“I must admit that I was surprised to be asked by your father to this social gala, but he was very adamant that this was more of an attempt to help advance the firm.”

It would have been highly inappropriate and probably quite rude on multiple levels for Cisco to do an actual face-palm at this moment. No doubt Vittoria Velasquez would not have understood what he was doing or why. Still, the desire was there. What was his father thinking? Why did he have to insert himself into everything? Wasn’t it possible for one of his sons to have a career that did not involve the blatant interference of Joe Hernandez?

“Francisco?” Vittoria’s brow furrowed, and she tilted her head to one side. Her elegant dark hair slid over her shoulder and sat there as though she had planned for it to frame the side of her face in the most attractive manner possible. “Is there something wrong? I told your father that I would be pleased to attend the charity gala to represent our firm.”

“It’s fine,” Cisco said quickly. He forced himself to smile. “I would be pleased to attend the gala as your escort, of course, and yes. I think that any opportunity we have to further the business interests of the firm is a worthwhile endeavor.”

There. He had done his level best to pretend that he thought this was a good idea. It was only his fifth day on the job. Friday. This meant, of course, that the gala event was tonight. Cisco had already declined this invitation from his father. Apparently, this was Joe Hernandez’s way of making an offer that Cisco could not refuse.

Vittoria glanced down at her diamond wristwatch. Then she smiled. The expression struck him as odd though he could not put his finger on exactly why that was. Then she made a gesture to him. “If I’m going to be presentable for a charity function by eight o’clock at night, I suppose I had better be on my way out the door.”

“Right.” Damn. That meant Cisco had to make plans quickly. “Shall I pick you up at seven thirty?”

“That sounds wonderful.” She offered him a practiced smile. “I’ll text you my address. Just tell the doorman you’re there to pick me up, and he’ll buzz you in.”

Cisco nodded because he could not find anything else to do that would have been appropriate. He certainly could not roll his eyes even though he had been planning to work late tonight in order to finish up his initial notes on a case that one of the partners was passing along to him. Apparently, he would be going to a party instead.

“See you at seven thirty,” Vittoria said with a wiggle of her fingers.

Then she was gone, and Cisco was left standing alone in his office. It was odd. He had always made the assumption that he would be working in a firm where people were in their offices until all hours of the night. He had imagined all-night conferences and serious conversations involving civil rights and other important legal topics. This firm handled estate law and domestic cases involving prenuptial agreements and divorces. They were one of the most sought-after firms in the city.

Cisco wandered toward his desk and picked up his suit jacket. He draped it over one arm while he located his car keys and his mobile phone. There was really no point in hanging around the office for another hour. It was four thirty. He was the only one here. Even the paralegals and secretaries had gone home for the weekend. Some of it was because there were no huge upcoming cases. Cisco had a feeling the rest of it was because the partners and associates in this firm were so well entrenched in the local court scene that they could choose their hearing days and trial dates. Judges didn’t particularly want to work on Friday either.

With a deep sigh, Cisco headed for the elevator. He was feeling straight-up disillusioned. This was not what he’d wanted when he imagined himself practicing law. It wasn’t what he’d thought he would be doing. But perhaps this was the first week and he should give it a break.

It was the elevator that reminded him of Melody. Cisco pushed the button for the ground floor and thought about the young woman with the messy brown hair and brilliant green eyes. He wanted to talk to her. He had the strangest urge to get to know her. He had a feeling that she would be fascinating in a very basic kind of way.

Perhaps this thought was what made his feet start walking in the direction of the coffee shop. He could not be sure that she would be there. He rarely went into the shop at the same time each day. He’d not seen her since that day at the beginning of the week when he had stopped in at nine in the morning.

It didn’t matter. Cisco walked the block and a half to the coffee shop. The plate glass of the front door was cool beneath his palms. It was quiet in here at four thirty on a Friday afternoon. In fact, Cisco was the only one in the shop. He walked right up to the counter and tried to decide what he needed from a coffee café at this time in the afternoon.

“You’re back.”

Cisco drew back. He had come here looking for Melody, and yet now that he was face to face with her, he had no idea what to say. “I wanted to try something different.”

