Want It, page 7
And she wasn’t about to explain herself, so she tied the belt of her coat, picked up her bag, and walked out. “I’ll be back in a couple hours,” she said as she strode past.
“Where are you going?” She heard Moira shuffle some papers. “You have an eleven o’clock—”
She forgot about that. “Reschedule it, please,” she called over her shoulder, not waiting to see Moira’s reaction.
On the street, Jules hailed a cab because it was drizzling. There was traffic, and for a second she considered getting out and walking, but she didn’t want to arrive disheveled. If she’d known, she’d have brought work with her to do.
Instead, to occupy herself, she pulled out her cell phone to text Louisa. She hadn’t touched base in a long time. Louisa would call her going to Winners Inc. “inner work.” Louisa was big on personal growth.
Jules
You know how you’ve been encouraging me to go to therapy all these years?
Louisa answered right away, which wasn’t a surprise. She was always on, in case someone needed her.
Louisa
You’ve finally done it???
* * *
Jules
In a manner of speaking.
* * *
Louisa
What does that mean?
Did you go to Dr. Andrews?
* * *
Jules
I went to Jamie MacNiven.
There was a pause, and then Louisa came back on.
Louisa
I googled him, but the only person I came up with is a former soccer player.
* * *
Jules
That’s him.
Her phone rang a second later.
“Okay, explain, because this Jamie MacNiven that I’m looking at online only retired from soccer a few months ago, so unless he has a psychology degree from a sketchy online university, he’s not qualified to counsel you.”
“He started a business to help people win,” she said, looking down the street to see what the holdup was.
“Ah. It all becomes clear. He’s very attractive, isn’t he?”
“I’m sure his fiancée thinks so.” Truthfully, she hadn’t noticed. But she’d never met anyone as attractive as the bad boy in the hallway. That man was beautiful.
There was a masculine murmur in the background, and then Louisa said, “Connor says he was very successful so he probably understands a winning mindset.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
“How is he going to help you get over your issues with your father?”
“I don’t know.” Just the mention of him made her stomach burn. She reached for her bag, hoping she’d remembered to replenish the antacids. “I have to try though.”
Louisa sighed. “Jules—”
“I’m here,” she said when the cab pulled over in front of the building. She got out a bill to hand to the driver and then pushed open the door. “We can talk about it when we have dinner next.”
“You’re committing to dinner?” Louisa asked in feigned shock. Then she laughed. “If you’re willing to take time out from work to have dinner with us, then this Jamie guy is already doing good.”
Promising to text to arrange dinner, she got off the phone and went up to the reception at the building to give her name. Once they checked her in, she went up. In the elevator, she wondered if she’d run into the bad boy again. A ridiculous thought, she told herself.
Still, she wondered what she’d do if she did.
In Winners Inc., Jamie was leaning at the front desk, talking to the young woman manning it, when she walked in.
“There you are,” he said, walking toward her, his hand out. “Ready to get going?”
She shook his hand. “Very.”
“I want to introduce you to one of my colleagues. I think you two will do well together.” He smiled, gesturing to the back with the sort of casual elegance that she knew she’d never had. You had to be born into it to have it.
The children Julian had had with the woman he’d married, after he’d dumped her mother, had it.
“Everything okay?” Jamie asked suddenly.
She made an unamused sound as she untied the belt of her overcoat. “You know, I came here because I felt like you were the real thing. But now that I see how good you are, I’m not sure how I feel about it.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s honest enough. Wait until you meet Didier.” Hands in his pockets, he ambled rather than walked. “You had no problem leaving work for a bit this morning?”
She had to hold herself back to keep pace with him. “When I told my assistant that I’d be out for a couple hours, she got in a tizzy. She hates her rhythm disrupted.”
“You didn’t tell her where you were going?”
She gave him a flat look. “This is confidential. I can’t afford to have anyone know I’m doing this.”
“Won’t you have to tell her something at some point?” he asked curiously.
“I’m hoping I can just pull rank,” she said with a wry smile.
Jamie gestured to an open door. “We’re meeting in Didier’s office today. Make yourself comfortable.”
Taking her coat off, she stopped short as she stepped into the office. There was a purple velvet couch with zebra print chairs flanking it, a coffee table in the center. The walls were painted a deep teal behind the modern paintings that hung on them, framed in ornate gold. There was a thick rug covering the floor, the sort that looked like your feet would sink into it, a soccer ball at the far end of it. Instead of overhead lighting, there were crystal lamps.
She’d never seen a room like this outside a movie. She glanced at the paintings and did a double take when she saw that they were abstract nudes. “This isn’t an office. It’s a bordello.”
“Didier will love that you think so,” Jamie said in a wry tone.
