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Carter hung up the receiver and downed the rest of the coffee, his gaze drawn to the calendar on the wall. It was one of those given away by insurance companies, the pictures horrible, the paper already yellow although it was only August. But it showed the days and that was all that mattered.
Carter looked to where his right hand still rested on the telephone receiver. Then, before he knew he was going to do it, he picked it back up and dialed a number he’d memorized two months ago.
“Gavin, Ewing and Clairmont, Attorneys,” a receptionist said in a cheery voice that set Carter’s teeth on edge.
“Yeah. Give me Laney Cartwright.”
Chapter Two
LANEY CARTWRIGHT GAZED OUT her tenth-floor office window. It was lunchtime and Bryan Street bustled with life. Life that would vanish after five when everyone scrambled to their homes in the suburbs, leaving Dallas a ghost town dotted with the few tourists and conventioneers who dared peek outside their hotels.
She hadn’t been in the windowed office very long. For the past three years she’d worked in a glorified cubicle on the open floor, one of many associate attorneys competing for a shot at the few offices that went up for grabs. Despite her impeccable résumé, she’d worked long and hard for this promotion to junior firm attorney. Eighty-hour weeks, carrying the load of three, burning the candle at both ends and the middle so that she barely had time to sleep, much less have a personal life.
Maybe that was the reason she’d been preoccupied ever since the legal secretary she shared with two other attorneys told her that a certain Mr. Carter Southard had called that morning to make an appointment. Violet had said there was nothing open, but he’d persisted, saying he needed no more than a couple of minutes and that it was important.
Important.
So Laney had told her to pencil something in during the lunch hour. Seeing Carter would at least keep her from thinking too much about the menacing note she’d received that morning.
Now she swiveled her desk chair away from the window and considered the case file open in front of her. When was the last time she’d had sex?
She twisted her lips. That was it, wasn’t it? The fact that her love life had been nonexistent for so long was allowing her to daydream about what it might be like to act on that spark of attraction she’d felt two months ago, even though the jail jumpsuit and unshaven appearance of Carter Southard should have been enough to turn her off.
But it hadn’t. Instead, in the first two weeks following their meeting, she found herself drifting off mid-conversation during social dinners and even phone calls, her concentration broken by the brief flash of Carter’s strong hands. The granite set of his jaw. The half grin he’d given her when he apparently realized she returned the interest he displayed, however reluctantly.
What was she talking about? The sensation had taken her so much by surprise, there hadn’t been a chance for her to be reluctant about anything.
Besides, she wouldn’t be seeing him again. So what was the harm in returning his smile, letting him see what she was thinking? Saying without words, “Gee, Carter, another time, another place, you and me might have had a good time together. A very good time, indeed.”
Laney swallowed hard, realizing that this was another time. And another place. And she was actually looking forward to seeing if that potential for a good time still existed. Oh, she didn’t intend to act on it. But that brief interaction with Carter had been enough to fuel some interesting late-night sessions alone up until…well, even last night.
The intercom button buzzed. Laney picked up the phone. “Yes?”
The forty-five-year-old secretary said, “Your father on line one. He wants to know why you canceled lunch.”
“Tell him I have an important meeting.”
Silence.
Laney sighed. “I’ll talk to him.” She pressed the button for the correct line and then leaned back in her chair. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, yourself. So what’s this I hear you’ve canceled our lunch today?”
“Sorry about that. A new development on the Mac-Gregor case came up and I’ve scheduled a strategy lunch to work it out.”
Laney didn’t lie to her father often. Mostly because he knew her better than anyone and immediately spotted an untruth. He would never go so far as to say it, but the few times she had relied on deception to hide her intentions had always ended with them both knowing where they stood.
She supposed that’s what happened when you were so close. After her mother passed away when she was twelve, Laney and her father had formed a bond that transcended parent and child. He was her best friend.
“What’s the development?”
Laney blanched. Exhibit A on why she should never lie to her father.
Of course, he knew everything that was happening with State v. MacGregor, the case that had dominated her life for the past two months. The case that had also dominated the local and statewide news media, what with her young client accused of first-degree murder during an armed robbery.
