The Dangerous Seduction (21 page)

No one mentions the circumstances of Fiona’s death, the priest careful, almost circumspect in his eulogy. One of Fiona’s cousins reads a poem, they sing a couple of hymns and listen to Janis Joplin singing
Me and Bobby McGee
, and then it’s over, the congregation shuffling out into the cold New York day. They go to give their condolences to Fiona’s family, and her husband, Mark, grips Joseph’s arm, and thanks him profusely for coming. Joseph looks uncomfortable as he tells Mark that Fiona was really valued and well-liked by everybody and will be sorely missed. Mark nods and ducks his head at Joseph’s words, his already red and watery eyes welling up even more.

“Thank God that’s over,” Joseph sighs when they finally climb into the back of the car.

Ryan nods and stares at the crumpled order of service in his hand, Fiona’s high-school year book picture staring back at him. He fidgets with it as Dave pulls them into the traffic, and Joseph starts scrolling through his BlackBerry. He folds it in half, then again, and again, watching Fiona’s faded xeroxed picture get smaller and smaller.

“Quit it.” Joseph lays his hand over Ryan’s, squeezing. His fingers look extra pale against the black leather of Ryan’s gloves. “Stop thinking about it.”

“Easy for you to say,” Ryan says. He hasn’t been on the subway since it happened, which luckily is not so much of a big deal now that Dave, Joseph’s driver, seems to have become his own chauffeur by proxy. But last night he’d woken up to the sound of subway train brakes screaming in his head, his heart rate going at 140 beats a minute, and he’d wanted to slide out of bed and cry.

Joseph rolls his head Ryan’s way to look at him. “It’ll be okay,” he says. “When this fucking case is over. After we’ve gotten that bastard, McNeil. It will be better after all that. I promise.”

Two months later….

“W
HATEVER
THE
fuck you’re doing to him to keep him so damn chipper, keep doing it,” Sean says after Joseph stops by to congratulate them for good work on their latest McNeil brief.

The judge has finally set a date for the trial, and practically everybody—including Ryan—has been moved back onto the case. He thought they’d been working long hours before, but things have gotten even more crazy, which is exciting and exhilarating in one sense, but simultaneously frustrating and inconvenient in another—he has a lot less free time with Joseph. Still, Joseph seems to be thriving on it, and Ryan has gotten into the spirit of things too. It’s hard not to, with the entire office riding high on adrenaline. The only real downside (aside from the sudden dip in the regularity of his sex life), is that he’s been moved from Paul’s team to work with Sean, someone who, in Ryan’s opinion, has zero redeeming features.

“What?” he says, not bothering to temper the irritation in his voice.

Sean barks out a laugh. “Sweetheart, c’mon, we all know! Worst-kept secret since Tom Cruise’s heterosexuality. We all know he’s been dicking it to you ever since you got here. Hell, that was probably how you got the job, right?”

“You’re so full of shit,” Ryan tells him.

Sean looks entirely unfazed. “Whatever. I’m thanking you, sweet cheeks. Whatever freaky shit you’re doing to him, keep doing it. Never seen him so damn happy. So, how is he in the sack? Bet he’s a frigging tiger. All that ice-queen act just melting away.”

“Sounds like you’ve given it a lot of thought,” Ryan comments, eying him contemptuously.

Sean shrugs, passes his pen across his knuckles in a move he never gets tired of showing off. “Can’t deny that I’m not intrigued. I’m strictly pussy-only, but even I can see that the dude’s hot. Must be like fucking catnip to fags like you.”

“I’m not a fag,” Ryan says, narrowing his eyes at him.

“Okay, then whatever the bullshit, politically correct term is these days for cocksuckers,” Sean says with a dismissive shrug.

Ryan presses his lips together and cracks his knuckles. “Shall we just do this?” he says tightly.

His mood doesn’t improve later when he’s back in his own office, talking to his mom on the phone. Ever since he and Daisy broke up, his phone calls with his parents have either been barely disguised bitter and disappointed digs at his current life choices, or outright pleas with him to rethink the whole break-up thing and beg Daisy to take him back.

