Wrangling with the Laywer (5 page)

He narrowed his eyes as his thought process stumbled across a thorny patch. He liked her; she seemed like she was fighter. He didn’t particularly want to knock her out too soon in the match.

He looked at the view blindly for a moment, choosing his words. “You’ve said yourself that everyone’s already presumed that you and Davidson...”

“Had a clichéd, pedestrian affair?”

Gabe smiled at her tone. “Did you?”

“No.” She exhaled and turned away from him. The light cut her profile out delicately against the dim interior. “I’d rather not have to deny that again, if it’s all the same with you.”

He watched her for a moment, something he couldn’t quite define eating at him. “Did Davidson ever make a pass?”

“If he did, I missed it.”

The tightness in her tone revealed a lot more than she realised. Gabe knew with absolute certainty that Davidson found her attractive. He also knew most men in his position would have tried to seduce her. She was trying to convince herself through moral outrage that this was all irrelevant to the situation. He didn’t let his clients lie to themselves or to him; that wasn’t the way cases were won.

This wasn’t the time to pursue that particular avenue. He turned away from her, his mind shelving the idea, even though he wanted he devour it. It would wait. For now, he needed to gain her trust, build some momentum with her so that she’d open up to him a little. He was going to need her full cooperation. He decided it was time to give her a glimpse into the more human side of Gabriel
Stahl. Turning back to her with a smile, he lowered the partition and decided to introduce his driver.

Veda was an unassuming, doe-eyed man of Indian descent. Harper was immediately charmed by his warm humour and covert glances in the rear-view mirror. She caught a warm smile pass between the driver and his boss more than once as they teased her about her less than salubrious address. Which, of course, it wasn’t nowadays; her neighbourhood was fast becoming the next sought-after region in the city. She even relaxed after a few minutes of their banter, resting her back against the plush leather seat. The interior of the car actually smelt of Gabe: a mix of shower-gel, clean laundry and something masculine and expensive.

“How long has Veda worked for you?” she asked as soon as Gabe had agreed to leave his driver in peace and had reinstated the partition.

“Around five years.” He turned to her, his expression warm. “I rented a car from his agency and dropped a twenty-thousand dollar Rolex in the backseat. I had no idea where I’d lost it. Veda spent days tracking me down to return it. Without a scratch. He could have fed his family for a year if he’d hawked it. I hired him on the spot.”

The emotionless delivery only made the story more moving. “Sounds like he’s a keeper.” Smiling, she added, “There aren’t many of them out there.”

“I think you’d be surprised. You’ve been unlucky enough to be routinely targeted by a bunch of sorry bastards, but there are still plenty of good men out there.” He turned his attention away from her before she could respond, checking his phone. “Are we close?” he asked. “You live around the bridge area, right?”

“About two blocks away.”

“Don said you’ve got a townhouse conversion. Bags of potential.” He pointed towards the door. “See that button? Press it and tell Veda your address. He’ll take care of the rest.”

She did so, laughing a little when Veda’s obedient voice filtered into the air to a musical soundtrack. “Was that Aretha Franklin?” she asked Gabe as soon as she’d let go of the button.

“No, that was Veda.”

She laughed out loud at his deliberate misunderstanding. “In the background.”

“Who knows that goes on in that front seat...?” His smile had surfaced now, if a little reluctantly. “All I know is that we keep the partition down when we have guests. See no evil, hear no evil.”

Still laughing, she shook her head and gave up pressing her point. “I don’t want to know.”

He had the grace to look put out. “Though I promise you nothing has ever transpired in this car beyond animated discussion that I’m aware of. Maybe a bit of drooling when I fall asleep after a long flight, but nothing more untoward than that.”

“I wasn’t suggesting-”

“I’m aware I have certain reputation.” He purposefully copied her aloof expression from earlier, only sparing the slightest tinge of amusement. “I think for a while there people presumed I rode around town all night partying and living large. How the hell I’m supposed to maintain a full partner status in one of the most prestigious law firms in the city, spend weeks in court and party all night is a mystery to me. I sometimes wonder if half of these idiots have ever actually done a full day’s work in their lives.”

Though his tone was casual, the sliver of tension between them signalled that she may have hit a sore spot. She had to admit she had imagined his life was much larger than hers. He looked like a man who could have anything he wanted.

His tone surrendered. “Not that you’re any stranger to a hard day’s work. How many hours do you sleep a night, just out of interest?”

“Around five.” She shrugged. “Sometimes more, if Finn goes to bed early.”

“I know that feeling. I have a four year-old girl.”

Harper
head snapped round. “Really?” She couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her tone. “Are you married? Don didn’t seem to-”

“We never married, the mother and I,” he supplied, cutting o
ff what could have been an endless stream of enquiry on her side. She clasped her lips shut, hoping he would continue.

He didn’t, forcing her to be graceless. “Does she live with you, or the mother?”

“The mother. I have her on weekends, school holidays.”

Harper
felt a knife twist in her chest. Just the subject-matter was enough to unleash what she now realised was post-trauma from her separation and divorce from Josh. It was an unbearably hard thing to separate a child from one of its parents; there seemed to be no real happy solution. It was something she lived with on her conscience; she had no idea how it might be affecting Finn long-term without a stable father figure in his life on a daily basis.

Gabe kept his eyes averted. She watched his handsome profile, noticing for the first time slight cracks in the gleaming perfection there. He looked tired; there were tiny lines of tension seeping out from his eye and around his mouth. He worked his jaw occasionally, where she could see stubble appearing like a smudge of rogue masculinity in an otherwise perfectly groomed head. She felt an urge to touch his jaw to release some of the tension there; the compulsion caught her off guard and she turned away to absorb it, staring blindly at the passing city through the tinted windows. It was too confined here in the darkness to allow even a breath of life to that sensual attraction that had gripped her so keenly
during their first meeting. She wouldn’t be able to hide it.

