LITMIR.BIZ

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dark circles under her eyes. Despite their tumultuous divorce, and the fact she always returned to Ben like a swallow to Capistrano, he didn’t have the heart to hurt her feelings further. It was so obvious that Meredith was in mourning.

      “No, really, your hair looks…nice,” he murmured, making a mental note not to have Chinese for lunch.

      “Nice—?” Her green eyes took on an expectant gleam that said, “Only one word? Nice?”

      “Nice…and brown,” he amended.

      Too little, too late. The gleam took on a sinister edge. She opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by a second high-pitched female voice.

      “Mer-e-dith!” Heather, whose idea of year-around fashion, rain or shine, was a skimpy shift dress, wrapped her slim brown arms around his ex-wife’s shoulders. They gave each other air kisses. Heather pulled back and appraised Meredith’s new look. “You look cool! Dig your hair, too! That let-it-go look is so in these days.”

      So much for the oriental versus bird themes. It was a let-it-go theme. Dread chilled Ben’s veins as he imagined Meredith redecorating his office—or part of it—in a let-it-go style. He gave his head a shake, trying to dislodge the images of chopsticks and bird’s nests adorning a corner wall.

      Meredith smiled demurely, obviously mollified by the avalanche of Heather’s unsolicited compliments—a far better coup than Ben’s two-word response. She lightly fondled one of the chopsticks. “Thank you. Felt like trying something new.”

      Heather’s blue eyes softened. “Broke up with Dexter, huh?”

      Meredith’s cone lips quivered. She sniffled, loudly, before collapsing into Heather’s arms. Heather, her long blond hair spilling down the gaudy kimono, shot Ben a look. “Don’t you have anything to say?” she asked edgily.

      “You’re late.”

      Heather flashed him an impatient look. “Not to me, to Meredith.”

      “Her hair looks nice and brown. But it’s almost nine and you’re late.”

      Heather huffed something under her breath and continued cradling the distraught Meredith, who was blubbering about Dexter wanting ice cream back.

      Ice cream?

      Ben watched the two of them, his ex-wife and ex-fiancé, and realized he almost had enough exes to play tic-tac-toe. But at thirty-six, he was not in the market for another ex. Or even another current. If anything, he yearned for basic male companionship. Hell, a night of beer and bowling with the boys would suffice. Although, truth be told, he preferred wine, and chess—pastimes he once shared with his best buddy Matt before Matt fell in love and moved to California.

      Since then, the closest Ben ever came to a man-to-man conversation, in a roundabout way, was when Heather would read out loud the “A Real Man Answers Real Questions” column from her favorite magazine, Real Men, where men would ask about everything from the best fishing lines to the best pickup lines. When clients weren’t around, and Heather was out to lunch, Ben sometimes read the questions and answers himself, but he’d rather be caught dead than be seen reading a magazine whose covers were plastered with buffed males grinning smugly over articles like “Australia’s Great Barrier Hunks” and “Chicago’s Hottest Firefighters.”

      When clients were present, he insisted Heather hide the magazine. After all, Ben specialized in employment law—he didn’t need an adversary spying magazines plastered with naked, sweaty males and accusing Ben of gender bias or sexual harassment.

      Heather also read those Venus and Mars books, but Ben didn’t care if she left those on her desk. The covers were sensible. No naked bodies. Gender-fair titles—Venus for women, Mars for men. Sometimes Ben stared at those books, with titles ranging from Mars and Venus on a date to Mars and Venus in the bedroom, and he wondered if there’d ever be a book for men who had somehow landed on Venus but wanted to move to Mars. Because that’s how Ben’s personal life felt. Trapped on Venus, a world filled with former lovers and wives.

      Heather, still cradling the weeping mound of kimono and chopsticks, mouthed, “She’s hurting.”

      Ben mouthed back, “So am I. I need another planet.”

      Two years ago, he’d met Heather at a local bagel shop. The boy behind the counter, enthralled with her beach babe look, waited slavishly on her while a disgruntled Ben bided his time. But when Heather turned those baby blues on him, and gave that head of shimmering blond hair a shake, he had the irrational wish to be her bagel slave, too.

      Within a month, they were engaged and she was the receptionist in his one-man legal firm. But the beach babe was really an ice princess at heart. Six months later, he felt as though he were living with a frozen bagel. When they broke up, he helped her find another apartment, but when she had difficulty landing another job, he told her she could stay. He reasoned that she knew his clients and understood his work style. Besides her penchant for shifts, she was fine at her job.

      He just hadn’t anticipated that his two exes would meld into one giant Super-Ex.

      “Say something to her,” mouthed Heather over Meredith’s heaving shoulder.

      He was a lawyer, dammit, not a heartbreak counselor. But if he had an Achilles heel, it was his heart. He couldn’t stand to purposely hurt someone, especially a female someone. It was undoubtedly the direct result of growing up as the man of the house and being protective of his mom and sis, a habit that spilled over into his other relationships with women.

      He blew out an expanse of air. Say something. “Sorry he wanted that ice cream back.”

      Meredith spun around so fast, he thought he was watching a remake of The Exorcist. “Ring!” she squealed. Her voice rose so high, he swore he heard the distant barking of dogs. “He wanted the ring back, not the ice cream!”

      Heather, swishing back her straight blond hair with a shake of her head, glared at him accusingly. “How could you be so insensitive?”

      Meredith, obviously on a self-pitying roll, added, “You never cared for me when we were married, either!”

      As he stared at those two furious faces, scrunched into seething looks he’d seen a zillion times before, a third face appeared behind them. A heart-shaped face topped with a wild mop of brown curls, one of which spiraled down her forehead, like the little girl who, when she was good, was very, very good but when she was bad…

      “Are you Benjamin Taylor, P.C.?” the good-bad girl asked.

      No, I’m the insensitive, uncaring ex-husband-fiancé lout who doesn’t know the difference between an ice cream and a ring. “Yes.”

      “I litigate?” she asked.

      He paused. “I don’t know. Do you?”

      He swore her curls quivered as her brown eyes narrowed. “Your license plate,” she said tightly. “Is it I-L-I-T-I-G-8?”

      “Did somebody hit my car?” He shot out of his seat.

      “No, but you were almost rear-ended,” she said, her voice dropping to an ominous register. “By me.” She leaned forward, her small point of a chin leading the way. “You stole my parking spot, you…you…thieving BMW litigating lummox.”

      Litigating lummox?

      Meredith and Heather glanced at the angry woman, then, as though by osmosis, seemed to absorb her animosity. Turning back, they intensified their glares at Ben, which created a triad of furious females blocking his doorway. What was it with women? If one went to the bathroom, they all went. If one hated you, they all did. Ben hadn’t even finished his morning cup of coffee, and he’d already pissed off three women…and one of whom he’d never seen before in his life!

      It was the beginning of another glorious day in the life of Benjamin Taylor.

      But confrontation was a lawyer’s middle name. Twisting the corners of his mouth into a professional smile, he said

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