Off Limits (6 page)

Suzie snaps her fingers as though she's suddenly getting a brilliant idea. "You know what, I'm actually headed out of town on Tuesday. Why don't you both come up and meet me before I leave, I'll give you the tour, show you the lay of the land, and you can use the place while I'm away. I'll be gone until the weekend, so it won't matter how long you need. I've got a big old office too; you can use anything you need. Make a whole business trip of it, why not, huh?"

"Um. . ." My mind whirs. How long are we going to need? Exactly how many tapes are we talking, here?

Now it's Max's turn to catch my eye, questioning. He must see the confusion written on my face, though, because he takes it upon himself to reply for the both of us. "That sounds like a great idea, Ms.Steel."

She claps her hands together, looking way more excited than someone ought to by the prospect of their lawyers borrowing their whole house for a few days to comb through every video tape they own. "Perfect! And call me Suzie, Davis . If you're going to be my guests, we should be on first name terms, no?"

"Well in that case you'll have to call me Max, Suzie."

"Don't mind if I do." She gives his arm a playful swat, which she subtly turns into a bicep grab, just to check the extent of those muscles she was praising earlier, I guess.

I crack a small smile, unable to help myself from grinning at her antics, even though I'm still not sure how I feel about this plan. "Chloe, by the way," I tell her, feeling like we're introducing ourselves all over again. "Thank you for the offer, Suzie. We'll do our best to take full advantage of your generosity, and get your case rolling as soon as possible."

Is it just me, or are her eyes twinkling with mischief when she glances back at me. "Oh, I expect you to take
full
advantage, kids. You're going to love the place, trust me. It's right outside a vineyard, fabulous views of the countryside, and the fresh air in that place . . . well. Only one thing, Chloe, that I want you to keep in mind," she adds, her voice suddenly stern and much more serious than it's been all meeting so far, even when we were discussing the crooks who are stealing her name and brand and tagline to try and advance their own agenda.

I swallow hard, suddenly nervous. "What's that?" I ask, hoping the nerves don't show on my face.

Suzie narrows her eyes. "Don't keep this trip strictly to business. Business is best, I always find, when mixed with a heavy dose of pleasure."

Over her shoulder, Max cracks up in silent laughter. I have to press my lips together to keep my expression from shifting into embarrassment. My cheeks, however, burn red all on their own. Traitorous body.

Suzie laughs, too, and swats my arm. "Seriously. Don't be so serious. Have some fun while you're there. It'll be good for you."

But as we say our farewells and she sweeps out of the office, followed closely by Max, as though he can't even stand to linger in the room with me a minute longer than necessary, I have to wonder if she's actually as right about that as she thinks. In my mind, mixing business and pleasure has always been a recipe for disaster.

Especially in a case like this. A scenic Napa home, right on a vineyard, where I'll be forced to hole up for a few days. Me, and Max Davis.

My stomach churns, and it's all I can do not to teeter in my high heels, despite how balanced I normally am in them.

What have I just agreed to?

A
text flagged
with the emergency ringtone I use only for this arrives on Monday.

Three minutes before I'm supposed to be heading to Chloe's office for our final planning meeting before we leave for Suzie's place tomorrow.
Shit.
I'd been expecting this text—dreading it, actually, hoping it would be good news. But expecting a bad answer nonetheless.

Sorry about this, need to cancel today.
I dash off the email to Chloe quickly, and add a few notes about what I'd been planning to mention. Logistics, mostly.
I'll pick you up at 9am tomorrow. You bring snacks, I'll bring coffee, deal?

Then I'm gone, rushing to the elevators as quickly as my feet will carry me. Normally I'm never this flaky, and I wouldn't cancel a meeting last-minute, not with someone counting on me.

But someone else is counting on me more, and some things can't be helped.

Unfortunately, Chloe catches me just as I’m about to climb into the elevator.

“Are you seriously bailing right now? We have a lot of things we need to discuss before the trip tomorrow.” She’s got her hand on her hip, which is cocked to one side, her curves devastating in the slim-fitting dress she’s wearing. She’s not showing any cleavage today, and yet just the outline of her breasts makes me picture every other glimpse I’ve gotten of her full, firm tits.

