The Proviso (23 page)

Giselle’s mind went blank. “Excuse me?”

He grinned suddenly, wickedly, his teeth flashing
white, pretty against his dark face. Giselle’s heart picked up its
pace. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“It’s the eyes, right?”

He barked a genuinely amused laugh and wiped a hand
over his mouth, then his amusement seeped away. After a very long
silence, he murmured, “I . . . have my own confession to make.” He
took a deep breath, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and bowed his
head. “I saw you at Leah’s visitation. I overheard Knox ask you to
go home with him.”

Her eyes widened and she swallowed. “Oh,” she
breathed, her gut churning, “so that’s why you were angry with me
at work.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t— I didn’t—”

He held up a hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation
for anything, Giselle. I was wrong and I was wrong to take it out
on you.”

“Did you think—” She almost didn’t want to know. “At
the Nelson, did you think I was sleeping with Sebastian, too?”

His hesitation was all the answer she needed and her
nose started to sting again.

“I see.” She paused. “I suppose I can’t blame you.
Apparently, the rest of society thought that, too.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure, really. You didn’t act like
lovers and he’s not known for his prowess with women, so it was
actually quite shocking that he showed up with any woman at all,
spoke, and then laughed. The Junior League nearly had an
orgasm.”

That did pull a tiny smile out of her, but . . . “I
knew that’s what you thought of me, but I thought it was because of
what I did with you, on the bench.”

“That’s really why you were avoiding me, isn’t it?”
he asked quietly.

She shrugged and looked away. “Mixed bag.”

“The look on your face was— When you ran out on me,
I knew I was off base somewhere. I didn’t care who you were
sleeping with, Taight or whoever or how many—it was that it was
Knox
.”

Her brow wrinkled and she looked back at him. “I
don’t understand. Why Knox but not any other man?”

He sucked up a deep breath. “Knox is my best friend
from UCLA. My wife told me she’d been having an affair with him and
I— I didn’t know what to believe.”

Giselle’s mind spun at those not insignificant
pieces of information. “I guess I can understand that,” she
muttered finally and lowered her head to stare at the ground and
think. “Caught between your best friend and your wife. Loyalty’s
dicey sometimes.”

“Knox made the choice for me. He walked away.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“So after Fen’s party, he and I had dinner, at his
request. Well, to be more precise, he summoned me. He told me the
whole shebang. Fen, the proviso, Taight.”

“When did this happen?”

“In March.”

“Knox doesn’t usually meddle,” she mused, almost to
herself, “so Sebastian must have been hammering him to do
something. Why did you bother going?”

“You. I needed to know for sure. He knows my taste
in women and he knows me well enough to figure out I’d be stewing
about it. He gave me the answers but he refused to give me your
phone number, tell me where you live, set up a date. Nothing. He
said he wasn’t going to make it easy for me and I needed to pay
penance for being a bastard to you both. That I needed to work for
it so I’d value it.” He paused. “Hence, stalking. I knew where you
worked and I knew you were in law school, so . . . ”

She wrapped her arms around herself, even though she
had no reason to be cold. “I’m assuming he
did
tell you what
he and I
haven’t
done?”

“Yes. He was very clear on that point.”

“So now I don’t know if you pursued me because Knox
redeemed your low opinion of me or if you want me in spite of your
low opinion of me,” she muttered. Dammit. She was going to cry.
“That’s just so . . .
flattering
. I should’ve got a clue
when you called me Lilith.”

He sighed. “When I first saw you, before I overheard
your conversation— You look like a painting.”

“But you didn’t mean it that way and you weren’t
subtle about it.”

“Giselle, I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Is there
anything I can do or say so you’ll give me a chance?”

She laughed without humor. “I came here thinking you
were going to truss me up like a Christmas goose for conning you
and send me packing. Now I’m offended and you’re the one repenting.
I’m a little discombobulated right now, so forgive me if I don’t
know what to say.”

He remained silent for a bit. Then, “Why did you
haul me into your car that night?”

