Aris: A Sexy Romance Novel (Thief of Hearts Series Book 1) (3 page)

She rolled the idea around in her mind.  In the end, she opted against it.  She had no idea who sent it or why. 
‘Frumpy it is!’
, she decided as she put the cover back on the box. 

She showered then dried her hair.  She opted for a comfortable jersey little black dress.  It was as comfortable as a T-shirt but clung to her in enough spots that it wasn’t boxy.  She pulled a pair of sheer black stockings from her drawer then chose a comfortable pair of heels.   She looked at her reflection in the mirror before pulling out a heavy gold costume jewelry necklace.  It was chunky in an edgy style, but it sharpened her look up enough she wouldn’t feel out of place in Sheffington’s.  On the cab ride over she called Denise. 

“I’m waiting outside the place for you.  You’re late!”

“Nise, it’s only 7:10.   Knowing Pierce, he’s barely gotten started on cocktails yet!”

“Yes, but the client is already here.”

“So, give me the details.”  Saoirse said stepping out of the cab, hanging up her phone.

“I don’t know.  He’s young.  He’s gorgeous.  He’s foreign.  I forget what they said his name is, but who cares!  He’s gorgeous!” 

She rolled her eyes at Nise as the doorman held the door open.  They were in a private room in the back, of course.  The back room was all glass, not so you could see who was at Sheffington’s, as much as everyone could see you, in a private room, at Sheffington’s.  Pierce and his assistant Agnes were already here, of course.  Pierce’s partners were too, along with the rest of the practice attorneys.  Denise was the only paralegal in the room, but Pierce knew that if Denise didn’t show up there wouldn’t be anyone to make sure Saoirse showed up.  Tonight, Pierce was making Denise nuts about Saoirse putting in an appearance.

Saoirse walked into the back room quietly behind Denise hoping she could get a drink, be seen by Agnes, then be gone.  She cut straight to the bar ordering a sour apple martini for herself plus one for Denise.  It’s was the least she could do, since Denise had been keeping Pierce at bay.  Holding both glasses in her hand she turned around to hear Pierce calling her name.

“There she is!  I knew she had to be here somewhere.  Saoirse, I’d like you to meet our new client.”

She stopped where she was.  Denise stood across the room giving her the evil eye.  Saoirse plastered a wide, but fake, smile on her face turning around.

For the first time in her life everything she had froze.  Even time itself stood still.  Pierce blabbered something she paid no attention as she looked at a face she instantly recognized.  She was mortified.  He hadn’t changed at all!  His hair was still that odd brown color.  His eyes were still a grey shade so pale they didn’t look real.  Across the room, Denise picked up on something being very wrong. 

“Let me take that for you Ms. MacLear.”  Denise reached over taking the martini in her hand.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself.  I’m Denise, Ms. MacLear’s paralegal.”  She smiled politely at the new client.

“I’m Aris.”  he pointed to a tall gentleman behind her, “This is my colleague, Noah.”

“Hello, I’m Denise.”  she smiled at Noah as her gut took a liking to both men.

He smiled back at her, bowing his head slightly, “Hello.” 

Aris continued looking at Saoirse without having said a word.  Her hair was a little longer.  She wasn’t getting enough sleep, but she was the same, except now she was silent.  That was not like the fiery woman he remembered.

“You don’t care for emerald green?”  Aris shook his head slightly with his eyes still locked on her.

The realization flashed across her eyes.  The odd card suddenly made sense.  He’d torn her skirt to get her in the helicopter that day, then tossed her shoes in the dirt when he taped her feet together.  Now she was relieved she didn’t wear the gifts!

“It clashes with my eyes.” she clenched her jaw.

“It would have set off the color of your hair nicely.”  Aris was relieved to find the Saoirse he was expecting was still in there. 

“You’ll excuse me, please.” she turned on her heel to leave.  She remembered Noah.  He didn’t look a day older either.  Obviously, being terrorists was agreeable to them.  She threw down her martini in one swallow, moving toward the door.

“Saoirse where are you going?”  Pierce was confused at the odd exchange.

“Ladies’ room.”  Denise interjected.  “She’ll be just moment.”  Denise looked around for a space on the table to set her glass before Noah held his hand out.

“I’ll hold that til your return if you’d like.” 

“Thank you.  That’s very kind of you.”  Denise smiled wide beating it out the door to catch Saoirse before she caught a cab.

Denise reached out for her arm.  “Are you crazy?  He’s gorgeous!  Besides...” Denise pushed Saoirse into the ladies’ bathroom, “his ‘colleague’, whatever the hell that means, is divine.  I’m going to spend the evening with that man smiling at me, and you’re not going to blow it!”

