Trinity

Protip: Don’t wear leather pants on a hot summer day.

Bonus protip: Don’t wear them to a whiskey-tasting function in a fancy suite of law offices. Not terribly professional, plus they’re tight enough to give my uterus a massage—and not in a good way. It’s mid-July and I’m sweating like a hog. Most attractive.

But I’ll focus on the positive. Introducing people to the wonders of whiskey is one of my favorite things in the world. I wasn’t always a whiskey drinker, even though it was part and parcel of the memories of my youth. I’d sit on my granddad’s knee in his old leather chair that “talked” when he filled it. Gertrude’s glad I’m home, he’d say, and I’d laugh because calling a chair Gertrude was cray-cray. Pops drank Scottish single malts—Glenmorangie was his tipple of choice—and he would let me sniff the glass.

I hated it. The fumes, the sourness, even the color put me off. But those hours with Pops were the best. I didn’t know my dad’s family—they didn’t approve of his relationship with my mom. Pops knew the score. You have strength you can’t even imagine, Trinity. Resources that will carry you through in a world that will judge you for things you can’t control. Whiskey meant comfort and safety, and those memories lay dormant in my DNA, waiting until the day I was ready to call upon them when I met a guy from Louisville.

Beau MacRae was a Kentuckian master distiller, specializing in whiskey and bourbon. I was working in a bar during college when he came in and proceeded to give me an education. A late bloomer in a lot of things—sex, being one of them—I learned plenty from Beau. He was older (yeah, my daddy issues were probably showing), and after a month, he was on his way and I was left with a newfound love for whiskey and a recognition that I might not be so bad in bed after all.

That didn’t mean whiskey was going to be my life, but the more tastings I attended and the more I learned about the culture, I realized that I might have found my calling. While wine tastings are a no-brainer with women, whiskey is a more recent phenomenon.

For today’s tasting, I’ve brought a selection of my favorites to a law office in the same office building as Lucas’s. Not that I’m thinking of him.

I’m pushing a dolly with a case of my wares toward the elevator when a voice calls out loudly behind me.

“Hey, Whiskey Woman!”

Now I know that’s on my business card, but it doesn’t mean I like hearing it fired at me across a crowded lobby in a downtown Chicago skyscraper. Turning, I see Lucas heading my way with a big doofus grin on his face. My heart flips, but I don’t let my pleasure show on my face.

“Trinity!”

“Could you keep it down?” Heat is rising in my cheeks as people check us out.

“Why?” He looks around, then throws his arms in a wave around the lobby before adding in a high volume, “Do you hate the attention?”

I can’t help my chuckle, because while I do hate the attention I don’t hate Lucas.

“How we feeling today? All better?” He takes ahold of the dolly and starts a push to the elevator. One of them opens, expelling its suited contents, and Lucas rolls the dolly in ahead of a couple of people waiting. “Excuse me, need the room here. Better take the next one, mate. She has a wicked bad case of the flu. Projectile vomiting and the like.” Over his shoulder he yells at me. “Come on, Trin! Time’s a-wasting.”

I make it inside just before the doors close. Lucas presses the button for the thirtieth floor, home of Kendall LLP.

“You don’t have to do this.”

He smiles, a beautiful curve that does things to me. “I know. But I’m going your way.”

He’s going my way. I like how he says that.

After a moment of electric silence, I ask, “So. Everything good? No cold?”

“I’m impervious, Jones. Though maybe not to that smile of yours.”

I haven’t seen him in over a week. The weekend I was ill, he dropped Chase off after his soccer game that Saturday and didn’t come up to say hello. Or goodbye. Initially, I’d felt slighted because he’d spent the night in my bed. Listening. Holding me like I mattered. Then I decided to buck the fuck up because I don’t need a guy. I don’t need this guy.

“Listen,” he says. “I’m sorry I didn’t stop in after Chase’s game on Saturday, but I had something to do I couldn’t get out of.”

Exit my head immediately, sir.

“No big deal. I didn’t even expect you. Barely noticed you weren’t there. In fact, I haven’t wasted a single second on you since.”

Too much?

His devastating grin tells me it’s much too much.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Didn’t say a word.” He continues to grin like he’s won a prize. Like he’s won me.

