The Dangerous Seduction (14 page)

“I don’t need to remind you how important this case is to the firm; you all know that,” Joseph says. His eyes rake over them all, cold and startlingly green—a green that’s lifetimes away from the hazy, beer-bottle green that Ryan remembers from that morning. “I need you all to work all the leads you have, to comb through everything, no matter how insignificant it might have appeared six months ago. I want you to go through all of it again. I’m expecting each one of you in this room to come up with something new for me: a new witness, a changed statement, a new interpretation of some old evidence. I want you to submit what you come up with to me by the end of today. You do that and it will make me very happy. That’s all. Get to work.” He turns his back on them all and leaves the room.

Ryan calls his father as soon as he gets back to his office. His mom answers, sounding exasperated. “Ryan, I thought your dad told you that—”

“Mom, is he there?” he interrupts.

“Ryan.”

“Answer the question, Mom, is he there?”

She hesitates, shocked. “That’s no way to talk to your own mother. I thought I raised you better than that.”

He lets out an exasperated breath, slams his palm on the table. “Mom, this is serious. We are
this close
to losing this case. We have to submit all our evidence to the judge by Friday or the case will be thrown out. I need to speak to him, Mom! Now, please, tell me—is he there?”

She’s silent for a couple of beats. When she answers, her voice is clipped. “No, he’s not.”

“Well, will you ask him to call me when he does get back from wherever it is that he’s gone?”

There’s no answer from the other end, just a heavy, stony silence.

“Mom.”

“When are you and Daisy going to set a date for the wedding?”

“What?” He blinks, then huffs out a disbelieving breath. “Mom, I’m not sure this is the right time for this conversation.”

“It’s a fair question, Ryan. You’ve been engaged for a while now. It’s very strange for you not to have set a date yet, and don’t tell me it’s because of her. It’s you; I know it’s you. You’ve never been able to appreciate good things when you have them. Just like that bike we bought you for your birthday when you were in seventh grade. You begged us for that bike for months and when you got it we told you and told you about looking after it. But you kept leaving it out in the rain until it rusted so badly you couldn’t ride it anymore.”

“Mom, seriously, I don’t have time for this.”

“Well, make time! Talk to Daisy. Set a date. She’s not happy, Ryan.”

Instantly, his blood runs cold, his grip tightens on the phone. “Has she said something to you?”

“She doesn’t have to. I know she’s not happy, and I know why. I’ve called your apartment six times in the past couple of weeks and you have been out every time. Your career is not more important than your fiancée, Ryan, not more important than your family. You need to get your priorities straight. You need to realize what a great girl you’ve got there, and how lucky you are. After everything she’s done for you.”

“Right, fine, noted,” he says shortly. “Well, I’ve got to go back to work, Mom, so we’ll speak soon.”

He hangs up, teeth gritted, blood crackling in his veins. He’s seething with anger. What goes on between him and Daisy is none of her damn business. And why can’t she see? Why can’t she get it? This isn’t just about him or about his career
.
This is about doing what’s right. He thinks about the look on Joseph’s face that morning when he’d spoken about his own father. Joseph had opened up to him. Joseph had given him that—some honesty, some insight. Joseph had given him some trust.

It’s about time he returned the favor.

Estelle looks up from her computer and frowns at him. “He’s on a call.”

“Fine, I’ll wait. This is important.”

“He’ll be a while; you should go get a coffee or something,” she says, her tone pointed and her eyes narrowed on him. Ryan has no doubt that she knows exactly what’s going on between him and Joseph. Joseph has even said that he has no secrets from Estelle. Her loyalty to Joseph is unquestionable. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Ryan has to like it, or she has to like Ryan back.

He feels his stupid face heat up, and he nods curtly and leaves. He ruins his first cup of coffee, dwelling on the conversation with his mom. He’s still feeling angry, but her accusations are lingering.
You don’t deserve her. You’ve never been able to appreciate good things when you have them.

He knows he doesn’t deserve her. She’s a saint, so sweet and hardworking and loving. She supported him and his dreams, but he knows all that. He doesn’t need his mom reminding him of it. He’s well aware that he’s the one in the wrong here, the dirty piece of work who’s cheating on her.

