Wrangling with the Laywer (6 page)

He was already looking at his phone, though he looked up and returned her smile genuinely. “Eight sharp. Sleep well.”

“You, too.” There, she’d said it.

The image of him in bed flooded into her mind.  The bed was massive, and he was naked.

“Oh, and about Saturday - I should warn you that Alice is a little...” His brow creased and deep sigh leaving him. “She’s had some behavioural issues. We’re not sure what’s behind it, but she’s become rather aggressive with other children, stealing things, hitting-”

Dragging her attention back from the depths of depravity, she only just managed to process some of what he was saying. “Oh?”

“I’ll speak to her before we arrive, obviously. I just thought I should mention it.”

“Okay. Well, no worries. We’ll deal with it on Saturday. I’m sure we’ll manage.” Doubt flooded her veins and she had to work extra hard not to let her polite smile drop. “Good night, Gabe.”

Chapter Four

“Is this kid for real?”

Harper stood motionless beside Megan in her kitchen. They were looking out at a veritable angel of a child; blonde curls and an exquisitely beautiful face. She wore a gorgeous pink, ruffled dress that was perfect for a child’s birthday party. It was covered in chocolate cake, sand, apple juice, and a number of other items Harper couldn’t quite identify from this distance. Alice Stahl was every bit as formidable as her father in a hostile courtroom battle. Her face was screwed up in effort as she attempted to yank the swing pole from the ground. Finn stood by idly, watching her with faint interest as he munched on a hot dog. Megan’s children were too busy trying to play on the swing to notice.

“Gabe mentioned she had some behavioural issues.”

Megan turned to her gravely. “It doesn’t seem right that a man as perfect as Gabe would have this...” Her gaze wandered back out to the spectacle. “... devil child.”

Harper
couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “I thought she’d be a bit of a tomboy. It’s just shocking because she looks so small and pretty.”

“She looks like a devil child. I’ve never seen such evil eyes on a kid before. She looks like she wants to stab someone.”

“She does look angry.”

“Ferociously angry.” Megan finally picked up speed drying the dishes again. “How does your kid end up that angry? At four years-old? I don’t know what I’d do if Jean suddenly started hating on life like that. I’d be demented.”

“I wonder how the mother copes.”

“Who is she?”

Harper shook her head. “I haven’t asked. We’re not really friends. I just suggested he come along today to get Alice out of the house; he made it sound like he spends all weekend tearing his hair out trying to keep her entertained.”

“Now you know why.”

Harper rolled her eyes. “I don’t envy him.”

“So...” Megan was already off the topic of Alice.
Harper sensed it through her skin; there was a faint thread of concentrated mischief in the way she dragged out the syllable. “Gabriel Stahl.”

“What about him?”

“If you even try to pretend you haven’t noticed how unbelievably hot this guy is, I swear I’ll start to think you’re gay.”

“He’s my lawyers’ lawyer.”

Megan smiled in satisfaction. “Now I remember! This is the guy you told me you could hook up with without there being all of these ethics issues-”

“I said it was ethically
borderline, but not something that would necessarily jeopardise the case,” Harper corrected evenly.

“I could live with ethically
borderline.” Megan’s smile couldn’t have deepened further. “And you invited him to our little barbeque. I don’t think you ever invited Don to one of our play dates.”

“
Don doesn’t have kids! Why would I invite him on a play date?” Harper scoffed as she handed another sopping dish to her sister. She kept a wary eye on the swing. “Anyway, I invited Don to that dinner party we had last year. He turned up with that woman-”

“I swear
she was a paid escort.”

Harper
laughed aloud as she did every time Megan suggested this. “She was just random girl. This is how these guys live. They have little black books with the names of all of these women, models and actresses and whatnot, and they just pull out a name they think might be suitable whenever the occasion arises. They don’t have real relationships. They barely even know these women.”

“So is Gabe like that?”

She shrugged. “According to him, he barely has time to socialise. He told me his reputation is mostly smoke.”

“He actually clarified his reputation to you?” Megan’s tone was suggestive.

Harper was unimpressed. “I made a stupid comment... It doesn’t matter. No one that successful has time to mess around.” She frowned as an acorn of doubt fell inside of her. “Though he was with this redhead at the gallery on Wednesday. She was obviously a model.”

Megan made a sound of disapproval. “Guys who only date models bore the hell out of me. It just shows such a lack of character. Variety’s supposed to be the spice of life-”

Harper dropped the plate she holding, splashing water over the side of the sink. “She’s got the pole out of the ground!” she shouted, pointing to the triumphant Alice and spraying suds all over the window in the process. To her horror, she saw Jean and Charlie begin to fall in slow motion from the swing set. She turned on her heel and raced to the door.

Gabe sat on the sofa later on that evening and tried not to thread his fingers through his hair. The day had been an unmitigated nightmare from start to finish. Alice had ended up throwing a vein-popping tantrum in the sandpit and had refused to be moved. She’d wielded her plastic sword like a professional, striking Jean in the shin not once but three times.

“She’s sleeping.”

He looked up, seeing Harper come into the room with a cautious smile. He wondered if she’d been standing there for long. Straightening his back, he offered an even expression. “I can’t apologise enough for today-”

“It’s okay, Gabe-”

“It’s not okay.” He cut across her predictably kind words with a tight voice. “We shouldn’t have come. Alice isn’t ready for socialising at this level-”

“My God, she’s four.”
Harper surprised him by laughing. He watched her plop down in front of him in the ample armchair, her frame small under a loose vest top and shorts. “No four year-old kid’s ready for socialising at any level. They’re little animals.”

He watched her carefully, processing her words and again surprised that they made sense.

