Law Offices of Spencer White and Associates

Los Angeles, California

 

Frustration burned through Mika as he pushed back from his desk and jumped to his feet. He’d been working on this same case for six months, trying to get this actress what she deserved from the production company that screwed her over, but it felt like he hadn’t gotten anywhere in all that time. They’d just met with the production company’s lawyers the day before, and they’d brought up issues he’d thought they’d resolved months ago. They were delaying, but he couldn’t figure out why.

He moved around the desk, walking over to the mini bar to pour himself a glass of water. He was about to lift it to his lips when the door opened without the courtesy of a knock.

Stevie.

His eyes moved over her as he drank the glass empty, taking in the short black skirt she’d chosen this morning, the ankle boots, and the dove gray blouse. She looked almost like a child playing dress-up, her face free of makeup and her short haircut something like the kind of pixie a tomboy might prefer. There was a defiance in her eyes as she regarded him, her phone clutched hard in her hand as she struggled to figure out what to do with her arms. First, she crossed them over her chest, but then dropped them loosely at her sides before moving them behind her back.

“Finding enough work out there?”

She shrugged, her narrow shoulders rolling gracefully under her thin blouse. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“About?”

Her eyes dropped from his face, making him wonder—not for the first time—what she was really doing here at Spencer White and Associates.

Mika set down his glass and crossed to her, taking hold of her upper arms to force her to look up at him. She still refused, however, her eyes glued to the floor.

Why are you here?

He asked with his hands because he couldn’t get her to look at his lips. She turned away, moving across the room to the narrow couch that sat against the far wall of his small office. He watched her take a graceful seat, pulling her skirt down around her thighs. Her hands were shaking slightly, that phone still grasped tightly between thumb and forefingers.

He crossed to her, sitting in the armchair in front of the couch. He leaned forward, once again using his hands because it seemed to be the only way to get her attention despite her insistence that they speak the day before.

You’re not here as a secretary, are you? You’re here for some other reason.

Her eyes finally came up to his.

“Do you get along with Spencer White?”

Mika’s eyebrows rose. “As well as anyone does, I suppose.” He cocked his head slightly, feeling a trap, but not sure why. “What makes you ask that?”

“I heard you were having trouble here. Cutting corners.”

He snorted even though he knew she couldn’t hear the derision, therefore would not understand why he was annoyed by that question.

“People are jealous. I’ve risen up the ranks quicker than anyone else in the office. They gossip about me to make me seem undeserving.”

“Spencer trusts you?”

“As much as he trusts himself, which isn’t much.” He studied her again. “Why are you asking me these things?”

“Do you think it’s possible Spencer might sabotage your promotion to partner?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “What have you heard?”

She suddenly stood and headed for the door. “I have work to do,” she said in that soft monotone of hers, in that voice that would have been like an angel’s if not for her inability to hear it.

He got up and followed her, not sure what it was he wanted from her, but needing to keep her there. Just looking at her sent little shocks of pain through his body, making him ache in places he shouldn’t ache, making him hurt in places that he thought he’d finally healed.

He took her arm and pulled her around, stared into her face for a long moment. She looked at him, too, her eyes filled with emotion he was almost afraid to read. He’d once thought the sun rose and set in her eyes, that his life would forever revolve around the emotion that poured from those expressive eyes. He knew the moment he set eyes on her in that kitchen, that moment when amusement danced in her eyes as she called him out for calling her a bitch, that she was someone he needed in his life, someone who would make all the difference.

He still believed that, and the realization of it broke what was left of his heart.

He wasn’t the same without her.

“Why?” he breathed, so close to her that he knew his breath had brushed the silky skin on her cheek that he so desperately wanted to touch with his fingertips. He wasn’t sure what answer he wanted, what question he was really asking. Why was she here? Why was she asking these questions? Why had she come back into his life after so abruptly leaving it? Why had she left him? Why had she married him in the first place? Why had she said yes the first time he asked her out?

Why?

