes.”
“It was very successful.”
He shrugged. “Why do something if you’re not going to go all the way? But I had nothing to do with the whiskey, except to enjoy it.”
“What made you follow in your father’s shoes in soccer?” she asked.
“I didn’t. I just had similar shoes.”
It couldn’t be that easy. She frowned, thinking about being an attorney like her father. “Was he happy when you decided to play?”
He raised a brow. “I can see why your track record is so impressive. You don’t relent.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, waiting to hear his opinion of that. Most people—even in her career—believed a driven woman was pushy or a bitch.
“I like that. I felt you were determined like that.” He folded his hands over his leg. “What surprises me is that you need to see me. What changed? Did you have an altercation with a client?”
“No.”
“Did a partner at your firm come on to you?” he asked in the same moderate tone.
“Not lately.” She shrugged. That was part of the game, and she always dealt with it.
“Your personal life?”
She laughed without mirth. “I’m an attorney on partner track. I have no personal life.”
“Is that what you’re wanting to rectify? Is there someone you’re interested in?”
The bad boy in the hallway outside flashed in her head, and she felt herself start to get very hot all over again.
“So there’s someone,” Jamie said, his acute gaze trained on her.
“There’s no one.” Like she’d said—shitty timing. Although if she could have one night with the bad boy, she’d jump on it.
She cleared her throat and sat forward. “I don’t have time for anyone, not if I want to succeed at my career.”
“It seems you’ve already succeeded,” he said gently. “But let’s set that aside for the moment. I still don’t know why or how you need our help. I assume it must have to do with your work.”
“I have a trial coming up in January. It’s a civil case, a matter of a breach of contract. The opposing counsel is Julian Holland. He’s one of Chicago’s preeminent lawyers.”
“He’s good, I take it?”
“Very.” She leaned in. “What you don’t know—what no one knows—is that Julian Holland is my biological father.”
“Ah. That makes it sticky, doesn’t it?” He continued to study her. “Does he know he’s your father?”
“Yes.” Her hands fisted, just thinking about the dismissive way he always looked at her, like she was something sticky on the bottom of his Italian shoes that he couldn’t scrape off.
“And you can’t recuse yourself?”
“I don’t want to.” She took a deep breath and ordered herself to calm down. She wasn’t a teenager anymore—she was a grown woman. “The first time I met him, he told me in front of all my peers that I’d never amount to anything. Now fate’s given me the perfect opportunity to show him who I am. I’m not turning away from that.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked again. “I assume you’ve prepped extensively for court. You always win.”
“I don’t know that I can win against him.” Saying that out loud made her stomach twist. “He has a way of getting to me. He doesn’t even need to say anything. He just looks at me and I feel like folding. One time at a bar association function, someone ‘introduced’ me”—she made air quotes—“to him and the way he looked at me made me sick. Literally.” She’d had to excuse herself to go to the restroom, and when that wasn’t enough space, she’d snuck out and gone home. She’d had a handful of antacids that night, and it still hadn’t helped her heartburn. “I need help shoring myself up so he can’t pull me off my game. We have mediation talks coming up in three weeks, and I need to be able to face him strongly.”
Jamie stared at her, obviously thinking.
She sat back, holding his gaze. It went on for so long that she started to worry that he was going to turn her away after all, though she refused to let that fear show.
But then he nodded. “How this works is I discuss your needs with the team and we decide whether one of us is a good fit to help you.”
"When does that happen?” she asked, feeling the window of opportunity narrowing.
"We’re meeting later today,” he replied. As if he read her mind, he added, “Sometimes we sit on things overnight, so I’ll call you by tomorrow with an answer either way.”
She nodded, gathering her things. “Do I get to make a closing argument in my favor?”
He tipped his head, considering her, as he got to his feet. “Do you feel you need to?”
“That depends on how inclined you are to coach me,” she said as she stood.
“How inclined are you to take my coaching?” he asked.
“Is that a rhetorical question, or do you actually want an answer?” She faced him. In court, sometimes you had to stick to pure facts, and sometimes you needed to play up the emotions. Her unerring sense told her complete emotional honesty was the way to go here. “This is like a boogeyman under my bed. I need to banish it, but I haven’t figured out how to do that on my own, so I’m asking for help.”
Jamie studied her, compassion in his gaze. “What will you do once you conquer this fear?”
She shrugged, trying for a casual smile, but on the inside her stomach clenched. “I hope we get to find out.”
Three
If Lottie had to pick a word for her life, she’d use blessed. She walked into the Winners Inc. meeting room, steno pad in hand, and plopped herself into her usual seat, feeling all the gratitude.
Meeting room. It was like no meeting room she’d ever been in as a former secretary. It was “posh,” as Jamie liked to describe it, with luscious textures and deep colors. There was a table and chairs, but only because Rachel had insisted on it. If Jamie had had his way, they would have had couches in here. It would have made for a cushy place to wait for the team to arrive.
The team. She sighed. Another word she loved. Who’d have thought that at eighty someone would pick her to be on their team?
Someone with good sense, obviously.
And that was what Jamie MacNiven had in spades. He’d chosen her granddaughter—the best person on this earth—as his bride, after all.
The two of them walked in, Jamie’s hand lovingly on her back. Rachel was laughing at something he whispered in her ear.