The crime itself wasn’t so much what garnered interest. Rather it was the fact that Devon MacGregor came from one of the wealthiest families in Texas.
“I received an interesting note this morning,” she said quietly.
“Note?”
Laney hadn’t planned on saying anything about it just then, but she figured she would have told her father sooner or later, so she might as well use it to her benefit now.
“Yes. Plain block letters. ‘Drop MacGregor. Or else.’”
“Or else what?”
Laney sighed and fished out the note she’d placed in a Ziploc bag from the papers on her desk. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said.
“Have you given it to the police?”
“I have a call in. I was told a detective will stop by sometime this afternoon.”
“Good.”
There was a brief knock on the door. “Your twelve o’clock is here,” Violet said.
Laney felt as if her stomach were full of a thousand butterflies flapping their wings to get out.
“Look, Daddy, people are beginning to arrive for the meeting.”
She quickly said her goodbyes, hoping that she wasn’t being too transparent, then left both hands on the telephone after she’d hung up.
“Hello again,” Carter said from the open doorway.
Laney nearly knocked the receiver from its cradle and she fumbled to right it again.
She looked at the man responsible for her duplicity…and discovered that the hectic sensation she’d experienced two months ago was nothing compared with the one the cleaned-up version of Carter Southard made on her now.
What he wore was nothing special—a denim shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. It was the details that did Laney in. The way his sleeves were rolled up over his corded forearms. The cocky way he stood that pulled his well-worn jeans just so across his groin. The scuffed boots that proved he was a man who didn’t wear them just for show, but had earned every last speck of Texas dust fused to the old leather.
In Carter’s case, he wore the clothes—the clothes didn’t wear him.
She looked up to find him grinning knowingly and the bottom dropped out of her stomach altogether, freeing the butterflies there.
Oh, boy. It looked as though she was going to have to get used to her father’s concerned reaction because she had the feeling that she was going to be doing a whole hell of a lot of lying in the foreseeable future.
Chapter Three
OH, YES. This was exactly what Carter was looking for. Laney Cartwright’s heated reaction to his appearance would stroke any man’s ego; to his, it was a much-needed boost.
It wasn’t often his path crossed with women of her class. Just seeing her sitting behind that expensive desk in her navy blue suit, her white-blond hair slicked back into some kind of neat do, baring her pale, elegant neck and what he suspected were real pearls at her delicate lobes—it all spoke of someone used to the better things in life.
Merely looking at her made him feel as if he’d soiled her somehow.
His grin widened. Oh, how he wanted to get her even dirtier still.
Laney looked as if she’d forgotten something and quickly got to her feet. She edged around the desk to face him, wiping her palms on her pencil-thin skirt before extending her right hand. “Where are my manners?” she said with a smile. “Hello, Mr. Southard.” She gave his hand a quick shake, but Carter held on to hers a heartbeat longer. “It’s good to see you again,” she said.
He cocked a brow. “Is it?”
He watched as her initial surprise melted into something much different. Much more dangerous. Although to whom, he couldn’t say.
She leaned against the edge of her desk and crossed her arms over her chest, drawing his gaze there and down to the long line of her legs in another pair of naughty high heels. She pursed her pink lips and considered him with the same naked suggestion that he knew was in his eyes.
Huh. A woman who liked a challenge.
While Carter could honestly say he’d never dated anyone with so much schooling, he had dated a woman or two who engaged him on more than a physical level. And Laney looked as if she could easily wipe them from his memory, set a new benchmark for those who would come after her.
She obviously enjoyed the sexual game of cat and mouse, where it was never quite clear who was the cat and who the mouse, with each of them easily sliding into either role to achieve some undefined objective.
Undefined? Carter took in the expression on Laney’s beautiful face. Oh, no, there was nothing undefined there. Both of them were in it for the kill.
“Violet said you had something important to discuss?” she asked.
“Mmm. Yes. Important.”
