Balancing Act (The Santa Monica Trilogy Book 3) (10 page)

The settlement conference took place in chambers at the downtown Stanley Mosk Courthouse. The judge met with each party separately before bringing them all together toward the end of the day to hammer out the details.

Things progressed smoothly, except for one brief hiccup early in the process, when it appeared that Phyllis Callahan was having second thoughts. Angie glanced across the table at Naomi, who raised her brows and gave a slight shake of her head.

“Ms. MacDowell,” Judge Rosenberg said, removing his half-moon glasses and frowning at Angie. “Please explain to your client that no better offer will be forthcoming. And frankly, I have to say that in this case, going to trial would be a mistake. But if your client wishes to turn down a perfectly good settlement offer and take her chances in court, there’s no point in wasting our time any further today by arguing over the terms.”

Angie requested a fifteen minute recess to discuss things privately with Mrs. Callahan. A blunt review of litigation and opportunity costs, as well as their odds of obtaining a favorable verdict at trial should the proposed settlement fall through, got things back on track.

The court reporter was finally called in to document the agreement, including the boilerplate disclaimer that the settlement was not an admission of any wrongdoing on the part of Stewart & Landry LLC, and that the terms were to remain confidential.

“Mrs. Callahan,” the judge said. “Do you understand and agree to the terms as stated?”

She glanced at Angie, who gave her an encouraging nod. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“Do you understand that this settlement puts an end to your claims, and that you may not reopen the case at a later date or file another lawsuit arising out of this same dispute?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about you, Mr. Stewart?” The judge addressed the same questions to Tom.

“I understand and agree, Your Honor.”

Angie breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, there was still additional paperwork to complete and file, including the release and notice of dismissal, as well as the formal transfer of settlement payments and funding of an escrow account to cover the Callahans’ housing for the agreed-upon period of three years. But the lawsuit itself was now officially over.

Amid the general scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet, she glanced covertly at Zach. He rose and clasped his father’s shoulder, nodding in response to something Tom said to him sotto voce.

She’d managed to avoid looking at him through most of the proceedings, concentrating instead on the notes in front of her, or on what the judge was saying. But now, as she thanked Judge Rosenberg and agreed to convey his regards to her father, she found her eyes drawn repeatedly toward Zach.

Did the end of the case also signal an end to his interest in her? He’d claimed on several occasions that the one had nothing to do with the other. But now, as he failed to look even once in her direction, she wondered.

“Coming?” Naomi said.

Angie shouldered her bag and followed Naomi and Mrs. Callahan toward the exit. She was halfway down the hall when she felt a familiar tingle at the back of her neck.

A warm hand brushed her spine. “Congratulations.”

She glanced sideways at him, nearly stumbling when she saw the banked heat in his eyes. “Thanks.”

“I’ll call you later, okay?”

Her sense of elation was completely out of proportion to his words. She felt like a teenager mooning over her first crush. Ridiculous. She never ceded that much control to any man. Especially when the man in question had short-term fling written all over him.

She forced a neutral tone. “Sure. There are still a few details to go over.”

His smile dimmed a little and he glanced up ahead, to where Naomi was regarding them with raised brows.

“Of course.” He nodded and turned on his heel to rejoin his father, who was just exiting the judge’s chambers.

It was nearly ten p.m. when her cell phone chirped with a text message from Zach.

Still up?

She debated for all of two seconds before replying:

About to go to bed.

The phone rang.

“What are you wearing?”

She glanced down at her faded UCLA T-shirt and cut-off sweats. “My Jimmy Choos and a black silk G-string.”

“Jesus. Really?”

She smiled and padded into the bathroom. “Mm-hm.” Putting him on speaker-phone, she reached for the toothpaste. “How about you?”

The low buzz of her electric toothbrush filled the silence.

He cleared his throat. “What are you doing?”

She made a pass over her lower molars with the rotating head before replying. “Use your imagination.”

He cursed. “Send me a photo.”

“What are we, in college?”

“You’re killing me, Angel.”

“You’ll live. And I’ll finish brushing my teeth and go to bed.”

There was a moment of silence, and then a deep chuckle that raised goosebumps along her arms and did all sorts of funny things to her insides. “Wicked, wicked girl. You had me going there for a minute.”

She turned on the tap, rinsed and spit. “So, are you going to tell me why you called, or am I supposed to guess?”

“I want to see you.”

“Okay.” She glanced at the mirror. It had been a long day, on top of a long week. And if she was honest, the last few months had been no walk in the park. Without her usual makeup, her face bore the ravages of too many sleepless nights. She flicked off the overhead lights and took the phone to bed. “When?”