“I know there’s this big fad at the moment to start socialising kids from day one... I don’t know what that’s all about. Kids just want to play. And learn. They work it out on their own, you know? There are all kind of strange dynamics in the playground as it is.”

“You seem to know what you’re doing.” He smiled as he recalled her affable, strangely pragmatic son. “Finn’s just about the most laid-back kid I’ve ever met.”

“Don’t you believe it.” He noticed that her eyes creased and sparkled warmly when the subject of her son arose. Deep blue had never looked so vivid. “He can be a nightmare when he wants to be. I think he knew perfectly well today that if he stayed quiet while Alice was acting up that he might get a few brownie points.” She paused suddenly. “That sounds awful. I don’t mean to be sound so suspicious... I just have a healthy respect for my son’s aptitude for reading situations.”

“You don’t have to apologise.” This time he did allow himself the comfort of running his hands across his jaw. “I made Alice stay in the car when I was in the supermarket this morning. When I came back this interfering old woman accused me of treating my daughter like a dog. I was in the shop for less than a minute. But I knew if I took her with me it would have turned into a scene.”

He stopped. Harper was watching him carefully. She looked relaxed and warm in the oversized armchair. Oddly enough, she didn’t look shocked or disappointed, or in the least bit judgemental. He was also relieved to see not a trace of sympathy or pity in her eyes. He got plenty of that when he took his daughter to see his parents on the odd weekends when he could get away from the city to the Hamptons. His parents’ reactions ranged for disbelief to sheer horror when it came to their granddaughter.

Harper
sighed, reaching for her glass of wine tiredly. “Everyone’s an expert when it comes to child-rearing these days.” She sipped her wine, considering him. “You’ve got your hands full with Alice, though, I’ll admit that. Is she like this all the time?”

“I believe so.”

He crossed his arms across his middle. The subject was intensely painful to him. It took all of his willpower to distance himself from the emotion while he spoke about it. Despite this, he felt an overwhelming urge to unburden tonight. The atmosphere in the warm room was open and relaxed; he leaned back on the comfortable sofa and crossed his legs out in front of himself thoughtfully.

He took a deep breath before he spoke. “Her mother, Christine, is an old colleague of mine from a previous firm. We had... an affair, I guess. She was married; her husband naturally filed for divorce when she got pregnant, but there was never any suggestion that we were going to end up together.”

Harper was watching him carefully; he could feel the stillness in her.

“Christine’s an over-achiever. Her success is one of the things I found attractive about her. Obviously at the time I wasn’t thinking about how all of this would equate to motherhood.” He exhaled harshly. “She keeps saying she feels like a failure. She wants Alice to be this child prodigy... I’m not saying it’s easy bringing Alice up. I just don’t understand why Christine can’t just let her relax for while. I honestly don’t understand why she needs elocution lessons, and drama workshops, and etiquette classes at the age of four. We’ve been talking about therapy-”

Harper sat up, her brow creased.

He stilled. “You don’t agree with therapy.”

“I know I keep saying this, but Alice is four. And Christine...” Her words trailed off. The conversation had become very intense and very intimate quickly. Gabe wondered why he’d given so much away. “It’s not easy bringing up a kid alone. You do feel like a failure most of the time. I had the same problem for a long time. Kids aren’t like clients or troublesome employees; there isn’t some process you can follow to get them in line or get them out of your inbox. I can manage my own company but one four year-old boy can bring me to a complete muddled standstill in the middle of the supermarket if he wants to.” She laughed without humour. “And on top of that, people like to blame working mothers, as if the slightest temper tantrum signifies some deep rooted abandonment issues in the child...” Her brows inverted. “Christine’s probably just trying to manage this the way she manages everything else in her life, but maybe you’re right. Maybe Alice just needs some of the pressure taken off. ”

“I know that.” Gabe rubbed his face. It was obvious. If it was obvious, why was he even entering into this discussion with a woman he barely knew instead of with Christine?

Harper shifted in her seat. He sensed that she was uncomfortable; he noticed the smallest change in her demeanour whether he wanted to or not, as if he was attuned to her on some strange level. It was annoying, and distracting.

She sipped her wine. “Before I put Alice down on my bed, I gave her a bath with Finn. I think her dress is ruined.” She frowned. “I noticed it’s a really, really expensive dress.”

Gabe sighed. “I like her to have the best.”

“It’s just that - I only had Finn’s pyjamas to dress her in before I put them in bed. And she totally changed. Alice, I mean. The minute she was wearing the pyjamas, she just calmed right down. She snuggled up with Finn and listened to the story without a complaint.”

Gabe frowned. He tried to remember if this was normal; did Alice always calm down after her bath anyway? All he had to do was recall the previous night’s tantrums to realise that this was not the case. “You think it’s the clothes?” He laughed at the assertion.

“No.” She smiled apologetically. “I don’t know what it means. I just thought maybe you could take her home in the pyjamas. She can keep them, if she likes them.”

“Right.” His smiled lingered on Harper for a moment. There was a peachy glow to her cheeks, either from the wine or the lamp light. A layer of what looked like gossamer shone on the surface on her thick, dark hair. The oversized armchair could have fit three of her, making her curled up limbs looked insubstantial.

His eyes wandered distractedly down the length of her arm, lazily holding the wine glass suspended. A tapered finger was stroking the stem of the glass; he felt a slow and yet piercing momentum build low in his stomach as he watched it.

Taking a deep breath, he turned his head to one side, pretending an interest in the darkening night. This was all wrong. He’d been on course to seduce her just a couple of days ago; now they were sitting here in comfortable intimacy bearing their secrets to one another. Sexual attraction had no place in this type of emotionally charged setting. It would only lead to trouble, the kind of trouble he didn’t need.

“I’d better get Alice back.”

Harper sat up reluctantly. “Are you sure? You can leave her here tonight if it’s easier-”