“I’m sure she’d forgive you if you said you were sorry,” his mom had pleaded with him on the phone only three days ago. “She loves you. You don’t just stop loving someone. You don’t just turn all those feelings off. She’d forgive you. She’s a very forgiving girl.”

He’d bitten his tongue and just listened, swallowing back the urge to spill everything, to tell her about Joseph and about his sudden lurch toward the less straight path in life. At least that might shut her up, even if it could lead to both his parents never speaking to him ever again, and even worse—to his father changing his testimony.

“What do you mean you’re not coming for the holidays?” she says.

Ryan rolls his eyes and passes his phone to the other shoulder,
his gaze locked on his computer screen as he scrolls through his e-
mail.

“Ryan?” she prompts.

He bites back a sigh and looks away from his screen. “Mom, I told you before, I can’t come at Christmas. I’m working. We’ve got this new deadline. The date for the trial’s been set now. I can’t take any time off. It’s impossible.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound very fair. It’s Christmas, Ryan.”

“No, but it’s just how things are. I’m sorry.”

“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d still been with Daisy,” she says.

He bites his lip, decides not to point out that
yes, it would still have happened like this
, because this is his job and trial dates have nothing to do with his relationship with Daisy. He still wouldn’t have been able to fly home for the holidays if he’d been with Daisy because things like trial dates are nonnegotiable. The judge is getting impatient and he’s eager to stamp his authority on the case, to make sure that people like Joseph Van Aardt and Frank Carson dance to his tune. Scheduling the trial over the Christmas period is one way of making sure that no one gets any time off.

To his relief, his mom decides to drop the subject. She starts talking about something else, about some kid he barely remembers who was in little league with him and who’s just had his second baby. He tunes it all out, makes hmm and oohh and other noises when he has to and tries to ignore the reprimand in her tone or the pointed and very unsubtle way she keeps talking about all his old friends and classmates, and how they’re all getting married and popping out kids, and how they’d never miss a family Christmas, and speaking of Christmas and goodwill to all men, they went to the annual charity holiday event at the golf club and you’d never guess who was there, giving out the prizes and matching everybody’s donations at the silent auction, but Jack McNeil.

“Jack McNeil was at your golf club?” Ryan interrupts, attention suddenly back on the conversation.

His mom pauses, says, “Yes, he came right over to say hello. He was so charming and polite, such a nice man. He was there with his wife. She wasn’t as nice as him, and you could just tell she didn’t really want to be there, but he stayed right to the end and he was speaking to everybody, not just his own circle.”

“Mom, did he speak to Dad, like just the two of them?”

“I don’t know, Ryan. Maybe.”

He grinds his teeth, thinking furiously. He hasn’t given much thought to his father’s testimony over the past few weeks, but he can hear Joseph’s voice echoing in his head after their flight back from Houston all those months ago, after his dad had agreed to testify.
I think he’s hiding something
, Ryan had said, and Joseph had agreed with him.

“Mom, how long were they talking for?”

“I told you, Ryan, I don’t know. I did have my own friends to catch up with, too. I wasn’t glued to your father’s side the entire time.”

“Is Dad around right now? I should talk to him.”

She pauses, then says, sounding a little hurt, “No, he’s not, and really, you’re obviously busy and have not been listening to a word I’ve been saying, so I’m just going to go. You call when you have time in your busy schedule to talk to your mother.”

“Mom, wait—”

But she’s already hung up. He curses and tosses the phone onto his desk in frustration.

“I
THINK
you should fire Sean,” he says over dinner. Joseph flicks his gaze away from the football game playing on the TV and looks at him, Kung Pao Chicken-laden chopsticks poised in front of his face.

“Why?”

“’Cause he’s an asshole.”

Joseph snorts and drops the chopsticks back into the carton. “If I fired every guy who worked for me who was an asshole, I wouldn’t have anyone left. Besides, he’s good at his job; he’s been there six years.”

“That’s not the point. He’s been saying shit about us. About you.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Like fag, cocksucker, like saying I only got the job ’cause you wanted to fuck me.”

Joseph’s expression doesn’t change. He sighs and leans forward to place the carton on the coffee table. “Really? You into tattletaling now?”

