Shopping for an Heir (10 page)

Letitia had just laughed. Now, three months into studying for the bar, she wasn’t laughing so much. Most lunches were about studying, so Suzanne had already made plans.

“I have a date, actually,” Suzanne answered, quickly skimming her email, organizing by label. Zero inbox was her goal, and so far, she was holding steady.

“A date? With who? Not Steve whats-his-face again?” Letitia let out a whoop of amusement.

“No. This time, it’s with a fellow dog owner.”

“You’re choosing guys by whether they own a dog or not?”

“It’s this new dating service. Ever heard of DoggieDate?”

“No.”

Suzanne shrugged and kept her eyes on the screen. “It’s for people with dogs. You find fellow dog lovers and see if you’re compatible.”

“The humans, or the dogs?”

“Both.”

“Whatever happened to just meeting a hot guy in a bar, sleeping with him, and slowly falling in love?”

Suzanne looked up. “I’m all for that. Where do I sign up?”

“Not at some crazy dating company that matches you by dog. What kind of dog does this guy have? And since when did Smoochy become your wingman?”

“Smoochy is not my—oh, damn. You’re right.”

“You’re using a dog to score dates.”

“I’m using my dog to help me
find
the right date.”

“No difference.”

“Huge difference.”

They laughed. Both were single, and both shared the pain of finding someone in Boston.

“Hey, I don’t judge,” Letitia said in a voice that made it clear she most certainly did.

“You’re the one who found a long-term boyfriend on craigslist,” Suzanne said drolly.

“Until I learned he wanted me to have six sister wives back in Montana. And that I’d have to change my name to Tuesday.”

Some days that didn’t sound so bad.

“Well, hopefully this guy isn’t a pervert. He owns a beagle named Joe.”

“What is it with people who name their dogs real names? You got it right,” Letitia said, shaking her head. “I can’t imagine having a cat named Fred or a dog named James.”

“Smoochy wasn’t my choice. That’s what Elizabeth named her.”

“Then Elizabeth has common sense.”

Suzanne gave her a half-wave and escaped. When Letitia got going and was eyeballs-deep in bar exam prep, she could work herself into a rant.

The fast walk two blocks from her office to the food court where she was meeting a Chandler Hopkins, 34, software developer for a multi-national nutrition company website who loved dogs, wasn’t enough time to process her meeting with Norm.

And the name Harrison Kulli had been like chewing aluminum foil with a mouthful of fillings.

That rat bastard.

The guy had weaseled his way into every mess possible in Afghanistan, including inappropriate sexual behavior with local Afghan women. Rumor had it he’d stolen local relics and sold them on the black market. The guy had been a DJ before the war.

And now he worked for wealthy clients who wanted to buy rare artifacts?

The language in the paperwork confused her. Gerald had somehow rescued a rare pre-Buddhist sculpture made from gold and jewels, one with a history predating known records? He’d never said a word to her. They’d been together then, too, during the dates noted in Hopewell’s letters. Gerald had smuggled the item into the U.S. and somehow helped get it in the hands of people who would respect it, and not strip it of its cultural value by melting it down and selling it off.

Which was exactly what Kulli would do.

So many questions. How had Gerald gotten his hands on it? How had he hidden it? What kind of defensive maneuvers had he engaged in to get it out of Kulli’s hands? A rule-follower by nature, Gerald wasn’t the type to commit federal felonies willy-nilly, and yet as Suzanne thought it through, they were racking up in her mind.

Motivation was a powerful force.

Almost as strong as love.

The question of the relic itself was intriguing, too. While Afghanistan was Islamic now, it had been predominantly Buddhist before that, and before Buddhism the area had been filled with a mixture of ancient religions. Rich with possibilities—and not just financial—the relic could hold the key to unlocking so much about mankind’s past.

The Indus river valley civilization was one of the first civilizations of mankind. Modern-day Afghanistan was at the far reaches of the ancient society. For Gerald to have found such an item, smuggled it to the U.S. without her knowing, and now to be her client, an heir to the very item, made her mind boggle.