Lottie sighed. Because she loved seeing her grandchild so happy, yes—Rachel had been unhappy for so long—but also because of love. It’d been a long time since she herself had felt it, so it was lovely to see someone she cared for caught in its grip.
But darn if she wasn’t a wee bit jealous too.
Not that she’d begrudge their happiness. Quite the contrary. Seeing Rachel and Jamie so deliriously happy after everything her granddaughter had gone through with her ex (the peckerwood) brought warmth to her heart.
Frankly, she wanted someone to bring warmth to her loins too.
She was eighty, but she had a lot of life left in her—and a lot of love to give. It may have been forever since she’d been with a man, but it had to be like riding a bike. She hadn’t done that in a long time either, but she knew if she hopped on, she’d be able to ride forever.
She knew whom she wanted to hop on, too—Otto Waring.
She’d known Otto a long time; he was a regular at her neighborhood bar and one of Chicago’s most beloved sports columnists. But it’d only been recently that she’d seen him for the hunk that he was.
Before she hadn’t had anything to offer him. Why would he want a washed-out old woman who’d never been anything other than a secretary and a mother (and not a very good one, at that)? Otto was an incredible artist, impeccably summing up people with just a few strokes of his pen. She’d figured he could find someone more interesting.
But she was seeing life—and herself—in a new way. She meant it when she said she had a lot to offer still.
Heck, they could have another twenty years together.
Twenty years of sexy bliss, or twenty years of lonely solitude? She knew which she wanted to sign up for.
And she wanted to see if he might want to sign up for it too.
Since she’d started working here, she thought she might have a chance to win him over. She was no longer an old woman who prowled the lonely hallways of her old house. She had things to talk about again—things that didn’t include her various aches and pains.
She was a living, active person again.
Almost. At least she was well on her way.
Enter Operation: EMPOWER.
She loved that word. No one ever talked about being empowered in her day. Superheroes were just men. She loved that, in this day and age, a woman had the chance to become one as well.
Darned if she didn’t want her own cape.
Rachel sat in the chair next to hers, tucking her skirt under her. “Hello, Lottie,” she said very properly.
“Hello, Rachel,” Lottie replied just as properly, rolling her eyes. Her granddaughter was so funny about her relationships in the workplace. Rachel wanted to convey professionalism, insisting that people wouldn’t respect her if she didn’t. Having worked as a secretary for so many years, Lottie understood where she was coming from, but on the other hand, it hadn’t mattered how professional she’d been—some people were buttholes and treated women disrespectfully. It made no difference how hard you tried. And from this vantage point at her age, she knew showing affection was more important than maintaining some sort of false regard.
Jamie came over to her and leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Ms. Lottie, you look prettier every day.”
“You must be losing your eyesight,” she said, laughing, but she blushed a little too. She felt prettier. She thought it might be because she’d thrown away all her old underwear a month ago and bought new, pretty things with her fancy new salary, which was delivered to her bank account electronically.
She especially loved that. No more checks or wasting time at the bank. This grandma was rolling in the new economy. Step one of Operation: EMPOWER was huge.
However, the next steps were proving to be harder.
Jamie took the seat next to her. He leaned back in his chair, rocking a little. “Alice said she had a call today with our tax people. Is Didier coming?”
“Of course Didier’s coming,” Rachel said, taking out her notepads and arranging them in front of her. “He never misses a meeting.”
Jamie frowned. “He’s been strange lately. I don’t know what to expect from him.”
Lottie knew Jamie was worried about his friend. They’d talked about it a couple weeks ago. Didier suddenly retiring from football and joining Winners Inc. when Jamie and Rachel had decided to start the business six months ago had come with mixed feelings. Jamie was happy to have his friend with him, but he’d confided to her that when he asked Didier why he’d retired, he hadn’t been satisfied with the answer, that he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was really amiss with Didier.
If there was one thing she knew about Jamie, it was that his intuition was spot-on. He’d known they were going to do well—he practiced what he preached—and he had anticipated that they’d be as in demand as they were. So him being concerned about Didier meant something was there. Not something that would hurt their clients, but something more personal.
Lottie patted his arm. She was on it.
Jamie picked her hand up and kissed her knuckles, silently thanking her.
As if on cue, Didier Pascal walked into the meeting room. Lottie had known him for about seven months and she saw him every day now, and still every time she saw him she wanted to giggle like a schoolgirl; he was that attractive. He was of mixed heritage, French and Moroccan—a little exotic and a lot beautiful with his hazel eyes. If she’d been twenty years younger…
Okay, forty. But you couldn’t fault a woman for being optimistic.
“Mademoiselle,” he said in his ready-for-the-bedroom voice, leaning down to kiss her on her cheeks. Three times, because “two is never enough when a woman is so beautiful,” he always said.
“Monsieur,” she replied, tilting her head. “Ça va?”
He shrugged in the French way he had. “Et toi?”
“Je suis en forme,” she replied. She looked up to find Rachel gaping at her. “What?”
“Since when do you speak French?” her granddaughter asked.
She shrugged with one shoulder, the way Didier did. She’d been practicing it in the mirror. She thought it looked good on her. “Didier’s been teaching me.”
Rachel turned an accusing look to Jamie.
Jamie just smiled. “I’ve been teaching you French.”
Her granddaughter blushed dark. “Not the sort of things I can say in public,” she said in a low voice.
Jamie just smiled. “French is meant to be spoken in the bedroom, love. Didier would be the first one to tell you that.”
