Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) (25 page)

Now she rolled over to face him and found his lips immediately on hers.

“Where are we going today?” he murmured.

“Pocatello.”

“Why’s that again?”

“To give us something to do,” Sarah explained.  “Otherwise we’d just
stay in bed all day.”

Joe hugged her to him.  Her nipples were still sensitive from all the
attention he’d given them the night before, and they seemed to like the
combination of his warm skin and the soft dark hair on his chest.  She draped
her thigh over his and they stayed there kissing for far longer than they
should have, considering they had another crack-of-dawn flight.

While Joe made coffee for himself and tea for her, Sarah closed herself
in his bathroom for a quick shower.  At the last second she locked the door
before slipping the hotel shower cap over her hair.  He had seen her in many
conditions, but wearing a shower cap still wasn’t one of them.  She wanted to
keep her streak alive.

“Why do you get to stay in such nicer hotels?” she asked when she came
out again, wearing a softer, thicker robe than the kind she was used to, and
rubbing a thick lotion on her hands instead of the watery concoction she found
every night in her hotel rooms.

“The firm gets a discount at certain chains,” Joe said.

For a second Sarah thought she saw some sort of look flash across his
face, but then decided it must have been her imagination.  Joe handed her the
cup of tea and took his turn in the shower.

Sarah stood in the steamy bathroom at the same time, applying her
makeup and brushing her hair into a more orderly shape.  She liked this, too,
she thought, the way she was enjoying far too many things about being with Joe
again.  She could get used to having him around, to sharing a bathroom and a
bedroom with him, to going about the routines of her day with Joe’s schedule
intersecting hers, Joe’s voice in the background, Joe’s arms around her when
she fell asleep at night and still around her in the morning.

Not to mention everything he’d done to her last night, multiplied by
seven for a good week.  She could get used to that, and she understood that was
a problem.

She pulled on a fresh pair of panties and the black lace bra from the
day before.  She had forgotten to hang up her suit, so it still bore some
evidence of lying crumpled on the floor.  But it would get wrinkled on the
flight anyway, she thought, so she wouldn’t worry about it.  She pulled on a
clean blouse and then added the pants and jacket.

Joe’s hoodie still lay at the bottom of her bag.  She transferred it to
his.

“You can keep that,” he said, standing in the doorway of the bathroom
with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Sarah went to him, a lawyer already dressed for her day, and ran her
hands over his clean skin.  She leaned forward and flicked her tongue over the
bare nipple of her lover—who was soon to dress in his own lawyer suit and go
back to being her opponent.

She pulled his towel away with a single tug and flicked her tongue
maddeningly lower.

“Sarah . . . ”

“We have time,” she said, too entertained now by the idea of kneeling
in front of him in her black wool suit and expensive silk blouse, knowing he’d
have to deal with that image and the memory of what she was about to do to him all
afternoon long as he sat across from her at the deposition.

She would have to deal with it, too, she realized, as she felt her own
body respond.

And that night they were flying home.  She wouldn’t see him again until
Monday.

That might not work out at all.

Twenty-eight

As Sarah packed up her laptop and notes after another long day of
travel and deposition, Chapman turned to her and stuck out his hand.

“This is it,” he said.

Sarah couldn’t bring herself to touch his flesh.  Instead she nodded. 
“This is it.”

“Oh, come on, Sarah, you’re going to act like that?” Chapman said.  He
laughed and looked over at Joe.  “She’s going ‘girly’ on us,” he said, making
the finger quotes.  “Come on, Henley, this isn’t personal—you know that.”

“Everything is personal, Chapman,” she answered pleasantly.  “You know
that.”

He laughed again, completely missing the look in her eye that should
have told him he was marked for destruction.  But Sarah had no further need to
talk to the man, and instead turned to Marcela.

“Just one more week with us, and then you get a break, huh?” Sarah
asked.

“Only sort of a break,” Marcela said.  “I’ll still have to work all the
way up through Christmas, but at least I get to stay in town.  I’m sorry for
you two, though,” she said, looking at Sarah and Joe.  “You must be sick of it
by now.”

Sarah shrugged.  “All part of the deal.”

“Ooh, you’re so tough,” Chapman chimed in.  “Unbreakable Sarah Henley. 
I told that kid who’s taking over for me he’d better watch out for you.”

Sarah offered him the thinnest of smiles.  “Everyone had better watch
out for me.  Stop talking, Chapman.  We’re done here.”

She picked up her laptop case, grabbed the handle of her carry-on, and
exited the room.  She’d barely stepped outside into the cold when a text
appeared on her phone:

Balls spontaneously exploding everywhere.

Sarah laughed.

She wished Joe could come out there with her, and they could freely
talk.  But like she told Marcela,
All part of the deal.

She looked around outside the small airport to see if there were
anywhere reasonable to walk.  Since they flew in just for the day, they rented
the conference room there at the airport instead of one at a hotel.  But now
Sarah had no place to escape except to the parking lot, where the temperature
was in the low 40s and too cold for what she was wearing.

She paused to pull out her insulated raincoat and the fleece hat and
gloves.  Those were an improvement, but she thought longingly of the UCLA
hoodie currently residing in Joe’s bag.

Not that she would have been able to wear it, she realized, even if she
had it.  She couldn’t take the risk that Chapman might see.  As self-absorbed
as the man was, he still might remember Joe wearing it at their dinner a few nights
before, and wonder why Sarah had it now.