He sips his coffee, keeping his eyes locked on the door to Joseph’s office. He sees Joseph open the door, come out, and say something to Estelle, who twists around in her chair to answer him. Joseph looks up, his eyes meet Ryan’s and he jerks his head. Ryan allows himself a brief smile, puts down his half-drunk coffee, and crosses the floor to Joseph’s office.

“What is it?” Joseph asks. He’s leaning against the edge of the conference table, arms folded across his chest and ankles crossed.

Ryan closes the door behind him and takes a couple of steps toward him. “There’s something I have to tell you. About the case. I might have found us a potential new witness.”

Joseph is suddenly all business, attention grabbed. He pushes himself off the table, eyes locked on Ryan’s face. “Who?”

“My dad.”

“Your dad?” Joseph’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Only—he’s not willing to testify. He doesn’t want to get involved. I’ve been trying to talk to him, to persuade him, to tell him how important this could be.”

“Wait a minute, how long have you known about this?” Joseph interrupts.

He swallows, says, “A while.”

“How long?” Joseph repeats, his gaze hardening. “Ryan, how long?”

“About two months,” he says.

Joseph blows out a breath and turns around, putting his back to him. Ryan gulps and stares at the tight, stiff line of his shoulders, the anger he’s so obviously trying to hold back. He takes a couple of steps forward. “Joseph, this is my dad, this is my family. I couldn’t… he didn’t want to get involved.”

“You could’ve told me before.”

“I’m sorry,” he says lamely. He places his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and tries to tug him around. “I’m sorry, but there’s still time; we can still get him to agree. I know we can. I’ve been stupid and arrogant and I should’ve told you before. I see that now. But I just wanted to be the one to persuade him. I wanted to be able to come in here and put his statement down in front of you and just be the big fat hero, you know.”

Joseph lifts his head, and Ryan dares himself to take a tentative step closer, emboldened when Joseph makes no move to push him away. He gently places his hand on Joseph’s opposite shoulder, leans in close. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs again, breath puffing against the side of Joseph’s face, his cock starting to stir and thicken at the sudden closeness, and the smell and feel of Joseph.

Joseph blows out a breath and pulls away. “Okay, apology accepted. But don’t touch me like that. Not here.”

“No one can see,” he says, indicating the opaque glass.

“That’s not the point,” Joseph says. He takes a couple of steps toward the bar in the corner of the office. He lifts up the decanter of whisky. “You want one?”

“God, yes.”

Joseph manages a faint smile and pours a couple of glasses. He holds one out to Ryan and Ryan takes it, deliberately brushing their fingers together. Joseph rolls his eyes at him, but it’s that fond, indulgent kind of look, and Ryan grins back at him, bright and unapologetic and overwhelmingly relieved. They’re okay. Joseph is not too mad at him. Joseph is not going to change anything between them or push him away.

Joseph takes a sip of his whisky, and Ryan watches the way his throat works as he swallows. He squeezes his fingers tight around his own glass in an effort to not pin Joseph to the floor and suck a bruise on his throat. He doesn’t remember feeling these kinds of urges with other people. He’s always loved sex, with girls at least. With guys—what he used to do with guys was never done for enjoyment, for the love of it, but for a more incessant, insidious need, a dirty kind of tug in the pit of his stomach that he could never completely erase. With Daisy, he thought he’d found the answer—the sweet, surprisingly sensual girl who could satisfy him and make him forget all those other dirty, wrong times. But Joseph has exploded that dirty, hot wrongness into something else entirely. Joseph is turning him into someone he simultaneously despises but secretly believes is the real person under the nice Texas-boy packaging.

Joseph has completely destroyed any peace of mind he once had about what all those other times and all those other urges really meant.

Joseph bows his head and peers into his glass. “I don’t want to have to subpoena him. We need to be certain of what he knows and what he’s going to say. Hopefully, it will be enough for the judge to grant us that damn extension, but nothing’s certain yet.” He sighs again and looks up at Ryan. “I need to talk to your father.”

