Trouble (12 page)

“Can I see you for a minute?” Mike said curtly to Dara when they got back to the office after the hearing. They needed to get a few things settled, pronto. If nothing else, he was determined for her to respect his authority in the office.

“Uh-oh.” Snickering, Jamal scurried off to the relative safety of his own office.

Grim-faced, she followed Mike into his office and sat as he slammed the door behind her.

He sat on the edge of his desk and frowned down at her. She frowned mulishly up at him.

“I think what we've got here is failure to communicate.”

“Wonderful,” she muttered. “Now you're quoting
Cool Hand Luke
. My dress was fine.”

“Not for the justice center, it wasn't,” he snarled, remembering the way Johnson and his thuggish comrades had drooled at her like hyenas closing in on a gazelle as she tipped her beautiful head down to the watering hole for a drink.

She shifted uncomfortably. “I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine. No worries. I didn't have any other clean work clothes to wear anyway. Let's move on.”

He snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you think it's possible you don't know everything about everything at the ripe old age of twenty-three?”

She said nothing.

“That room was full of men accused of everything from murder to spousal abuse to robbery to rape. A lot of them were sprung on bail this afternoon, the same as Johnson. They saw you with me. They could find you again if they wanted to. You need to keep that in mind.”

“It's not like I was trying to draw undue attention to myself,” she insisted. “This is a plain black dress—”

Something inside Mike's head snapped like an overstretched rubber band.

No one was this naive.

“Don't you get it?” he yelled. “It doesn't matter whether you were trying or not! Do you need me to draw you a picture? It's not the dress, Dara! It's the body!”

Ringing silence.

Wait, what?

What
had he just said?

Dara's jaw dropped.

With dawning horror, he realized he
might
have crossed a line.

Brilliant, Baldwin
, he thought, his face and ears burning hot enough to melt his eyeballs.

You've just bought yourself a sexual harassment suit
.

Disgusted, he turned, yanked the door open and stalked out of his office.

Dara's
head was still spinning when Jamal met her in her office minutes later. Sitting behind her desk, she stared out the window and tried to corral her thoughts, which was like trying to keep cats contained behind a split rail fence.

Had Mike just complimented her? Or insulted her?

Why did she care so much either way?

Couldn't she sue him for sexual harassment?

Why did she know that was the last thing she'd ever do?

“Still standing, I see,” Jamal said, chuckling, as he collapsed in a chair.

“Your boss has a terrible temper,” she grumbled, spinning her chair to face him.

“You gave as good as you got.”

“Like that's a good thing. He's probably going to fire me now for mouthing off.”

“Yeah, that's not going to happen.”

“Why not? He already doesn't like me.”

“Get real. I want to tell you something.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Listen up. This is important.”

“Hit me.”

“The thing about Mike you need to understand is he's all heart.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I know he's cocky, and he can be a bully—”

“
Can
be a bully?” she asked, incredulous. “He
is
a bully.”

Jamal tilted his head and reconsidered. “Yeah, you're right. He's a big bully.”

“Thank you.”

“But the point is I know he would do anything for me. He would give me his last dollar if he thought I needed it.”

Dara was in no mood to hear him sing the praises of the mighty Mike Baldwin. “That's beautiful,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “What's it got to do with me?”

“He'd do anything for you, too, Dara. He was only looking out for you today. Just because you don't like the way he says something doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to what he's saying.”

This whole stupid discussion was a waste of time, and she had work to do. She picked up her pen.

“Listen, Jamal. I really appreciate what you're trying to do here, but don't bother. I already told you Mike doesn't like me. The only reason I'm here is because my professor forced me on him.”

Jamal snorted out a laugh. “What are you talking about?”

There was no use arguing the point with him. “Trust me. He doesn't like me.”

Jamal's mouth twisted into a wry grin. “
You
trust
me
. I may not know the whole story, but I know Mike well enough to know he likes you just fine.”

“Right. And I'll be sure to mention to Mike you think so highly of his advice.”

Jamal got up. “Don't make me hurt you. Because I will.”

Dara laughed.

“You any good at English?” he asked.

Dara thought of her summa cum laude English lit degree from Michigan and gave him a wry smile. “I can get by. Why?”

“I'll never get my GED if English keeps kicking my ass. Maybe you can help.”

“Anytime,” she said quickly. “I'd be happy to.”

There was a pause.

“You dating Sean?” he asked, studying her with narrowed eyes.

“No,” she said, startled. “Where'd that come from?”

“But he's into you, isn't he?”

Flustered, she fidgeted in her seat. “We're just friends.”

“Yeah. Good. You should keep it that way.”

Jamal nodded thoughtfully, pausing to smile at her before he left.

Dara stared after him for a couple seconds, realizing she'd made a new and valuable friend.

