Corinne laughed. “I think I’m done having my moment.”
Picking up the folder, I stood and walked toward the door. I patted her back as I passed her. “Don’t believe the hype, Corinne. Being single is overrated, especially when you think you’ve found someone you can stand to be with continuously.”
The drive to the address in Manhattan Beach was brutal. The traffic was insane. Apparently there was some kind of street market being set up, which closed off the major street I needed to take, and further pissed me off. Who in their right mind would willingly shut down all of those neighborhoods so they could sell shit? By the time I got to the house, I was barely containing my rage. I used the street parking four blocks away, left my jacket and tie in the car, and rolled up my sleeves. There was no way I was going to walk through the pits of hell in a suit. Fuck that noise.
I walked down the steep street and used the folder in my hand to shield my eyes from the sun when I got to the house. Through the window, I could see Nicole, wearing a tight flower-print dress. Her dark hair cascaded down her back in loose curls that she must have had done earlier that day. I admired her from afar, her curves, the way her toned tan legs looked in the heels she wore, and I took a second to imagine how she’d look out of that dress, out of those heels, legs wrapped around me. I took a long, deep breath and walked up the steps.
I could hear her laughing at whatever the person she was talking to was saying, and I smiled at the sound of it. She had a good laugh, not high-pitched or low, or snorty, or crazy. It was just right. A guy opened the door, and I instantly tensed. He had straight, long blond hair that reached his shoulders and was wearing a suit. I could tell he worked out. I could tell he felt I was interrupting something special going on between him and my girl. My CLIENT. Not my girl. Not my anything. My eyes landed on her when I looked over his shoulder, and she smiled. She had this small, tentative smile she used sometimes. One that didn’t give you the slightest inkling as to how fierce she was beneath it. She could claw her way into and out of anybody’s life and leave you with the afterthought that it’d all started because of that one smile.
“Hey. Rick, this is my . . .” she said, pausing for a beat, the tentative soft smile blooming into a wider one, a little wicked, a lot sexy, “my attorney.”
“Oh,” Rick said, stepping out of the way with a frown on his face. “I didn’t realize you were bringing your attorney.”
Nicole laughed. “Not for this. He has some things to give me, but now that he’s here, he might as well make himself useful and help me look at the place. Unless you have somewhere to be,” she added, looking at me with those big blue eyes. If I hadn’t already been convinced by that look alone, the way her realtor huffed under his breath at the mention of this sealed it for me.
“Sure. I had my schedule cleared since I thought we were actually going to be discussing this anyway. Lead the way,” I said, firing off a text message to Corinne so she could clear my fucking schedule for the next two hours. I didn’t have a face-to-face meeting scheduled with anybody, but I did have to be back at the office for a conference call. So they’d have to wait a little while longer for me to call them back. Big deal.
Rick pivoted and walked down the hall. Nicole winked at me before turning to follow him, and between that wink and the way her ass moved from side to side in that dress I was already regretting the decision to stay. Thank God I’d taken off my jacket and tie. Rick went over the specs of the house, the kitchen, the living room, the laundry room, the dining room, his eyes were on her the entire time. Every time she turned around, his eyes were on her ass. When she spoke to him, his eyes made their way down her body. Nicole had to notice it, she’d be an idiot not to, but she didn’t goad him, and I was grateful for that because for some reason I wasn’t sure how I’d react to it. I’d never been the jealous type. The competitive type? Yes. But jealousy was foreign to me. I didn’t have anything to be jealous of. With Nicole it was a little different, though. Maybe it was because I wanted her so much. Maybe it was because I couldn’t have her, though if I was being honest with myself, I knew it wasn’t just that.
“Let me show you the master bedroom,” Rick said, giving Nicole a very pointed look as he said it. They started walking toward the stairs as I trailed behind. He looked over his shoulder to look at me for a second before lowering his head to her and saying, “The bed is still in there, but we have company, which is very unfortunate.”