“I know. I just wanted to make sure. What can I say? I’m looking out for you and the baby already,” Julia said, as she slid the vodka concoction to a customer.
“Yeah, protect us from all the unsavory types,” Kim joked, because Cubic Z was upscale, and didn’t attract that sort of clientele. “Like that guy,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper as she tipped her forehead to the door. A man stood with his back to them, talking to a friend, a shock of white in his dark hair. Tension knit itself tightly inside Julia, shooting cold through her bones. She didn’t want Skunk anywhere near her bar. He’d been here once and once was enough. He’d parked himself in a bar stool, ordered a drink, and said one thing and one thing only, as he nodded, surveying the joint, “Yeah, I like this place. I like it a lot. You give good pour.”
But when the man swiveled around, he wasn’t Skunk. He wasn’t anyone Julia knew. And there wasn’t a reason for her veins to feel like ice. She shrugged it off, the worry that tried to trip her up now and then, the fear that Charlie or Skunk would hurt her or someone she cared about. They hadn’t yet. But they could in a heartbeat.
Chapter Two
Clay finished off the rest of his scotch, then glanced at his watch.
“Got someplace to be?” Michele asked.
Damn. He was caught checking the time again, a bad habit he’d started since he invited Julia to join him in New York this weekend. It was nearing ten, and he should cut out of this bar and head home. She’d be arriving tomorrow, and tomorrow evening couldn’t come fast enough.
“Yeah. Bed,” he said dryly. Michele was his best friend Davis’s sister, and his friend too. The three of them had known each other since college. She was one year younger, but had followed in her brother’s footsteps, attending the same university.
“I remember when you used to be out til all hours,” Michele teased, shooting him a knowing smile, as she ran her fingers through her dark hair. Michele was a pretty woman, always had been, but there was nothing between them. Not since they’d shared a kiss one night at a drunken college party. A kiss that had never been repeated, and he’d chalked it up to her being sad that night over the anniversary of her parents’ death and needing some kind of connection. Understandable. Completely understandable.
“Hardly,” he said, because he wasn’t the party boy type, but then he wasn’t usually the first one to leave either. Tonight, however, needed to end early because tomorrow was the one he wanted to last all night long. He called for the check, fished some bills from his wallet, and paid for their drinks.
“Why are you leaving so soon?”
“Because the glass is empty. I’ll get you a cab,” he said, and walked out with her, the neon lights of the diner across the street flickering behind them. “Do you want to…” she said, but the rest of her words were swallowed by the sound of a siren a few blocks over.
“Want to what?” he asked when the noise faded.
She swallowed, then spoke quickly, faster than usual. “Do something this weekend? Have dinner maybe?”
He shot her a look like she wasn’t making sense, as he hailed the first taxi he saw. “Davis is out of town,” he said. He and Michele didn’t have dinner together. Drinks maybe. But dinners were something the three of them did together, and Davis was off in London for a few months, directing a production of Twelfth Night that Clay had hooked him up with.
“Yeah. I know,” she said. “That’s sort of the point.”
“Point of what?”
She shook her head. Rolled her eyes. “Nothing. It was nothing,” she said, and something about her tone seemed clipped.
“You okay?”
She nodded quickly. Too quickly. “I’m great,” she said, as he held open the cab door for her. “Anyway, you probably have big plans this weekend.”
“I think it’s safe to say I’ll be tied up,” he said, though as her cab sped off, he realized it was more likely the other way around. That Julia would be.
He hoped she would be at least.
*****
He’d woken up at four-thirty, worked out at five, and hit the office by six-thirty. He’d skipped lunch, ordered in a sandwich, and reviewed a contract for a new sci-fi flick a movie director he repped was working on. He sent in notes to the producers, a list of points and items that needed to be changed, and if they weren’t his client wouldn’t be happy, and Clay was all about having a hefty stable full of happy clients.
His junior partner at the firm, Flynn, poked his head in around mid-afternoon. “Hey. I got a lead that the Pinkertons are looking for new representation,” Flynn said, his blue eyes wide and grinning. A pair of British brothers, the Pinkertons had been bankrolling some of the most successful films in the last few years including Escorted Lives, based on the bestselling books.
“We need to lock that up,” he said and he was sure the glint in his eyes matched his partner. Flynn was three years younger and eager as hell to grow his role at Clay’s firm. He’d hired him fresh out of law school, and Flynn had become invaluable, pulling more than his weight in helping to land top clients and sweet deals for them. They’d seen eye to eye on just about everything, with the exception of one minor rough patch a year ago over a client that Flynn had reeled in all on his own – a big-time action film director.
A client they’d lost.
“No kidding,” Flynn said, tapping the side of the door twice for good luck. Flynn was like that, always crossing his fingers, and knocking on wood. “I’ll get some more details and aim to set a meeting with them next week.”