Then she shored up her courage and headed back to Mike's office.

He'd been replacing one of the books on the shelf closest to his desk, but he turned and watched her approach, eyebrows raised.

She leaned against the doorframe. “How alarmed should I be that you and Terrell the Thug are on a first-name basis?”

Mike smiled, and the tension between them was broken. “He's like family. I represented him a couple of years ago on drug possession charges, but he was convicted.”

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, throwing her hand across her heart. “Am I to understand the great Mike Baldwin has lost a case?”

He smiled indulgently. “Shocking, but it doesn't happen that often.”

“Let me sit down.”

“Very funny.”

She decided to say it quickly, before she lost her nerve.

“I, uh … didn't think it'd be that bad at the justice center.”

He sank into his chair and flipped through some papers on his desk.

“That's interesting because I thought I told you it would be bad if you wore that dress. Actually, your clothes probably wouldn't've mattered. But you still should've listened to me.”

“I'm sorry for blowing up at you.”

“You should be.”

“Oh, all right!” she cried, the reins to her temper sliding out of her grip. “If you weren't such an overbearing bully, maybe I would have listened to you.” She paused to take a calming breath. “And, by the way, as my boss, I have the utmost respect for you, so forget what I just said.”

His eyes glittered with amusement. “Anyone ever mention you've got a smart mouth?”

She froze, her gaze locked with his.

He'd asked that exact question at the party and hearing it now caught her off guard. She'd tried to forget that night and had presumed he'd done the same.

Maybe some things weren't so easily forgotten.

“Dara?” called a voice from the hallway. “Where are you?”

Something spiraled sickeningly inside her—disappointment mingled with irritation.

Not Sean again. Not here. Not now.

She and Mike quickly turned away from each other, as though both pairs of eyes had been negatively charged and could no longer connect. Mike made an indistinct sound that might have been a muttered curse.

“Dara?”

“In here,” Dara said, not bothering to hide the lack of enthusiasm in her voice.

“What are you doing in here?” Sean asked her as he came in.

“What are
you
doing here?”

The sharpness in her tone made his smile wobble, which made her feel bad. On the other hand, it was probably time she started setting firmer boundaries with Sean. Just because his internship was a couple blocks away at the ACLU didn't mean he needed to show up unannounced here all the time.

“Thought you might want to grab a bite,” he said lightly.

She tried to smile, to soften her rejection, but her lips refused to cooperate. “You should call.”

Sean blinked, a light dimming behind his eyes. “You got it.”

Her face burning as hot as her curiosity, she shot a glance at Mike to see if he'd listened to this little interchange. To see if he cared what she and Sean did or didn't do.

He was watching her with hard eyes, his face a study in granite and severe angles. “You really should keep a closer watch on Dara, man,” he told Sean, his gaze never wavering from her face. “She almost caused a riot at the justice center.” He paused, swallowing with a rough bob of his Adam's apple. “This one's got a real knack for causing trouble.”

“Come on in,” Mark Johnson said the next week, waving Dara and Mike into his club, which was in an old warehouse in one of the rehabbed areas downtown. Now that he'd been sprung on bail, he wore his version of business attire: custom brown double-breasted suit with giant lapels and five or six rows of buttons marching down the overlong jacket. He'd also added his earrings—diamond studs in each ear, well over five carats each—and several sparkling rings.

If someone had put Dara in charge of assembling a pimp costume for Halloween, this was exactly the look she'd go for.

Mike, on the other hand, was his usual self: the picture of classy sophistication. He wore a subdued but elegant gray suit with a white shirt and yellow tie.

“Why don't you show us around?” he asked Johnson.

“Sure.”

Johnson led them into the huge main room of the club, where Dara felt as if she'd stepped into a tacky Turkish harem. Sheer scarves in garish oranges and pinks swooped from the corners of the ceiling and back up again. The walls were lavishly tiled and depicted scenes of orgies between women with breasts the size of watermelons and pashas who all bore a striking resemblance to Johnson and all had noticeable bulges in their pants. Dozens of seating areas dotted the space. A huge dance floor stood at one end of the room, while a thirty-foot bar with a massive, ornate mirror hanging behind it occupied the other.

She'd never seen anything so horrifyingly gaudy in her entire life.

She made the mistake of looking at Mike to check his reaction. He caught her gaze with wide eyes and eyebrows raised about half an inch above center.

Dara ducked her head, struggling not to laugh.

Johnson's chest swelled as he threw his arms wide. “What do you think?”

Mike whistled and made a show of looking around. “It's really something.”

“You don't see a place like this every day,” Dara added.

Johnson gave her a lingering look. “I'm glad you like it.”

Dara's smile froze. Hang on. Was this fool actually trying to flirt with her?