Reckless Encounter Page 6

  “Why is he setting up stores so far apart, instead of a single state?”

  “Max wanted to see if there are regional differences in taste before he decides who his target audience is.”

  “Does he have a family?”

  A slow smile spread over Joe’s narrow face. “If I hadn’t seen the animosity between you two, I’d feel an obligation to warn you to keep away from him. He has a trail of broken hearts behind him, longer than from here back to Seattle. What is it with women? They pick a bastard over a good man every time.”

  “It’s something called ‘treat them mean and keep them keen’, and it applies to both sexes.” Feeling edgy, Elena picked up the metal tape measure from the table, reeled out a length and let it snap back in. “So,” she went on, “I take that Max isn’t married, or is breaking hearts his sideline?”

  “Not married, and never has been, as far as I know.” Joe’s face settled into a thoughtful frown. “He has girlfriends, but they change frequently. I’ve given up trying to remember their names. Rebecca, if I recall, lasted a while, it must have been five years ago, and Vanessa is like a comet, reappears at regular intervals. The others have come and gone.”

  The pressure inside Elena lifted, leaving her lightheaded. Max’s personal life is nothing to do with you, she told herself, but elation spread through her, like ripples expanding on the surface of a pool of water.

  “What about his family?” she asked. “Parents, brothers, sisters?”

  Joe stopped making notes and scratched his sandy hair with the blunt end of the pencil. “Funny you should ask. I really don’t know. Max never talks about his background.” He paused before continuing, “I believe he grew up in San Francisco and went to MIT, but that’s about it. I’ve never been to his house. He has never mentioned any relatives. I assume he’s fallen out with his family.”

  Elena shrugged. “I guess it’s none of my business anyway.”

  Joe smiled. “That’s it. Keep your distance from the boss, and you’ll be fine.”

  They worked a couple of more hours in easy companionship. Elena’s contribution was limited to holding on to one end of the measuring tape and listening to Joe’s ideas. He seemed to think she was helping, and that was good enough for her.

  Later, when they dined at the hotel, Elena discovered that Joe was married with two small children, and the weeks on the road were taking their toll on his family life. He took out his wallet and produced a photo of an athletic blonde and two flaxen-haired girls who were miniatures of his pretty wife.

  “What about you?” Joe asked as he returned the wallet to his pocket. “I gather you’re single. Do you have a boyfriend? A beautiful girl like you must have men lining up.”

  Elena glanced up with a quick smile to acknowledge the compliment. She stared into her coffee and decided to trust Joe. It would help to talk to someone. After all, she’d been bottling up the hurt for more than a year.

  “I had a boyfriend until recently. Another lawyer at McKenzie and Harris.” Elena shifted in her seat and raised her eyes to meet Joe’s. He gave her a nod of encouragement and she found the courage to keep talking.

  “Something happened just over a year ago. We were representing a client who was bidding to take over another company. Our client was planning to close down a manufacturing plant. Five hundred people would lose their jobs but the restructuring plans were kept a secret. I suggested it was unethical. The next day the details were leaked to the newspapers. The finger was pointed at me. The firm held an internal investigation. I was cleared, but Steven dumped me and started a hate campaign against me in the office. It got so bad that I had to leave. I guess I could have taken legal action against the firm, but I didn’t. My enemy had up to the month before been my lover, someone I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I simply didn’t have the stamina to fight it. The firm offered me a settlement, and I decided to start my own practice. It has been much harder than I expected, which is why I’m broke.”

  The confession left Elena drained. She drank a mouthful of the steaming coffee and got a boost from the heat. When Joe didn’t say anything, she finally looked up at him. An amused grin was spreading over Joe’s lean face as he contemplated her.

  “What?” she asked.

  Joe shook his head. “I’ve just realized what’s been bugging me about you. This may sound crazy, but you remind me of the boss. I couldn’t think of why until now. There is the same uncompromising quality about you two. You’ll both break rather than bend. Let’s hope that you’ll never end up on the opposing sides of an argument, because if you do, God help you. When it comes to breaking rather than bending, your load-bearing capacity is a lot less than his, to put it in engineering terms. You’ll break before he even feels the pressure.”

  Elena pinned a smile on her face and muttered something inconsequential. She had to be careful not to ask personal questions about Max Glaser, otherwise Joe would get the wrong idea. It was just idle curiosity, nothing else. And it was important to avoid drawing attention to any discord between them. If someone started to investigate, the trail wouldn’t be difficult to follow, and their first encounter could come to light.

  As Elena said goodnight and retreated to her room, she tried to direct her thoughts to other topics but failed. Max clung to her like an annoying ghost, making her edgy and restless. She feared his arrival almost as much as she looked forward to it.

  ****

  The morning dawned bright. Since Elena had no work to do, she went for a long walk along the river that curved around the town, and then she changed into leggings and a T-shirt and checked out the small exercise room, too small to really be called a gym.

  A stationary bike. A treadmill. A rowing machine.

  She did twenty minutes on the rowing machine, which had a programmable screen, where a shark chased a small figure in rowing boat, threatening to catch the rower if Elena fell behind against the speed setting she had selected on the display.

