I almost told her about Jesse but bit my tongue at the last moment. While it truly did feel like we were becoming friendly, we weren’t quite there yet. “I didn’t do much. Just went out with someone I know in the city and explored a bit. It was fun.”
She opened her mouth, presumably to ask who the person was, but we were interrupted by her paralegal before I had to sayanything else. “Miranda, I’ve got Jackson Bowler on line two. He says it’s urgent.”
Every trace of humor vanished from her features as she nodded. “Duty calls. Tell him I’ll be right there.” She shot me an apologetic smile. “I’m glad you got to explore a bit, but I have to run. Jackson’s in the middle of a nasty divorce and his wife wants half his company, which means she wants him to buy her out for over ten million. If I don’t take this call, he’ll probably have a stroke.”
“No worries,” I said, meaning it more genuinely than she could possibly comprehend. “Good luck.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You too.”
One graceful spin on her heels later, she was rushing out of the room and I picked up my coffee, carrying it back to my office with me. I was ready to settle in on a rather easy breach of contract case when my own paralegal, Beth, peeked in.
“Did you add a meeting to your schedule for today?” she asked. “For now. At lunch?”
I shook my head. “No. Why? Marian handles all of that for me.”
Clicking into the calendar on my computer, I saw that, sure enough, my secretary had neglected to mention that I had an hour-long lunch meeting with a JW carved out at one.In five minutes from now, in other words.
It took me all of two seconds to figure out who JW was, and even though Marian, my secretary, was a fierce woman well past retirement age who refused to let go, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how he’d bypassed her. The Westwoods had some serious sway wherever they went and Jesse was a charmer.
Even as I sighed, I was already gathering my purse and pushing my chair back. “Thanks, Beth. Will you take notes onthe Minnie case for me? It’s that breach of contract I’m working on at the moment.”
Beth nodded when I swept past her out of my office, heading to the cafe on the second floor. It was a sharp, slightly chilly day, the weather finally fading toward fall, and sure enough, my hunch had been correct.
Jesse was already seated at a table overlooking the balcony when I walked in. As soon as I crossed the room, I realized said tablealsooverlooked the spot where I’d caught him reading up on himself in the newspaper. My heartstrings wanted to stir, but I firmly reminded them that we weren’t doing that anymore.
Not even for Jesse, who looked roguishly gorgeous today in jeans with a black leather jacket over his white button-down. As always, his dark hair was just mussed enough to make it look like he’d simply rolled out of bed with it looking that way, but not actually messy enough for it to be true.
He smiled when he saw me, rising from his seat as if he knew what chivalry even meant, but the gesture immediately put me on guard. Perhaps I didn’t know him well, but I was a reasonably good judge of character when Thomas wasn’t involved.
“What are you up to?” I asked when I reached him, my head tilting as I looked up into his eyes. “Don’t even bother trying to deny it, Mr. Westwood. I hate to ruin your fun by calling you out on it right away, but I’m afraid it’s a rather busy day for me.”
His mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t tell whether he was being deliberately dramatic or if he was truly that shocked. “I can’t believe you sniffed out my plans so quickly. I was going to seduce you a bit, but since you ruined that, you’re now stuck with me being myself.”
“Seduce me?” I sat down in the chair opposite his, genuinely amused. “Hard pass.” I smiled. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want and why you snuck a meeting onto my calendar?”
“I didn’t have your number and I needed to talk to you without waiting for the universe to decide to randomly cross our paths again.”
The universehadseemed rather intent on doing that to us recently. “Alright, I’m all ears. What is it you needed to talk to me about so urgently? I’m sure the universe wouldn’t have made you waitthatlong.”
“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “A little issue I could use your help with and I’m willing to pay for your services.”
Instantly, my brain switched to lawyer mode. This had to be some kind of grand scheme, like fraud or whatever the hell the Westwoods did to keep their wealth growing so consistently for so long. My hackles rose, my spine growing rigid. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I think you got the wrong idea the other night when I told you I needed your help to commit a crime. I’m not actually?—”
“It’s all perfectly legal and mostly innocent,” he said. “I would like you to accompany me to a dinner later this week, and on a trip next week. As my date.”
It took me a moment of studying his features to decide that he was being completely sincere. I shook my head, wondering if somehow I was still drunk. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not some prostitute you can hire by the hour.”
Jesse looked me in the eyes. “No, but youarean attorney I can hire by the hour.” His nose wrinkled. “Fair warning, the dinner will be boring as hell. It’s an investor thing. I would skip it entirely if I had any choice in the matter.”
“So you want me there as your legal counsel?”
“I want you there as my friend,” he said, shrugging. “Well, more specifically, I would like you to pretend to be my girlfriend—temporarily, to be clear. Then there will be an engagement. So that I can look like a stand-up gentleman, keep the family image up.”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion. “You think being engaged tomewill help your family’s image?”
Jesse frowned at me, his turn to be confused. “Are you kidding? A bad ass corporate attorney with a cute as hell accent? Having you at my side classes me up like ten levels.”
My cheeks heated, and I hoped they weren’t as red as they felt. “Obviously,” I said.