“I will love what?” a man said as he walked in carrying a silver tray. He was about the same size as Jamie, dark where Jamie was light, with black curly hair styled just so and the deeply bronzed skin of someone born with the desert in their soul. The way he was dressed, with slacks and an open-collared shirt under a sweater, the sleeves rolled up, and a scarf arranged around his neck, should have looked insipid—not to mention the purple velvet loafers—but somehow it looked elegant.
The way Jamie just reclined on the couch told her that this was normal for his colleague. “Jules said that your office looks like a bordello.”
The man shrugged as he set the tray in his hands down on the table. “It is an honest mistake, as I am very sensual.”
“Jules, this is Didier Pascal.” Jamie gestured to the extravagant man. “Didier, this is our new client, Julianne Emory.”
Watching her with a piercing gaze, Didier came and took her hand. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her cheek, but he just said, “Enchantée, Julianne.”
His eyes, though, were what stood out. They were sharp, like he saw past a person’s layers to what they tried to hide.
He said something more in French, and she didn’t understand it except that he gestured to the couch, so she supposed that he invited her to sit. “You’re French?” she asked as she set her bag and coat on a chair and sat on the opposite end of the couch from Jamie.
“Half French, half Moroccan.” He picked up a cup by its saucer and held it out to her.
She looked at it, for the first time smelling the aroma that emanated from it—something dark and rich and spicy. Mysterious. “What is it?”
“Coffee,” he said simply.
She’d never smelled coffee like this. Knowing this was some sort of initiation or test, she took the saucer and lifted the cup to her lips. “Thank you,” she said, meeting his gaze as she took a sip.
She paused as the flavor hit her tongue. She’d never tasted anything like it. She took another sip, focusing on it. “This isn’t like any coffee I’ve ever had.”
“It’s Moroccan coffee,” Didier said as he handed one to Jamie. He picked up a cup for himself and sat on a zebra chair, arranging his pants just so. “My maman taught me. It is good, non?”
“It’s delicious,” she murmured, taking another sip.
This was what the bad boy’s kisses would taste like, she realized suddenly.
She choked.
“You all right?” Jamie asked.
She waved off his concern, setting the cup on the table next to her. “Fine,” she said, getting herself under control. She cleared her throat and then focused on the Frenchman. “I didn’t see you listed on the company website.”
Didier shrugged. “I am, how you say, a secret weapon.”
“Didier and I played football together for a long time, and he only recently retired.”
“I retired when you did,” Didier replied mildly.
“We’re grateful that he’s working with us while he takes this break from football,” Jamie continued, staring at his colleague.
The man arched his eyebrow. “I am not going back, if that is what you’re asking.”
“I’m more asking why you aren’t going back,” he shot back.
“You can retire, but it makes no sense for me?” Didier asked calmly, looking at his friend over the rim of his little cup.
She looked between the two of them. They cared about each other, like she and Louisa did. She relaxed for the first time all morning. “Do you two need a moment?”
The two men looked at each other and came to some sort of silent agreement. Then they turned their attention completely to her. “You should tell Didier why you’re here, Jules,” Jamie said, relaxing against the back of the couch as he sipped his coffee.
She raised her brow. “You want me to believe that you haven’t briefed him?”
“Of course I’ve briefed him,” Jamie replied back instantly, “but I want him to hear it from you. Humor me.”
Because she needed to maximize her time, she faced the Frenchman. “I have a court case and I want to beat my opponent.”
He made a dismissive sound. “Of course you do.”
She took a deep breath. “The opposing counsel is my biological father.”
Didier shrugged again. “Sometimes you face those you care about on the playing field.”
“I don’t care about him.” She gritted her teeth against the roiling of her stomach. “I want to crush him. But every time I see him, he gets in my head. I need to become impervious to him.”
Raising his brow, Didier studied her, silently drinking his coffee.
She watched him, trying to catch a glimpse of any sort of judgment. She was good at reading people and their body language—it was part of the job, after all—but she couldn’t get a bead on his thoughts at all. It was both annoying and impressive.
Nodding, Didier turned to Jamie and said something in French.
Jamie smiled. “I knew you’d understand. What do you think?”
Shrugging noncommittally, Didier set his coffee cup on the table. “I will need to talk to her more, but it is possible.”
“What’s possible?” she asked, looking between the two of them.
“For me to help Jamie to get you ready,” Didier explained.
“I have a very good relationship with my parents,” Jamie explained. “I can understand enmity between someone and their parents, and I’ll have insight into it, but I’m not going to have the emotional experience of dealing with it. Didier, however, will.”
Didier nodded. “My father and I were not friends.”
Jamie snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. When Didier was five, he decided he was going to get away from his father, and the way to do that was to play football. So he began practicing. He always carried a football, or soccer ball as you Yanks call it, with him so he’d be prepared.”
She looked at the Frenchman with renewed respect. “Do you speak with your father at all?”