He stepped nearer to her, catching the subtle scent of magnolias. She smelled like heaven and he wanted to visit for a while. He reached out and fingered a soft curl that had escaped her do, then met her gaze, moving in closer still. He watched with a mixture of amusement and fascination as her pupils dilated in her blue, blue eyes. He guessed she wasn’t used to such bold moves, and he liked that he’d still managed to knock her slightly off-kilter. Although he didn’t expect her to remain that way for long.
He lowered his chin and then brought it up slowly, making it evident that he was smelling her…and that he liked what he found. The top of his nose brushed against her cheek and she gasped slightly.
He stepped back, holding her gaze captive with his. “I’m a man who always honors his debts and I’ve come to pay mine.”
Laney blinked. “Debt…oh.” She appeared to have momentarily forgotten the circumstances of their first meeting. “All expenses surrounding your release have been taken care of.”
“Too vague. Who took care of the debt, Laney?”
“Mr. Armstrong.”
“And your connection to him would be?”
“Client.”
“Strictly?”
She smiled. “I don’t see how that impacts the situation, Mr. Southard.”
“Carter, please.” He was tempted to press his thigh between her legs, force her skirt up and pin her against that expensive desk of hers right there before the window. But he planned to drag the hot anticipation out as long as he could.
Besides, he wasn’t sure how far he could push her before she picked up the phone and called for security.
“Answer my question,” he insisted. “Brother?”
A corner of her mouth turned up. “Cousin.”
“Judging from your name, I’m guessing your mother’s side?” He cleared his throat. “Unless Cartwright is your married name.”
The other side of her mouth edged up until she was nearly smiling. “My mother’s side.”
He enjoyed the way she answered the question without answering the question.
Was she married? She wore no ring, but he’d met plenty of women who didn’t. Whether it was a barmaid trying to encourage better tips from customers who thought she was single and therefore free game, or a taxi driver who didn’t want to risk losing her ring at gunpoint, there were all sorts of reasons why women chose not to advertise their marital status.
Of course, a woman like Laney Cartwright wouldn’t want to promote it because the less you knew about her, the better leverage she had.
Carter looked forward to compromising that power in every way that he could.
Laney seemed to realize that the scales were tipped a little too heavily in his favor. So he wasn’t surprised when she walked back to the other side of her desk, breaking eye contact with him.
He half expected her to end the meeting. To give up the ghost and realize that indulging in a sexual duel with him benefited her not at all. Instead, she said, “I was about to head for lunch. Would you like to join me?”
He squinted at her.
She pressed the intercom button before he responded. “Violet? Have Raphael’s ready a table for two for lunch, please.”
And just like that the scales tipped back to her.
LANEY GREETED the maître d’ with a kiss to both cheeks, as if seeing an old friend. Which, in essence, she was, since she took so many of her meals at the exclusive French restaurant.
“Miss Laney, how especially beautiful you look today. I was afraid I would not see you after your secretary called earlier to cancel your luncheon plans.”
Pierre darted glances Carter’s way, as if half hoping that during the conversation Carter would disappear.
“I have your favorite table all ready for you, Ms. Cartwright.”
Laney swept her hand toward Carter. “Pierre, this is Mr. Southard. He’ll be dining with me today.”
She didn’t need to say more. Pierre looked as if someone had just hit him in his snobbish head with a two-foot-long salami. And Carter stared back at him as if he didn’t know whether to greet Pierre or hit him. He appeared prepared for both.
Laney hid her smile as Pierre explained to Carter that the restaurant had a dress code and asked if he wouldn’t mind choosing a suitable jacket from an array they had in the cloakroom.
Laney twisted her lips, pretending that she didn’t notice Carter’s discomfort while challenging him to react in the way he’d like to. Namely, storm out of the uptight place.
Instead, he motioned for Pierre to lead the way.
Moments later, he came out wearing a bright green blazer bearing the crest of an exclusive club on the breast pocket and a bright yellow tie. Laney couldn’t help laughing behind her hand. Not just at the garish combination, but at Pierre’s chagrin and Carter’s wide grin.
Pierre appeared exasperated as he led them to a table to the left, away from the kitchen and in front of the window, but he could do nothing as he watched Carter take the seat smack-dab where anyone passing could see him.
