Asking For It (35 page)

It wasn't easy, but Kate kept her smile. "You've left me alone for the two weeks after camp is closed every year for eight years now. You never worried about it before."

Arnie just looked at her with tired, sad eyes.

Damn it. Kate knew what was coming.

"You miss him," Arnie said.

Ready, Kate scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. We're suing the bastard, which gives me all kinds of satisfaction. And why should I miss someone who turned out to be a snake? Evil. He intends to close the camp!"

Arnie sighed. "All the same, you miss him."

Her gaze averted. It was crazy — but Arnie was right. Ever since they'd decided to sue Griffith, and thus cut all possible ties to him, Kate had been...waxing sentimental. Despite herself, she'd recall all kinds of strange things: the indent of a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled, the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, the timbre of his laugh. A thousand heart-rending details.

Weird. It was so weird. She couldn't miss Griffith, she hated him. Besides, everything he'd ever been or done to her had been a lie.

Letting out a breath, Kate said, "It's not him I miss. It's more like..." She closed her eyes. "It's like now that I know we're taking care of the evil person he actually is, I can...afford to indulge in my fantasy of who he might have been." Surely that's all this was. She wasn't second-guessing herself. Etched in her memory was Griffith's grin when he'd crowed over having fooled her. That was the real Griffith.

So why wasn't this working the other way around? She'd thought taking up arms against the awful Griffith would help her leftover emotions dissipate. Instead, they were growing. It was...crazy.

She opened her eyes to find Arnie giving her one of his impenetrable stares.

"Interesting," he said finally.

Interesting? That was his response to her dark secret?

"And promising," Arnie added, inscrutably.

Promising? She wished Arnie would explain that to her, but he seemed to be done with the subject. Visibly softening, he slapped his hat against his thigh. "Yep, so all right then. I'm goin.'"

Now, when she actually wanted him to stay — at least long enough to explain himself — he was ready to leave. But Kate summoned up another smile. "Have a good time."

Obviously deep in his own thoughts now, Arnie suddenly grinned. A roguish grin. "Oh, I will."

That brief glimpse of Arnie's grin was terrible. It reminded Kate of a similar grin, when anticipating a similar activity. An arrow ripped through her chest.

But she hung onto her smile as Arnie turned and got into his car. This part she didn't want to ask Arnie about. The soft-focus memories of Griffith were bad enough. No way she was going to confess she also longed for him, physically. The reason for it didn't matter so much as the effect it produced. Pain. Because she missed Griffith — in every way it was possible for a woman to miss a man. Griffith!

Through the rising dust of Arnie's Jeep as it started down the road, Kate waved and did her best to look unaffected. Meanwhile she remained flabbergasted — and dismayed.

