Page 4 of The Perfect Deception

“Then why would you think oth­er­wise of me?”

She blinked. For the first time he no­ticed her eyes were vi­o­let.

“You’re right. I made a snap judg­ment based on your car and your clothes, and I don’t know what else.” She played with her wa­ter glass be­fore con­tin­u­ing. “If I weren’t al­ready treat­ing you to din­ner, I would now.”

He sat back in the booth. “There’s al­ways dessert.” He winked. He couldn’t tell who was more sur­prised, he or Dina. Be­cause de­spite her in­cor­rect as­sump­tions about him, he was start­ing to en­joy him­self.

She ran a hand through her hair, fin­gers get­ting caught in the tiny knots caused by the rain. “So, what do you like to read?”

Her hair in­trigued him and he re­sponded with­out think­ing. “Ac­tu­ally, I love read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and comic books.” Dammit, why had he just told her that? He’d never told any­one about his fond­ness for those sub­jects—the peo­ple he hung out with wouldn’t un­der­stand. It didn’t ex­actly fit his im­age, at least, not the one he pro­jected. He should have said mys­ter­ies. Or thrillers. Maybe she’d drop the sub­ject.

“Re­ally? I never would have thought that about you. I’ve al­ways found su­per­heroes ap­peal­ing, though.”

He should let the sub­ject drop. “My fa­vorite is Cap­tain Amer­ica. His sto­ries make me nos­tal­gic.”So much for that idea.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

At his quizzi­cal look, she con­tin­ued. “If we get any­thing in­ter­est­ing in the li­brary. Why does Cap­tain Amer­ica make you nos­tal­gic?”

Damn.He played with his wa­ter glass. “My mom used to read them to me.”

The server came with their burg­ers. As he set down the plates, Adam used the time to try to think of a dif­fer­ent sub­ject. Any sub­ject to turn the con­ver­sa­tion in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion. Be­fore he could put to­gether a co­her­ent sen­tence, Dina spoke again.

“Do you like work­ing at your firm?”

He swal­lowed. Talk about chang­ing sub­jects. “It has its chal­lenges. It’s my dad’s firm. I started there be­cause it was ex­pected of me, and a smaller firm pro­vides great learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences. But it’s hard be­ing the son of the lead part­ner, be­cause ev­ery­one watches you to see how you’re treated.”If you screw up, it’s even worse.He shrugged, let­ting his mouth spread in a half-smile. He looked around. God, he wished they served al­co­hol.

Her tone was sooth­ing. “I’ll bet hav­ing peo­ple’s eyes on you all the time must be dif­fi­cult. Be­cause even if they’re not judg­ing you, you sort of al­ways think they are.”

This com­plete stranger un­der­stood. He looked at her over his burger. Her eyes re­ally were lovely. Her long lashes made shad­ows on her creamy skin. Her lips were pretty too.

“It’s one of the rea­sons I want to move to a larger New York City firm. The hours are longer, but the sep­a­ra­tion would be worth it.”

“Do they still make their lawyers work all night? I mean, you’re not fresh out of law school any­more, right? My cousin is a lawyer and he never left the of­fice when he worked for one of those big firms.”

“I’m al­most four years out and the hours will be a lot more than here, but no, I shouldn’t need to work all night. Es­pe­cially if I can leave where I am as a ju­nior part­ner.”Which right now was a crap­shoot, es­pe­cially if I keep screw­ing up.

“Do you think you’ll make it?”

It had been a long time since he’d talked to a woman who showed gen­uine in­ter­est in him. Most of the ones he as­so­ci­ated with wanted noth­ing more than a hookup or a rich boyfriend who could spend a lot of money on them. He found him­self warm­ing to her. “I’m not sure, but I’m hope­ful.”

The bill came and he whipped out his credit card. They reached for the check at the same time. Their hands touched. A jolt of some­thing ran up his arm. Be­neath his fin­gers, her hand fit per­fectly. He wished he could sit longer like this.

“I said I was go­ing to pay,” she said.

Her voice broke what­ever spell he’d fallen un­der. When she pulled her hand, and the bill, away, she broke the phys­i­cal bond as well. His hand felt empty. He moved it to his lap, clench­ing it in a fist.

“It’s not nec­es­sary, Dina. I was happy to help.”

“I wasn’t very nice and this is my way of apol­o­giz­ing.”

He tipped his head in ac­knowl­edge­ment. “Next time, it’s on me.”

As they walked to­ward the cashier, she shrugged her shoul­ders. “Did you know about sev­enty-five per­cent of men aren’t com­fort­able let­ting the woman pay the check?”

He looked at her askance. “Can I have your num­ber?” What the hell was he do­ing?

She shook her head and he thought she would refuse, but she rat­tled off her num­ber. “You’ll prob­a­bly be a suc­cess­ful New York at­tor­ney by the time you think of do­ing this again.”