The entire case felt too big. Too bizarre. Too unreal.

Yet it was all
too
real.

She hadn’t been looking forward to the two p.m. meeting with Gerald. Quite the opposite. But now that she knew more about the case, a thrill shot through her. While the romantic aspect of her relationship with Gerald was an emotional land mine, the details of this inheritance were her job. Asking—and getting answers—would give her insight into life ten years ago.

Phelps mentioned the belief that the item was cursed. She’d snorted, but now she wondered. What did that mean?

She entered the cool, bracing air of the indoor air filtration system and a bank of escalators greeted her. As she rode up, she cleared her head, hitting reboot on her emotions.

Chandler. She was about to meet Chandler.

Every first date she forced herself to go on felt like a micro-aggression against herself. Finding love the old-fashioned way, through coincidence and circumstance, was so much more preferable. That’s how she’d met Gerald—by sheer accident.

Then again, look how that had turned out.

“Suzanne?”

Caught up in her own thoughts, she realized she’d walked right past a man in a business suit, sitting at a small metal table, looking right at her with a steely attention that put her on guard. Closely cropped brown hair, a little lighter at the temples, with honey-brown eyes that impossibly matched his hair color. He was freshly shaven and smelled like wet soap when she shook his hand, his eyes remaining on hers though she had the clear sense that he would have preferred to catalog her body.

She would not have minded.

He was tall. At least six foot six, and even in her high heels he towered over her. Broad-shouldered with a big body made for double-breasted suits, he was a force, radiating power.

“Chandler?”

His face cracked with a smile that met his eyes.

“Got it in one go.”

“Excuse me?”

“I guessed right on the first shot. I’ll take that as a good omen.”

She smiled.

He gestured toward a small bistro, tucked away in a side hallway, away from the other restaurant counters. She’d never noticed it before.

“I apologize for not asking you somewhere more intimate, but time is of the essence,” he explained, body language loosening as his gaze tightened. His fingertips brushed the small of her back and she used every internal resource at her disposal not to shiver with delight.

When was the last time a man triggered this kind of response from her body?

Oh.

Right.

Gerald. Last night.

Once they were seated at a white-clothed table, surrounded by stemware and dark polished wood, Suzanne found herself gazing into the eyes of one of the most attractive men she had ever seen. Chandler Hopkins could have been a model. He came out of a black-and-white, nuanced Ralph Lauren ad. She could imagine him seven stories tall on a blinking screen in Times Square.

And he was
cataloguing
her.

After he ordered a lovely red wine she enjoyed more than she should, they settled in to salads. Ten minutes into the conversation and she knew he was from Wisconsin, that he had graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in art history, and that he was obsessed with WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.

He didn’t ask a single question about her.

“What’s Joe like?” she asked politely, trying not to stare at his hands, which were manicured and better looking than hers. She wasn’t the nail polish type for herself, but she suddenly wanted a manicure. His hands were just so pretty.

Talking about dogs seemed like a safe enough conversation topic.

“He’s great. Fifth dog in the line in my family. My grandmother had the first Joe. I’m honored to keep the tradition going.” His eyes never left her as he spoke. “I read on your profile that you like to use leashes. What about harnesses?” His eyes twinkled with merriment.

“Um, I really don’t use harnesses. I think the leash is enough. It gives just enough pressure to make it clear where the boundaries are.” She didn’t add that Smoochy was so well behaved she rarely needed to even use the leash, but she knew that in the dog world, admitting that was like saying you didn’t put your toddler in a car seat.

“And what about discipline?”

As she was about to answer, the server delivered her salmon and his bass. They dug in. Her phone buzzed with a text.

“Pardon me,” she said apologetically, reaching into her purse.

“Comes with the territory. I understand. But you’ll turn it off when the leash comes out, of course?”

She was immersed in the text from Letitia and wasn’t quite sure she’d heard that right. She flashed him a polite smile. “Of course.” Maybe he had a strict policy about silencing his phone while walking his dog.

