Page 2 of Café Diablo

Connor:Yes, you are. 8 minutes.

Ned:I’m hanging up now.

Connor:To go change? That’s excellent news. I’ll see you in seven.

I shake my head and grumble, tossing my phone on the far side of my desk and not replying. Connor can show up all he wants, but nothing he says will convince me to change my mind. It’s a fact—which he knows is a fact—so I don’t know why he bothers. I grab my stack of witness testimonies and start leafing through the highlighted sections of the material, but I end up reading the same sentence five times because my mind can’t stop thinking through all the ways in which I can disembowel Connor when he arrives.

He can really be a cocky asshole sometimes. Sure, he’s a freaking maven with women, and I’ll give him credit for that night when he stood up to our dad. But that doesn’t mean he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants! Ever since he got together with Arie and took that job at Flambé, he seems to think the world is his oyster and nothing bad will ever catch up to him—even when he already has a track record of getting arrested and making me the chump who bails him out of everything. You’d think that would give me some iota of authority to say “no” to him, but somehow it only makes him more obnoxious.

The buzzer rings on the front door of my law office and I check my phone. It’s not quite nine o’clock. That was a damn short ten minutes. I throw the phone in my pocket and get up, heading toward the door. The sooner I get rid of Conner, the sooner I can get back to work.

The loud buzzer rings over and over in an incessant roll like a drunk woodpecker hacking at the door. It sends a ball of annoyance crawling over my shoulders, just like when we were kids and he had to have my damn attention all the time—Ned, look at this. Ned, pay attention to me. Ned! Ned! Ned!I storm toward the door, stalking out of my office and through the dark reception area.

“You realize I’ve already said ‘no’ a hundred times!” I bark toward the door. “The fact that you actually drove all the way over here—” I grab the knob of the front door and swing it open. “Makes you a fucking asshole!”

Connor doesn’t turn around and look at me.

He doesn’t do that because Connor isnotthe person on the other side of this door.

Nope.

On the other side of my door is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

2

Ned

Ibite my tongue and school my face, because—punch-me-in-the-nads—the woman in front of me is beautiful!

She’s a stylish black-haired beauty in a silk tank-top and a pencil skirt who looks like she could be a lawyer. Only, this must be her after-hours look, cause it’s way too sexy for an office. Sure, the outfit comes with all the hallmarks of a power suit from Vanity Fair—minus the jacket—but it’s the kind of threads a super model wears to a fashion show rather than a board meeting for a CEO. Her wavy, black hair frames her face, and there’s a regal Asian quality to her features. Her cheekbones are sun-kissed and covered in almost-invisible freckles, the ghost of youth’s innocence brushing the edge of her temples. But her innocence stops there, because the rest is a viper: bold red lips, smokey eyes, and a small build that screams trouble.

I narrow my eyes at her, noticing a dainty gold chain that rings her throat, which again, is deceptively sweet, if it didn’t thread my gaze across her collar bone and down the front expanse of skin to disappear between—

“Edwin Voss, I assume?” she says, pulling my eyes back up to her sultry glare, and I choke back the fact that I checked out this woman’s chest and swore at her like an uncivilized buffoon.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize, trying to cover for my previous indiscretion, taking a second to peek down the hall she stands in to make sure Connor is hiding behind one of the planters and laughing.

“Edwin Voss?” she repeats, her tone annoyed. “This is your office, correct?” She motions to the sign on the door where it says Voss Associates, another gold chain dangling daintily from her wrist. My eyes dance down her frame again, but when they return to her face an eyebrow is lifted up like that was completely inappropriate.

Which it was.

I’m complete shit with women.

“Um, uh—” I cough, clearing my throat. “Sorry, it’s after hours and I was waiting for my brother, who’s—” I catch myself. She doesn’t need to know my sordid history with the asshole who can’t take ‘no’ for an answer and with whom I unfortunately share DNA. I roll my shoulders back and give her a steely frown. “Yes, I’m Ned Voss,” I say crisply. “What can I do for you?”

She reaches out a hand, more tiny gold threads dangling. I ignore them. “I’m Olivia Reese,” she says, tilting her hand up and waiting for me to shake it.

“Uh huh—?” I say noncommittally, and after a long pause I take her hand, because clearly she won’t say any more until I respect her with the pleasantry. Her hand is delicate but her grip is strong, clutching me with more force than I expect from her—which makes my brain think things it shouldn’t.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Voss,” she says, squeezing tightly and stepping closer to me with a smile that’s finally relaxing that sultry mouth.

“You do realize it’s after hours?” I say, nodding to the dark room behind me as she squeezes my hand harder. “I’ll be happy to help you with whatever you need. But to be honest, the best plan of action is to make an appointment with my secretary in the morning. I’m actually in the middle of—”

“A big case, yeah,” she says like she’s familiar with it, or me, making me suspicious as she looks over my shoulder and into the darkened waiting room, the half-light from my office the only thing illuminating me from behind. “The thing is—” Her eyes light back on me, the deep brown glimmer of them catching with a hint of gold deviousness. “I’m not here for your services.”

“I’m sorry?” I squint at her. “You’re not?”

Those sultry lips hitch. “Nope.”

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