Holding Her Breath (Indigo) (21 page)

Kim wanted her to fail. That wasn’t paranoia. She was certain of it. That was why Kim had her working on the most technical angle of the copyright argument. Of course Kim had phrased it as knowing Whitney was capable. With a mocking smile on her face that only Whitney could see as Kim’s back had been turned to the other associates in the room at the time.

Whitney jumped when her phone rang. She’d been so intent on the section of the Copyright Act she’d been reading that the ringing sound startled her. She punched the button for speaker phone.

“Yeah?” she snapped.

“Wow. You don’t sound like a happy girl right now,” Chace said with a grin in his voice. So carefree. Not a worry in the world. They were worlds apart. What had she been thinking, inviting all of that chaos into her life?

She grunted a response, still poring over the statute in front of her.

“Sounds like this would be a bad time for me to come over.”

“Come over? Why?”

“Well, it’s just—you said I could start shooting you tonight.” His voice changed.

“Oh.” She winced. She’d forgotten all about that. She’d forgotten all about everything when Kim had dropped the news about the upcoming injunction hearing. The plaintiff was still busy throwing rocks at them and their client still refused to talk about a settlement conference. They had very little time to prepare a defense. Then there was the counter-claim the junior associates were working on, and she was supervising them on that. And a new case had just come through and Kim wanted Whitney to take the lead on it, take a couple of associates, and get a memo to her by Monday.

Did Kim do these things on purpose? It was like she’d hidden the news about the injunction until the last moment. The only thing that made Whitney realize that couldn’t be true was that Kim might have been petty, but she wouldn’t have risked her own legal career by doing something that would have made her look bad as well. Still, it hardly seemed fair that she’d ended up with the most assignments and the least amount of time to do them more often than not.

“Whit? You still there?”

“I’m sorry. Tonight is bad. Really, really bad. Kim dumped a ton of work on me today.”

“Oh. Wanna talk about it?”

“Actually, I have to go. I have lot of work to do.”

“Okay.”

“And Chace. I—I think you should come over a lot less, actually. A whole lot less.”

“Really?”

Her career was at stake. Nothing could come before that. Not only for her—not even most importantly for her. But because of what it meant to those she held close to her heart. “I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” His tone grew colder.

“This. You. It’s just—you’re distracting me. You’re screwing everything up.”

“Oh. Really.”

“Could you just respect me needing space, please?”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yes. Just—I have to go. I don’t want you around all the time.”

“Fine.” He hung up.

Whitney picked her phone up and flung it across the couch. Everything hit her at once—job, Chace, being mean to Chace, the stress that came from mediating her mom and her aunt’s fights.

Her gaze fell on Chace’s extra tripod—the one he kept at her place. She dropped her legal pad, pushed her laptop aside, and burst into tears.

* * *

Whitney felt like crap after what she’d said to Chace. Especially since he’d followed her wishes so well. Not one phone call, email, or text message, zip. And this made her realize what a huge part of her life he’d become without her even noticing. She’d been more sad and lonely that week than usual. She’d stayed at the firm until nearly midnight every night that week, and she’d never hated her job—a job her life had once revolved around—more.

On the day after the injunction hearing, she decided to try to make up with Chace. But she was afraid to contact him directly. She knew she’d been wrong. Really, really wrong. Besides, she wanted to surprise him. So she called Rob.

“Hey,” she said to Rob. “How are you? How are things going with the store?” Rob was supposed to have a grand opening for his T-shirt store’s brick and mortar location soon—Valentine’s Day weekend—which was only a couple of weeks away.

“I’m good. And don’t forget how well I know you, Whit. That’s not the reason you called.”

“What? I’m just being a good friend, checking in to see how things are going.”

“We were texting back and forth a little while ago. You wouldn’t have called just to ask that. You’re calling about Chace.”

There was no point in trying to deny it. “How mad is he?”

“Pretty mad,” Rob said, seeming to know exactly who she was talking about.

“I need him to come over. I want him to know how sorry I am for the way I acted.”

“Whit, you know I love you, but you can’t just go jerking people around. Especially this guy. I really like him. He’s nothing like the stray losers you usually find.”

She told Rob what she’d done. She was sure he’d gotten a version from Chace, too. “What did he say to you?”

“Not much. He spends a lot of his time either on his laptop looking all sullen and emo or else out taking pictures.”

Whitney’s heart hurt. Taking pictures. She remembered her collage. The collage that had taken so much thought to put together and time in taking pictures and designing the layout, which was unlike any she’d ever seen. He must have known quite a lot about graphic design in addition to photography. She smiled. Chace was amazing. She’d been so oblivious.

“How are things coming along for the grand opening?” she asked.

“Pretty good, but don’t try to butter me up.”

She laughed. “No, really. I’m so happy for you. And proud. That’s big, finally getting something you worked so long and hard for.” Like Chace was trying to do. Her heart sank.

“Stop it. I’m gonna start blushing over here or something.”

She tapped her fingers on the arm of her sofa. “Do you think you could get him over here? I feel like I’ve been such a crab to him.”

“You have been. And I don’t know…”

“Try. Please? Trick him. Lie. Do something. I feel really horrible and I have to apologize.”

