Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Twenty-eight

As Sarah packed up her laptop and notes after another long day of travel and deposition, Chapman turned to her and stuck out his hand.

“This is it,” he said.

Sarah couldn’t bring herself to touch his flesh. Instead she nodded. “This is it.”

“Oh, come on, Sarah, you’re going to act like that?” Chapman said. He laughed and looked over at Joe. “She’s going ‘girly’ on us,” he said, making the finger quotes. “Come on, Henley, this isn’t personal—you know that.”

“Everything is personal, Chapman,” she answered pleasantly. “You know that.”

He laughed again, completely missing the look in her eye that should have told him he was marked for destruction. But Sarah had no further need to talk to the man, and instead turned to Marcela.

“Just one more week with us, and then you get a break, huh?” Sarah asked.

“Only sort of a break,” Marcela said. “I’ll still have to work all the way up through Christmas, but at least I get to stay in town. I’m sorry for you two, though,” she said, looking at Sarah and Joe. “You must be sick of it by now.”

Sarah shrugged. “All part of the deal.”

“Ooh, you’re so tough,” Chapman chimed in. “Unbreakable Sarah Henley. I told that kid who’s taking over for me he’d better watch out for you.”

Sarah offered him the thinnest of smiles. “Everyone had better watch out for me. Stop talking, Chapman. We’re done here.”

She picked up her laptop case, grabbed the handle of her carry-on, and exited the room. She’d barely stepped outside into the cold when a text appeared on her phone:

Balls spontaneously exploding everywhere.

Sarah laughed.

She wished Joe could come out there with her, and they could freely talk. But like she told Marcela, All part of the deal.

She looked around outside the small airport to see if there were anywhere reasonable to walk. Since they flew in just for the day, they rented the conference room there at the airport instead of one at a hotel. But now Sarah had no place to escape except to the parking lot, where the temperature was in the low 40s and too cold for what she was wearing.

She paused to pull out her insulated raincoat and the fleece hat and gloves. Those were an improvement, but she thought longingly of the UCLA hoodie currently residing in Joe’s bag.

Not that she would have been able to wear it, she realized, even if she had it. She couldn’t take the risk that Chapman might see. As self-absorbed as the man was, he still might remember Joe wearing it at their dinner a few nights before, and wonder why Sarah had it now.

So much strategy involved, Sarah thought. All this sneaking around . . .

It wasn’t until her third lap around the parking lot, trying to stretch her legs, that the idea finally dawned on her:

Maybe they were sneaking around in more ways than she knew.

Joe could be involved with someone else.

How would she know? Sarah thought. The only time she’d seen him over the past two months was when they were on the road. It might be the classic case of a man fooling around with his travel buddy, then returning home to the woman who thought he loved her, who had been waiting faithfully for him all week, missing him, ready to throw herself into his arms again the second he walked through the door and rip his clothes off and get reacquainted—

She pulled out her phone, took off her gloves, and typed with chilled fingers.

Are you seeing anyone?

She wondered how long it would take him to answer that. If it was longer than it took to type two letters, she’d know he had to pause, make up a lie—

No, he answered right away. You?

No. Would you tell me if you were? she typed back.

Yes. Where are you?

Outside.

Within a minute she watched him exit the building and walk in her direction. Sarah turned to her right, the way she’d just come, and led him toward the end of the terminal furthest away from the passenger area, where she knew it was less likely Marcela or Chapman might see them.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Sarah said, looking back toward the entrance.

“Why?” Joe said. “We’re two lawyers who just finished a deposition and are discussing our case. I got your text, Henley. You said your client is ready to make us an offer?”

“Ha, ha.”

“Three million dollars in exchange for a non-disclosure? Ask me anything, Sarah,” he said in a lower voice, meant obviously just for her. “I’ll never lie to you.”

Ha, ha, she almost said again.

Instead she told him, “I already asked.”

“Were you satisfied with the answer?”

She thought about it for a second, then told him, “Yes, I think so.” Then she switched back to lawyer mode. “You’ll never prove a case against my client, Burke. You should dismiss us now and go duke it out with Atheena. We’d be much more use to your plaintiffs as a friendly than as a defendant.”

“All right, I did lie to you once,” Joe said. “This morning.”

“What?” Sarah forgot all about her performance and instead gave him a hard look. “When?”

“I don’t understand your theory of the case,” Joe said.

“It’s not my job to make you understand,” she snapped, “and you’d better tell me, Burke.”

He smiled, obviously trying to lighten what had suddenly become a tense conversation. “All right. You asked me why I always stay in a different hotel than the rest of you. It’s not because of the firm discount—even though we do get one. It’s for the same reason I did it in Illinois.” He lowered his voice even more. “I wanted to give us somewhere private to go.”

