Not Quite Enough (Not Quite series) (31 page)

He stepped into the hallway with her as she turned around.

She gasped and held her hand out when her gaze collided with Trent’s.

Goldstein took hold of her arm again, and kept her from falling. Trent stood outside the door of the lawyers’ office looking nothing like the man she’d met on the island. He wore a three-piece suit that rivaled her attorney’s. His hair had been cut short, much more than it had been when she met him. He was just as tan, just as magnificent as she remembered. His eyes sparkled with appreciation before something clouded over them. “Barefoot?” she whispered.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Trent thought he was prepared to see her again.

He wasn’t.

“Monica,” he said her name, tasted her on his lips.

The man at her side stepped forward and reached out a hand. “You must be Mr. Fairchild.”

Monica moved aside and watched him.

“Larry Goldstein. We spoke on the phone.”

Ah, the lawyer.
Trent shook the man’s hand.

“Wait, you two spoke?” Monica asked.

Mr. Goldstein nodded. “Early this morning.”

They all had to step aside as someone from inside the office exited. Monica stumbled and Trent shot a hand out to hold her up.

Her lawyer held her as well. “Are you sure you’re OK to walk downstairs?”

Trent’s hand and arm sizzled with the contact.

“I’m fine,” Monica said. “The more I move, the better it gets.”

Trent’s gaze moved down her leg. A thin pink line where they’d put her back together, peeked from under her skirt. A skirt that hugged her too-thin curves. She’d lost weight. He had too, but managed to put it back on after leaving the cave.

Mr. Goldstein offered a smile and nodded toward the office. “We’ll be inside when you’re ready,” he told Trent, who hadn’t let Monica’s arm go.

“Call if you have questions, Monica. We’ll be in touch.”

He should retreat with the lawyer, but it didn’t seem as if Monica was rushing off and Trent couldn’t let her leave without seeing her smile again.

Why torture yourself, Trent?
he asked himself as if he were on the outside looking in.
She belongs to someone else.

Without realizing what he did, he glanced at her left hand and noticed it bare.

“I’m sorry they’re dragging you into this,” she said as she took a step back.

He let his hand drop or risk looking as if he was holding her.

“I’m hardly a hostile witness,” he said.

“Still, I’m sure you have better things to do.”

“Not really.” Why had he admitted that?

“Oh? You seemed to be in a hurry to leave Florida.” She sucked in her lip, as if wishing she hadn’t uttered her words. “I thought you’d say good-bye.”

Was that pain in her eyes?

“I tried.”

She pinched her brow together.

“I went to the ICU. Your fiancé was there.” He’d gone over their conversations so many times. Remembered her saying that she didn’t mess around with two guys at the same time. Yet when faced with a man claiming her as his, Trent stepped aside.

Her face went white. “M-my what?”

He swallowed. “Never mind.”

“Never mind? What are you talking about? I don’t have a fiancé.” Her voice was elevated now and her pale skin turned pink with what Trent assumed was anger.

“The guy in the ICU told me he was—”

“John? John told you we were engaged?”

“Yes.”

“And you believed him?” She was enraged now and controlling her words as they left her mouth slowly.

Maybe not now.
Damn, could he have been wrong?

The ding from the elevator kept him from answering the question. Out of it walked a tall, slender blonde with dark sunglasses over her eyes. “There you are,” the blonde said. “I thought I was meeting you outside.”

Monica blinked and dismissed him. “Sorry, Katie. I was detained.” Monica stepped toward the woman she called Katie with an obvious limp.

Trent reached for her again.

Monica snapped out of his grip as soon as he touched her. Her glare kept him from reaching for her again. “I have it, Trent!”

His insides twisted. Could he have spent the last two months accusing her of being just like Connie only to find out he was wrong?

Katie removed her glasses and stepped to Monica’s side. “Trent Fairchild?”

Monica nodded. “C’mon Katie. I’ve had a shitty day and can’t wait to get home.”

Katie glared in Trent’s direction as she helped Monica walk away.

“Monica?” Trent walked between the two of them and the elevator. “We should talk.”

“Why? So you can pretend to listen and then think the worst of me later? I don’t have anything to say to you.”

The door behind them opened. “Mr. Fairchild? We’re ready for you.”

He glanced away when he heard his name. Dammit, he’d screwed up. So completely screwed up.

“Monica, please.”

Monica gripped Katie’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

Trent had no choice but to let her go. As they stepped into the elevator, Monica studied the floor and Katie dug a hole into him with her glare, and buried him six feet under.

Jessie held the phone to her ear and tried to make out what Katie was saying.

“I don’t know what I interrupted. Monica looked as if she were about to commit a serious crime when I stepped out of the elevator.”

“And you said Trent was there?” Jessie asked.

“Yeah, looking like someone had just taken his puppy. I don’t care what anyone thinks, there was some serious vibes going between them.”

Jessie smiled. “Good vibes?”