“I can be there in twenty minutes.”

She paused in the process of adjusting her pillows and surveyed the bedroom.

Half-open drawers overflowed with lingerie, scarves, and socks that she never quite got around to organizing. Discarded accessories, along with the detritus of hastily emptied coat pockets and purses littered the top of her bureau. Coffee mugs that she kept meaning to collect and put in the dishwasher dotted nearly every flat surface. Back issues of the
ABA Journal
,
RPTE Law Journal
, and
Santa Monica Magazine
spilled off of her nightstand and onto the floor.

She closed her eyes and mentally pictured the rest of her two-bed/two-and-a-half-bath condo. It wasn’t pretty. Except for the kitchen, which was probably still pristine from the last time the cleaning lady had been there. If you didn’t count the trash bin stuffed with used Keurig pods, disposable utensils, and empty take-out containers.

It would take more than twenty minutes to tidy up, shave her legs, and slap on some makeup.

Even if by some miracle she managed that, was she really ready for what sounded like a booty call?

She sank onto the bed. It felt like this moment was years in the making, and yet…

Her gaze fell on the partly closed nightstand drawer. Beneath a tissue box and bag of throat lozenges, half-obscured by a jumble of sample size beauty products, there it was: a still-sealed box of condoms. She pulled it out.
Crap.
Expired.

Her silence must have dragged on too long.

“Never mind,” Zach said. “How about dinner, tomorrow night? Say, around seven? You pick the place. Something quiet.”

“You mean, like a date?”

“Yeah. You know—food, wine, soft music. Maybe even talk about things that have nothing to do with law or real estate.”

“I have to get some condoms.”
Damn.
Had she really just said that out loud?

Zach groaned. “Angel, I’m trying to be a gentleman here. You’re making it pretty damn hard.”

She flushed, remembering the feel of him, pressed against her, letting her know without words just how
hard
he could get. Her breath whooshed out. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I’m hanging up,” he said. “Before you destroy all my good intentions. I’ll pick you up at your place tomorrow. Seven o’clock.”

~

Zach raised his glass. “To us.”

Angie acknowledged the toast and took a sip of wine.

So far, the evening had gone nothing like she’d imagined. For one thing, Zach hadn’t even touched her, other than to help her into his low-slung sports car, and off with her evening wrap once they’d entered the restaurant. For another, he was being excruciatingly polite. There was none of the usual baiting that she had come to expect—even anticipate—from their interactions over the years. If anything, he appeared to be deliberately avoiding any controversial topics.

Sure, he was charming. And gorgeous to look at, especially once he’d shed the sport coat, revealing a closely-fitted polo sweater and dark jeans that showed off muscles he’d no doubt worked hard to attain. But she missed the old Zach, the one whose acerbic wit and blunt manner seemed to challenge her at every turn.

“You know,” she said, unable to resist prodding him a bit. “I’m surprised you’re in such a good mood.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you did just lose a case.”

His lips quirked, as if she’d just made a joke. “You mean the one we just
settled
?”

She dismissed that with a flutter of her fingers. “My client got what she wanted—for which she thanks you, by the way.”

“Glad I could help.”

“But seriously, why aren’t you pissed?”

“Are you telling me I should be pissed?”

She shrugged. “I probably would be, in your position.”

“That’s one of the things I like about you, Angel. You say what you mean. No coyness or beating around the bush.” He swirled the wine in his glass. “I have to admit, I was pretty angry to start. But my dad reminded me that sometimes we have to chalk it up to the cost of doing business.”

“That’s a pretty mellow attitude.”

“I guess. At least you didn’t drag it out. Some women would have, just to make their opponent squirm. Just because they could.”

She raised a brow. “Sounds like you’ve been hanging out with the wrong women.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m beginning to realize that.”

She couldn’t think of an appropriate comeback. Just as well, since their waiter arrived and seemed intent on describing in meticulous detail all the night’s specials.

“So, what next?” she said, once they’d ordered. “Do you still have to deal with the city council, now that elections are over?”

“Yes, but it’s not as bad as it could have been.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know they’ve been making noises about possibly rescinding our DA.”

She nodded.

“We don’t have anything in writing yet, but a few of the members have indicated that they’re willing to renegotiate the agreement so that we can move forward with the project. Provided we make certain modifications.”

“Like what?”

“Again, this is all preliminary talk. But we may end up converting some of the commercial space to residential use, to create a few additional low-income housing units. Not as many as you were asking for,” he said, forestalling her next question, “but enough to satisfy the new city council. And we’ll probably add another hundred-fifty to two hundred underground parking spaces. Which should help relieve some of the congestion you were nattering on about.”

