Текст книги "Practice Makes Perfect"
Автор книги: Julie James
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Payton was surprised by this. “You think I come across as guarded?”
“At work, you can sometimes . . . have a bit of an edge,” Laney said carefully. “Like this thing with J.D., for example.”
Payton tried to decide whether she should be offended. But as much as she might not want to admit it, a part of her knew that what Laney was saying wasn’t completely off base.
“I suppose this ‘thing’ with J.D. has gotten a little out of hand,” she sniffed reluctantly. “You’re right—I should be the better person in this.” She smirked. “That shouldn’t be too hard in comparison to J.D.”—she caught Laney’s look– “is exactly what Edgy Payton would’ve said. But the New Payton won’t go there.”
Laney tipped her coffee mug approvingly. “Good for you. To the New Payton.”
“The New Payton.”
Payton clinked her mug to Laney’s, wondering what she was getting herself into.
Five
BE THE BALL.
J.D. focused intently. His eyes never left the tee.
Be the ball.
He pulled back, then—swoosh! His swing was effortless. With one hand raised to block the sun’s glare, he watched as the ball landed on the green 240 yards away, within inches of the hole.
J.D. smiled. God, he loved this sport.
Hearing the whistling and clapping coming from behind him, he turned around to face his companions.
“Nice shot,” Jasper called out in his lazy Southern drawl. “A man who bills three thousand hours a year shouldn’t have time for a swing like that.” Their three companions, representatives from Gibson’s legal department, nodded in agreement.
J.D. walked over and took the beer Jasper held out to him. “Does this mean we’re talking business?”
Jasper grinned. He had the bold smile of a man completely at ease with the power he held. He glanced down at his beer, then took in the beautiful tree-lined scenery of the eighth hole. “Tell you what. Wait till the fifteenth hole. Then we’ll talk.”
Following Jasper’s lead, J.D. soaked in the warmth of the blue-sky summer day while admiring the view of the river that flowed just beyond the green. He tipped his bottle at Jasper. “Make it the seventeenth.”
Jasper chuckled. “A man after my own heart. But are you sure you want to wait? I heard the back nine of this course brings a man to his knees.”
“Maybe a lesser man, Jasper.”
Jasper laughed heartily at this. “I like your style, Jameson.”
Grinning, J.D. took a sip of his beer. So far, his afternoon with the Gibson’s team had been going very well. He was comfortable here, in his element—which undoubtedly was one of the reasons Ben had chosen him for this assignment. J.D. had grown up around men like Jasper all his life and was familiar with the “good-ole boy” routine. He understood the lingo, the game, the role he was supposed to play. Ben wanted to do a little showing off—that’s why he had specifically asked J.D. to bring the Gibson’s team to this course. He was trying to impress them, but didn’t want to look like he was trying to impress them. The fact that J.D. just so happened to have a membership at one of the most exclusive clubs in the country was the perfect way to accomplish this.
The only blemish on the afternoon was the nagging feeling he got whenever a vision of Payton sitting back at the office popped into his head. He kept trying to brush these feelings aside. Why should he feel guilty that she had been left out? After all, he was just doing his job, what Ben had asked him to do. And, had the shoe been on the other foot, he was quite certain Payton would’ve had no problem leaving him behind.
There was another image J.D. had a hard time shaking: the look Payton had given him when he’d told her that the club didn’t allow women. For the briefest moment, he’d seen something in her eyes he hadn’t seen before. A slight crack, a falter in her usual armor of confidence. For some reason, it had bothered him, seeing that.
Realizing that one of the Gibson’s lawyers was asking him a question about the course, J.D. pushed all thoughts of Payton from his mind. He couldn’t be distracted right now. He needed to be on, to be charming and professional. And, no less important, he needed to mentally prepare for the upcoming ninth hole—a ruthless par four that was one of the narrowest holes he had ever played.
Besides, as he knew full well, Payton Kendall could take care of herself.
PAYTON SAT AT the bar, waiting. She had agreed to meet J.D. and the Gibson’s team at Japonais restaurant at seven thirty. She was familiar with the restaurant, as was pretty much every other single woman in Chicago over the age of twenty-five. Trendy and expensive with a modern, ambient-lit decor, it was one of the most popular locales in the city for a first date.