“Denise, they’re terrorists.” 

“What?”  Denise frowned at her like this was some ill conceived ploy to leave early.

“Seven years ago the bank in our building got robbed.  Remember?  I was duct taped to a helicopter for half the flipping afternoon.  The Feds kept showing up for days afterwards, questioning me about stuff I didn’t even know.  Yeah.  Well, those are two of the guys that did it.  Aris is the ringleader.  Of course, Noah is a
‘colleague’,
” she imitated Aris’s voice.  “What was he gonna say,
‘this is my fellow terrorist, he specializes in small arms and robbing banks.’
?”

“Seer, that was seven years ago.  Maybe he just looks like the guy that did that.  Besides, you can’t fake money with Pierce.  They’ve got it.”

“Of course they have it!  They waltzed out of that bank with five hockey bags bursting with cash!”

“Great.  So they can spend some of it on us!  Look Seer, you can’t possibly remember a face from that long ago with all the trauma you went through.  Ok, so Aris is not the most common name, but Tate?  Come on.  How many terrorists do you know have pronounceable surnames like Tate?”

“Is that who Pierce said he was?  I wasn’t listening.  I was watching my career evaporate before my eyes when the Feds figure out that we have terrorists on our client list.”

“Besides both of them smell nice, they aren’t dragging their knuckles on the carpet, and they can say more than, ‘oh, yeah’.  That’s a lot more than 90% of the men I’ve run into lately!  So, smile as you watch your career evaporate, because you hate Pierce anyway, plus you’re just an employee.  Keep repeating that word, employee.  It keeps you safe from the flying ca-ca!  Now, let’s go laugh while Pierce’s practice burns down.”  Denise grabbed Saoirse’s arm leading her out of the ladies’ room. 

Noah and Aris were standing at the top of the stairs waiting. 

“And if he’s here to kill me?”  Saoirse was thinking out loud.  “There is no statute of limitations on armed robbery.”

“If he were going to kill you, he wouldn’t show his face to the entire office as a new client.  Then he’d have to chase down the other what, twelve people, in that bank with you. You have to stop watching TV.”

“Who said I had time to watch TV?”  Saoirse was haltingly climbing the stairs as Denise pulled her along.

“Oh!  You still have my drink.  Thank you!”  Denise smiled as she took her martini from Noah.  He smiled too.

“Why don’t we dance?” Aris held out his hand to Saoirse.

“I don’t dance.” 

“I’ll teach you.”  Aris took her hand in his leading her to the middle of the dance floor.  He turned to Saoirse pulling her to him as her hand reached up for his shoulder.  “You’re a fast learner.”  Aris changed his stance positioning his hip and leg between hers, pulling her closer to him.  He rested his hand on her lower back as he pulled her closer still.  She could feel his cock growing in the crease of her thigh.  He suit was impeccably tailored, but the summer weight fabric wasn’t hiding anything.

Saoirse reached around her back pushing his hand up.  She straightened her back putting some distance between them. 

“I’m sorry.  That was too forward of me.  I forget there are formalities between us.  I guess that can be expected when you spend seven years of your life with someone on your mind every day.  I’ll try to remember to be more formal in the future.” Aris whispered into her ear.

“The future?  There’s no future!  You’re going to make whatever excuse you like best and remove yourself from our client list.  Preferably right now!”  Saoirse hissed at him.

“Hmm.  That hurt.”  Aris dropped his hand a bit lower on her back pulling her just a little bit closer to him.  “I probably deserve that for having left you alone for so long.”  Aris let a wicked smile fill his face as he played with her temper.

“Like you were seriously expecting I would still be taped to the inside of a helicopter.” her sarcasm was a challenge to him.

“Ah.  Rescuing a damsel in distress always puts a man on a pedestal in a woman’s eyes.”  Aris rolled his eyes trying not to laugh as he waited for her retort.

“You tore my skirt, dropped my Choo’s in the dirt, duct taped me to a stolen helicopter, and as if that wasn’t enough fun for one day, I got to spend the rest of the
week
with the Feds.  Oh, a pedestal by all means.  How about a pedestal called the gallows!” she didn’t realize she was squeezing him as she got more wound up.

Aris would have liked nothing better at the moment than to wrap both of his arms around her.  Sheffington’s was a very upscale establishment where there were norms that had to be observed.  Instead, he pulled her closer to him putting his hip back between hers, where they had started on the dance floor. 

“Mmmm.  That was vicious,” he turned his head toward hers, breathing on the skin of her neck, as if he were whispering an enchantment, “Saoirse.” the smell of her skin made his heart pound.