Ryan feels the blush rise in his face and he drops his own carton onto the coffee table, turning to confront Joseph. “He’s a prick. The shit he’s been saying is unprofessional and offensive. It undermines you, Joseph.”

“And firing him would help that? Everyone would know I was firing him because of what he’d been saying about you and me. If you want to win people over, Ryan, if you want them to respect you, then don’t go running to the guy you’re sleeping with asking him to fight your battles for you.”

“I’m not doing that! This is a legitimate complaint. The guy was using homophobic insults. You’ve fired people for way less than this!”

“No, no, I haven’t. I’ve fired people for doing their job badly or for not being loyal. Sean is loyal. He’s a homophobic asshole who will probably end up with his offensive ass sued to hell and back—and I would gladly like to represent the person doing the suing—but at the moment, I need him. He’s been with the firm longer than I have. He’s good at what he does. He knows the McNeil case inside out and I’m sorry to say this, but right at this moment, he’s more useful to me than you are.”

“Right, great, good to know. Good to know I’m so valued.”

Joseph rolls his eyes. “Oh Christ, don’t have a fucking hissy fit. I was talking about work. Only work. This thing”
—
he gestures between them
—
“doesn’t come to the office. It stays here. You
know
that.”

“But it’s already at the office, Joseph! That’s what I’m saying! Fucking assholes like Sean spreading shit about us, calling me a fag and saying I only got the job ’cause I got down on my knees for you—”

“Then prove him wrong!” Joseph cuts in. “Jesus Christ, Ryan, prove him wrong with what you can do. You’re a good attorney; I keep telling you that. You’ve been qualified for four years and I’m already giving you work I would normally keep for senior associates. Of course you’re going to get people thinking it’s only because of our personal relationship, but they’re—”

“—just jealous?” Ryan interrupts with a snort. “My mom used to say that when those kids at school used to pick on me.” He licks his lips, hangs his head. “Forget about it.” He gets up off the couch and gathers up their half-eaten takeout. “You want to keep any of this?”

Joseph nods distractedly and sinks back into the couch. Ryan pads to the kitchen and starts stowing the boxes of uneaten takeout in the fridge. He closes the door, then jumps when he feels Joseph’s arms thread around him from behind. He goes still and feels Joseph pressing his lips to the nape of his neck, pushing the collar of his T-shirt aside, and nuzzling his face along the top ridges of his spine. This thing with Joseph, these times when it’s just the two of them, is the best and easiest thing in his life right now, the only thing actually going well. Work and Sean and Fiona and his mom and dad and Daisy and all of it—all of it can vanish and flicker and disappear from his mind like data being magnetically erased from a CD when he’s with Joseph, because when he’s with Joseph nothing else matters.

“We should do something tomorrow,” Joseph murmurs. “Take a couple of hours off. Go for a run or go for a drink—or do both. Just do something that isn’t anything to do with the fucking case.” The sound of his voice reverberates up and down Ryan’s spine, a soft, humming, comforting sensation.

Ryan twists around in the embrace. He drops his hands to his sides and lets out a long breath. “Listen, Joseph, I’m sorry for being a dick just then. It’s just that….” He bites his lip and lets out a frustrated breath. “You know, the whole gay thing.”

Joseph draws away and fixes him with a look. “What about the whole gay thing?” he says.

“I’m not gay. At least that’s what I always thought. Though, obviously that’s not exactly true, and I realize that now. But….” He heaves out a long breath and bows his head. “I guess I’m kinda still having a problem with it all. Not with you and not with you and me… and when it’s just us like this. I like this, Joseph. I
really
like this. I like being with you. But it’s just when assholes like Sean run their mouths off, saying shit about… about….” He trails off, shrugging awkwardly. “You know what I mean. Don’t you?”

Joseph doesn’t say anything for what feels like a long time. Then he sighs, placing his hand on Ryan’s forearm. “It’s just going to take time,” he says quietly.

Ryan bows his head and stares down at the place where Joseph’s fingers are resting on his forearm. The skin feels warm where Joseph is touching him, a little tingly even. It’s nice, comforting, arousing, or at least his dick seems to think so, coming awake in his pants as it always does when Joseph is this close.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he says at last. “Just don’t get fed up with waiting for me to catch up.”