Not that she’d had all that many first dates lately. It took time to meet people. It took time to date them, to get to know them, to figure out whether you liked them and whether they liked you. And time was something she didn’t have a lot of these days. So unless the mythical Perfect Guy fell out of the sky and landed smack-dab on her doorstep, dating was something she needed to put on hold until after she made partner.
Payton swirled her wineglass as she sat at the bar, thinking back to the last first date she’d had, with an investment banker she’d met at a local wine tasting. It had been at this very restaurant, in fact. Her date had polished off eight of the restaurant’s Mukune sakes by ten. By ten fifteen he’d fallen over in his chair while standing up to go to the bathroom and by ten fifteen and fifteen seconds—when Payton ran over to help—he’d slurringly confessed that he was having “a bidge of trupple” weaning off of his manic-depressive medication.
Nice.
“And these are the guys who are out there,” she had later groaned to Laney. Her friend had no such troubles, having of course married her frat-boy college sweetheart.
It was as a result of that disastrous last first date that Payton had vowed to temporarily cease all dips into the dating pool. At least until her professional life was in order, that is. It was kind of funny, and maybe a tad pathetic: she had realized earlier that evening as she’d been getting dressed that it was the first time in weeks she’d worn something other than a suit outside of her apartment. Not wanting to look too formal—or as if she was trying too hard to impress the Gibson’s reps—she’d ditched her standard suit jacket and gone instead with a fitted button-down shirt, pencil-thin skirt, and heels.
Having by now polished off her drink, Payton checked her watch and saw that her dinner companions were twenty minutes late. Truth be told, she was a bit worried about this dinner with the Gibson’s reps. She had done plenty of pitch meetings before, and she was sure J.D. had, too, but because their practices rarely overlapped, she and J.D. had never done one together. Alone together. These meetings required a certain finesse and cohesiveness between the lawyers doing the pitching—they needed to present a united front.
Unity.
Cohesiveness.
These were not exactly qualities that she and J.D. possessed together. Hence the slight jitters of apprehension she felt that got worse with every moment she sat alone at the bar.
When five more minutes passed, Payton reached into her purse for her cell phone. She figured she should check her voice mail, just to make sure J.D. hadn’t left a message. She was mid-dial when she looked up—
–and saw J.D. standing in front of her.
For a second, Payton was struck by the fact that something about him looked different. She realized that like her, he had dressed more informally for the evening. Instead of his customary suit and tie, he wore an open-necked black pin-striped shirt and perfectly tailored charcoal gray pants.
It was strange, because for whatever reason, what popped into her head at that very moment were Laney’s words from the other day about how good-looking J.D. was. Payton had seen J.D. pretty much five days a week for the past eight years, but right then she found herself looking him over more closely. She tried to see him the way a stranger might. Someone who hadn’t ever actually spoken to him or anything.
He was tall (as previously mentioned, all the better to look down on people), he had light brown hair with warm golden streaks (probably highlights), his build was lean (undoubtedly from all that tennis or whatever else he played at his I’m-so-cool sexist country club), and he had blue eyes that, um . . .
. . . Well, fine. There wasn’t really anything negative Payton could say about J.D.’s eyes. Speaking in a purely objective sense, she kind of liked them. They were a brilliant, bright blue. Such a shame they had to be wasted on him.
Having finished her assessment, Payton supposed that, if pressed, in that upper-crusty, Ralph Lauren-y, sweater-thrown-over-the-shoulders, have-you-met-my-polo-pony kind of way, J.D. was pretty damn good-looking.
Misinterpreting her look, J.D. cocked his head and pointed to her phone. “Oh, I’m sorry, Payton—I didn’t mean to interrupt you in the middle of your important business,” he said with just that right tinge of mocking.
Deciding it was better to go about with the business as usual of ignoring J.D., Payton turned her attention to the group of men he had arrived with. She immediately recognized Jasper from the pictures of him she had found on the Internet while researching his company and the lawsuit.
She stuck out her hand in introduction. “Payton Kendall. It’s very nice to meet you, Jasper,” she said warmly. With a firm handshake, she greeted the other members of the Gibson’s team—Robert, Trevor, and Charles—being sure to look each man directly in the eyes.
“I hope you haven’t been waitin’ long, Ms. Kendall,” Jasper said. “It was Charlie here’s fault—how many strokes did you take on that last hole?” He turned to Charles, who clearly was the most junior member of the trial team. “Fourteen? Fifteen?”
“I’m not much of a golfer,” Charles admitted to Payton. She liked him instantly.
