Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance (17 page)

She looked at him, her head tipped to one side. “Sound about right, Jack?” Taking his silence as agreement, she went on. “Now, perhaps you’ll tell me why you’re really here. Because if it’s just to reassure me that you know the rules, you can relax. You’d have gotten a call from me long ago if I’d been worried about your relationship with Ms. Carroll.”

He folded his hands and allowed his face to still. “The other lawyer in the
Everton
hearing—Bartram Mather—has filed a formal disciplinary complaint against Elise.”

The change in Judge Williams’s genial demeanor was sudden and severe. She sat up, rigid with disapproval. “What the—? On what basis?”

Jack explained about the settlement discussions and Elise’s canny manipulation of Mather’s foolishness.

“What rule does he think she broke? Some obligation not to exploit his stupidity?” she demanded. “Oh, this pisses me off. I should get him sanctioned by our court.”

“I have a better idea,” Jack said softly.

“I’m listening.”

“I was thinking you might know someone who knows someone who might talk to the folks at the Disciplinary Review Board. You can see this is a turkey. I read the rules. Even if Elise told Mather she was going to sleep with the next judge on the case, it’s still not a violation until she actually goes ahead and does it. I can’t think of anything she might have threatened Mather with that would be worse than that, and if that’s not a violation of her professional ethics, what sort of case could he have?”

Judge Williams narrowed her eyes. “If she’s so innocent, why bother to fix this?”

“She’s up for partnership at Fergusson. I don’t want her to feel uncomfortable in that situation. If my recusal loses her that partnership, it’ll adversely affect my plans to marry her.” He spread his hands out. He was gambling that Euphemia Williams was as much of a romantic as Anita King.

“Well, you’re right—a phone call makes this go away. Are you sure you want me to do this? Your Ms. Carroll may not want you fixing things for her.”

He’d thought about this. He knew Elise could take care of the problem herself, but it would take time and result in more attention, inside her firm and out, than she wanted. Bad enough he’d started all this. It felt good to take a tiny part of the burden away.

“I set all of this in motion, no pun intended,” Jack explained slowly. “If I hadn’t fallen in love with her right there, in the courtroom—or if I’d met her first and not had to announce on the record what I felt for her—all of this is avoided. I could have had the case reassigned more discreetly and no one would have known what was going on.”

Judge Williams had gone back to her nodding Buddha routine.

Jack looked at her, hoping she understood what he was trying to do. “I just want to minimize the upheaval for her. I can’t unring the bell, but I can stop it from pealing endlessly.”

Judge Williams—Euphemia—stood up, so he did as well. “Okay, Jack. Good luck getting her to understand what you’re attempting. I suspect you’ll find she sees the situation differently. If it helps, you can tell her that I wanted to make the phone call. That little rat is impugning the integrity of a lawyer who did nothing wrong, and he’s publicizing the actions of one of my judges in the process. The sooner the DRB kicks his complaint, the better.”

Jack left, satisfied that he’d gotten what he came for. Elise might be annoyed for a little bit, but in the end, she’d see it as he did.

On the day of their next sex date, Jack took the precaution of not drinking any coffee past lunchtime. He really wanted to sleep at Elise’s place. He looked forward to spending a lazy Sunday morning with her. Morning sex, with her pink and tousled from sleep—just thinking about it was arousing. Maybe even sex in the shower, which would be a first for him. He’d laughed when he spotted the stock of condoms on a shelf in the shower. It seemed the stuff of bad porn movies, having sex pressed up against slick tiles. He’d never tried it, but presumably she had more experience in how to make it work.

He had a canvas bag with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a gift. When he rang her doorbell, she swung open the door and pulled him in. She was wearing close to nothing, some diaphanous nightgown that went nearly to the floor but was made of such delicate cotton that she might as well have been naked.

He eyed her judiciously. “I keep feeling overdressed when I get here.”

“Well, then wear fewer clothes, or—” she pressed against him, “you could get undressed faster.”

“There you go with that need for speed,” he teased.

“What can I say? I’m horny,” she murmured against his lips.

Her kisses were immediately deep and drugging. He had a split second of rational thought, which he used to remember her locking the front door before assaulting him. He dropped his bag to the floor and hauled her, hard, into his arms. He was horny, too, he discovered before he stopped thinking.

A couple of hours later, Elise was flushed, panting, and lying spread-eagled on the bed. Jack came back from the bathroom—yup, there were still condoms in the shower—and stood looking at her.

“Round three?” he asked.

She didn’t open her eyes, but her lips curved into a soft half smile. “Can’t…just…yet.”

“Would it be gauche if I mentioned that I’m starving?” He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked the damp skin of her waist and hip.

Her dark blue eyes snapped open. “You and your food, Judge. I hope you notice these critical ways in which you and I are incompatible.”

“Because I like to eat occasionally?”

She pulled herself up on the pillows. “No—because you have an almost sexual relationship with food.” She crossed her ankles demurely, which struck Jack as funny. He didn’t laugh. He also resisted the urge to make a double entendre about eating.

“Didn’t you tell me there’s a local pizzeria that’s pretty good?” He handed her the phone.

While they waited for the pizza to arrive, Elise put on jeans and a T-shirt that read “A Hard Man is Good to Find.” Jack hid his grin as he pulled on his own clothes.

Elise was setting the table and Jack was getting two beers out of the fridge when he said, “Oh, I heard Mather is going to withdraw his complaint against you.”

She turned to stare at him, a place setting still clutched in her hand. Her expression was hard to read. “You know this? How?”