“Okay, okay, I guess we should do that. But you should know that he just… he can be kinda difficult.” His mouth twists wryly, thinking of all his own attempts at convincing his father.

“I think you’re forgetting just how persuasive I can be. But I should fly down there and do this in person.”

“I can come with—”

“No,” Joseph cuts him off. “No, I should do this myself. If you come with me then it’ll look like I’m using you to get to them. And I guess, in a certain way, they’d be right.”

“But that’s not how it is.”

“Ryan, c’mon.” He places his glass down on the desk and leans over to press the intercom on his desk. “Estelle, get me a flight to Houston for as soon as you can. And cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day.” He doesn’t wait for her response, but depresses the button and pins Ryan with his gaze. “You need to prep me. It’s your dad. What have I got to do to make him like me?”

H
E
CALLS
Daisy after Joseph has left for his flight. He arranges to meet her at a restaurant she’s discovered around the corner from their new place. He hasn’t been there yet; he’s been too busy, but Daisy’s been there a couple of times with friends. She’s been out with friends a lot over the last few weeks. It’s been a relief in a way, knowing that she was out having fun and not sitting at home waiting for him to come home from work, or from Joseph.

He swallows down the familiar guilt. It will be nice, just the two of them having dinner out together. He can’t remember the last time they did that.

He gets to the restaurant late, after trying to finish up his part of the brief he has been writing with Fiona. He pauses outside the restaurant and peers inside. Daisy’s sitting at a table on her own, peering intently at the menu. Her dark curls fall across her face, the candlelight from the guttering candle on the table highlighting the rich brown color. Last Wednesday night he met Joseph in the bar of the Tribeca Grand. There were candles on the tables and he kept taking sneaky peeks of Joseph’s face in the candlelight, unable to stop himself from looking and staring and memorizing.

He steps away from the restaurant window, pushes his hand into his pocket, and takes out the pack of cigarettes he’s been carrying around the last week. He shakes one out and his heart sinks when he sees it’s his last one. He lights it quickly and paces down the street away from the restaurant. He can’t do this. He can’t sit with her and pretend that everything’s okay. He can’t be fake and smiley and lean across the table to kiss her when he’s thinking about Joseph’s lips and Joseph’s mouth and Joseph’s tongue. He can’t keep this up anymore.

It’s beyond my control.
The phrase flashes in his head and he frowns, trying to locate it.
It’s beyond my control.
The memory comes to him—Daisy watching the TV, riveted, her eyes shining as she turns to look at him to remark, “Best break-up scene ever, but it’s so tragic.”

He swallows and takes a drag on his cigarette.
Dangerous Liaisons
, of course, it’s her favorite movie. How could he have forgotten that?

He smokes the rest of the cigarette and tosses it into the gutter. He takes a breath, sets his shoulders, and enters the restaurant.

She greets him with a beaming smile, getting up from her chair to throw her arms around him and kiss his cheek. They sit down and she starts to talk about the movie she and Marie saw the night before and the bar they went to afterward. He usually gets more involved in the conversation, but tonight he just listens and watches her talk, drinking in the familiar Daisy expressions as they flit across her face.

They order drinks and she gets up to go to the bathroom. In his pocket, his phone vibrates with a new message. He slides it out, half-expecting the message to be from Daisy. They used to play this game where they’d text each other when the other was in the bathroom, just random, stupid things. It’s something they haven’t done for a long time; he wonders if she even remembers it.

The message isn’t from Daisy, though, it’s from Joseph.
Your mom just showed me your prom picture. You were such a dork, but I still definitely would.

He can’t help the breathy, painful laugh that escapes as he reads Joseph’s text. He deletes the message and returns the phone to his pocket. He looks up to see Daisy winding her way back through the closely placed tables. She sits down and starts talking, complaining about the bathroom running out of soap, but it’s all white noise. Everything around him is white noise. His heart is thumping and his pulse is racing and it’s like that scene in
The Godfather
, right before Michael Corleone shoots Sollozzo and the cop.

“Ryan? Baby, are you listening to me?”

He jerks his head up and blinks at her. The candlelight is momentarily blinding, burning against his retinas.