“I’m a bit of a novice myself.” She smiled. Then she turned back to Jasper. “And please, call me Payton.”
“Like one of my favorite quarterbacks,” Jasper grinned.
“Only with an a instead of an e. And slightly fewer yards in passing,” Payton said. Damn—now she’d already blown one of the three measly sports references she knew in the first two minutes.
Jasper laughed. “Slightly fewer yards in passing—I like that.” He turned to J.D., gesturing to Payton. “Where have you been hidin’ this girl, J.D.?”
Luckily, J.D. was saved from choking on any polite words he was expected to utter by the hostess who appeared and asked to escort the group to their table.
Once seated, the group chitchatted through the standard business dinner preliminaries: Had Jasper and the others ever been to Chicago before? Where were they staying? Were Payton and J.D. from Chicago? They hit only the slightest bump in the road when Trevor, Gibson’s general counsel, asked Payton if she lived in the same neighborhood as J.D. and she realized that despite having worked with him for the past eight years, she had absolutely no idea where he lived. In fact, she pretty much knew nothing about J.D.’s nonwork life. Assuming he had one, that is.
Payton glossed over the question, telling Trevor instead how Chicago was a relatively compact city, how close everything was, et cetera, et cetera. She saw J.D. watching her out of the corner of his eye as he spoke with Robert, the head of Gibson’s in-house litigation department. Presumably, he had overheard her say his name to Trevor and was checking to make sure it wasn’t being taken in vain.
Thankfully, no other questions arose during dinner that required any sort of knowledge of anything personal related to J.D. When their entrees arrived, Payton began to talk about the firm and the strengths of its litigation group. J.D. joined in, highlighting some of the group’s recent legal victories, when Jasper cut him off with an impatient wave of his glass of bourbon.
“I know all about your firm’s achievements, Jameson. That’s why Ripley and Davis is one of the three firms we’re considering. Your firm’s successes are what got me here to this table tonight. But my understandin’ is that you two”—he pointed to J.D. and Payton—“will be the leaders of this trial team, should your firm be chosen to handle the case. So I want to know more about you.”
“Of course, Jasper. I’d be happy to tell you about my—”
Jasper cut him off. “Not from you, Jameson. I’m sure you and Payton both have pretty little prepared speeches you can rattle off about yourselves. But that’s not how I like to do things.” He turned to Payton, commanding. “Ms. Kendall, why don’t you tell me—what’s so special about J.D.?”
Payton nearly choked on the wine she was sipping. Clearly, she needed to buy a moment before answering.
“Well, Jasper . . .” She cleared her throat. Ahem. Ahem. “Wow—there are just so many things I could say about J.D. Well . . . where should I start?”
She was stalling. And as she did, Payton could see across the table to where J.D. sat. When she hesitated, he looked down and fiddled uncomfortably with his silver-ware.
Feeling four sets of eyes on her as the Gibson’s people waited, Payton quickly forced herself to think: What would an objective person say about J.D.?
“See, Jasper, the thing about J.D. is . . .” Payton tried to buy another moment. What was “the thing” about J.D.? She had worked with him for eight years, and in many ways she knew him better than anyone. And in many ways she didn’t know him at all.
Be objective, she told herself. The thing about J.D. was . . .
He was good. Really good.
Don’t get her wrong, he was still a jerk. But he was a jerk who was driven. As Payton knew full well, J.D. was in his office every morning by 7:00 a.m., and—as much as she might not want to admit it—his hard work had paid off. Over the past eight years he had accomplished a tremendous amount for an attorney his age. Laney was right—he was smart and talented. He was a threat. And if she was being honest with herself, that was one of the main reasons she didn’t like him.
Payton turned to Jasper. “The thing about J.D. is that he is one of the most successful class action attorneys in this city, probably even in the country. He’s won every opposition to class certification he’s filed—not once has a class been certified in a case he handled. He’s been the lead attorney in multimillion-dollar cases for Fortune 500 corporations since his sixth year. He knows the strategies involved in class action practice better than attorneys twice his age. He’s brilliant at what he does.”
Payton leaned forward in her chair. “And here’s the thing, Jasper: your company is being sued in the largest discrimination class action ever filed. No attorney has ever handled a case of this type and magnitude—so while experience definitely should play a role in your decision, that’s not the only thing that matters. You need someone with raw natural talent. Someone with the right legal instincts, someone who will be your best shot at attacking this case on class grounds. I can tell you this on no uncertain terms—that person is J.D.”