She looked up at him sharply. “Because you hurt my
feelings. Would you rather I have slugged you? I have a hell of a
right cross.”

His mouth quirked then and she suddenly saw the
humor in what she’d said. “Do you do that to every strange man who
hurts your feelings?”

That pulled a puff of laughter out of her and she
couldn’t help the beginnings of a smile. “Well.” She cleared her
throat. “Men—strange or otherwise—don’t dismiss me out of hand. You
got my point, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I most assuredly did,” he said with a smirk,
“and you got mine.”

She studied him, his face. Intellectually,
aesthetically, she understood that his burn scars made him ugly,
but to her, he was beautiful. Powerful. He’d attained godlike
status in the courtroom despite scars that should frighten juries.
Most people would have taken their money and hidden away from the
world, but not him. Oh, no. He’d set out to conquer it and he’d
succeeded.

He pushed himself away from the car and strode
around the back to the passenger side. “I’m hungry. Find us a place
to eat.”

It occurred to her to protest his abrupt, imperious
command, but it had unexpectedly made her breathless and somewhat
tingly between her legs. She figured this was a battle best left
un-picked and dropped into her seat, though she didn’t bother to
start the car. She watched him get in and, once he’d settled and
looked straight back at her, she said, “Apologize.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but then he did a
double take. “Who hit you?” he demanded, instantly ferocious,
lethal. A panther.

She had forgotten that the evidence of Fen’s slap
would be visible on her fair skin. A chuckle escaped her, then it
turned into a rolling laugh. “Doesn’t matter, but if it makes you
feel any better, the other guy looks worse.”

With the back of his hand, he reached up and gently
caressed that cheek. Her breath caught. “I’m sorry, Giselle,” he
whispered. “For my assumptions, for my anger. All of it,
everything. And I’m sorry for being late; I had an appointment I
forgot about and I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. I was
so
glad to see you—” He took a deep breath. “Can we start
over? Where we should’ve started a year and a half ago if I hadn’t
been an ass? Please?”

His dark tan made him seem much more dangerous than
at Christmas and made his vivid eyes gleam with a magical green
fire. Giselle found herself entranced.

“I’d like that,” she breathed.

He flashed that pretty smile for her again and said,
“So are you going to drive or are you going to let me starve?”

She laughed then. “Now, you know I’m going to pick
the most expensive restaurant in town, right?”

“I was counting on it. Plaza III, I’m guessing?”

“Absolutely.”

Still chuckling, she started the car, then drove
them to the steakhouse on the southwestern corner of the Country
Club Plaza. They said nothing on the way. Although only a mile away
from Kauffman Garden, the silence during the drive had made her a
nervous wreck by the time she found a spot on Ward Parkway.

She turned off the engine and bolted out of the car
as fast as she could, needing to be on her feet and away from him
and his largeness, his power, his raw sexuality. Her back to him,
she heard and then felt him come up behind her and splay his large
hand across her back, and that—oh, that was electrifying.

His momentum took him around her and she looked up
just in time to close her eyes as he kissed her. Softly at first,
and then a little deeper. Her hands—she didn’t know what to do with
her hands and her arms, and she oh, so wanted to touch him.
Hesitantly, lightly, she furrowed her left hand in his hair and
laid her right hand on his chest, her thumb on the little nub of
nipple through the fabric of his dress shirt and undershirt. He
sucked in a breath and she stopped thinking, stopped caring about
everything as his tongue found hers.

They kissed. Long, slow, lazy. Giselle heard herself
hum her desire into his mouth.

He pulled away from her finally and she opened her
eyes to again find his green gaze studying her. “I’m hungry,” he
repeated softly, though this time the words held so much, much
more. “Come eat with me. Talk with me. Laugh with me.”

* * * * *

23:
COCKED & LOCKED

While awaiting a table, the conversation started
hesitantly, Giselle unsure what this evening would bring. Having
dinner with him—being kissed by him—had not been on her short list
of possible endings to her confessional. Hearing his confession . .
.