“Deadly ones. At least from Monica. Trent looked like he wanted to throw up.”

“And Monica hasn’t told you what happened?”

“Said she didn’t want to talk about it.”

Sounded like her sister. When something really bugged her, she clammed up. “She’s mad?”

“At first. Then I heard her in the bathroom sniffling, and she doesn’t have a cold.”

“Crying? She was crying?” Now Jessie was worried. “Monica doesn’t cry over anything.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t leave her alone did you?”

“I’m on my way back with wine… and ice cream. I told Dean I was staying over so she won’t be home alone tonight.”

Jessie sighed. “I’ll fly in tomorrow.”

“Good. I’m pulling into the parking lot now.”

Katie hung up and Jessie called their pilot.

Trent’s head was still spinning as he sat next to Monica’s lawyers. Across from the sharks trying to paint her as something other than the angel he knew.

Dammit, what had he done? How could he have thought of her as anything but an angel?

Mr. Goldstein had told him this wouldn’t take long. But that it was imperative he do this face-to-face.

What Trent really wanted to do was find Monica and make sure she was all right. Explain.

Explain what? What an asshole I am?

“Mr. Fairchild can you tell us, for the record, where you’re currently living.”

Trent told them his brother’s address since he had yet to set up his own residence since leaving Jamaica.

“You do own a home in Jamaica?”

“That’s right. I left the island after the quake.”

The woman, Leslie something or other, smiled and asked, “And you fly helicopters for tourists?”

“That’s right.”

“When did you meet Monica Mann?”

“Two days after the first quake. We were flying the medical staffs back and forth to the hospital.”

“You’d never met her before?” the fat lawyer asked.

“No.”

They paused. “Are you sure?”

Trent felt a smile on his lips. “She’s a beautiful woman, I would have remembered seeing her before.”

“Assuming what you say is correct, when did you start sleeping with her?”

“Objection!” Mr. Goldstein sounded just as pissed as Trent felt. “If you’re going to call my witness a liar then we will end this now and you can find out what he has to say in court.”

Leslie held up her hands in retreat. “When did you and Miss Mann become intimate?”

“I don’t see how that is anyone’s business.” He’d left high school and bragging about girls a long time ago.

“Just answer, Trent. Monica has already told them,” Mr. Goldstein said.

“The day the cave collapsed, trapping us inside.”

“But you spent nearly every day with Miss Mann.”

“So?”

“You said yourself she’s a beautiful woman.”

“Is there a question?”

The oldest attorney opened his mouth. “Isn’t it true that you frequently flew in and out of Florida while living in Jamaica?”

“The tour company has a base there. It wasn’t uncommon for me to fly into Miami or Fort Lauderdale.”

“Were you there a year and a half ago?”

Trent shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s convenient.”

Mr. Goldstein shook his head.

Trent stared at Monica’s attorney. “What are they getting at?”

Mr. Goldstein turned to the court reporter. “We’ll take this part off the record.”

The tiny woman rested her hands in her lap and waited.

“Monica was in Florida a year and a half ago for training. They believe you two met then.”

“That’s ridiculous. Even if we had,” he turned toward the trio of shitheads, “what of it?”

“They think Monica took the assignment to Jamaica to obtain a free ticket to meet you.”

Trent couldn’t help it. He laughed. He laughed until his insides started to cramp. Mr. Goldstein chuckled alongside him.

Trent waved a hand at the court reporter once he got himself under control. “Can you get this?”

“Now that you’re finished,” Leslie said. “What—”

“Ask me what I do for a living,” Trent demanded.

“You already told us you flew helicopters for a tour company.”

Trent’s smile fell. He slammed his hand on the table. Everyone jumped. “Ask.”

“OK, Mr. Fairchild, what do you do for a living?”

He leveled his eyes with the older silent lawyer, the one who seemed to ask a minimum of questions but who appeared to be in charge of these two. “Nothing. I don’t have to work.”

“You said you flew—”

“The company I fly for is one my brothers and I own, Fairchild Vacation and Charter Tours. We have twenty-five locations worldwide in seven different countries. In addition to helicopters, which just happen to be my favorite to fly, we have executive jets that hold anything from four passengers to sixty.” The other lawyers were listening now and Mr. Goldstein sat with a smug look of contentment. “If I wanted to hook up with Miss Mann she wouldn’t have needed a free ticket. I’d have sent the Lear, that is worth more than any of you sharks will make collectively in your lives, to pick her up.”

The vein in the fat man’s face started to bulge.

Trent could have heard an ant crossing the room in the silence.

The older attorney recovered first. “Nice performance, Mr. Fairchild. But we’re here not only to determine what nefarious reasons Miss Mann had in going to Jamaica, but to determine if she in
fact abandoned her post both here and on the island. The fact is, she did take a lover, left her patients to do so—”

“Objection!”

“—and worked outside her license.”

Mr. Goldstein stood and slammed his hand down this time. “Objection.”