His breath caused a shiver down her spine.  She jumped a little bit causing her hips to tilt into his.  The fact that she noticed how well endowed he was made her that much angrier.  The music stopped giving her the opportunity to slip away from him.  In their reserved room, dinner was just being served.  Saoirse squeezed in the middle of the long rectangular table.  Pierce, of course, insisted on Aris and Noah being at the head of the table.  Denise managed a place across from Seer. 

Pierce inevitably stood up to make the welcoming speech on behalf of the practice.  Aris stood after that, thanking him for a wonderful welcome.

“I do of course, want to apologize to the practice for the short notice.  I appreciate Ms. MacLear coming to our offices to take control of our legal issues.  I’ve no doubt that she will be requiring Denise, with the workload she’s facing.  I hope it won’t take the full three weeks we anticipate, but I do want to thank all of you for allowing us to make good use or their services.  I...”

“No.  No.  No, I’m sorry, there’s been a misunderstanding here.  Denise and I are head and shoulders into the Woodley case.  We can’t possibly abandon it now.”  Saoirse was not at all thrilled with the idea of going anywhere with Aris, for three weeks, with or without Denise.

“How unfortunate.”  Aris looked down the table at her. 

Pierce glared at her.  “It’s not an issue Aris.  Grant’s taking over the Woodley case.  I didn’t realize Saoirse didn’t know that yet.”

“Ah.  Then we can begin tomorrow.”  Aris smiled at Pierce.

“Oh, by all means!”

Denise leaned across the table toward Saoirse, “Where are we going for three weeks?”

“Nowhere!  I’m putting Pierce in Aris’s suitcase.  He can go!”  Saoirse hissed.

“Good luck with that Saoirse.” Mike, one of the partners, leaned forward.  “Aris’s half a million dollar retainer for your, and Denise’s, services cleared this morning.  You’re going.”

Saoirse glared at Mike as she sat back in her chair.

“Half a million dollars!”  Denise whispered across the table.

Mike nodded his head.  “It’s a done deal.  You are Aris’s paralegal for the next three weeks.”

“Yeah, but where are we going?”  Denise frowned.

“I’ve no idea, they own a bunch of little islands somewhere in Australasia.”

“That’s half way around the world!”

“You’re on company time, what do you care?”  Mike leaned back crossing his arms.

Dinner broke up shortly after the speeches.  Saoirse had already headed for the door with Denise nearly in step with her.  “Are we really going?  There’s so much stuff to do.  I can’t just take off for three weeks!” 

Aris stepped in front of the ladies,  “Going so soon?  I was hoping we could at least dance one more time.”

Saoirse scowled at him without saying a word.

“I suppose you do have things to do before we leave tomorrow.  The least I could do is see you home.”  Aris smiled at both the ladies.

“I’ve already got a cab.”  Saoirse was still scowling.

“There’s the limo now.  Shall we?” without waiting for her to answer, he put his arm around Saoirse guiding her out the door along with Denise. 

Aris looked at the resentment on Saoirse’s face as she sat in the limo’s deep seats, staring straight a head. 

“Denise, I take it Pierce didn’t tell you you would accompanying Saoirse to our corporate offices.  If there is anything you need help arranging, please let us know.  Noah or myself will be glad to help, or I can have one of our admins take care of things for you.”

“That’s very kind of you.  What time do we leave tomorrow?”  It wasn’t what Denise was expecting, but it might be fun.

“Whenever you ladies are ready.  We have our own jet.  If you need us to leave late in the day we can do that or first thing in the morning if you want to get things done tonight.  There are sleeping quarters on the jet if you would rather leave early and sleep on the plane.”

“Seers what do you want to do?”  Denise could see the anger rolling off of her.

“What’s it matter?  We’re being kidnapped either way.  We’ll probably be duct taped to the jet.”  Saoirse hissed.

Aris threw his head back laughing,  “I don’t even get special consideration for being careful?”

“What do you mean, ‘careful’?”  Denise was looking at Aris.

“When I taped her to the helicopter, I made her roll her sleeves down before I put the tape around her arms.  She wasn’t wearing any stockings so I had to double a piece back over itself so it wouldn’t tear her skin when they cut her loose.  I got an earful earlier this evening for having torn her skirt and tossed her heels on the ground.”  Aris was smiling at Saoirse even though it still wasn’t funny to her.

“So you really are terrorists?” Denise looked from Aris to Noah.

Both men said something to the effect of ‘no’ at the same time.  Denise looked back and forth at both men.  She believed them somehow.