“He died when I was eighteen,” the man replied neutrally.
She leaned forward. “Do you regret how it was with him?”
He shook his head. “It was just the way it was. I did not want to follow his path, and I would not allow him to pull me down that path with his grasping.”
She nodded, remembering the morning she’d decided to go to the homeless shelter before she found herself on the sidewalk again with her mother, who’d used the last of their money for drugs again. “I understand that.”
“Good,” Jamie said. “You’ll spend some time with Didier discussing that. In the meantime, tell me what you do for fun.”
“Fun?” She frowned.
“Where you let your hair down and enjoy yourself,” he explained with a wry smile. Then, as if he already knew her, he added, “Something outside of work.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have time for anything besides work. The only thing I do is have dinner with my friends every so often.” She wasn’t going to add that was mostly because Louisa insisted on seeing her.
“What about men? Or women,” Jamie added.
“Men, and I don’t have the space or inclination to waste my time with them.” She thought about the man in the hallway and shifted in her seat.
Didier raised his brow. “That is not healthy. Love is important, even if it is casual love.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not as easy for women, because if I go out with the wrong person it reflects badly on my career. My career is too important to me to risk that, so I mostly don’t go out. Plus, I’m on the partner track, and because I’m a woman, if I show anything that indicates a lack of seriousness, they’ll count that against me.”
“Are you interested in anyone?” Jamie asked despite what she’d just said.
She wondered how Jamie would feel if she told him that the only man who’d revved her engines was likely one of his clients. “There’s no one.”
“Really?” Jamie looked at her like he didn’t believe her.
“Really.” Calling what she felt for that bad boy “interest” didn’t come close to describing it. “Regardless, I don’t have time for a social life, especially at the moment. The mediation is in less than three weeks. Between the pre-trial prep and making sure my client is ready for the court date, I have no time for something like dating.”
Jamie leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands steepled in front of him. “I’m not going to tell you how to do your job. But you came here to have me help you win, so I’m going to help guide you to that.”
“Going on a date isn’t going to help me win against my father.”
“I beg to differ.” He smiled suddenly. “If Rachel were here, she’d tell me I’m jumping the gun. So for the time being, let’s just leave that. But it is true that we need to find something that’s going to relax you. You tense up the moment we start talking about your father.”
She gritted her teeth.
He pointed at her mouth. “Like that.”
She shook her head. “Going on dates is hardly a relaxing endeavor for most women I know.”
“I’m not talking about diving into the deep end with someone. I’m talking about a little friendly conversation over dinner to unwind and get your mind off obsessing about this case.”
She crossed her arms, wanting to argue with him about that, but she’d put her trust in them and if that’s what they believed would help her, she had to at least try. Except going on a date didn’t have to be her only way to relax. “What if I suggest a different way to unwind?”
“A counteroffer?” Jamie looked intrigued. “I’d be interested to see what you come up with. Give me a list.”
“A list?” She cracked a smile. “I thought I could offer to take a bath and leave it at that.”
Jamie chuckled. “Nice try.” He stood up. “Bring the list when you come in tomorrow. Come up with a couple things you can do with Didier too.”
“Tomorrow?” she repeated, standing as well. With a sinking feeling, she asked, “What time?”
“Same time.” Jamie grinned.
“Machiavelli must have looked like you when he was pleased with himself,” she muttered as she slipped into her coat.
The man laughed. “If this were easy, you would have done it on your own.” Sobering, he touched her arm. “I’m getting a clearer picture of what you need.”
She stared into his eyes, feeling oddly vulnerable. She swallowed the feeling back, pulling her determination around her. “Do you think I have a chance?”
“You have more than a chance,” he replied gently. “The real question is, when you’re presented with it, will you go for it?”
“Yes,” she said firmly.
Jamie studied her, not saying anything. Then he said, “See you tomorrow. Don’t forget to do your homework.”
“Yes, sir,” she said wryly. Picking up her bag, she glanced at Didier, who inclined his head and said something in French.
Mental note: learn a few French words. Nodding at them both, she strode out of the office.
A list of diversions. What did she know about relaxing? She hadn’t relaxed a day in her life. She strode down the hall, wishing she could have Moira put it together for her.
At the elevator, she pushed the button and waited for it to arrive, knowing she was already getting worked up about this assignment and not sure how to head that off. The elevator door opened and she started to move inside.
“You,” she heard in that whiskey-soaked voice that had whispered to her in her dreams.
She looked up, right into the striking eyes of the bad boy from the other day.
Six
Hand holding the elevator open, Danny stared into the dark eyes of his woman and knew this had to be a sign.
When MacNiven had turned him away yesterday, Danny had gone back to his hotel room and had a pity party. He’d been this close to hopping on a plane back to London. But what did he have to go back to? The same problems, that was what.