Try something different? What was his problem? Sometimes Cisco wondered if his brain was simply incapable of conversing appropriately in real-life situations. It seemed to be fine in the courtroom. He just could not behave appropriately in normal everyday situations.

There were lines bracketing Melody’s green eyes and her cupid’s bow mouth. She looked tired. Yet, at the moment, he saw a smile spread across her features. It started with her lips. They turned up just a hint at the corners. Then her eyes brightened. There was a sparkle in them that replaced the dullness of apparent exhaustion. Then her cheeks grew fuller as her face relaxed into a very beautiful and almost impish grin.

“Something different, hmm?” Melody made a point of tapping her lower lip with her index finger in an exaggerated look of deep thought. “Do you trust me?”

It was an interesting thought. Perhaps it was an inane comment on her part. It was impossible for him to tell. He didn’t know her well enough for that. Yet the truth was that Cisco did not trust lightly. He did not offer that sort of confidence in anyone. Somehow, though, Melody’s basic down-to-earth personality changed things for him.

“I trust you,” he told her quietly. “Just remember that trust is a delicate thing.”

“So it is,” she murmured as she rang him up.

Cisco paid for his five dollar experimental drink and then stood by the bar as Melody moved to make his order. She seemed to be by herself inside the coffee shop. It seemed to be a strange sort of plan to have an employee here by herself at any point during the day.

“Are you here all by yourself?” He could not resist asking.

She glanced up from the concoction she was making. The drink seemed to require ice and coffee and other ingredients he could not name. “No. Not exactly. The manager is in the back running her daily paperwork. She could come out here and help”—Melody glanced up at him and offered what looked like a smirk—“hypothetically of course.”

“Of course.” He was starting to get the picture. “And this is more cost-effective anyway.”

“Exactly.” She sighed and finished his drink off with a huge dollop of whipped cream. “And since the bottom line is the only thing that really matters in business, here I am.”

“Is it very busy this time of day?” There was still nobody in here but him.

“No.” She shook her head and began to clean the countertop in front of her after setting his drink on the bar. “This is pretty much when we do clean-up for the day. We actually close at six, so this is pretty much it for us.”

“How long are your shifts?” He had no idea why this topic was of such interest to him. It was so different from what he was used to. He realized he had never had this kind of job or schedule or anything even close to work hours that were dependent upon anything but his own whim.

“I’ve been here since four this morning.” She glanced up at him and then quickly looked away. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this stuff. It doesn’t really matter.”

“Sure it does.”

“No. It doesn’t.” She pulled a very ugly face. “And it certainly doesn’t matter to some rich lawyer.”

“Do you hold that against me?” It was funny, but it bothered Cisco to think that Melody did hold it against him that he was a lawyer or anything else. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know what his life was like. She didn’t know what it was like to walk in his shoes. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it did.

She seemed to consider this. Her counter-scrubbing gradually came to a halt. She was standing there with both palms braced on the countertop and a very strange expression on her face. “It’s hard not to resent someone who wears expensive clothes and can wander into a coffee shop at four thirty in the afternoon. I’ve seen you in an elevator in the middle of the afternoon. You were in here in the middle of the morning…”

He almost protested that assertion about that last trip in to get coffee being midmorning. That had been first thing—for him.

Then Melody shrugged. “But I suppose you made different choices than I did. You went to college. You got a degree. You probably make wise financial decisions too. I don’t. Why should you be punished or judged because I’ve made a mess of my life?” Her voice grew soft, and he felt as though she were judging herself more harshly than he ever would have.

“Hang on,” he protested. “You can’t be so hard on yourself. I’m pretty sure that you didn’t start out with a silver spoon shoved into your mouth.”

“Did you?” she shot back.

Cisco gazed at the stubborn jut of her chin. This was a woman who would not apologize for anything. She had a chip on her shoulder, and she was the polar opposite of everything he was looking for in a potential life partner. Still, she fascinated him and he could not say why.

“I would say that the silver spoon was probably shoved down my throat.” He thought about his father’s constant interference in his life. “After that, the silver spoon is periodically removed from my throat only long enough to beat me over the head with it until I submit to whatever plans my family have in mind for me.”

