Binding Arbitration (10 page)

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“I’m expecting someone.”

“I’ll keep you company. I’m Rob Forrester.” He looked down the bar haughtily, as one of his comrades saluted.

“I’m Elizabeth Tucker.”

He smiled over the rim of his scotch. “I’ve seen you at the courthouse.” He had medium blond hair that was gelled straight back and his eyes were the exact shade of Milk Duds, making me long for Friday movie-night at the Rodgers house. “You’re an attorney, but you don’t look like one this evening.”

“Criminal defense.”

“I’m strictly family law.” He took the stool confidently. “I wasn’t criticizing your clothes; you look like the sexiest librarian I’ve ever seen.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him over the top of my glasses, helping to cement the image he had of me.

“Unfortunately for you, fella, she’s my sexy-librarian.”

I jumped. Aidan swarmed around the intimate setting like a thunderous cloud. He was dressed in black Italian loafers, black jeans, and a black dress shirt, un-tucked and unbuttoned at the bottom, and a black Armani sports coat. A black scowl dominated his perfect features making his crystal blue eyes vibrate.

Robert shifted to his feet with the finesse of an athlete, extending his hand toward Aidan.

Aidan looked at his hand but refused to take it.

The unspoken territorial antipathy between them had nothing to do with me. I was just the insignificant property that started their land dispute.
Which one would draw his weapon first? Better yet, whose was larger?

A sardonic smile filled Robert’s face as he examined three distinct gouges in Aidan’s cheek. “You might need stitches for those, or maybe butterfly Band-Aids.”

“I’m the Band-Aid, and she’s the balm.” Aidan pointed to me, as if I were an inanimate tube of jock cream waiting to be rescued from the shelf in his medicine cabinet.

Robert crossed his arms in a cocky stance.

I have to admit that I was flattered, but the time had come to put an end to their conversation. “Both of you need to back off.” I put out my hand in Robert’s direction, he took it but instead of shaking it, he kissed it. A thrilling jolt hit my stomach, but Aidan’s glare bottomed out the delight. Ut-oh.

Robert’s eyes met mine. “I’ll be in touch, Elizabeth.”

Aidan put his arm around the back of my barstool, claiming possession of me. “Don’t waste your energy. We’re tied in a nice tidy knot.” He placed a delicate kiss on my temple, exactly the way he had done at school. “I’ve missed you,” his whispered words brushed my neck as his aqua eyes explored my neck line.

I caught my breath and concentrated on watching Robert stride away, drink in hand.

The testosterone level dropped several degrees. Aidan put his hand on my forearm, capturing my attention. “I do not like walking into a bar and finding you entertaining some Bozo.”

I laughed, despite the steely determination set in his jaw. “Let’s get a couple of things straight. I wasn’t entertaining him, he’s a colleague. And last time you and I spoke in person, you didn’t seem to care if I continued to draw air."

“I wasn’t myself the other day. I apologize.” He met my eye when he said that. “When someone from your past materializes out of thin air, you need time to think it through.”

“Robert was harmless.”

“He’s as harmless as my aunt Fannie. When a guy says ‘sexy’ in any part of a conversation, he means that he wants you for sex.”

I drew my hand over my mouth in mock horror. “I would have never picked up on that myself, but I can handle my private life without any assistance.” I prayed that my cheeks weren’t pink.

“You could, but your private life has become intertwined with my private life. Rule number one: no other guys.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes.

“I mean it, Libby. No other guys.” He squeezed my forearm.

“Listen, all I need is a little blood sample. If you’re a donor, you can donate anonymously. No one knows the connection between us, and I’d prefer for it to remain that way.”

“That’s tough.” He drew his brows together like he was going to throw a curve ball. “You gave up your likes the moment you dialed my number. Everyone is going to find out you let the big-time-jock knock you up, so you might want to think about how you’re going to respond, because we’re sticking this out together.”

Was he a maniac?

He hit me with the good old-fashioned stare-down he used on me so many times in college.

“You meant dumb jock right?” I slammed my wine glass down. “I’m surprised you’re ready to admit you’re the father, me being so far beneath you and all.”

He slid the glass out of my grasp ignoring the jab. “We know you find me irresistible when tipsy.” He smiled several heartbeats of that coy smile that induced Chicago women to toss their supple bodies at his feet. “I can’t have you losing that pretty head of yours tonight.” His eyes became softer.