Sarah stared at him in disbelief. “Wait a minute—you think I’m always that much of a sure thing?”

“I’ve never thought you were a sure thing,” Joe said. “But if there’s anything you and I are good at, it’s always planning our moves ten steps ahead of everyone else.”

It was true, she couldn’t deny it, but it wasn’t supposed to apply to her. “So that’s what this is?” she asked him. “Your ‘moves’?”

“You have moves, too, Sarah. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought this through.”

Not nearly enough, Sarah thought. And that was part of her problem.

The two of them studied each other for a moment in the fading light. Joe blew on his hands, then pushed them back into his pockets. Sarah stood with her arms across her chest, hands tucked under her armpits. She knew they should probably go back inside where it was warm, but she wouldn’t leave the conversation now for a million dollars.

“So you think you’ve been planning this the whole time,” Sarah said, her voice laced with sarcasm. “You knew we’d end up here.”

“That’s right,” Joe said. “Standing in front of the Pocatello airport, having this exact discussion.”

Sarah laughed, despite herself.

“And now you think you know the next ten steps,” she said.

“I’m working on it.”

“I see.” Sarah thought about leaving it there, but Joe must have known her curiosity would win out, because as soon as she asked the question, he smiled.

“So you think you know what happens next?”

“I do,” he said.

“Which is?”

“You come home with me tonight or I come home with you.”

“That simple,” Sarah said.

“That simple,” Joe confirmed.

“Why?”

“Because it’s what we both want,” he said.

And again, she couldn’t deny it.

Sarah looked past his shoulder to a couple entering the building. She glanced down at her watch. “We have to board soon. I still have some work to do.”

“I meant what I said,” Joe told her.

“Which one?”

“You can ask me anything, and I’ll always tell you the truth.”

“Really, Burke? You sure you want to make me that offer?” She hadn’t meant it to come out so hard, but there it was. “Because somehow I don’t think so. You obviously haven’t thought ten steps ahead on that one.”

Because they both knew, Sarah thought, that the only real question in all of this—the only thing she could possibly care about—was why: why he left her, why he did it so abruptly and in a way guaranteed to cause her the most pain, why she should ever trust him again, no matter how great he was in bed, no matter how much his strategy might involve being nice to her now, six years too late—

“I have to go,” she said.

“You think I don’t know?” he asked before she could walk away.

“Know what, Burke? Let’s hear it.”

“That I blew it?” he said. “That I hurt you? Of course I know that, Sarah.”

She hadn’t expected him to put it out there like that, to acknowledge it, not to shy away from it, the way she’d been doing every time they wandered too close to the subject. Didn’t he realize they weren’t supposed to touch that? she thought. Not if he wanted her to be friendly with him and come back to his bed.

“Yeah, you did,” she said quietly. Then she left him alone and headed back toward the warmth.

***

Last time in the Salt Lake City airport, Sarah thought. At least for the foreseeable future—

Foreseeable future? Don’t you always plan ten steps ahead, Henley?

—but at least she could always find something to eat there: Greek salads, hold the feta; bean burros, chips and salsa at the Mexican grill; pasta and marinara sauce at the Italian place; a rice and vegetable bowl at the Chinese.

Tonight she bought a falafel and hummus wrap and carried it to the gate to for the short layover.

Joe sat near one of the windows, eating a sandwich and working on his laptop. Chapman gobbled a double-decker burger while shoveling french fries into his already full mouth. Marcela picked at a salad with her plastic fork and flipped through a magazine.

Sarah sat off by herself, in no more mood than any of them to interact now that they were all off-duty.

She glanced over at Joe again, and found him looking at her. Then he pulled out his phone, and she waited for the inevitable text.

Which didn’t come.

She checked the bare screen a few times, then looked up at Joe again.

He smiled.

She narrowed her eyes at him. And shook her head slightly to show she didn’t understand.

He sent her a text that said, E-mail.

Sarah refreshed the e-mail on her phone.

There were a few new e-mails from lawyers at Mickey’s office, responding to a memorandum she had sent them earlier in the day. She could read those later.

What interested her more was the one from Joe. He’d sent her a map.

It showed two different routes from LAX to addresses nearby: one in Santa Monica, another Culver City.

Her specific address in Culver City.

She shouldn’t have been surprised, she thought, that he could find it in on the Internet. What couldn’t people find?

What did surprise her was the accompanying message:

10 miles or 12 miles. Your choice. I’m not afraid of your questions. Don’t be afraid of the answers.

Sarah looked up into his waiting gaze. And realized that was exactly what she felt: afraid.