She stared at him. S&L was voluntarily making the changes Angie and her client had asked for in the lawsuit? Okay, maybe on a smaller scale, but still. Unbelievable. It didn’t even matter that Zach had managed to slip in a snarky comment. In fact, his backslide into sarcasm was a welcome relief. At least it was something familiar in the midst of a landscape that seemed to be shifting beneath her very feet from one moment to the next.

“Wow,” she finally said. “How did all this come about?”

He finished off his wine and topped up her glass before pouring himself another. “Apparently, while you and I were closeted with the judge, our VP of Development was negotiating with a high-tech startup that wants to expand its operations to the West Coast. I talked with their point man earlier today, and we’re this close to signing them on for a long-term lease. If that happens, we’ll be able to recoup all the losses from the conversion, and then some.”

No wonder Zach didn’t seem particularly fazed by the concessions S&L was being forced to make. “Sounds like a win-win,” she said.

“We’re hopeful.”

When he grinned, Angie noticed a tiny chip in his upper left canine. The imperfection was so small that she wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been paying such close attention. It didn’t detract from his looks at all. If anything, it enhanced his appeal, made him seem a little more human.

She wondered how it had happened. She waited until the waiter served their food, then asked. “Do you play hockey?”

He raised a brow at the apparent non sequitur. “Not anymore. Why?”

“You have a little chip, right here—” she pointed to her own corresponding tooth.

“Ah.” He cut into his
scaloppine al limone
. “Nothing to do with hockey.”

“Okay, now you’ve got me curious.”

“I fell.” He nodded toward her plate. “How’s the gnocchi?”

“Good. Want to taste?” She offered him a bite from her fork.

He wrapped a hand around hers and leaned in. She caught her breath as his lips closed around the tines.

“Well?” she said when he finally released her hand.

He finished chewing. “Very good.”

“I meant about your story. You can’t just stop in the middle.”

He resumed eating his own entrée. “I used to work construction during the summers. Whatever project S&L had going on, I was there. Getting to know the business from the ground up.”

“When you weren’t hanging out at bars.”

“Right.” He flashed the grin again.

She could totally picture him: hot, sweaty, muscles rippling with every movement. Wearing nothing but low-hanging jeans, heavy work boots, and a tool belt.
Oh, my.

“So anyway,” he continued, “we were tiling a roof. I slipped.”

“You what?” Her fantasy image fizzled. “Oh, my God. How old were you?”

“Seventeen or eighteen. It wasn’t a big deal.”

She stared at him, appalled by his casual attitude. “How can you say it wasn’t a big deal? You fell off a
roof
.”

“I didn’t fall
off
,” he said
.
“Dad’s a stickler for safety. I was wearing a full body harness hooked up to a secure anchor. Other than a few minor scrapes and bruises, I was fine.”

She let out a breath. Of course he was fine. He was sitting across the table from her, enjoying his veal, sipping a lovely Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, calmly dismissing an accident that could have easily gotten him killed.

“Hey.” He reached across the table for her hand. “What’s going on? You look a little pale.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“What?”

She shook her head, taking comfort from the solid weight of his hand over hers, the warmth of his skin, the feel of his thumb brushing across her knuckles. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

His brow furrowed, as if it had never occurred to him that any other outcome was even possible. “Well,” he said. “Now you know the full story.”

She wondered what other stories lay buried behind the urbane façade he presented to the world. How long would it take to peel away the layers and get to know the man beneath it all? And why was she even thinking about doing that?

She pulled away and picked up her ice water. This was supposed to be a fling, wasn’t it? An opportunity to finally indulge in the sexual fantasies she’d been weaving around him for years.

Would it be rude to just ask for the check and drag Zach off to the nearest private space they could find? She glanced at his plate. Still half full. Maybe they could take a quick break. The women’s restroom was private, and it had a lock…

This was insane. She had to get a grip. Wasn’t this the very type of behavior she’d condemned him for all those years ago? Besides, she wasn’t into having sex in public places. It was so…low class. And then there was the ick factor. Seriously, who knew what kind of germs could be picked up from the counter or door of a public restroom, even in an upscale restaurant like this? Her apartment might not be tidy, but at least she knew it was
clean
, and she’d changed her sheets just this morning.

“What are you thinking?” he said.

She glanced at him. How would he respond if she just said it out loud:
I want to strip those clothes from your body and lick every inch of your skin?

She took a hasty sip of water before she blurted out anything that couldn’t be taken back. Casting around for a safe topic, she fell back on the generic first-date question regarding career. “How did you end up going into law?”