It riled me.

He placed his hand over my mouth, and I swallowed my angry words. He looked at me with such intensity I wanted to back away from him. “If you ever tell me to go fuck myself again, I will put you over my knee. After the pleasure of that, I’ll wash your filthy mouth out with peroxide.” He took his hand away, rubbing Vivacious Vixen lipstick down his jeans.

“I’m sure your threats work on all the girls with an IQ under sixty, but women with brains can think of more elegant rejoinders.” I tilted my head and smiled back at him before saying, “Screw you!” I picked up my belongings, ready to stalk off, but he had a handful of my tweed skirt balled up in his fist. He pulled at my skirt, testing his grip.

“You walk away, cutter, and I assure you it will be minus this skirt. Do you still wear those lacy thigh highs?”

I regained my seat with as much dignity as I could muster, embarrassed that he was playing me. The same old tricks, but now the dog was bigger, bolder, and had a longer leash.

“Mr. Palowski, I pride myself on my excellent negotiation skills.” My face burned in agitation. “Tell me what you want.” I tried to untangle his fist from my skirt.

But he held me in my seat. “Here’s the way it’s going to be. One, no other guys. Two, no cursing; for heaven’s sake, you’re a mother now. Three, I want to meet Cass. Four, when the time is right, I want to tell him who I am. Five, until I tell you otherwise, you let me run the show. We’ll start with dinner to discuss three through five. The first two are self-explanatory.”

“Negotiations over.” I moved to stand.

The man tugged on my skirt. “You look nice in this skirt but even nicer in your underwear.” He raised a brow. “I would know.”

With every intention of wiping his pretty boy smile off his perfect stubbly jaw, I said, “I don’t wear underwear.”

He had the courtesy to blush, shaking his head in mock defeat. “No one fights better than you, Libby.”

“I need to get home to Cass. Sorry, no dinner tonight.”

“Really? That’s interesting. I phoned over to the Rodgers’ house, and Suzy said I could keep you out as late as I wanted. If you want to check on Cass, though…” He removed the phone from his breast pocket and handed it to me with a congenial smile. “She said Cass was having fun at movie night.”

“How do you know the Rodgers’ number?” I chewed on my lip.

“The same way you knew my cell. I have connections, babe.” He pursed his lips, which made him seem both sexy and determined.

I glanced over at the slick iPhone and wondered just how many playboy bunnies’ numbers the thing could hold.

“If you want to fight, let’s have dinner first. I need the energy.” He waved toward the hostess. “You want to make a call or not?”

“Not.” I said, as I slipped him the phone. I had forgotten how big he was, until he put his hand over mine, his fingertips purposely rubbing the inside of my wrist. I flinched away.

The perky hostess took us to a table in the corner of the room where the two walls of windows intersected. Aidan’s hand rested on my lower back. Maybe he thought I’d make a run for it, if he didn’t hold me in place.

The table afforded a view of the beautiful glazed terra-cotta sculptured historical building across the street. The tables on either side of us sat empty, creating a sense of uncomfortable intimacy. His fingertips brushed my shoulder as he helped me adjust my chair, before taking his own.

Perky gave us our menus, and laying it on thick for baseball’s hottest hunk. She winked as she sauntered away. Aidan opened his menu and with acute nonchalance removed a small note. He ripped it in half, then quarters, before discarding the pieces in the center of the table. His eyes went back to his menu.

I pushed his menu down. “You might need that later.”

“I have a strict rule.” He flicked his menu. “I only work on one girl’s number at a time. I’m still laboring on yours.”

“You just said you had all my numbers already.”

“I’m talking about your number, meaning I’ve figured you out.” He placed his menu at his elbow. “I tried all these years. You’re a little harder to decipher than most.”

“I’m sure you didn’t lose any sleep over it.”

He eyed me but didn’t respond as the waiter approached with a friendly smile halting that vein of conversation, thankfully. Aidan requested a bottle of wine before he proceeded to order a three-course meal for the two of us. “I’ll let you pick the dessert.” He looked at me tenderly as the waiter stood patiently at the table. “I assume you still love deserts.”