Payton sat back in her chair when she was finished. She saw Jasper grin. He swirled his glass and tilted his head as if carefully taking in everything she’d just said. Then, slightly self-conscious for having been so forthright in her praise, she stole a glance over at J.D. to catch his reaction.
He looked speechless.
Even from across the table she could see the expression of shock on J.D.’s face. She saw something pass through his eyes and his expression changed as he held her gaze.
His look made Payton pause. Because she remembered that look—she had seen it once before, a long time ago.
Jasper’s voice felt like an interruption.
“All right, Payton,” he said. “I like what I’ve heard so far. Although, I suspect I’m gonna hear similar pitches from the other firms we’re interviewing.” He grinned. “But admittedly, yours was quite good.”
Payton pried her gaze away from J.D. and smiled at Jasper. “Why don’t you just tell me the other firms you’re considering, and I’ll save you the time. I can tell you exactly what they’ll say. Better yet, let me guess.” She paused, thinking of the other two firms they were likely interviewing.
“Baker and Lewis,” she guessed.
Jasper looked over at his general counsel, needing confirmation. Trevor nodded.
“And Sayer, Gray, and Jones.”
Trevor nodded again. “You know your competition well.”
“Those are good firms,” J.D. interjected. “But they’re not right for your case.”
“Why? What does your firm have that they don’t?” Jasper asked.
“Other than higher rates,” Robert joked. Everyone at the table laughed. Except for J.D., who remained serious.
“They don’t have Payton.”
Jasper got comfortable in his chair. “All right, Jameson—it’s your turn. Tell me about Ms. Kendall here.”
Payton held her breath, hoping that J.D. intended to play as fair as she had. He certainly appeared very confident as he began.
“Payton was being very modest a moment ago, in describing your need for an experienced class action attorney. While that certainly is true, what is just as important—if not more so—is that you hire an expert in the field of employment discrimination. That’s where she comes in.
“I’m sure you saw the article about Payton in the Chicago Lawyer,” J.D. continued, “so I don’t need to repeat everything you already know about her significant accomplishments. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that, despite the fact that she’s only thirty-two years old, Payton has tried over forty employment discrimination cases. That’s more trials than many lawyers have during their entire careers. And do you know how many of those trials she’s won? Every single one.”
J.D. picked up his glass. “Now I’m sure Payton would be modest about these facts; she’d probably tell you that she’s been lucky to get cases that are winners. But the truth is, she’s a natural in the courtroom. She has incredible instincts as a trial lawyer, and that’s exactly what your company needs—someone who can guide your company through the litigation process from start to finish.” He paused. “Plus, she’s a woman.”
Jasper raised an eyebrow, as if unsure how to react to that. “Does that make a difference?”
J.D. looked across the table to Payton, who had been busy trying to appear as though she heard him say things like that about her every day. “Payton?” he said, indicating she should take it from there.
She knew exactly where he was going. “J.D. is right, Jasper. Your company is being sued for gender discrimination. One-point-eight million women claim that your company doesn’t give a damn about treating them fairly. The press is going to have a field day. And if you stand in front of a jury with a trial team of men, you will lose this case.”
As she spoke, Payton tapped her finger on the table, underscoring her seriousness. “You need a woman to be the face of your company. You gain instant credibility if you have a woman arguing that you don’t discriminate.”
“And trust me, Jasper,” J.D. jumped in, “I’ve seen Payton when she argues. She’s a force to be reckoned with.”
As Jasper chuckled good-naturedly, Trevor jumped in. “I have a question.” He pointed between J.D. and Payton, as if to say he wasn’t fooled. “How many times have you two done this routine of yours? It’s quite good.”
J.D. shook his head. “There’s no routine here. With Payton and I, what you see is what you get.”
“No fancy legalese and no beatin’ around the bush,” Jasper agreed. “Now that I like.” With a grin, he raised his glass in toast. “To the best pitch I’ve heard so far. No bullshit.”
As the group laughed along with Jasper, clinking their glasses in toast, Payton’s eyes caught J.D.’s across the table. With a subtle grin, he tipped his glass to her. She nodded back in acknowledgment. In that one moment at least, they shared the same thought.
Victory.
If only the evening had ended there.
Six
AFTER DINNER, JASPER suggested that the group head downstairs, to the restaurant’s outdoor lounge that overlooked the Chicago River.