  When she had finished, she went back to her room, took a shower and dressed in flimsy drawstring pants and a loose cotton top. The she curled on the bed for an afternoon nap. She dreamed that she was in a rickety rowing boat, chased by a shark that had Max Glaser’s face. Go away, she kept telling the predator, but he ignored her and started to circle the boat. A loud bell rang. She searched the horizon for the coastguards that were ringing the bell to let her know that they were on their way to rescue her, but she could see nothing.

  The persistent ringing shook Elena awake. By the bedside, the telephone vibrated with the shrill bursts of sound and blinked with a small square light. She picked up the receiver and muttered a sleepy hello.

  “Are you so afraid of me that you won’t open your door even in broad daylight? Max said in an angry growl.

  “What?”

  “I’ve just been hammering on your door. Why didn’t you answer?”

  The raw edge of frustration in his voice startled her. “Sorry. I was asleep.”

  “Asleep? I don’t pay you to sleep all day. Are you ill?”

  “I finished the lease agreement yesterday. I’m taking the day off. Zero billable hours until we meet tonight.”

  “I have more work for you. I’m next door, room 113. Come over and pick up the papers. It will only take a few minutes for me to brief you, and then you’ll have the rest of the day to get on with the job.”

  The line went dead. Elena held the silent receiver in the air and mouthed at it. “If you don’t mind Ms. Rodriquez. At your convenience, Ms. Rodriguez. Whenever you are ready, Ms. Rodriquez.” And yet, despite her burst of sarcasm, she didn’t dare to waste any time by changing into something more appropriate, but she rushed out after barely pausing to freshen up in the bathroom.

  Her heart hammered as she knocked on Max’s door and waited. Time spun around her, throwing her back almost six months to their first encounter. The image of Max, naked except for a towel, rose to overwhelm her senses.

  She could barely breathe.
Her eyes pinched shut, as if to fight the memory. Footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. The lock clicked. Elena blinked her eyes open. Max stood in front of her, fully dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt. A small sliver of bronzed skin peeked through the open neckline. That tiny reminder of his nakedness elicited a gasp from her.

  Max must have noticed her agitation, because he rolled his eyes in a look of exasperation. “What did you expect?” he drawled. “A white rabbit?” Leaving her to close the door and follow, he strolled across the room to a sofa by the window. The cold autumn light fell on his face, highlighting the tired lines around his mouth.

  “I’m sorry.” She hurried after him. “I had a flashback.”

  He flicked a sour glance at her. “Rest assured that I don’t normally conduct business meetings without any clothes on.” His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “Any more than you as a rule provide sexual favors instead of legal services.”

  “Don’t.” Her hands fisted. “I don’t want to be reminded of that night.”

  “I didn’t remind you,” Max pointed out. “You remembered without any help from me.”

  Hot and cold waves surged over Elena. Her body thrummed in forbidden places. The air in the room carried a scent of that night, and with a piercing awareness she realized it was not a trick of her memory, but the same fragrance of a musky male emanated from Max who sat leaning forward on the sofa, appearing travel-weary and a little disheveled.

  “You said you have more work for me to do?” she commented in an effort to break the tension that saturated the air.

  In front of Max, stacks of documents covered the coffee table. “That’s right. These are the leases for the grocery stores.” He pointed at the tallest pile. “There are eight of them. I want you to look through the contracts and tell me if you find any problems.”

  Elena took a step closer. “Anything in particular?”

  “Early termination clauses. For example, what would happen if there was a disaster, say a flood or a fire, and a store was out of action for some time?”

  She picked up a bundle of documents from the top of the pile and flicked through them, trying to focus on the legal details, using the question to push away the disturbing effects of his nearness. “I can get started, but I don’t expect I’ll finish by the end of today. And to assess the impact of cessation of trading, I’d also need the contracts of employment, the agreements with the suppliers, and insurance details.”

  “Employment contracts. Supplier agreements. Insurance policies.” Max gestured at three other stacks of documents in front of him. “I’ll be here until Friday afternoon. If you think it will take longer, you can take the lot to a copy shop and run another set for your office.”

  “I’d prefer to take a working copy now. I like to make notes in the margins.”

  “Sure,” Max replied. “Go right ahead.”

  Elena bent to scoop up the documents. When she straightened, she caught Max staring at her. She followed the direction of his eyes and found her loose cotton top gaping at the neck, offering him a glimpse of her bare breasts.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she blurted out without thinking.

  “Like what?” His voice was a harsh growl.

  “Like I have no clothes on.”

  “I can’t help if my mind clings to how I’ve already seen you.” Max scowled at her. “I’m trying to be professional here. I expect the same from you.” He gave her a curt nod of dismissal, then picked up a document from the table and pointedly ignored her.

  Elena rushed out, her arms full of contracts. She copied the papers in the business centre, her hands so unsteady that several times she pricked her fingers when twisting out the staples. It took her until half past five to complete the task. She steeled herself before setting off to deliver the originals back to Max. She found the door propped ajar and Max seated on the sofa studying a bundle of papers, just as he’d been when she left him.

