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I turn my hand over and close it around hers. “Your Tiger, sweetheart,” I say, sensing the apprehension in her. “And the only throats I’m going to rip out are those of your enemies. You know that, right?”
“I do, actually,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “I know, and I needed someone on my side, and suddenly you were just there. Fate, I guess, if you believe in that kind of thing, and I’m not sure I’ve told you how lucky that feels.”
“Then why are your nails digging into my hand?” I ask while guilt over the fate that I created jabs at me like a blunt, rusty blade, trying to bleed me dry.
“I’m sorry,” she says, softening her grip on my palm. “Your ‘we need to talk’ clearly has me uptight. Maybe I do need that Baileys.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” I say. “I keep a bottle of scotch in my office. Sometimes you need to take the edge off.”
“But you’re Tiger,” she says. “Confident. Arrogant and—”
“Sexy as fuck?” I supply, trying to get her to ease up a little.
And my feisty, amazing woman doesn’t disappoint, smacking me down. “Are you?” she quips back, making a soft, sexy sound that has my cock twitching, before she adds, “I hadn’t noticed, but surely someone as confident—scratch that—as cocky as you doesn’t need a drink to take the edge off.”
“Sweetheart, I prefer my moves—even the ones that require teeth—to be calculated, which is why taking the edge off serves me and my clients well. So, what do you say? One more cup?”
“I don’t hold my tongue when I drink,” she warns.
“Hold your tongue with the rest of the world,” I say, “not with me.” I grab the pot of coffee from the counter behind me, fill both of our mugs halfway, and then top them off with Baileys. “Let’s go to the living room.”
She nods, and we both pick up our mugs and head in that direction, and yes, I watch the sway of her heart-shaped ass, because she has a fucking amazing ass in those jeans. It, like her breasts, would be even more amazing in my hands. “What’s that saying?” she asks as we sit down on the couch and angle toward each other. “Loose lips—something?”
“Sink ships,” I supply, and fuck, I need to get my head back in this conversation where it belongs. “And so does letting your attorney, and the man you’re spending every naked moment possible with, get sideswiped,” I add.
“Because being naked with you comes with rules?”
“Yes,” I say. “Like how I don’t want you to fuck anyone else but me, but that’s another conversation. For now, we stay on topic, which is your business and legal affairs. And I can’t protect you or help you get what you really want if you don’t speak frankly with me.”
“The same goes for you,” she says. “I don’t want you to fuck anyone but me, and be frank with me. Treat me like your other clients. Don’t talk around things, because that makes me uptight. And I’m not some delicate flower.”
“First, no other woman could get my attention, and as for you not being a delicate flower, believe me, sweetheart. You’ve made me well aware of that fact.”
“And yet I got softened up with Baileys and croissants. Is that a service you’re providing your other clients?”
“Sweetheart, I have clients I’d pour a bottle of whiskey down to either shut them up or get them talking. The croissants, however, and the fuck after this conversation, I reserve for you.”
“You’re still not getting to the point,” she says. “Thus all the bedroom talk. It’s a distraction.”
“Actually, it’s not.”
“So I’ll just get to the point for you,” she continues as if I haven’t spoken, before sipping the coffee and setting the cup down on the granite coffee table in front of us.
“Okay then,” I say, taking a drink before setting my cup down as well. “What’s the point?”
“I need to write the bank a check for the sixty thousand dollars I got paid for my art last night. And yes, that sucks in some ways, but in another it doesn’t. My art allows me to get out of this mess.”
I move to sit on the coffee table in front of her, not quite ready to spark the anger sure to follow once she learns that I’ve paid off that note. “That money won’t save the winery.”
She pales instantly. “Oh God. Did I already lose the winery? Did the bank already take it?”
“Of course not,” I say, my hands settling on her knees. “I’m your attorney, remember?”
“I know that, but you weren’t until a few days ago.”
“I’m your attorney,” I repeat, “and I’m not going to let that happen.”
“But why would you even have to fight the bank at all at this point? The money should be the end of the bank’s involvement in my affairs. They can’t hold up probate if the debt is up to date. Right?”