“I’m not signing any papers just yet, but I think a celebratory cigar might be in order,” he declared.
Payton told the group she’d meet them outside and headed to the ladies’ room. She didn’t smoke cigars and didn’t figure now was a good time to try it out. She stalled for a few minutes in the bathroom, then stopped at the bar, thinking she could kill a little more time by ordering a drink.
“I’ll have a glass of the Silver Oak cabernet,” she told the bartender. She’d already had a drink at dinner and anything stronger might make her tipsy. While she waited—feeling more than a tad conspicuous standing there, by herself, a lone woman at the bar—she accidentally caught the eye of a man wearing a silk shirt unbuttoned nearly to his navel.
Oh, shit—she immediately looked away, but her split-second glance apparently was all the encouragement Mr. Sizzle Chest needed. He made a beeline straight for her.
Payton had no choice. With a feigned reluctant look, she shook her head. “Sorry,” she told him. “Lesbian.”
Sizzle Chest raised an interested eyebrow, liking the sound of that.
Again, Payton shook her head. “Not that kind.”
Disappointed, Sizzle Chest moved on to more promising conquests. Payton took a sip of the wine the bartender set down before her. She heard a familiar voice behind her, amused.
“Lesbian?”
Payton turned around and saw J.D. standing there.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe she was basking in the glow of their successful pitch to Gibson’s. Maybe it was her promise to Laney to be the “New Payton,” or maybe it was a combination of all those things. But Payton actually found herself smiling at J.D.
“It’s just an excuse, the lesbian thing,” she said.
J.D. joined her at the bar. He gestured for a drink as Payton shrugged mock-innocently. “Unless you count that one time in college.”
J.D. knocked over a nearby stack of shot glasses.
Payton giggled at his reaction. “Sorry—Laney would kill me if she knew I just said that.”
J.D. did an about-face. “It was with Laney?”
Payton laughed out loud at the very thought. “No, no,” she explained, “I was joking. I just meant that Laney is always lecturing me about saying things like that.”
“Oh. Right.” J.D. nodded as he threw some bills down for his drink. Watching him, Payton cocked her head, curious. “What are you doing here?”
J.D. eased back against the bar, having recovered from his momentary fluster.
“Well, see, Payton, you and I are here to pitch to Gibson’s, remember?” he said as if speaking to a child or deranged person. “We just finished dinner and—”
“That’s not what I meant, smart-ass.” Payton gave him a look. “I meant why are you inside with me, instead of outside smoking cigars with Jasper and the other boys?” She put mocking emphasis on the last word.
“Well, I figured Jasper and the other boys”—he emphasized the word, too—“could get along without me for a few minutes. I didn’t want you to have to be in here by yourself.”
Seeing her look of surprise, he shrugged nonchalantly. “But I can go.” He pointed across the bar to Sizzle Chest. “Maybe you’d like another minute to see if he’ll come back and ask for your number?” He and Payton watched as the Sizzle worked his near-naked navel toward another poor unsuspecting woman.
J.D. shook his head sadly. “Uh-oh, look at that . . . What a shame. You two would’ve looked so cute together.”
Payton rolled her eyes. “You know, J.D.—” She was about to say something sarcastic, probably something that included a profane word or two, when the woman on the other side of Payton leaned over.
“Excuse me—could you slide down?” The woman gestured at the open space between Payton and J.D. Payton glanced around and noticed that the traffic around the bar had picked up in the last few minutes. Having no choice, she moved closer to J.D.
“You were about to say something?” J.D. prompted her. He crossed his arms over his chest, readying himself for the expected insult.
But instead of taking the bait, Payton remembered her promise, the whole “New Payton” thing. Darn Laney and her “let’s be nice to people” scam. Did J.D. really even count as a person, anyway?
Payton decided—what the hell—to give it a shot. This way, when J.D. was a jackass to her, she could shrug, say she tried, and carry on with business as usual. Hating him.
The problem was actually coming up with something non-insulting to say to J.D. Payton felt like an idiot, just standing there, so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“So, um, what I was about to say was . . . how was your golf game? Did you have a nice time?”
WELL.
J.D. certainly hadn’t been expecting her to say that. Something so . . . innocuous. Pleasant, even.
He peered down at Payton, caught off guard by her tone. Or rather, the fact that there wasn’t one.
“It was . . . nice.” J.D. paused. “Thanks.” Then he looked her over, curious about something. “You know, I’m really surprised you’ve never learned how to play.”
