Page 68 of The Lawyer
The phone cuts out before I even manage a goodbye, and I’m left not really understanding what I just listened to or how much I’ve agreed to pay her for the privilege.
A huff blows through my lips, and I take a seat back in my chair and look at my phone.
“Everything alright?” Willow asks.
“No.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“Also, a no.”
“Okay. Well, how about we go over the meetings you’ve got set up with Cole James next week, and then we can discuss the scandal you’re currently delaying dealing with.”
My head leans back, twisting to look at her. “I’m not delaying dealing with it.”
“And so, the reason we’re going to Paris is?”
“Hopefully, a partial buyout, and if we've got time, we'll be glimpsing behind the façade I offered you.”
“Which would mean you’re not concentrating on the important things at the moment. You should be back at the office with all this going on.”
“I’m concentrating on an exceedingly relevant case. It needs thorough examination before proceedings commence.”
She smirks, leans her head on the chair and continues to gaze at me. “Be careful, you’ll have me thinking about sweet and cute again.”
I chuckle and look past her out of the window, imagining the possibility. It’s not coming any time soon. Maybe when all this is over and I’ve got control of a stable company again, or when all this constant gossip gets put to bed. Maybe then I’ll have a chance for either of those words she seems to like so much. Until then, there is only the chaste time I can give her and the threat of unending damage that could be coming for me.
We sit in reasonable silence for the rest of the flight, only occasionally being interrupted by more first-class champagne and food. Work ends up absorbing me, and I give the last ebbs of my irritation to it rather than throw it at her. More meetings booked in for next week, more annoyances to deal with. And still nothing from Locke that delivers any concrete evidence on who the fuck that woman actually was or why she was all over my family.
After we’ve landed, I watch as the cabin door finally opens and wait for Willow to get up and walk out. She glances back at me the moment we’re out into Parisian air, the same smile on her face that always seems reserved for me alone. Slightly shy, overly dirty in its attempt at innocence, and most definitely, something I want to see more of.
“Where first?” she says as I open the taxi door for her.
“What do you like?”
She slides in the back. “I don’t know. Museums? What does one do in Paris?”
“Romance, apparently.”
“Any idea of what that actually is?”
“None at all."
She giggles and looks out the window as I tell the driver where to head, presumably amused at my honesty. It’s not that I don’t know what it is. I’ve used it several times over the years to get what I want out of a woman, but this type of attempt at it seems different, as if I should let it evolve rather than use the normal inclination of the word.
“Do you like art?” I ask.
“Yes. I suppose. As long as it looks like a painting. I don’t like that weird crap that looks like blobs and spots.” Quite right too.
"Good. I know an artist here. Much to my annoyance, his work is exquisite."
I find myself looking at her hand in her lap rather than the view outside. I can still feel it on me from Tallington, feel its hold in mine. It’s the one place we’ve been free to simply exist together. Even at my apartment, I’ve felt caged in, as if something, or someone, might disturb the moment and find out I’m sleeping with my own PA. I wish I could say it didn’t matter, that I could show the world this and be done with it, but I can’t. Not yet. Regardless of her potentially deserving it. This trip, for me at least, is another attempt at finding that sense of ease again somehow.
My fingers slide into hers, and her head whips round to look at me. “Really?” she whispers.
“As and when I can. Don’t push it.”
Another shy smile, another flutter of eyelashes, and she leans back to look at me instead of that view she seems so preoccupied with. “Okay.”