It’s getting increasingly hard to dislike him. But it’s all a game, isn’t it? None of his charm changes the fundamentals of what we are to each other. He won’t do anything, as it would be an ethical violation, which is fine because I won’t do anything as long he represents Brian.

And if he decided to just ignore all that, what would it mean for Emily’s case? Would Lucas have to give up Brian as a client? Would that be better or worse for Emily?

It might be better.

It might be tons better.

I blink back to reality when the elevator reaches the thirtieth floor. I can already tell that these offices are more moneyed than Lucas’s. Original abstract art slams my eyeballs—the paint is chunky and tangible—along with weird bronze sculptures of people boning. The receptionist fixes me with a glassy stare before lighting up at the sight of Lucas.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Wright!”

“Shelly, I’ve told you, it’s Lucas!” he booms. “And I love the hair. New do?”

Blushing madly, she preens a touch. “Just yesterday. I can’t believe you noticed. My boyfriend didn’t even compliment me.”

Lucas’s head shake embodies the pain of slighted women the world over, and he adds “Men!” for good measure. Shelly titters in self-commiseration.

“Sweetheart, we’re here for the whiskey tasting. This is Trinity Jones—she’s the sommelier.”

It’s not my first time encountering disbelief when someone hears what I do for a living. “Oh. Right. Ms. Gates said to go to the library. That’s where they’re hosting it.”

“Excellent! I know the way.” Lucas grins. “And when I come back I want that boyfriend’s name. I might have to call him and give him what for!”

More giggling from Shelly, and we’re on our way.

Lucas greets everyone effusively, I assume because they work in the same building? I know less than zero about lawyerly collegiality, but it seems strange that all the people we pass high-five him (the men) or double-cheek kiss him (the women). Apparently, I’m in the presence of minor royalty or a boy band star.

We walk into a room with plush leather chairs and leather-bound volumes, a library just as Shelly said. It’s empty until I hear behind me, “Wright, I should’ve known you were here. The pheromone levels of the office are through the roof.”

Lucas sets the dolly down and turns to a voice I recognize, having spoken with it on the phone. Like the place, it’s grand with hints of Boston.

“Aubrey, meet Trinity, your sommelier for the evening.” Lucas says. “I don’t like whiskey, but she seems to really know her shit.”

Silver-gray eyes snap fiercely to mine. A blue-black curtain of hair falls past her strong jaw, floating like a cloud over the shoulders of a navy power suit. Aubrey is, in a word, stunning. Her beauty is sharp and angled, and I imagine her ripping defendants to shreds with her gorgeous white teeth and stamping on their exposed intestines with her stilettos.

She holds out her hand. “Lucas’s recommendation would normally be worthless given his boundless enthusiasm about the most ridiculous things, but I trust him on this.”

Unsure why, I decide to take her at her word. Maybe I just want her to like me. I shake her hand, enjoying her firm grip.

“So I thought maybe we could set up over here.” She gestures to a sideboard. “Will that work?”

“Perfect!” I take the dolly from Lucas—or try to. He makes a meal of wheeling it over and lifting the cases onto the sideboard.

“I’ve got this, thanks.”

“No problem.” He leans in, smelling like a dream, making me dizzy with lust. “Back to your fuck-off, I-don’t-need-a-thing self, I see.”

I open my mouth, both annoyed and surprised at his prescience.

“It’s okay,” he says into the gap. “Pretty fucking hot, but then you know that.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Am I? Or am I impossibly sexy?”

A few women in suits and heels start to trickle in, so I try to morph into my professional self. Hard to do with Lucas smelling and looking like a god and my leather pants cutting off all circulation to my ass. “I need to set up.”

“Okay, I’ll be over here watching you be a whiskey ninja.”

Aubrey’s slight cough interrupts us. “You’re sticking around, Wright? Since when are you a member of the Chicago Bar Association Alliance for Women?”

Lucas smiles at Aubrey. “Now, Ms. Gates, you know I’m not. But the alliance’s rules clearly state that anyone can attend one meeting per calendar year without paying dues.”

“Anyone with tits.”

“Really, Aubrey? I’m pretty sure that’s nowhere stated in the bylaws. Do you need me to whip them out?”

Aubrey expels a sigh and turns to me. “Get out now while you can, Trinity. Do you want to be arguing with that all day and night?”

I laugh, thinking that maybe I do. Shocked at where my thoughts have veered, I shift to business-friendly as a couple of women approach the sideboard.