He wasn’t going to lie, and he’d ruled out being coy. No harm in being sparing with the truth, though. “I talked to Chief Judge Williams about whether I was obligated to recuse myself from any case involving Fergusson. Your situation with Mather came up, and Judge Williams was very unhappy that Mather was going after you in that way. She said she wanted to make a phone call, and I gather she did. She let me know yesterday that the folks at the DRB were very clear—Mather would face an investigation of his own practices if he didn’t withdraw the complaint.”

Elise stood stock-still for a moment, then slowly went back to positioning flatware, adjusting each piece with meticulous care. Her silence seemed ominous as she made deliberate, almost robotic movements.

Jack wasn’t stupid enough to ask her if she was mad, but he sensed she was. He wished she’d say something. He didn’t enjoy fighting with a woman while they were dating—it seemed counterproductive. Then again, Elise wasn’t like any of the other women he’d been with.

“I was about to accuse you of fixing my problem.” Her voice was crisp and quiet. She leaned over the table to fuss with the place mats, the salt and pepper, the napkins. Her refusal to look at him was hard to bear. “You would deny that, wouldn’t you? You arranged for my problem to get fixed—that’s a more accurate way of putting it.”

He didn’t bother denying this.

She turned then. Her face was pale, but her cheeks were bright with rage and her eyes looked almost black. She crossed her arms and pressed her lips in a tight line.

“I didn’t ask you to fix this. I didn’t want you to fix it. That’s not why I told you. I called you because I wanted to hear your voice and have you reassure me that I could handle it.”

Jack kept quiet. He was caught in a sudden blizzard, vehement and chilling. She had never looked more beautiful or distant. If only she’d yell at him. Rage he could handle. This emotional withdrawal cut at his heart.

In that moment he saw what he was risking. Maybe their crazy alternating-dates scheme wasn’t what he wanted, but it was better than a life without her. And this icily unresponsive person wasn’t his Elise.

She shook her head. “Not a smart move, Your Honor. It showed no respect for my ability to take care of my own problems.” Her voice was getting louder. Jack hoped that was a good sign.

“I’m the proximate cause of this mess,” he argued. “But for my actions, none of this happens. Don’t I have the right—hell, the obligation—to fix what I’ve caused?”

“It was
my
problem.
My
career,
my
actions,
my
conversation with Mather. Think about it—if I don’t even tell you that he filed a complaint, you have nothing to fix.” She was closer to yelling, but not there yet.

“Yes, but you did. How come it didn’t occur to you that I’d feel guilty about what you were going through? And want to exterminate Bart Mather like the worthless vermin he is?” Jack made a tight gesture as though he were flicking a crumb off the table.

Elise took a step closer to him. “If your actions were motivated by guilt, why didn’t you apologize and ask for the chance to fix it? Because you didn’t ask, did you? You just figured out a solution—a nice, political, one-hand-washes-the-other backroom deal—and went full steam ahead.”

“Yes, I did.” No point denying it.

“Do you really think so little of my abilities as a lawyer? And anyway, you know I have access to the same sort of backroom deal. Fergusson might be an old-school Quaker law firm from way back, but I’m pretty sure there are a few people there who could have made a similar sort of phone call.”

He folded his arms. “If that’s the case, then why are we having this fight?”

“Because it was my right to decide if that was the way I wanted to go!”

Strange. He’d thought when she got to the yelling stage, it would feel more personal. Instead, she was furious but not in an intimate way. They weren’t fighting as lovers, they were fighting as lawyers, adversaries on a case.

Oh God. All the sex, the dinners, the kissing, the flowers—none of it had worked. He hadn’t gotten an inch closer to her than that day in court when she was both a total stranger and the love of his life. Panic caused his face to flush. She still didn’t see the bond between them.

“You’re being silly,” he blurted out. He could have kicked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but he just blundered on. “If Mather’s complaint goes away as a result of a backroom deal, who cares who makes the phone call? Isn’t it better if Wallace Leith and Geoff Charles don’t know anything about this? You’re up for partnership soon. You don’t want this affecting their decision.”

“Because I’m a
silly
woman who probably would have said the wrong thing and gotten herself into trouble as a result, is that it?” she spat out. “I think that’s about all of your help I care to accept. I—”

She stopped suddenly.

Jack thought she was going to make up some excuse, like she didn’t feel well, but she didn’t. She lifted her chin defiantly.

“I don’t want to see you again. You should leave.”

Her face was stony, her eyes flat and unwavering. For a moment, he imagined he saw a flicker of something—regret? sadness?—but it was gone before he could identify it. Now she looked unshakable in her desire to see the last of him.

Jack considered his options, one by one, and they all came up short. He couldn’t argue with her decision to kick him out, his love for her was still a handicap, and sex was clearly not the answer. It nearly killed him but he decided to leave without another word. As he went through the hall, he saw his canvas bag, dropped by the front door where they’d—

He winced at the memory. He could hear Elise slamming cabinets and drawers as she unset the dining room table.
Now
she got angry, of course. Under the cover of her banging around, he unzipped his bag and left the small gift on the floor, its wrapping paper and curly bow mocking him with their cheerfulness. He thought about its contents, picked because he loved the light she shone into his life. He loved her so much it hurt.

Was he giving it to her because he wanted her to have it, or because he couldn’t have borne the pain of seeing it again?

When Jack opened the door, he nearly knocked over the kid with the pizza. Jack took some savage pleasure in paying for the food, including a generous tip, then set the pizza box on the floor next to his present. He closed the door, rang the bell, and walked home.

The panel Elise was moderating sounded interesting—Maternal Instincts in the Judiciary. She flipped through her notes one last time before going up on stage to shake hands with the panelists. When the organizer gave the nod, Elise introduced the panel with brief bios of the four women judges.