I can’t do this right now.
Focus, Max.
“Something important came up, Chloe.”

She rolls her eyes skyward. I swear, the glasses just accentuate the strength of her eye rolls. “What could possibly have come up? An emergency afternoon hookup?”

I frown. “It’s an actual problem, Chloe. Some people have those, you know.”

“Oh, so I don’t? We all have issues to deal with, Max, but some of us know how to set aside work time to, you know, actually do work.”

“And some of us know that there are more important things in the world than work,” I snap. Then I push past her onto the elevator, ignoring the rush of heat throughout my body when our shoulders brush. If there’s any time I really don’t want to think about how fucking hot she makes me, it’s right now.

She just assumes she knows everything about me. Assumes she knows who I am and what I prioritize. I’m a great lawyer, and I pour my all into this company, but I understand the line between work and life. I’m not so sure Chloe, for all her sex appeal, understands that.

The elevator doors swing open and I jog onto the Bart, dragging my thoughts with me. Away from the office, away from the trip we're planning and the case details we've been obsessing over, and especially away from Chloe, who to be honest, I have needed to get out of my head for a long time. I can’t imagine the last time I fantasized about a woman this much. Possibly never. Every night in the shower, I’ve got pictures of her spread-eagled on my bed in mind, as I wrap my hand around my rock hard dick.

I blame that fucking red-hot lipstick. The librarian glasses, as austere and severe as she is. The pencil skirts that hug her ass, the derisive sneer that curls her lip when she’s making some cutting comment about the girls who trail me around the office, wide-eyed and pliant.

Chloe isn't like them. Chloe doesn't give a shit what I think about her. If anything, she seems to actively want me to hate her. After the relentless fawning and indulgent laughter of the other girls, the ones who bat their eyes and twirl their hair and find excuses to touch my arm every ten seconds, it's almost refreshing to find someone who doesn't like me.

Even if sometimes I want to toss her out a damn window. Like right now.

I force thoughts into the background now. More important thoughts— thoughts about where I'm headed, what's waiting for me on the other end of this rushed, last-minute train ride, flood my brain instead.

I've spent too much time lately ignoring the important things. And part of me can't help but feel responsible for this whole situation.

By the time the train pulls up to my destination half an hour later, my intestines have worked themselves into knots of concern. I check the text message again, willing myself to have misunderstood it, or maybe read too much into it. But no. There those same words are, in black and white.

Can you come meet me? They let us go early . . . I didn't get the spot.

This is my fault. Goddamn it. If I had had more time, dedicated a little more energy where it was truly needed this week. . . I grimace as I cross the street from the station, up the hill to the familiar, shabby facade of the high school where I started volunteering last year as a career mentor.

Sitting on the stoop out front, head bent, arms crossed on his knees, still dressed in the well-tailored suit I picked out for him, and insisted on buying for him despite his protests about the cost, is the kid I've come to think of as my younger brother. My fourteen-year-old mentee, Travis.
Brother from another mother,
he usually calls me, in his usual buoyant, happy tone.

Today, though, he looks far from his usual self. "Travis?" I keep my voice low, casual.

His head jerks up, fast, like he's ashamed to have been caught with it down. His eyes are bright red where the whites should be, and there are telltale streaks down his cheeks where I know tears must have carved their tracks recently. He's scrubbed them away now, though, and he makes a valiant effort to force a huge, fake smile, so I don't say anything about it.

"Hey Max," he says, and the little hitch of a waver in his voice makes my heart break all over again. Fuck. How did I let this happen? "Thanks for coming. Um. Sorry it was late notice. . . "

"Don't sweat it." I offer a hand, which he grabs, and haul him to his feet. "I needed a good excuse to get outta the office today anyway. You're the one doing me a favor."

Travis sucks in a deep breath, and I pretend not to notice that he still sounds a little sniffly. "So I guess I bombed the interview, huh?”

We'd been prepping for this interview for months. It was a unique chance for him to get into a much better private program at a nearby school, a program for gifted students that met once a week and gave students courses in a specialty they could choose. Chip off the old block that he is, my little bro was interested in their Introduction to Debate course. And by "interested," I mean he'd set his whole heart on that class.

