“Oh!” Her pale copper curls bobbed as her head flew up, eyes widening in surprise to confront the man lounging in her doorway. Instantly she stepped back. “John! I didn’t see you!”
“That much was obvious,” he retorted with amusement, noting the momentary dart of her eye back toward the now deserted corridor. “No, he didn’t see you walk into me, if that’s what’s worrying you. Your exit was perfect—classy and polished. Thatwaswhat you intended, wasn’t it?”
Sidestepping him to enter her office, Justine ignored his barb. “Were you waiting to see me?” she asked calmly, depositing her purse behind her desk, her briefcase atop it. Suddenly relieved of their burden, her arms and legs felt strangely light and jerky.
John Doucette straightened from his lounging pose against the doorjamb and slowly approached her. “I’m always waiting for you, Justine. Dinner … once … that’s all I ask….” His note of feigned desperation drew no sympathy.
“Legal,John. Is there alegalmatter you want to discuss?”
“It could get down to that, if I’m driven to do something mad for want of you. Come on, Justine. What’s the problem?”
The plump leather chair behind her desk yielded gently beneath her weight as Justine sank down into it, kicking her shoes off and tucking her legs comfortably beneath the folds of her skirt. As her eye studied the man before her, she asked herself the same question. John Doucette, her senior by several years, was good-looking in a classical way. His features were all perfect, his dress natty and immaculate. Every strand of his dark hair was combed neatly in place; every button of his dark, three-piece suit was properly buttoned. In his way he was charming and witty—and, in her somewhat jaded eye, totally unexciting. The crux of the matter, however, lay much deeper and entirely within herself. Given her past and her future, she had neither the time nor the desire for any involvement of the type that his often-leering blue eyes suggested. Yes, her reasons were very powerful—and very personal.
With a sigh she repeated her stock excuse. “I like you, John, really I do. But you’re my colleague. We’re both members of this firm and you know—at least, youshouldknow by now—that I won’t date someone I have to work with on an everyday basis. Work and play just don’t mix.” She went through the motion of lifting the handful of pink telephone messages from the edge of her phone in hopes that he would take the hint and leave. To her dismay he merely moved closer, perching on the corner of her desk with the utmost of arrogance. Oh, indeed, she thought, he could be charming and witty when it pleased him. He could also be downright annoying, as instinct told her he was now about to be.
“You’d go out with Harper in a minute, wouldn’t you, Justine?”
“Harper?”
“Tch, tch. Ever the innocent. Sloane … is that more to the point?”
Her response came too quickly and with slightly too much vigor, belied by the faint crimson tinge which flew to her cheeks. “Whateverareyou talking about?”
“I saw how he shook you up. It’s amazing—the unflappable Justine suddenly flapped. Voices carry quite a way in these hallowed, hollow halls,” he teased softly and without anger. “He’s a very good-looking man. Very wealthy. Very successful. Very available. And he was very interested in you….”
“John, you’re babbling!” she decried firmly, appalled at the extent of her transparency in those few, devastating moments in the corridor. “Haven’t you better things to do with your time?”
John would have no part of her diversionary nonchalance. “He’s called ‘the Silver Fox.’ Did you know that?”
“As a matter of fact,” she scoffed through thinned and suddenly dry lips, “I didn’t.”
He nodded smugly, enjoying her discomfort. “That’s right. ‘The Silver Fox.’ And do you know why they call him that?”
“No, John,” she sighed loudly, exaggerating the echo, “whydothey call him that?”
“Because he’s sly. A predator. He stalks little things like you and gobbles them up.”
The image of herself feeling hopelessly trapped by Sloane’s magnetic appeal flitted about her brain. Purposefully she cast it aside. “Aren’t you getting carried away with the dramatic? If he’s called ‘the Silver Fox,’ it may be nothing more than a reference to his hair.”
“Striking, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. In truth it was. It’s good to know that one man, at least, has managed to avoid the Grecian Formula habit!”
John patted his own dark hair gingerly. “Now, now, Justine, that’s hitting below the belt. People in glass houses—”
“John! That’s enough!” She couldn’t begin to count the number of times she’d been accused of coloring her hair. But its strawberry-blond shade was rich and natural, a legacy from the father she hadn’t seen in over twenty years. Thought of him made her momentarily testy. “Whatisthe point of this whole conversation?”
John’s eyes flickered mischievously. “Just trying to tell you about the man you may be involved with.”
“Iwon’tbe involved with Sloane Harper!” she countered, again too vehemently, her temper beginning to fray. “He’s a corporate client of the firm. From what you yourself say, he needs neither a divorce attorney nor a family law specialist. If I hadn’t returned to the office at that particular moment, I wouldn’t even have met him.” The thought brought with it a gamut of emotional twinges, not the least of which was an eerie sense of premonition.
“But aren’t you glad you did?” John drawled slowly, recognizing the very tiny bud deep within that she struggled to ignore. “And, looking as gorgeous as you do …”
“John, I had a speaking engagement today. Of course I’d be more dressed up than usual.” Her tone was one of exasperation, yet as she looked down at her lightweight wool dress, a gentle blue plaid with a mandarin collar and pleats down the front and back tucked in at her slim waist by an apricot tie that blended miraculously with her coloring, shewasgrateful for the coincidence. John, of course, must never knowthat!“You’re really off base with this one,” she murmured defensively.
Silence hung strangely heavy in the air as he studied her. “Am I?” he asked slowly, then straightened and stood. Justine had been momentarily shaken by his pensiveness. As he stepped toward the door, she released her breath, only to catch it on the rebound. John’s posture grew simultaneously alert. Halting in his progress, he stood stock-still. There, beyond his dark frame, was Sloane, filling the doorway with his presence.
“Excuse me,” he spoke softly. “Am I interrupting anything?” His dark eyes swung from Justine to John, studying the latter for an instant of sizing-up before returning to her. His words suggested a legal conference; the faint twist at the corners of his lips suggested something entirely different.
