“Gabby?” Jay’s voice, sounding genuinely worried.
Without looking back, Gabby snapped, “I’m on the phone, Jay; I have my headset on.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Relief evident in his voice.
“Truly, Irish, I vow you lie more than—and nearly as smoothIy as—I. And plotting murder? It gives me pause, makes me wonder just what kind of nefarious human I’ve gotten myself mixed up with.”
“Oooh, how dare you act like I’m the—”
But she didn’t get to unload even the teeniest piece of her mind, for the infernal fairy had vanished again.
Bristling, she tossed the Yellow Pages aside (not much point in buying a gun now that he was forewarned; besides, she doubted she had the stomach to point a gun at something that looked so human and pull the trigger, not to mention having to dispose of the body. Though no one else could see it, she could hardly leave its body lying about in her house or office—eew) and pulled out the Desny case. She might as well get as much work done as possible, because she knew Adam Black would be back.
Must be nice, she seethed, to just be able to “pop out” whenever you didn’t feel like continuing a conversation. She knew a lot of men who’d give their right arms for that unique talent.
Flipping on her computer, she mentally filed murder away as a last-resort option. If things got really bad, she’d force herself to find the stomach to do what she had to do. (That she didn’t already consider things “really bad” should have set off more than a few alarms, but her mind had moved on to other concerns.)
Opening the file, she prepared to refresh herself with the case. And froze, blinking down at fully completed contentions. Had she finished them last night and just been so tired she’d forgotten?
No way. She wasn’t that good when she was tired. She peered. It wasn’t even her handwriting. She had terrible penmanship, and this was beautiful script, striking, bold, flowing.
Arrogant, actually, if penmanship could be called that. Nothing indecisive about this slanted, self-assured script. Frowning, she began to read.
A few minutes later, she was still reading, muttering “I don’t freaking believe it” beneath her breath.
It figured that when she actually wanted to see him, he left her alone. He stayed away most of the day. Making her wonder what dastardly deeds he was up to. The office was empty again by the time he appeared around seven-thirty, right behind her, so close he was practically on top of her, carrying bags from—oh, God, no—she briefly closed her eyes, please no.
The Maisonette. Five-star dining, no less.
But Gabby had prepared herself this time. She’d snacked on candy throughout the entire day (no hardship there), just to make sure she wouldn’t be hungry and tempted by anything he might offer.
Still, the Maisonette? Grr. She shook her head brusquely and refused to even look at the bags, refused to wonder what scrumptious stolen delicacies lurked therein.
She moved hastily away from him. When he deposited the bags on her desk, she grabbed a thick, rubber-banded accordion file and threw it at him, hitting him smack in the chest. “How?” she demanded.
“How what, ka-lyrra?” Catching the file, he placed it gently on her desk.
“How did you do my work? When did you do my work?”
He shrugged, one powerful shoulder rippling. “I don’t need as much sleep as you.”
“So you’re telling me that in a few hours last night you personally wrote the contentions for seven of my cases?”
“Nine. Then I realized two of them weren’t yours, so I discarded them.”
“How do you know enough about what I do to even argue liability?”
“Oh, please.” He sounded highly insulted. “I’ve been alive for thousands of years and watching humans for most of it. I read a few of your other cases. It was easy to pattern them appropriately. Human law is simple: You blame anything but yourselves. I merely accused everyone and everything mentioned in the file but for the person you were representing, and backed it up with whatever evidence I could twist to support my allegations.”
Gabby tried not to laugh. She did. Tried hard. But he’d gotten his subtle little dig in with such a perfectly bland expression, and had so thoroughly summed up what she hated about handling personal injury cases, after only a few hours of working on them, that she couldn’t help it. A little snort escaped her. And it turned into a laugh. And she might have continued laughing except a slow smile curved his lips and his dark eyes glittered. He stalked toward her, caught her by the waist with his big hands, and stared down at her.