“I’ll try. I’m not making any promises. He’s really pissed. What you said to him really ticked him off. And he’s not easy to tick off. That guy’s really laid back. More than me. What did you do to him?”

“You know how I am when I’m stressed.”

“Yeah. Barely human.”

“Quit it.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t take my head off now. I’ll do my best, Whit.”

“Good. Bring him over at eight, okay?”

“I’ll call you if I’m not able to talk him into it.”

“Sounds good.”

Whitney hung up the phone, biting her lower lip. It was time to get started.

To make up for what she’d done, Whitney decided to do something she’d never done. Which, in retrospect, probably wasn’t a good thing to do for the first time for a person she was trying to make something up to. She decided to cook.

How hard could it be? She could read a cookbook. She could follow instructions. Why hadn’t someone warned her that it took more than those two basic skills?

Before calling Rob, Whitney had gotten out a cookbook she’d been given for Christmas one year, looked up a recipe that sounded good, made a grocery list, and then she went to the store. Now she stood in her kitchen, surrounded by ingredients, pots, and pans, and with only a cookbook to guide her through the wilderness.

She was attempting to make chicken pot pie. She remembered Chace mentioning that he liked it once, and so she’d gotten it in her head to make it. And knowing she was a rookie, for some reason she’d still decided it would be a good idea to make the pie crust from scratch. Weren’t lawyers supposed to have logic skills? What had happened to hers?

She spent almost an hour on the crust before she gave up on it. Next, she decided to just bake the chicken instead of attempting to make a pot pie. So she put chicken, vegetables, and oil into a baking pan and stuck it in the oven. She set the oven temperature at five hundred degrees since she didn’t have much time left before Chace was supposed to show up. If he showed up.

She realized that her mother had been right when she’d said that a higher temperature doesn’t cook it faster. Yes, right at the moment that her smoke alarm went off and her beautiful, Italian marble filled kitchen was hidden by a fog of black smoke, she realized it. Coughing, she ran over to her balcony doors, opening them despite the freezing February night air. She then turned on her ceiling fan, exhaust fan—any fan she could reach.

Whitney looked around her kitchen before burying her head in her hands. For all her efforts, all she’d really made was a mess. Blackened chicken—and not the Cajun kind—on the counter. A gooey flour mixture that had never become a pie crust. It never would, either. Other kitchen casualties that all added up to make one giant hot mess.

Of course, just then her front door opened and in walked Rob and Chace. She wanted to crawl into one of her kitchen cabinets. Chace looked around the condo, coughing subtly into his fist. He looked so delectable in even the simplest outfits. The fact that she could still notice despite her state of distress proved that he could make anything sexy. He wore khakis and a brown long-sleeve T-shirt. He made them look runway good. He’d already removed his jacket and thrown it over the back of her leather recliner the way he always did.

Rob ran over to her. “You tried to cook? Whitney, no! Why? You had to know no good could come of this.”

She looked up plaintively at Chace. “I wanted to cook for you. I wanted to make it up to you for being so horrible to you the other day.”

Rob said, “Yeah, but did you have to risk burning down your house to do it? You should have just gotten him a card or something. Or ‘I’m sorry’ works, too.”

“So I’m not a great cook,” Whitney said, glowering at Rob.

“Understatement. Of the year,” he said.

“I tried to make your favorite,” Whitney said to Chace, trying hard not to laugh at her own ridiculousness.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Chace said, the corners of his mouth twitching with the laugh he was obviously trying to hold back.

“Yeah, you know, you would think that’s always true, but this time, I don’t think it is. This is one of those rare exceptions,” Rob said, scrutinizing the kitchen with his eyebrows raised.

“Rob, you’re not funny.”

Chace burst out laughing. It seemed he couldn’t stop once he got started.

“Is it that funny, Chace? Really?” Whitney sighed, rubbing a flour-specked hand across her forehead without thinking about it, leaving a trace of flour behind.

“You’re just adorable, that’s all. Too adorable.” Chace walked over and wiped the smudge of flour from her forehead. He then furrowed his brow for a moment, and Whitney could almost see the light bulb going off. He turned to Rob. “In fact, hold on. Rob, let me see your keys. I need to get something out of your car.”

Rob handed over the keys. Chace left the apartment and returned a few moments later with his camera bag.

“Oh, no,” Whitney groaned.

“Oh, yes,” Chace said with a grin, unzipping the bag.

“Chace, please?”

“You promised I could shoot you and I haven’t gotten a good shot yet. This is too good to pass up. I promise, if you really hate them when I show you later, I’ll delete them all.”

Whitney rolled her eyes, but it was too late. Chace was already snapping away. He continued to do so as Rob helped her clean the kitchen, which involved lots of mocking and laughing, and slaps to the side of Rob’s head with a dish towel. Chace sometimes laughed too hard to even snap the shots and eventually he gave up and went back downstairs for his tripod.

It was the most fun Whitney had had since she kicked Chace out of her life. Even if she had almost destroyed her kitchen and several thousand dollars worth of remodeling. So much fun she realized she should never kick Chace to the curb again. No matter what. With work, she would deal. She always had before. Just another new adjustment to make. Chace’s company was more than enough in the way of compensation.