LITMIR.BIZ

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      Really? That was exactly what she liked to do. And he had a gift for making women feel like he truly saw them. His golden-brown eyes never wandered when he spoke.

      Elaine knew she absolutely should not have felt that frisson of awareness when he said her name, and she certainly wished she could forget it now. Unfortunately the memory popped to mind to torment her at the most inopportune times. She’d remembered it vividly, for example, the day Ryder had informed the judge that her husband had fallen out of love years ago, but hadn’t wanted to “hurt” her.

      Bastard, Elaine had thought at the time, fairly certain she ought to have meant her husband, but actually referring to Mitch. There had been times during the divorce proceedings when he’d turned to her and she could have sworn she’d seen regret in his eyes. Or maybe it had been pity. The emotion had been little more than a flash, in any case. Most of the time, he’d seemed devoid of feeling, even toward his own client.

      To Elaine, though, every word uttered in that courtroom had felt deeply, agonizingly personal. God, she’d hated everything about the divorce. She’d felt drained, pummeled every single day. And, finally, she’d felt that most frightening of feelings: dead indifference.

      That’s when she had given up, told her lawyer at the lunch break to ask for half the proceeds from the sale of her and Kevin’s home and to let the rest go. No alimony. He could keep the expensive antiques and the vacation home, the bonds and the stock portfolio. Half of everything should have been hers, but she didn’t care anymore. It cost too much to fight.

      Her attorney had been violently opposed, of course, but Elaine hadn’t budged. The day it was all over, she’d walked to a city park near the court building and perched stiffly on a wrought iron bench. Wrapped in a winter coat, numb to the wind chafing her skin, she’d sat and stared at a fountain for who knows how long, until a young couple claimed the bench opposite hers….

      In their early twenties, dewy even in frigid December, their giggles were at once intimate yet somehow universal. With the sack lunches they’d brought discarded beside them, they snuggled and kissed, pausing now and again to stare at their own clasped hands as if they had never seen such a romantic sight.

      Watching them, Elaine felt her chest squeeze and her throat start to close, and she realized it had been years since she’d known what it was like not merely to be young, but to feel that way. To feel fresh and ripe with plans and giddily, incautiously in love.

      Swallowing the grief that surged to her throat, Elaine rose from the bench, turned to walk away and found herself locking gazes with Mitchell Ryder. He stood fifty feet ahead of her, carrying his briefcase. Wearing a wool trench coat, he looked like he belonged in a window seat at Higgins Restaurant, not standing in line at a two-dollar-a-piece Polish dog stand. He stared at her with the same steady intensity with which she’d gazed at the lovers, and Elaine knew instantly he’d been watching her the whole time. The expression in his eyes was different from any she had seen there before. Mitchell “The Eel” Ryder was looking at her with what could only be called compassion.

      Embarrassment threatened to drown her. She walked away, moving quickly along the crowded city block, but her wobbly legs wanted to give out. When the Heathman Hotel appeared on her left, she darted in, heading immediately for the bar.

      Normally a white wine spritzer gal with a one-drink limit, Elaine sat down and ordered a brandy. She didn’t even bother to take off her coat. At this moment she thought she might never feel warm again.

      Her drink hadn’t even been served yet when Mitch Ryder slipped onto the bar stool next to her. He said nothing for several moments, didn’t glance her way, merely called for an expensive scotch and waited for it to arrive. Then still without looking at her, he said in a hushed tone, “Why did you give up? You could have held out for more than you got. A lot more. Your lawyer should have made you see it through.”

      He sounded angry, which Elaine thought was a little ironic, considering.

      Brandy snifter cupped between her cold palms, she drank quickly, too quickly, but the brandy burned a path to her stomach that at least served the purpose of making her feel warm. She sat, trying not to cough, focusing instead on the heat. After a moment, the drink gave her a pleasantly light-headed feeling, and fortified, she answered, “I don’t want to ‘see the divorce through.’ I wanted to see my marriage through. And I don’t want more money. I just want it to be over.”

      In the silence that ensued, Elaine finished her drink, but instead of getting up to leave, which had been her plan, she ordered another. She had a question for Mr. Ryder, too, and it burned like the brandy. “Why did you represent Kevin?”

      A muscle jumped in Mitch’s jaw. Beneath the dulcet music and soft murmur in the Heathman’s classic lounge, he answered, “It wasn’t personal. It was business.”

      It was an awful answer, and she said so. Her husband had cheated on her. Either you were a person who cared about that kind of thing or you weren’t.

      For the first time since he’d sat down, Mitch turned toward her fully. “I am,” he said. The stern masculinity so characteristic of his face seemed even more sober today. “Covington asked me to handle the case.”

      Henry Covington was the founding partner of Mitch and Kevin’s firm. Elaine remembered he was also a law professor and that the younger partners thought of him as their mentor.

      “If it means anything at all, I regretted that decision every time I walked into the courtroom.” His gaze remained focused and steady.

      Elaine stared back a long while without answering. The brandy snifter was still in her hands. Taking a last, long swallow, she set the glass on the bar and opened her purse to pay for her drink.

      Without warning, Mitch’s hand covered hers. “Don’t leave….”

      Huddled against the back door, out of sight, Elaine closed her eyes.

      She now wished she had left. She should have left.

      Mitch Ryder was officially her biggest, baddest mistake ever. Her only consolation from that night until present day had been her assumption that she would never see the man again.

      Forcing herself to open her eyes, one at a time, she stood up slowly, peeking out the window.

      He was gone. The mower stood alone in the middle of the yard. Smooshing her cheek against the glass, Elaine strained to see to her right and caught sight of him as he rounded the corner of the house. Leaving the ice cream on the counter, she ran to the living room. If she lifted the edge of the curtain just a little…

      When the doorbell rang, she yelped. Traversing the space from window to door quickly on bare feet, she placed her palms on the door, leaned forward and looked through the peephole.

      Feeling her heart flutter as she peered at Mitch Ryder’s face, she thought, Don’t panic, willing her heart to settle into an even rhythm so she could think clearly. There was no need to panic.

      Except that six months ago, she had agreed to have another drink with Mitch Ryder and, for the first time in her life, gotten too toasted on brandy to drive home. The next day all she could remember was that they’d gotten into her car that night and she’d awakened in her big king-size bed the next morning…

      Alone.

      Nude.

      And she almost never slept nude.

      Lying under three-hundred-thread-count sheets in her thirty-seven-year-old birthday suit she had been hungover, yes, but curiously serene.

      Since she had neither seen nor spoken to Mitch since that night, today she had no idea whether he was the second lover she had ever had in her life or merely…the divorce lawyer who had seen her naked. Either way—

      That he had shown up today was positively too cruel. First Stephanie with her glad tidings and now this.

      Resting her forehead on the door, Elaine barely resisted the urge to knock herself unconscious against the solid wood panel.

      Please

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