She pressed her hands to the front of his shirt, both palms pressed flat against his chest. He knew that she could feel his heart pounding, that she knew what being this close to her was doing to him. He didn’t care. He wanted her to know.

He watched his hand slide up from her arm to her shoulder, to the curve of her throat. He watched as his hand shaped itself around her jaw, cupping her face against his own palm. It was so familiar—too familiar—even after so much time. For a brief second, she leaned into his hand, pressed her face against him, and his heart swelled, the broken pieces slowly knitting themselves back together. But then she turned and walked away.

Again.

He had been twenty-four, married barely two years to the woman of his dreams. The first year had been absolute paradise. She was pregnant for most of it, but the pregnancy was a dream, one of those that women brag about and no one really believes. She woke every day with a smile, and every night they’d lie together, watching the baby wiggle around inside of her, his little limbs pressing out against her flesh, an alien that was about to turn their lives upside down. And when he was born, this perfect human being that came from their DNA…it was perfect. Too perfect.

The second year…it was a nightmare of equal proportions. But they had each other, and they somehow made it to the end, clinging to each other. Yet, when it was all said and done, and they could finally look forward, find a path that might not be the same they’d been on before, but could be just as full of promise, she had walked away.

If they’d fought, maybe he would have understood. If they’d exchanged heated words, blamed each other openly and honestly, he might have seen it coming. But one day she was finally out of bed, going through the motions. The next…she was just gone.

It wasn’t right. He looked for her, begged her to come back. She refused to speak to him. Just left him alone with a houseful of memories to dispose of. He did all he could do. He started over.

He was finally back on that path, working for a future, his future. And now she was back.

It wasn’t fair.

He was done. He didn’t want to look at her anymore, didn’t want to deal with her bullshit. He shoved his laptop into its bag and headed out, not even looking at her desk as he barreled past it. The elevator took damn long enough. He shoved his finger against the button more than half a dozen times before it finally opened. And who should be standing beside him as he boarded? Three guesses…

I can ask for a transfer, she signed to him.

He shook his head, not bothering to speak or sign.

She followed him as he exited the building, walking a few steps behind him. He could feel the weight of her presence like a hand pressed against the small of his back. He picked up speed, anger like a little ball in the center of his chest, when everything suddenly went to hell.

A pop sounded across the street, and then a piece of brick exploded off the building a few inches in front of his face. Stevie slammed into him, forcing him down to the ground. He fell, busting his knee in the process, vaguely aware of her standing in a shooter’s stance right in front of him.

“Stevie!” he cried, forgetting for a second she couldn’t hear him.

And then he realized she’d pulled a gun, causing people around them to scream and dive for cover.

What the fuck?

Mika pulled himself up and leaned against the wall. She turned slightly, pushing at him until he stumbled sideways, falling into the opening of the parking garage he’d been walking toward all along. Once he was tucked into the shadows, she ran over to the security booth, jumping up and leaning in through the window, her feet dangling off the ground as she spoke to one of the guards.

“Call 911,” he could hear her saying.

Then she turned and ran toward the building where the shot had come from.

He started to follow, but another pop came just a second before more brick shattered, this time less than an inch from the side of his face.

More screams and more panic from the people walking on the sidewalk in front of the building. Mika ducked back inside the parking garage, feeling like a fool. The security guard ran across the open space toward him, his phone in his hands.

“Are they shooting at you?”

Mika shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Cops are on their way. They said I should make that woman come back, but she didn’t hear me yelling at her, I guess.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“She your bodyguard?”

Mika snorted, and this guy got the meaning. His eyes narrowed slightly.

“Didn’t mean to offend. But she showed her security badge, so I just assumed.”

“Security badge?”

The security guard gave him a sidelong glance and walked away, ducking a little as he ran across the open space back to his booth.

Minutes passed without any sound, any more shots. Stevie sauntered back across the street as the cops pulled up, getting boldly out of their cars as if they weren’t responding to a call of shots fired.

It was like he was on one of his father’s movie sets: everyone calmer than they should have been.

What the hell was happening here?