“Me?” Rebecca asked, just as one of the men who had joined Tom lunged across the table, hand extended, and shouted, as if anyone could have possibly cared. “Hey! Fred Davis is the name!”
Rebecca looked at his hand. Was that his cologne she smelled? Because it smelled like—
“Matt Parrish,” she heard behind her, and saw that French-cuffed hand intercept Fred’s, sliding in dangerously close to her head.
“Oh great,” Rebecca muttered into her glass.
Matt had startled Gunter so badly that he’d almost slumped right off his chair. Fred Davis did not seem surprised, but neither did he seem particularly happy. He frowned, extracted his hand, and melted back into his seat next to Tom. Heather, however, lit up with a smile so sudden and blinding that Rebecca was tempted to get her shades out. Instead, she signaled the waitress for another glass of wine. Then she turned and looked at Matt just to make sure she wasn’t a little tipsy and had imagined the whole thing.
Nope. That was him all right, looking too cool, the old cucumber in a suit routine, smiling that terribly charming, lopsided smile at Heather. Barf.
He shifted his charming lopsided smile from Heather to Rebecca, and damn it if she didn’t see a little sparkle in his eye that made her belly flutter. “Having a little campaign strategy meeting?” he asked with a sly wink.
Rebecca rolled her eyes.
“Matt!” Tom boomed. “Hey, what brings you here?”
“A client,” Matt said, reaching across the table to shake Tom’s hand. “Mind if I join you?”
“The more the merrier,” Tom said.
“That’s. Just. Grrrreat,” Matt said, smiling fiendishly at Rebecca. Then he disappeared to find a chair.
Heather—Frack—took the opportunity to nudge Rebecca. “Who? Who, who, who?”
“Him?” Rebecca asked, jerking a thumb at Matt’s back. Heather nodded and even Gunter seemed to inch up a vertebra or two to hear the answer.
“Matt Parrish. I think he’s a junior lawyer somewhere.”
Heather nodded again, anxiously awaiting more information, which Rebecca was not inclined to give until Heather put her eyes back in their sockets.
“That’s pretty much it. Just one of those dime a dozen lawyers.”
Ah, what a shame—Heather looked so disappointed. Until Matt pulled a chair up to sit between Heather and Rebecca, which was, of course, the placement God’s gift to women would take. Rebecca spared him a glance, noticed the handsome man behind him and perked up a little. Now who would have thought Matt would have a friend? But there he was, standing behind Matt’s chair, just as handsome (okay, not quite as handsome), and decidedly less smug-looking.
Matt planted his elbows on the table as the waitress delivered a glass of wine to Rebecca. “How you doing?” he said to the waitress, shooting what was obviously his trademark, I’m-gonna-get-lucky smile at her. “How about bourbon on the rocks?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling for the first time since Rebecca had seen her. And behind her, Heather was smiling. Hell, even Gunter was smiling. But Matt was looking at Rebecca. “So—”
“Excuse me!” Rebecca suddenly called, catching the waitress before she took Heather’s and Gunter’s orders. “One more, please?” Wouldn’t want to be caught with nothing to numb her into oblivion if he was going to stay very long, would she?
The man behind Matt was jostling him; Matt groaned, said to Rebecca, “Meet Ben Townsend, my partner.”
Beaming, Ben Townsend stuck out his hand, knocking Matt back out of the way as he did so.
“Ah . . . hi, I’m Rebecca,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Hiii,” he said, and angled himself so that he was standing between Matt and Rebecca. Only the room was packed, and he really couldn’t do much but stand between them, smiling down at her. “So . . . Matt says you’re new in town?”
“I’ve been here a couple of months.”
“Great, great. Matt says you’re doing fabulous work for Tom’s campaign.”
No way! Rebecca leaned forward and peered around Ben’s thigh at Matt. “He does?”
With a roll of his eyes, Matt said, “Actually, Ben, I hadn’t mentioned it.” Then to her, he said, “Pardon Townsend—he has to go prepare for a trial we can’t afford to lose. Right, Ben?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ben said dismissively, without bothering to look at Matt, still grinning like a neon sign. “It’s a big profitable case. Not the kind Matt’s used to bringing in. But hey, it was really great meeting you, Rebecca.”
“Thanks,” she said, wishing this partner had signed on to the campaign. “A pleasure meeting you, too.”
Ben turned up the wattage on his smile. “You know, maybe we could get together sometime, and—”
“Ben, the trial?” Matt interrupted.
“I guess that’s my cue,” Ben said laughing. “Bye for now.” He winked at Rebecca as he walked away.
“He’s nice,” Rebecca said with a scowl for Matt.
“No, he’s not. Trust me,” Matt said smugly, folding his arms on the table in front of him. “So, what have we got here? Spending a little quality time with Tom?”