“Wow,” one of them says. “I’ve never met a whiskey sommelier before. Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

This is directed at the penis in our midst. Sigh.

Lucas is as quick as a tick. “Ladies! Let me introduce you to the star of the evening, Trinity Jones. She’s a certified whiskey sommelier who also runs Chicago’s chapter of Whiskey, Women, and Song. No one is better qualified to educate you on the finer distinctions between bourbon, scotch, malt, and whiskey—both with and without an e. This woman knows her bloody stuff, I can tell you.”

The women stare at me, Aubrey stares at Lucas, and I stare at my feet. I’m embarrassed…

Why am I embarrassed? Because Lucas is loud and he has focused on me in a way I’m not used to. Is that so terrible? With this guy, I feel like for once, I’m the center of my own universe instead of a distant satellite.

The thing is, I do know my bloody stuff. I am good at this and I shouldn’t have to apologize for being the one person in the room who knows more about whiskey than everyone else put together.

“Hey, guys! Let me get set up and then I’ll be more than happy to talk whiskey—with and without an e.”

I catch Lucas’s eye and feel a thrill that’s foreign and confusing. He’s proud of me. I can’t remember someone giving me that, or at least, not the way Lucas bathes me in it.

That feeling is more dangerous than anything else in his arsenal.

Lucas

I’m standing at the back of the library at Kendall, a glass of untouched scotch in my hand. This is me being supportive. Trinity gave her tasting spiel—totally rocked it, by the way—and now she’s flitting between groups, asking for opinions, weighing in with her own. As we all know, I’m a competence porn addict and I can’t take my eyes off her.

Sure, that’s my reason.

It might also have something to do with the way those leathers of hers fit her arse like a rubber. I mean, no one should look that good in leather trousers, but Trinity pulls it off because she’s a goddess. Throughout the evening, I’ve caught her looking at me—or maybe she’s caught me looking at her. Every time our gazes connect, supernovas collapse, galaxies self-destruct, and planets emerge from the antimatter.

I want her. Badly.

“So. Wright.” Aubrey stands beside me, also with a glass of scotch, but she sips from it slowly. She comes from some blue-blooded family in Boston, so I gather she knows how to drink this stuff right.

“Aubrey,” I say gravely, but I can’t resist a little eyebrow wag to lighten the mood.

“What’s with you and Whiskey Woman?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It always is.”

We’re quiet for a moment, but I’ve never been good with silences so I break it. “I think I need to uncomplicate it. Just do it.”

“I assume you’ve had a good reason not to Nike the fuck out of the situation already.”

I do. The conflict-of-interest issue is a legitimate problem. I value my clients, my job, and my ethics. But I don’t want to miss my window with Trinity.

“She’s the sister-in-law of a client.” I fill her in quickly because I’m always up for a legal opinion, particularly of the female variety.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

I turn to her. “Like you and Grant?”

The color drains from her face. It’s as if I’ve struck her. “What did he say?”

“Not a word.” This frustrates me because I don’t like playing guessing games. “Look, I know you and I don’t know each other all that well, but if you ever want a friendly ear…” She’s good friends with Max, but with Max and Grant being partners in the same firm, Aubrey probably feels she was cut out of the loop postdivorce. “Grant’s a friend, but he’s pretty closed off about you.”

“I screwed up, Lucas.”

I’m so startled by her admission that I make a weird sound in my throat. Her smile is wry.

“Sorry, I offered and—”

“You didn’t expect me to take you up on it?”

“Well, people don’t really think of me that way.”

“You might play the clown, but I know there’s more. She does, too.” She nods at Trinity, who’s looking my way, her eyes alight with appreciation.

Does she know it? Do I even want her to?

I think I do. I think I want her to know everything.

Oh, I like her, bruv.

“What happened with Grant?”

“I…” Aubrey shudders out a weary sigh. “I thought I knew myself, but it turns out I didn’t know me at all.”

“I don’t understand what that means.” I can’t help her if she talks in riddles.

She pats my arm. “Forget what I said about not doing anything you’ll regret. Go for it. Swing for the fences. Seize the fair maiden. And, Lucas?”

“What?”

“Let her see you. All of you.”

I’m not sure she’s ready for that—or that I’m ready for it—but I can take a step in the right direction.

I know now what I have to do.