  “I have the draft lease for the video store,” Elena told him as she leaned down to set the documents on the table, taking care not to let her neckline droop. “Do you want to review it now, or when we meet this evening?”

  Max barely glanced up. “I’ll wait until tonight when Joe is there too. We’re meeting at six down in the lobby.”

  “I thought it was seven.”

  “Joe and I have some other business to discuss first. You can join us at seven. Bring the lease agreement with you.”

  Elena nodded her assent and retreated toward the door. When she was about to slip through, the low rumble of Max’s voice caught her, calling her name. She halted. Her fingers curled tight over the papers in her arms.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You can drop the lamb-to-slaughter look. I’m not going to pounce on you. You’ve told me no, and I’ve gotten the message. From now on, it will be strictly businesslike between us, unless you come to me and ask for something more. Are we clear on that?”

  Elena fled without replying. While she showered, irritation seethed inside her. She ought to have said something cutting. I wouldn’t come to you if you were the last man on earth. Don’t hold your breath waiting. You’re out of your mind to think that I…

  Even under the cascade of cool water, anger at her own weakness drew a flare of heat on her skin. How could she have told Max he was out of his mind to think that she would want to sleep with him again, when it was all she could think about?

  ****

  At a quarter to seven, Elena filed her notes away, picked up the draft lease and headed downstairs. She found Max and Joe sitting at a secluded table in the corner of the quiet dining room, inspecting blueprints. A look of embarrassment crossed Joe’s face when she walked up to them. Instinctively, Elena knew she’d been the topic of their conversation.

  “There you are. We were just talking about you.” Max rose to his feet. From his position on the other side of the table, he couldn’t pull out a chair for her, but he waited and didn’t sit down again until she was settled in the rustic pine seat.

  Elena hadn’t really paid attention to the fact before, but it occurred to her now that Max was given to old-fashioned polite gestures. He opened doors, pulled out chairs, walked on the side nearest to the traffic. It must be something he did without thinking, a habit so deeply ingrained that it had become automatic. Even though those small courtesies were by no means an indication that he cared about her, they caused a reluctant flicker of pleasure.

  “The draft contract.” Elena handed each man a set of three stapled documents.

  Max shuffled the pile. “Why are there three different agreements?”

  “The landlord is offering concessions if you commit to a longer period. We finalized a one-year, a five-year, and a ten-year version. You can pick the one you like best and discard the other two.”

  He glanced up at her. “Which one would you recommend?”

  “Five years. That has the best risk-benefit ratio.” Elena summarized the key points while Max flicked through the pages.

  “Fine, we’ll go with that,” he said with a brief nod. “You can keep the others for back-up, just in case, but we’ll go in tomorrow morning with the five-year deal.” He handed the papers back to her and gestured for Joe to do the same.

  The fact that he trusted her judgment made Elena flush with pride. It baffled her why the good opinion of Max Glaser should matter to her, but it seemed that it did.

  Although the hotel dining room was bare and functional, the dinner was an improvement on the miserable night at Katie’s Kitchen. The food was perhaps no better, but the tension of that first night had turned every bite to cardboard. Now Max drank in moderation, engaged in civilized conversation, and treated the elderly waitress with a flawless courtesy.

  Earlier, when she had tried to probe for information, Joe had described Max as a loner who didn’t like to go out, and Elena could easily believe the comment. She recognized a reticence in him, an unwillingness to let people close, and yet, des
pite his reserve, he seemed at ease in a social setting, not awkward, or unable to maintain a conversation.

  Once or twice, a smile brightened his somber features. Her heart did a little flip-flop at the way a pair of vertical creases formed on either side of his mouth, like brackets drawing attention to the full, masculine curve of his lips. When a deep throaty chuckle escaped his chest at some comical observation she’d made, she basked in the warmth of the sound.

  Throughout the evening, his good humor wrapped like rays of sunlight around her, bolstering her own fragile mood. And yet, even when Max smiled, she could tell that his eyes remained aloof, fill with shadows she interpreted as sadness.

  What hidden grief did Max Glaser carry behind his shield of reserve? Had he lost the woman he loved? Was that the reason why he had never married? The thought of a past love caused a tiny prickle of jealousy to fester inside Elena.

  As soon as the coffee was cleared away, Max glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid I have another meeting at nine. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  With a brief goodnight, he got up and left. Joe fiddled with his beer and remained silent until Max was out of sight. After a quick glance across the table, he focused his attention on the last drops of wine in his glass.

  “Look,” he said, twirling the glass by the stem. “I’m sorry if I stepped out of line, but I told the boss what you said about being broke. I suggested that he could use you for any other legal work he needs. I told him what a good job you’ve done so far, and how it would help me to deal with one person for all aspects of the business. I hope you don’t mind.”

  At his sheepish expression, Elena burst out laughing. So that had been the reason for Joe’s guilty look when she arrived. Relief made her slump in the pine captain’s seat. Indeed, she’d been the topic of their conversation before she joined them, but not in the way she’d feared. Not that she had ever expected Max to be the type to boast with sexual conquests. Discretion was as important to him as it was to her.