“Why? Because everyone who’s anyone plays golf?” she asked sarcastically.
J.D. shook his head. “No, because I think you in particular would like it. You seem like you enjoy a challenge.”
Payton cocked her head, studying him. She appeared to be trying to decide whether he meant that as a criticism or compliment. He wasn’t so sure himself.
A look of uncertainty clouded her dark blue eyes. “Did you really mean those things you said?” she suddenly asked him. “The things you told the Gibson’s reps at dinner?”
“Did you?” J.D. fired back.
Payton shook her head at his return question, as if she had expected him to say exactly that. It was at that moment that someone joined the woman standing on the other side of Payton, crowding her even more. Making room, she moved closer to J.D., so that they now stood just a few inches apart. For some reason, it occurred to him right then that in nearly eight years, this was probably the longest conversation he and Payton had ever had without being engaged in some sort of political/social/work-related debate. And it certainly was the closest, in terms of physical proximity, that they had ever been.
She was beautiful. J.D. knew that, he had always known that—just because she was an argumentative, defensive pill didn’t mean he couldn’t objectively see that she was gorgeous. He normally didn’t like blondes, but she had the whole Jennifer Aniston-ish long, straight dark blonde hair thing going for her. She had deep blue expressive eyes that showed every emotion (apparently anger and/or annoyance ruled the day, from what he could tell) and—what J.D. had just noticed for the first time—a scattering of freckles across her nose that—had she been anyone else—he would’ve described as “cute.”
Payton peered up at him and opened her mouth as if to say something. Then she seemed to change her mind.
“Yes, I did mean it,” she said almost defiantly. “You’re a very good lawyer, J.D. I would’ve been lying if I had told Jasper and the others anything else.”
She looked at him pointedly. “Now it’s your turn to say something nice.”
J.D. tried to hide his grin. “Well, I suppose I could say that this restaurant serves the best vodka tonic in the city—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
J.D. gazed down at her in all seriousness. “You know you’re a great attorney, Payton. You don’t need me to tell you that.” There. Fine. He had said it. Now what? This was new territory for them.
He shifted nervously. Then he saw the corners of Payton’s eyes crinkle with amusement.
“What?” he asked, immediately going on the defensive. “Is there something funny about what I said?”
Payton shook her head, studying him. “No, it’s . . . I just noticed that your nose is sunburned from golfing.” And she fixed those deep blue eyes on his.
It was the way she was looking at him.
Really looking at him.
J.D. would never admit it to another soul, but he knew what he was thinking right then.
It was her eyes. No, her smile—she never smiled at him. At least not genuinely, anyway.
Normally, J.D. was pretty damn skilled at reading female body language. Meeting women was not exactly a problem for him. He was a good-looking guy, he actually knew how to dress himself, he had a great job, and he came from a very wealthy family. He wasn’t bragging, just stating the facts. Whether any of those things should matter was a debate for somebody else.
Except for the part about knowing how to dress, that is. He took great pride in his attire. Call him old-fashioned (something she constantly seemed to hold against him), but he thought there was a certain civility lacking in his generation. Whatever had happened to the days when men wore jackets to dinner? When women carried pocketbooks and excused themselves to “powder their noses”? (And no, snorting cocaine off a toilet seat in the ladies’ room did not suffice here.)
At least Payton seemed to implicitly agree with him on this point. Again, not caving on the argumentative, defensive pill thing, but the woman always looked good. J.D. suspected that she made a point of this—almost as if she was trying to prove something. Although who she was trying to prove something to, he didn’t know. Because Payton Kendall certainly had a way about her that impressed almost everyone.
Not that he had particularly noticed the slim cuts of her skirts, or the way her legs looked in those three-inch heels she snapped to and from court in. Nor had he noticed the fact that, tonight, her shirt was unbuttoned right down to that could-I-sneak-a-peek? point . . .
Suddenly feeling how warm it was in the restaurant, J.D. reached up to loosen his tie. Then he remembered he wasn’t wearing one.
Maybe he’d better lay off the vodka tonics.
Regrouping, J.D. tried to make his face impassive and nonchalant as he gazed down at Payton. He didn’t know what sort of game she was playing—being friendly to him and all—but he was not about to be played for a fool.
Payton tilted her head at his silence. “Is something wrong?”
J.D. tried to think of something he would normally say, something that would regain him the upper hand.
