Page 24 of Café Diablo

Unzipped pants.

That mouth.

That’s the abridged version.

I don’t say any of those things. I don’t need to. She was there. And now she’shere, in my office, with whatever treat she’s about to pull out of that box.

Which means I’m in trouble.

“You realize it’s one o’clock in the afternoon,” I try to say casually, even though my suit is searing me like one of those cast iron dishes at Flambé. I drop my pen on the very large stack of papers in front of me, dramatically. “I actually have work to do. You can’t just handcuff me and—”

“Edwin!” she interrupts. “It’s a freaking pastry! You can take a ten-minute break.”

“Time is—”

“Money?” she shoots at me, her eyes flaring wide in mockery. “How very cliché of you! Guess what, time is also all that you have. And if you spend it handcuffed to your desk for all of your life, like the good little lawyer you are—” She pauses, smiling to herself for a moment. “Well, maybe not so little, but—”

The sun on the back of my neck turns up to broil!

She laughs at her own overtness, looking at me for the barest of glances, her cheeks blushing, before she focuses her attention on the pastries she’s unveiling. “Just chill out for ten minutes and have a tart! Okay? It’s just a little sugar and fruit and all the things that are bad for you. Which—” She points to my torso. “You clearly work out, so it’s not like this is going straight to your ass or anything.”

“You may be the one person I know who talks more than I do.”

“Oh, Edwin,” she looks at me crossly as she pulls a palm-sized tart out of the box. It’s loaded with whipped cream and excessiveness like all things made by Arie. “You don’t talk at all unless we’re discussing whatever’s in those three hundred volumes of legalese you’ve got sitting on that bookshelf.”

She nods to the leather-bound volumes, which Ihaveread every word of.

“Oh no!” She holds a finger up and wags it at me, walking around the side of my desk with that whipped cream monstrosity in her hand. “That wasn’t an invitation to go into a tirade on the nuances of bail bonds, and mediation, and pre-meditated whatever!”

“You’re just listing things you’ve heard people say onLaw and Ordernow, aren’t you?”

“Yes!” she nods, coming to my side of the desk and leaning her bum against the edge, the slit of her wraparound skirt showing off a glimpse of leg. “That’s my point! My entire legal education comes from television. Most people’s do. You know … TV,” she mocks. “That box that shows pretty pictures and stories, that you seem to know very little about because you’re trapped in the 1800’s where your major form of entertainment comes from a printing press.”

“Am I supposed to be insulted?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. “Am I supposed to feel bad about the fact that I can quote half the books on that shelf and change people’s lives, and you can win at pop-culture trivia night at the local pub?”

“No, Edwin!”

“I really hate that you call me Edwin,” I interject, and she tilts her head at me like that’s part of why she’s doing it.

“The point,Ed-win,” Olivia stresses the syllables of my name, “is to stop working for ten seconds, or reciting laws and rules, or worrying about whatever is going to happen in an hour, or tomorrow, and just eat a damn pastry with me!”

“Do you know how much ten minutes of my time costs?” I toss back, not giving her an inch, even though she’s already within arms-reach and far too close to me. My cock is ready to fist-pump the air at her proximity! “I have an hourly rate and a calculator if you’d like a precise number.”

Olivia looks past my shoulders and out the picture window of my office. It overlooks Honolulu and has an impressive view of the ocean. “I’m pretty sure I’ll need to sell my kidney for those ten minutes,” she says, her eyes dancing around my office to look at all my expensive furniture.

“That’s altogether likely,” I say dryly, which makes her pop off my desk with a suspicious spring in her step.

“Well, if I’m going to have to sell my kidney …” she says, not letting up as she pushes the stack of papers in front of me to the side of my desk.

“Olivia I—”

“Ten minutes,” she interrupts. “For one kidney.”

She lifts her foot up and tucks it in the corner of my office chair, her tan foot snugged inside a sexy heeled sandal, each of her toes painted a bronze color like tiny coins. I lift an eyebrow as the wrap-around dress she’s wearing splits, showing off quite a bit of tanned leg.

“Oliv—?”

“If I’m going to have to sell a kidney,” she repeats, slowly pushing me backwards and away from my desk. The wheels on the chair allow her to situate me next to the window. “Then that means I’ll need kidney surgery.”

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