The Bachelor

“What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, fighting a growing panic. She was going to be late. This was just par for today. “It’s two o’clock.”

“And just what time did your fairy godmother tell you to be back?” he teased. He didn’t exactly know why, but everything about Jenny made him think of Cinderella. “Do your clothes start disappearing now, changing into tatters?”

With her thoughts scattering in two directions at once, his words made no sense to her. She absolutely hated being late. She pictured poor Miguel and his family waiting for her in the long courthouse hallway, thinking that she had deserted them. “What?” She began rummaging through her purse for her cell phone, praying that the battery hadn’t been struck dead by some fluke of nature. “No. I mean, I’m due in court at three.”

Taking her wrist, he turned it slightly so he could read the face on her watch, as well. “That still gives you an hour.”

She could feel her skin throbbing where his thumb and forefinger had touched it. “Yes, but I need to call a cab and if there’s traffic—”

He placed his hand over hers to curtail the stream of words he saw coming. Unable to quite read it, Eric found himself curious about the look that leaped into her eyes.

“Why don’t I drive you to court?”

The casual offer had air rushing out of her lungs like helium from a punctured balloon. “What?”

Was it his imagination, or did she look flustered? “Why don’t I drive you to court?” he repeated, then grinned. “That would solve your problem, wouldn’t it?”

All but for the lobotomy his smile was threatening to perform on her brain. She ran the tip of her dry tongue along her drier lips.

“Don’t you have to get back to the office?” she asked hoarsely.

It had been a full, if unproductive morning. “All of today’s crises have been safely averted,” he informed her. “And if a new one crops up, Peter’ll handle it.” He thought of his older brother, shoulder to the wheel, nose to the grindstone. His father couldn’t have asked for a better son to run the company if he had had him made to order. “Peter always handles it.”

Was that a note of sibling rivalry she detected? No, if that were the case, then Eric would have been anxious to get back into the arena. It was more as if he was acknowledging the lines that had been drawn.

“Peter’s very conscientious.” It wasn’t really a guess. Jordan had told her as much.

“That he is,” Eric agreed. “To a fault.” He remembered the way Jenny had come into his office, armed with rhetoric he hadn’t allowed her to unleash. “He’s the one you may have to talk into doing this auction.”

She finished her coffee and crumpled her cup. It was a nervous habit. “Jordan’s done handling that for me.”

He nodded, taking in the information. “Wise choice. Jordan can talk the sun into not setting.” His eyes shifted to her face. Had he just unintentionally insulted her? “No offense to you intended.”

She didn’t follow him. “Offense?”

“I didn’t mean you couldn’t persuade Peter if you wanted to. I’m sure you can be very persuasive if you want to be.”

There it was again, that thousand-watt smile. Even when it was turned down a notch, it completely undid her.

Talk, damn it, Jenny, talk. Answer the man.

She couldn’t just continue to sit here and blush like some single-celled idiot, she told herself. She said the only thing she truthfully could. “I win more cases than I lose.”

It took him a second to remember she was a lawyer. “You mean in court.”

Was he trying to tell her that it didn’t work that way in the world beyond the hallowed halls of justice? “Yes, but—”

He wasn’t completely sure why, but he suddenly had a yen to see her in action for himself. “Would you mind if I came with you?”

“Where?” And then she realized what he was saying. Her eyes widened in surprise and unease. “You mean into court?”

He laughed at her expression. “I don’t think the bailiff will let me listen against the door.” And then he saw a look that was akin to horror cross her face. “Unless having me there will throw you a curve,” he qualified. “I wouldn’t want you jeopardizing the case just because I’ve decided to go touring—”

Damn it, get a hold of yourself before he thinks you’re some weak-kneed loon.

Never mind that she was.

There was absolutely no reason for her heart to suddenly start pounding like this, not unless she was having a genuine heart attack. C’mon, c’mon, you’re made of sterner stuff than this.

A few weeks ago, she’d argued in front of a judge who routinely spit nails and chewed up lawyers for a snack. And she’d won. If she could do that, certainly she could survive having the most gorgeous man in God’s creation sitting in her courtroom, watching her plead a case, she reasoned.

If she kept Miguel’s face uppermost in her mind, she’d be all right, she told herself. And, after all, this was about what amounted to the rest of a man’s life. If she lost, the quality of that life promised to be unbearably low. It was up to her to raise it, to show Miguel Ortiz that not everyone was going to ignore him and the plight he found himself in.

Taking a breath, she found her voice. “No, having you there won’t jeopardize the case.” She jumped on the first excuse that came to her. “I just thought that you might be bored.”

Eric looked at her, that same sensual smile she knew she was never going to become immune to spreading over his generous lips.

“I have a feeling that boredom isn’t going to enter into the picture.”

Taking her elbow, he escorted her from the now crowded coffee shop and out onto the curb. Jenny felt as if she was floating and wondered if her feet actually touched the pavement.

They headed back to Logan Corporation’s building and its underground parking where his Ferrari was patiently waiting. He aimed his key ring at it and disarmed the alarm. “How strong is your case?”

“Very strong.”

She didn’t add that it was because of her endless digging that the case had shaped up the way it had. Every single spare moment after hours that wasn’t earmarked for Cole had been spent interviewing people, gathering information and compiling a case against both the surgeon, Dr. Wilson Turner, and the hospital that had neglected to police the derelict physician.

Because of her tireless efforts, she’d discovered that many in the tight Portland medical community thought Turner was a disaster waiting to happen.

And he had happened to Miguel Ortiz.

“Then this should be interesting,” Eric told her as he held the passenger side door open for her.

What would be interesting, she thought as she got into the vehicle, was whether or not she still remembered how to speak once they finally arrived at the courthouse.

Exposure to the virus, she thought, slanting a glance toward Eric as he started up the car, did not breed immunity.

It only intensified the fever.

Four

E ric negotiated through the early-afternoon traffic in the same manner he negotiated through life, skillfully slipping in and out of any available space and making good time. They made it to the courthouse with ten minutes to spare.

“Jordan didn’t tell me you drove on the NASCAR circuit,” Jenny commented as she got out.

He flashed her what she’d come to think of as a million-dollar grin.