“Thanks for rescuing me tonight,” she said finally, hoping the change of subject matter would ease some of the tension.

Thankfully he was smiling when he turned to her. “You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure if you’d noticed.”

“
Joe Davidson’s a tactless sociopath. He probably would have pestered me all night if I hadn’t left when I did.”

He laughed. “Natalie seemed to think he was sweeping you off your feet.”

“Don’t get me wrong when is say this,” Harper interjected, fixing him with a sincere gaze, “because I love Natalie to death. She’s been a really good friend to me for years, but she’d marry a bulldog with rabies if it had enough money and came from the right background.” She paused while Gabe laughed, tickled by the sight of his even, white teeth and the indentations next to his mouth. “I don’t understand it. She’s perfectly successful in her own right. She doesn’t need the money or the connections-”

“Maybe she believes a powerful marriage is better than all of that.”

Harper paused, considering this for a moment. “You’ve never married. I presume you don’t think it’s necessary for success in life.”

“Not vitally necessary, no.” He seemed amused. “I believe in strong partnerships, though. I agree that people are stronger together than alone. And marriage is just a partnership; there’s a contract covering all parties and their obligations, tax breaks, dissolution penalties... It’s probably one of the most solid contracts out there, in fact. So if there wasn’t a benefit to it, people wouldn’t do it.”

“You sound like a proponent of the cause.” She hesitated for a moment, but her curiosity wouldn’t be bridled. “If that’s the case, why haven’t you tried it out?”

He turned away again, a faint smile on his lips. When he turned back, he was frowning. “There doesn’t seem much point in it all if the partnership doesn’t serve some other purpose, to make you both better people.” His eyes were shadowed by cutting brows, his tone low. “I’ve never met someone I believed would make me a better man with her than without her.”

The notion intrigued Harper immediately; she stared into his face, finally able to meet his gaze without hesitation. He was watching her as intently, as if the notion had only just occurred to him. It seemed to have intrigued him as much as it had her.

Had Josh made her a better woman? Their marriage had started out with so much mutual respect, but as soon as Finn had been born, Josh had somehow forgotten about that big brain he’d cherished so much when they’d met. He’d started excluding her from faculty events and even talking down to her sometimes, as if he were out of patience explaining basic concepts she didn’t understand. She still had no real idea what had happened, but it was clear from this alone that she hadn’t made him a better man. The realisation flooded her in that second, but she cast it aside. It was something too emotionally revealing to consider with the light of Gabe’s interest shining intensely on her.

To his credit, Gabe didn’t press her for her opinion on the subject. If he had noticed the shadow cross her expression, he didn’t show it. She looked out of the window again, aware of the silence and scrabbling for a way to fill it.

“What do you do for childcare?”

Turning, she switched gears in her mind. “Finn’s at kindergarten from eight till three. If I have to work longer, I usually either take my work home or have my sister babysit him.” She smiled. “Megan’s got three, one at the same school, so she’s quite happy to take him whenever. I’m really lucky to have her.”

“Sounds like it.”

“How do you manage at weekends if you’re on a case, with your daughter?”

“I don’t, really.”

She laughed; for the first time she saw a sort of helpless bemusement in his eyes. “They just take over, right?”

“I keep trying to manage it better.” He looked truly confused. “I can juggle a department of associates with a staggering case workload and still get to the gym every day, but the minute Alice steps into my apartment, it all just collapses. Before I know I’m covered in peanut butter, my cases notes are covered in peanut butter, and I’m too exhausted to argue with her. I just end up playing game after game of snap.”

His expression settled warmly as she laughed. “I guess I’d get better at it if she was with me every day and we had a routine.”

“You would.”
Harper tried to be reassuring, though she wondered if she’d just gotten used to that level of chaos. She could barely remember a time when she’d been able to wake up in the morning and truly feel as though the day was at her command.

“I think we’re here.” Gabe peered out of the window. “Is this it?”

Surprised that the journey had been so quick, she turned in surprise to see the familiar row of brownstones on her street. “This is it.” Had they really gone over the bridge? The ride had been so smooth she’d barely noticed. She admitted the company might have had something to do with it.

“It’s nice here. Lots of trees.”

“I’ve always had a soft spot for these old brownstones. I’ve had a dream of renovating one since I can remember. It’s a nightmare actually doing it, of course, but I’m getting there.”

“I’d like to see it sometime.” He checked his watch ruefully. “Not tonight, obviously – maybe you can show me around another day when we’ve got more time.”

“Sure. You can meet Finn, too.” An idea gripped her; she was unable to stop her enthusiasm from spilling over. “You know, my sister and her husband are bringing the kids over on Saturday afternoon for a play date. We were going to barbeque in the garden. You’d be welcome to bring Alice along.”

Gabe looked ambushed by the idea. She felt a tug of trepidation somewhere on the edge of her consciousness. Did rich lawyers do things like play dates? All the lawyers she knew who had children tended to enrol them in exclusive clubs... maybe he wouldn’t want Alice mingling with the proletariat outside Manhattan.

“Sure.” His tone was reluctant. “Why not?”

“Great.” She wrestled with a handle on the door, wondering if it was the right one to open it. He could change his mind if he wanted to; they had a couple of days before the weekend. No big deal.

The door opened on a rush of cold air. Harper looked up, startled to see Veda on the other side of it. “Madam.” He stood back to let her out.

“Thanks.” She laughed to herself, feeling foolish. Turning back to Gabe, she gave his handsome profile a final glance. “Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, I guess.”