How could she miss Griffith?

~~~

"Would you please close the door?" On Tuesday morning, Griffith looked up from his position seated behind his desk, his elbows propped on top. He saw Deirdre hesitate, probably thrown by how genteel-like he couched the demand. She must think her boss had become a roller coaster since she'd picked him up last week at Grace Church.

Little did she know he was about to take the roller coaster on its steepest turn yet.

She turned and closed his office door.

Griffith dropped his hands to the tabletop and rose from his seat. "I want to talk about Wildwood."

Deirdre looked about frantically. "I need my iPad."

"No, you don't need to take notes. This is...an informal discussion. Something to knock around a few ideas."

Deirdre gazed up, understandably puzzled. Wildwood was pretty much in the can. There were few new ideas that needed to be batted around regarding the big housing project.

Griffith paced out from behind his desk. No, nothing new...except a burgeoning sense that the whole thing was a mistake. He'd been using all his construction projects, and Wildwood in particular, to distract himself from what he really wanted, and couldn't get.

But as he'd discovered the night before, it wasn't going to work. No matter how much money he made off Wildwood, it wasn't going to fix the aching place inside himself.

Deirdre tapped a hand on the back of her chair. "Speaking of Wildwood, the bank wants an appointment for everyone to sign and finalize that loan."

Griffith waved a hand. "Yeah, yeah."

Deirdre drilled him with her eyes. "I told them today. Lunch. We'll buy."

Griffith turned a surprised gaze on her. "Did you, now?"

"Griffith, you know you've been dragging your feet on that project."

Had he? Griffith felt even more surprised. Had a part of him realized the housing project wasn't going to do it for him — even before last night?

But what would make him feel right? He had to figure it out and, it appeared, he had to figure it out before lunch today.

"What did you want to say about Wildwood?" Deirdre asked.

Griffith turned from her to stalk toward the window. He heard himself ask, "Do you like me?"

When he turned to peek, Deirdre looked appropriately taken aback. This was hardly about Wildwood. "Uh...sure, I like you," she replied warily.

He smiled. "So polite."

"No, no." She lifted a hand to give a delicate cough. "I'm not just being polite."

Now Griffith was grinning. "You're the only person who noticed I was missing. So I guess you like me
a little
."

Deirdre blinked quickly. "Um, yes, I just said so, didn't I?"

Griffith laughed, but not very loudly. He didn't have a single friend. No wonder he was unhappy.

"Mr. Blaine?" The voice was the receptionist's, speaking through the intercom set on Griffith's desk.

Turning toward the machine, Griffith said, "Yes?"

"There's a Mr. Ascensios here. He says he'd like to see you, but I don't see an appointment for him."

In front of Griffith, Deirdre visibly started. Griffith turned toward her. "That name means something to you?"

Deirdre's eyes were very wide, her expression an odd mix of excitement and anxiety. She nodded. "He's — he was — my boyfriend."

"And he wants to speak to me?" Griffith was intrigued.

"I — It might have something to do with Wildwood." Deirdre's face flushed.

Griffith turned toward his intercom, while keeping his eyes on Deirdre. "Send him on in." To Deirdre he asked, "Why would he be here about Wildwood?"

"I — He's a lawyer," Deirdre admitted, too late.

A dark-haired, dark-eyed man in a well-tailored suit stood at Griffith's door. He was holding a suspicious-looking manila envelope. But the dark-haired man didn't even look in Griffith's direction, not at first. No, first he sent a smoldering look toward Griffith's plaid-skirted assistant, a look of such intense hunger it nearly fried the air.

"Uh, can I help you?" Griffith asked only in order to help Deirdre, whose self-possession looked scattered. Otherwise he had no desire to aid an unknown lawyer with an envelope.

But Ascensios turned toward Griffith as if he'd just remembered he was there. The big manila envelope in his hand came forward. He thrust it into Griffith's hands. "Consider yourself served."

"Ah. Thank you so much." Griffith never liked getting lawsuits, even though nine times out of ten his lawyers could make it go away. He untied the envelope, however, curious since Ascensios, having done his dirty deed, seemed in no hurry to vacate the premises.

"Hello, Deirdre," Ascensios said, his voice gruff.

"Ricky." Deirdre tossed her head, smiling. Self-possession regained.

With a good idea of who was in the driver's seat in this relationship, Griffith took a look at the lawsuit. At the top he read,

Camp Wild Hills, a nonprofit corporation, Plaintiff.

"Kate?" he asked, choking. "You work for Kate?" And she was suing him? Or at least she was attempting to do so. Griffith had been assured, at three hundred-fifty dollars an hour, that she would not win any lawsuit. He looked over at Ascensios. The attorney, risking life and limb, was still in the room, and still staring starvedly at Griffith's assistant.

"Kate?" Deirdre asked, blinking and looking over at Griffith. "You're on a first-name basis with the head of Camp Wild Hills?"

Ricky turned his intense stare onto Griffith. "So I've heard."

"But — ?" Deirdre's brows were drawing together.

Griffith returned Ricky's stare. "Son, I hope you're not charging her too much for this nonsense."

The young lawyer turned a dusky shade.

"I don't think he's charging her anything," Deirdre put in dryly. "He's a personal friend of hers, from way back."

Griffith glanced toward Deirdre, then back to Ascensios. "Wait a minute. This is a little too much of a coincidence. You're a personal friend of Kate, and just
happened
to start romancing my assistant?"

"'Kate,'" Deirdre repeated. "Griffith, how do you know — ?"

"It's not a coincidence," Ascensios had the balls to admit. His gaze remained steady on Griffith. "I met Deirdre on purpose."

"To find dirt on me, or Wildwood." Griffith nodded, understanding that much, though not the way Ascensios was looking at Deirdre like he wanted to eat her up. "But...if you knew what I was planning about Wildwood, why didn't Kate know who I was when I showed up at her camp? It wasn't until Deirdre called her she figured it out."

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute," Deirdre called out. She waved her hands. "Griffith, you were at Kate's camp?
That's
where you were those two weeks?" Her eyes were wide.

"Of course that's where I was." Griffith was starting to feel punchy. "Could Simon Grolier have picked a more awkward place to leave me? But lover-boy here — " Griffith gestured toward Ascensios, who was going dusky again. "Mr. Ascensios hadn't seen fit to tell his client who I was, apparently, or the danger I posed."

Ascensios was definitely blushing now. "I didn't want Kate worried. I thought — hoped — that I could get what I wanted and stop you before she ever had to know."

"Mmm. Confident," Griffith observed.

Ascensios lifted his chin. "And who's calling the kettle black?"

Griffith laughed. He had to be the least confident man right then he'd ever known. He was standing here with a nuisance lawsuit in his hands that inexplicably filled him with terror. In less than two hours he was supposed to sign a ten million dollar loan that he wasn't even sure he wanted.

Confident?

He didn't know what he wanted to do in the next five minutes, let alone during the rest of his life, except maybe...

...to be liked.

Griffith blinked. If he knew anything, it was that he wanted to be liked. Failing that, he wanted to be
likable
. That's when he'd been happy at Camp Wild Hills, the happiest he could remember being in his life: when he'd acted like a good guy.

When he'd liked himself.

Griffith swallowed and turned back to Kate's lawyer. But Ascensios was too busy eyeing Deirdre to notice Griffith's attention.

"Deirdre." Ascensios cleared his throat. "Would you mind — I'd like to talk to you, alone, for a minute?"

Griffith raised his eyebrows. Ascensios' precise relationship with the woman he'd supposedly duped was delightfully hazy. Right now he looked an awful lot like a badly stricken Romeo who was deep in the doghouse.

For her part, Deirdre, who'd been maintaining a smug superiority toward her former paramour, now appeared as if the air had been let out of her balloon. Her gaze flew toward Griffith, apparently hoping he could tell her what to do.

"You might as well talk to him," Griffith recommended, since it was obvious they were both dying to kiss and make up.

"Well." Deirdre made an effort to retrieve her cool persona. "If you think so..." She gave a tiny nod to Ascensios. "We can talk...for a minute."

Griffith watched Ascensios follow Deirdre out the door, a lapdog following his mistress — a sight Griffith didn't find nearly as pathetic this morning as he might have a month ago.

Then he drew Kate's lawsuit fully out of its envelope and looked at it. The terror inside him receded as a slow smile grew over his face. A big smile.

A...happy one.

Griffith tossed the lawsuit onto his desk. He knew what he was going to do, finally. He should have known during his bus ride down out of Camp Wild Hills but hey, better late than never.

A low chuckle rumbled in Griffith's chest. Kate. Ah, Kate. She thought she should sue him? Did she think that would get him out of her life? She was about to get a very big surprise.

~~~