If we were love birds on a date, the sparrow-haired seducer was out to have the insignificant finch for dinner. What the cannibal didn’t know, however, was I wasn’t irrelevant anymore. “That’s fine, you high-handed rat—”

He pinched the inside of my knee.

“Bastard.” I glared at him. The waiter chuckled as he melded away. “Get your claws out of my skirt.”

“I’ll be in more than your skirt, if you continue.”

“In your dreams, Band-Aid.”

“We have serious things to discuss, and we won’t be able to discuss them if you’re constantly thinking of a comeback.”

“God knows you never thought of coming back.”

“Save the sarcasm for someone in the minors.” He raised a wing-swept eyebrow. “Truce?” He patted my knee and removed his hand. “Tell me how you managed law school with a baby.”

I blinked the shock away and glanced from my hands, playing with my napkin in my lap, to meet his well informed eyes.

“I’m sorry you had to do that on your own. It’s amazing what you’ve been able to accomplish with a baby.”

“He’s not a baby anymore, and it beats living in a trailer park in southern Indiana.” I swallowed a long drink of wine. “Plus, I can concentrate on more than one thing at a time.”

“That one I deserved.”

“What do you want from me?”

Before Aidan responded, another man towered over him. His left arm rested on Aidan’s chair while his right hand pumped Aidan’s hand. A petite woman stood alongside them. What she lacked in height she made up for in sultry presence. Her curves started at the golden highlights in her coppery spiked hair and continued to her purple pointy-toed boots. She had all the right equipment, in all the right places, and unlike Aidan’s fiancée, this woman appeared all natural.

When Aidan stood, I pushed my own chair back and rose to face none other than Cyrus Fletcher. I cringed inwardly.

Cyrus Fletcher was the slickest sports agent in the Midwest. He was notoriously known as a contrary peacock counselor whose ego and influence was as expansive and as vivid as the preening bird. ‘Fletch’ flounced through courtrooms with the same self importance feathering most of his clients.

He was uniformed for the evening in an Italian three-piece suit, precision-cut for his angular frame. His hand-tailored pink shirt was starched so stiffly it doubled as body armor. His necktie was 100 percent silk, as smooth and as eye-catching as the most vibrant of peacock feathers. Not a hair on his crimson colored head was out of place, except for the spikes he wore across his forehead.

Other attorneys swore the man didn’t sweat, and I concurred. But if you ever listened to a peacock cry, you’d understand why God made it so beautiful, because the cacophony was less than pleasing.

Aidan had greeted the woman with a friendly hug, and then eyed Fletch before turning back to me. “You two are already acquainted?” His cheek twitched, along the crest of the bone.

Fletch looked at me, then back at Aidan. “When we met, she called me a narrow-browed, dim-witted, cave-dwelling asshole.”

I cleared my throat. “I said ass-wipe, not ass-hole.”

Fletch ignored my half hearted attempt at smoothing things over. “Elizabeth, this is my wife, Tricia Stone-Fletcher.”

We shook hands, and she beamed a smile before taking me in more seriously, tapping her lip with a polished fingernail.

“What are you newlyweds doing out and about?” Aidan asked.

“Celebrating.” Trisha whooped, as she produced a white plastic pregnancy test. Aidan leaned away, suppressing his knee jerk reaction.

I, too, blanched before whispering my congratulations.

Aidan slapped Fletch on the back. “Fast work, old man.”

The waiter arrived with our first course. “I’ll let you enjoy your dinner.” Fletch guided Aidan back into his seat by pressuring his shoulder. As I resumed mine, I overheard him say, “I received a very distressing call from your fiancée’s lawyer.”

Judging from Aidan’s volume, he wasn’t interested in keeping their conversation private. “I tried to reach you by phone, text, and e-mail today.”

“I was busy commemorating.”

“The white stick says mission accomplished.” Aidan laughed.

Fletch’s wife tugged at his sleeve, and he turned on her.

“Tricia, you’re going to wrinkle my best suit.”

She looked at me apologetically—“Men”—before turning back to her husband. “Remember. No business tonight, no crack-berry, no baseball players, just baby talk.” Her manicured hands were resting on her hips.

Fletch scoffed in response, before he turned on me. “One last thing, she’s more skillful in her use of obscenities than I am.” Fletch had the audacity to wink at me as he walked away.

Aidan smirked into his salad. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”