After typing back a quick reply for Letitia to manage a glitch in a probate court issue, Suzanne took a bite of her salmon. Perfect.

The next few minutes were all about eating, sipping wine, and getting used to being silent in snippets around a new guy.

Promising. This was looking promising, though the lack of reciprocal interest had her on edge.

Maybe DoggieDate wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Kari had told her about it—the mystery shopping company she worked for had lost the account to a competitor—and Suzanne had made a profile there just last week.

Chandler’s quick response and request for a lunch date had been a welcome break from all the dick pics and requests for hookups that came with most sites.

But he was only talking about the dogs now, and that made her wonder.

“How do you handle elimination?” he asked smoothly, as if they were talking about retirement account investment allocations.

“Elimination?”

“Yes. Do you glove up? Bag the waste?” He leaned in, his Patek Philippe watch glittering as a skylight ushered in rays of sunshine after clouds parted. Funny how that status symbol followed quirky guys. “Or do you use dog diapers?” He whispered the last two words with reverence, then licked his lower lip.

She recoiled, the bite of salmon in her mouth suddenly tasting like mulch.

“You—I—well, I use a glove and bags. Always,” she added. Was this some kind of purity test to see if she was a responsible dog owner?

“And a muzzle?”

“No. Never! Why would I do that?”

His face fell.

“Sometimes it’s necessary, especially when a puppy is being very, very bad.” His eyes widened and he took a big swig of his wine.

The way he said
bad
made her spine tingle, and not in an arousing way.

The date just went from
promisin
g to
rescue text
in three minutes.

A new record.

“Do you have a picture of Joe?” she asked suddenly, eager for any option that took them out of this disturbing discussion.

“No. Why would I carry a picture of my dog in my wallet?” The look he gave her said she was the crazy one. Disarmingly charming and decidedly manipulative, Chandler’s ability to make her feel an array of emotions set off alarms.

It was one thing to be attracted to a guy and lose internal control.

It was another to have him keep the ground beneath her emotional feet shifting constantly.

“Let’s get down to business,” he said, as Suzanne put her knife and fork down, stomach in rebellion, all hope of salvaging the date long gone. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but the conversation had turned in such a way that she was done.

“Yes?”

Business? Was he another networker like Steve? Regrouping, she put on her badass hat and made a mental note to reach out to Kari for another ice cream run tonight. Sheesh.

“You have something I want. I have something you want. We could have a fine relationship meeting each other’s needs.”

Blunt. She had to give him credit for being blunt.

“Other than the muzzle issue, I like your style, Suzanne.” He reached for her hand, his thumb caressing the broad line into the wrist. “I like a woman who knows how to control her puppy.”

He kept calling Smoochy a puppy. Strange.

“I don’t really need to control dogs. As long as they behave, it’s easy,” she said, using a casual tone but measuring her words carefully.

“And if they don’t behave?” The stroking turned warm, his hand heating up. The pulse at the base of his throat started throbbing so hard she could see a blue bulge of vein. He swallowed. Was he starting to sweat?

“I don’t know. I’d put them in their crate.”

“Yes,” he answered, the word like a hiss. Chandler shifted in his seat, pupils dilating.

The guy was getting aroused talking about dogs?

“And then what, Suzanne? What if you had a puppy who wouldn’t stop sniffing your crotch?”

She stood so fast her napkin went flying up and knocked over her partially-full glass of wine, which tipped toward him. A drop rolled across the table, like a line of blood, soaked into the cloth before it could hit the edge on his side.

“What are you talking about?” she snapped. People turned to stare at the commotion. Chandler’s eyes went flinty cold, his nostrils flaring.

He did not stand.

“Sit. Now.”

“I’m not a dog you can order around!” she protested, reaching down for her purse and resuming eye contact. Instinct kicked in. Not flight, though she was about to leave.

Fight.

Don’t back down. Call him out. Override the fear.

He flushed. Not from embarrassment, but damn—he was
turned on
.

“Please sit down.”

“No. I’m done.” She turned on her heel, not even certain why this was over, but absolutely convinced that leaving was the right choice.