Now he wasn't going to be able to take it. Dammit.

"I doubt you bombed it," I tell him. "I saw you practice. You had that shit down pat, bro."

"Well then why wouldn't they pick me? Either I was good enough or I wasn't."

I shake my head hard. "That's not how it works. You can be good—hell, you can be great, and still not get something. Be it a position in school, a job, an award." I lean down a little to try and catch his eye. "A girl you like," I add, teasing a little. "Anything."

But he turns his head, refusing to meet my eye. "If I was good, I wouldn't have failed. End of story." He frowns deeply.

"Travis, trust me when I tell you, everyone in the world has failed at something."

"I bet
you
never have." He sticks his chin out, but he does at last look up at me.

I shoot him a small smile. "Kid, I've failed at so many damn things I've stopped being able to count. You think I got the first job I wanted? Or even the dozenth? I've been on probably a hundred interviews in my life, for everything from internships to college scholarship boards to jobs. And I failed most of them."

He lifts a skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"

"My first job interview, they stopped me halfway through the interview and told me thanks for stopping by, but I could go home now." I sigh.
That
had been a shitty day.

Travis frowns. "But . . . weren't you sad about it?"

"Of course I was. I was devastated. I really,
really
wanted that job. It was, I thought, my dream job. Huge firm, working on the types of cases I always wanted to work on. Doing something that mattered. I practiced for days and days before I went into the office. And I didn't mess up or anything, that was the most annoying part. If I'd forgotten something, or said something dumb, I would've understood. But I was just me. And they didn't want me."

Travis crosses his arms as we stroll down the sidewalk, his eyes on the cars passing down the street now. We're heading vaguely in the direction of our usual spot, a coffee shop halfway between his high school and his house, where we go to work on homework assignments or practice his interview questions or sometimes just to hang out and shoot the shit before I need to walk him home at 5pm, when his mom finishes her shift at the car wash she runs.

"So what did you do?" he asks. "When they didn't want you."

"I went home, spent a night being sad and pissed and angry at myself and at them. Then the next day, I started my next application for the next job that sounded good." I offer him a shrug. "Confession: I didn't get that one either. Or the next five. But you know what?"

He shakes his head, watching me now.

"Eventually, I did get one. And it wasn't my dream job. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't what I thought I wanted to do. But I was surprised, too, because I liked it anyway. And then, after a year of doing that, I realized that my dream job from the year before, the one that I thought I wanted so bad? It wasn't actually what I wanted to do at all. I changed my mind. And then I applied for new types of jobs, went a whole different direction at work, into a side of law that I never thought I wanted to work in, and now I'm here." I spread my arms wide, and let my smile grow a few sizes, too.

Travis lifts a skeptical eyebrow. "And you like it? Your job now?"

"I love it," I tell him, and I mean every word of it. "I guess what I'm trying to say is . . . sometimes, when we fail, it's because there's something we never saw coming right around the corner. Something else that we're going to love even more, even if we don't know it exists right now."

He bobs his head from side-to-side, like he's considering my words. "I guess." He puffs out a long sigh. "But failing still sucks right now."

I laugh, softly, and clap him on the shoulder. "Yeah. Can't argue there, kid. It definitely still sucks now."

My eyes dart from the coffee shop to, farther up the street, a row of balloons, and a little billboard.
Opening Day!
proclaims the sign out front of what looks like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor.

"Tell you what," I say, casting him a conspiratorial sideways glance. "You know the other best remedy for getting back on your feet after a fail?"

He follows my eye, and I swear, the moment when his heavy, sad expression lightens a little makes it all worth it. "Vanilla milkshakes?" he replies, a hopeful note in his voice.

Normally, his mom makes me swear up and down not to let him have too much sugar or unhealthy food. When we go to the coffee shop, the only snacks I let him get are the health food bars they sell at the counter. But if there was ever a day to cheat on this rule, that day is today.

"Vanilla milkshakes," I confirm, grinning.

When he finally smiles back, I let the weight on my shoulders ease up for the first time all day. We'll get through this. Together.