“Having family would be wonderful.” Her softly spoken words were accompanied by a look so sad that it tugged at Cisco’s heart and made him feel things he hadn’t thought possible.

“You don’t have family?” He felt as though that was an impossibility of sorts. People usually had family. They were just estranged either through their choice or their family’s choice. “Surely you have somebody.”

It was as though she were pulling on some kind of emotional armor. He watched her straighten. Her spine stiffened and her expression hardened. Then she cleared her throat and went back to scrubbing her counter. “Actually, I was placed in state custody when I was born. My biological mother was very sick. Her parents were elderly and unable to care for me. She had nobody else and was an only child. I don’t know anything about my biological father. She never named him.”

Now Cisco felt like an ass. He thought he had problems. But he didn’t. This woman was most definitely alone. “I’m sorry, Melody. I really am.”

“That’s all right.” She exhaled, and he realized that she was now studying the brewing machine she had started to clean. It was as if she were deliberately trying not to make eye contact. “I was luckier than most. My mother’s grandparents passed away and left everything to me in their will.”

“So, there’s your silver spoon, hmm?” He was half joking.

“Sure.” The false brightness in her tone set off warning bells in his head. “All except the inheritance tax part. But I’m sure I’ll get that figured out soon enough.”

“So, this is recent?” Cisco felt a tug. This was something he understood very well. “Did they leave you real estate property or just random household items?”

“Both?” She seemed to sort of fold in on herself. “It’s difficult to say.”

“Why?” Cisco frowned. This should not have been difficult. “There should have been a list of contents in the house after the death was established. It’s part of the process. You just go in and make a list of contents. The estate is assigned a worth unless it had one assigned to it by some other kind of entity, like an attorney or even a trust.”

“There might be one.” She turned her back to him and started furiously wiping down the counter on the back side of the prep area. “It’s hard to say. I can’t understand the attorney’s scribbles very well. But I’ll figure it out.”

Cisco should have walked away. He had a melting frozen coffee drink in his hand, and he should have walked away. There was a social gala to prepare for. There was a new job to figure out, and his father’s interference needed handling. Yet Cisco could not turn his back on what was happening right here in front of him.

“Would you like help?” Cisco asked carefully. “I’d be happy to at least look at the file from your grandparents’ estate attorney. Sometimes these things can be confusing. Lawyers aren’t exactly famous for doing things in a straightforward manner.”

“That’s true enough,” she muttered.

He watched Melody stop moving and put her hands on her hips. Then she seemed to look up at the ceiling. Her shoulders rose and fell with the deep breaths she was obviously taking as she attempted to decide if she wanted his help or not. Finally, she turned around to face him. Her lips were thinned into a tight line. Her eyes were huge in her face, and she looked both hopeful and belligerent.

“Would you really be willing to look at the file for me?” Her words were a bare whisper.

“Yes.” He didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. I would be willing to do that.”

“What about after I get off work tonight?”

Dammit. Of all the times for him to have a social engagement, it had to be tonight. He swallowed back his apprehension. “I can’t tonight. How about tomorrow night?”

Something on her face flickered. “If you don’t want to, don’t feel like you have to.”

“It isn’t that, Melody.” Cisco didn’t appreciate her insinuation. “I simply have plans tonight. It’s a social engagement. Unfortunately, my father has made it so I have to attend. It’s one of his specialties. Screwing up my plans and forcing me to do what he thinks I should do.”

She was staring at him with her solemn green gaze as though she were trying to see the truth or fiction in his words. Finally, she gave a slow nod. “All right, then. Tomorrow. Meet me here at six o’clock.”

“It’s a date,” Cisco agreed.

He realized too late that his choice of words was probably entirely inappropriate, but she didn’t seem to read into it at all. Instead, she gestured to his drink and gave a little wave.

Cisco took a long sip of the frozen concoction and realized that it was good. Very good. There was just enough sweet to go with the bitterness. In fact, he could well see why people were constantly ordering these frou frou frozen drinks all the time. He lifted the cup to let Melody know that it was good, and then he exited the coffee shop with a whole lot more spring in his step than he’d had when he went in.