He set her at ease by keeping his distance, asking
her questions that made her think, listening to her answers, and
making it clear that whatever evil she thought she had done him, he
thought it nonexistent at best and irrelevant at worst. He made her
feel
honorable—

—and he obviously wished to redeem himself in her
eyes.

“How did you come to work for Hale?” he asked
suddenly.

She shrugged. “Answered an ad. It’s a good job while
I’m in law school and I needed the money and the benefits.
Transcribing has always turned out to be my fallback position. I
don’t like the work itself, but it’s a good position and I like my
boss. And no, he doesn’t know about Knox, so I’d appreciate it if
you kept it to yourself.”

“I could’ve busted you out on that that night if I
felt like getting you fired.”

She inclined her head. “Then thank you.”

Once seated, they warmed to an easy repartee,
talking and laughing without touching. It didn’t occur to her that
that might be odd, considering the months and the hours, the
information and the foreplay that had led up to this.

It didn’t matter that she’d drawn him into her
zealously guarded personal space, wanted him to be there. At this
moment, it was enough to look in his eyes, see them focus on her
face; to look at his mouth, see the liberally flashing grin; to
look at his brow, see it wrinkle intensely as he listened to what
she said and prepared his own argument.

“Sebastian told me you’re a member of the church,”
she said.

“I figured you were, considering your family.”

“So in the context of what’s passed between us thus
far, does this mean we’re both a tidge left of expectations?”

“Way more than a tidge. Do you care?”

She hesitated. “Um, yeah. A little. Not as much as I
should, I think.”

As the evening deepened, she relaxed completely.
They ate together easily, as if they had eaten together their whole
lives and nothing was a surprise anymore, and she ate as she always
had without shame.

He seemed not to care that she put away a tartare
appetizer, a pound of fine rare prime rib, a pitcher of water, and
a dinner salad at one sitting. She blithely told him about her
lifelong struggle with her weight and that Leah, a registered
dietitian, had taught her how to eat. He remarked that he couldn’t
argue with the results and eagerly complied with her request that
he take her dinner rolls as well as his. He, like her, preferred
his salad last.

“So, where’d you get your salad-last habit?” she
asked with a smile.

“Scotland. You?”

“Your mission?” He nodded as he chewed. “I picked
mine up all over the rest of Europe.”

“Your mission?” he returned once he’d swallowed his
bite.

“Absolutely not. That’s not my gig. Sebastian lived
in Paris for years and I went to visit him the summer between my
sophomore and junior years at BYU. He took me all over.”

They explored each other intellectually,
philosophically, spiritually, and aesthetically, bouncing back and
forth from the sacred to the profane, the profound to the absurd,
and touching all points in between.

“I keep hearing Senator Oth and his cronies
backpedal their anti-Taight rhetoric,” Bryce said coolly, trying to
stifle a smile.

Giselle laughed. “Oh, you know about that.”

“That was brilliant. I’m very impressed.”

“Don’t be too impressed. I wasn’t sure any of the
parties would react the way I hoped and too much depended on
decisions other people had to make.”

“When’s Kevin going to announce?”

“Not sure. September, possibly October. I’d rather
he wait until he finds out whether Justice McKinley will endorse
him or not. I’d also like to know how Fen’s fundraising’s been
going. I know he’s spent quite a bit of money, but not as much as I
wanted him to by now.”

“Justice McKinley—she’s the girl Knox is keeping on
ice?”

“Oh, yes,” Giselle said with a smirk. “She shook him
up but good and she has no idea.”

All four elbows shamelessly on the table, they
leaned over their plates toward each other, hungry for more of each
other’s minds. She had never been so engaged and entertained in all
her life. She couldn’t stop smiling and laughing, and she could
feel the heat rise in her face. She imagined that her eyes must be
what they called “sparkling” in books, although she wasn’t sure how
eyes could sparkle, really. She certainly
felt
sparkly.

“What’s your middle name?”

“Giselle.”

He chuckled. “Okay. What’s your first name?”

“Celia. My mother insisted I be named after my
four-greats grandmother—but so were six of my cousins, which is why
my father insisted I go by my middle name. What’s yours?”