So much strategy involved, Sarah thought.  All this sneaking around . .
.

It wasn’t until her third lap around the parking lot, trying to stretch
her legs, that the idea finally dawned on her:

Maybe they were sneaking around in more ways than she knew.

Joe could be involved with someone else.

How would she know? Sarah thought.  The only time she’d seen him over
the past two months was when they were on the road.  It might be the classic
case of a man fooling around with his travel buddy, then returning home to the
woman who thought he loved her, who had been waiting faithfully for him all
week, missing him, ready to throw herself into his arms again the second he
walked through the door and rip his clothes off and get reacquainted—

She pulled out her phone, took off her gloves, and typed with chilled
fingers.

Are you seeing anyone?

She wondered how long it would take him to answer that.  If it was
longer than it took to type two letters, she’d know he had to pause, make up a
lie—

No,
he
answered right away.
  You?

No.  Would you tell me if you were?
she typed back.

Yes.  Where are you?

Outside.

Within a minute she watched him exit the building and walk in her
direction.  Sarah turned to her right, the way she’d just come, and led him
toward the end of the terminal furthest away from the passenger area, where she
knew it was less likely Marcela or Chapman might see them.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Sarah said, looking back toward the
entrance.

“Why?” Joe said.  “We’re two lawyers who just finished a deposition and
are discussing our case.  I got your text, Henley.  You said your client is ready
to make us an offer?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Three million dollars in exchange for a non-disclosure?  Ask me
anything, Sarah,” he said in a lower voice, meant obviously just for her. 
“I’ll never lie to you.”

Ha, ha,
she
almost said again.

Instead she told him, “I already asked.”

“Were you satisfied with the answer?”

She thought about it for a second, then told him, “Yes, I think so.” 
Then she switched back to lawyer mode.  “You’ll never prove a case against my
client, Burke.  You should dismiss us now and go duke it out with Atheena. 
We’d be much more use to your plaintiffs as a friendly than as a defendant.”

“All right, I did lie to you once,” Joe said.  “This morning.”

“What?”  Sarah forgot all about her performance and instead gave him a
hard look.  “When?”

“I don’t understand your theory of the case,” Joe said.

“It’s not my job to make you understand,” she snapped, “and you’d
better tell me, Burke.”

He smiled, obviously trying to lighten what had suddenly become a tense
conversation.  “All right.  You asked me why I always stay in a different hotel
than the rest of you.  It’s not because of the firm discount—even though we do
get one.  It’s for the same reason I did it in Illinois.”  He lowered his voice
even more.  “I wanted to give us somewhere private to go.”

Sarah stared at him in disbelief.  “Wait a minute—you think I’m always
that much of a sure thing?”

“I’ve
never
thought you were a sure thing,” Joe said.  “But if
there’s anything you and I are good at, it’s always planning our moves ten
steps ahead of everyone else.”

It was true, she couldn’t deny it, but it wasn’t supposed to apply to her. 
“So that’s what this is?” she asked him.  “Your ‘moves’?”

“You have moves, too, Sarah.  Don’t tell me you haven’t thought this
through.”

Not nearly enough,
Sarah thought.  And that was part of her problem.

The two of them studied each other for a moment in the fading light. 
Joe blew on his hands, then pushed them back into his pockets.  Sarah stood
with her arms across her chest, hands tucked under her armpits.  She knew they
should probably go back inside where it was warm, but she wouldn’t leave the
conversation now for a million dollars.

“So you think you’ve been planning this the whole time,” Sarah said,
her voice laced with sarcasm.  “You knew we’d end up here.”

“That’s right,” Joe said.  “Standing in front of the Pocatello airport,
having this exact discussion.”

Sarah laughed, despite herself.

“And now you think you know the next ten steps,” she said.

“I’m working on it.”

“I see.”  Sarah thought about leaving it there, but Joe must have known
her curiosity would win out, because as soon as she asked the question, he
smiled.

“So you think you know what happens next?”

“I do,” he said.

“Which is?”

“You come home with me tonight or I come home with you.”

“That simple,” Sarah said.

“That simple,” Joe confirmed.

“Why?”

“Because it’s what we both want,” he said.

And again, she couldn’t deny it.

Sarah looked past his shoulder to a couple entering the building.  She glanced
down at her watch.  “We have to board soon.  I still have some work to do.”

“I meant what I said,” Joe told her.

“Which one?”

“You can ask me anything, and I’ll always tell you the truth.”

“Really, Burke?  You sure you want to make me that offer?”  She hadn’t
meant it to come out so hard, but there it was.  “Because somehow I don’t think
so.  You obviously haven’t thought ten steps ahead on that one.”

Because they both knew, Sarah thought, that the only real question in
all of this—the only thing she could possibly care about—was
why
:  why
he left her, why he did it so abruptly and in a way guaranteed to cause her the
most pain, why she should ever trust him again, no matter how great he was in
bed, no matter how much his strategy might involve being nice to her now, six
years too late—

“I have to go,” she said.

“You think I don’t know?” he asked before she could walk away.

“Know what, Burke?  Let’s hear it.”

“That I blew it?” he said.  “That I hurt you?  Of course I know that,
Sarah.”

She hadn’t expected him to put it out there like that, to acknowledge
it, not to shy away from it, the way she’d been doing every time they wandered
too close to the subject.  Didn’t he realize they weren’t supposed to touch
that? she thought.  Not if he wanted her to be friendly with him and come back
to his bed.