She paced in front of me, the prosecutor laying out the facts for the jury.

"Right."

"I think he's into you. I mean, if he wasn't attracted to you, then what would he have to be nervous about?"

I nodded, and she went on, counting her points on the tips of her long, thin fingers. "I also find it interesting how quickly he responded. It's like he was actually waiting for your response. Hence, showing more than just a casual interest."

I couldn't help but smile at her. "Which one of us is going to be a lawyer again?"

"I am a woman of many talents." She gave me an elaborate bow.

"Don't I know it."

"Honey," she said, with a grin splitting her face, "you don't know the half of it."

Chapter 13: Bianca.

Dear Bianca, Your absence was noted at this year's Fourth of July party. In all truth, we hoped you would have given up on this childish charade by now. As of yet it hasn't been necessary to make a statement about your ill-advised decision to remain in New York and postpone taking the bar. Unless such an instance occurs in which we need to answer the question directly, we will continue to provide a non-answer. Please persist with maintaining a low profile so that we can avoid any unnecessary complications.

Sincerely, Mom and Dad Their first communication in over a month, and not even one sentence had been wasted asking how I was. I reread the e-mail for the second time before closing it without a response. What was there to even say? Their indifference stung, and the good mood I'd maintained for weeks immediately plummeted.

Just in time for my dinner with Ian.

I ran a hand over my face, careful not to smear any of my painstakingly, but lightly, applied makeup. Harper had already come and gone, certifying my outfit as casual dinner appropriate. I still felt underdressed in a jean skirt and a scoop-neck green shirt with short cap sleeves. Harper's supposition-if he really wasn't attracted to me, then he wouldn't bother scoping out my rack.

Taking one last quick look in the mirror, I slipped on a pair of wedge sandals that made my legs look impossibly long, and headed out front. While I preferred to walk, I also preferred not to show up at the restaurant smelling like a dirty gym locker. Stepping up to the curb, I waved down a cab.

Sliding into the seat, I gave the driver the address, wrinkling my nose at the stench of cigarette smoke that clung to his clothes like a nasty perfume. My phone let out a little ding as I leaned back against the seat.

Ian: I got us a table. Just give Zack my name and he'll bring you back.

Not the host, or the person at the front, but Zack. So, this was a place he'd been before. Maybe someplace he went to often if he knew the waitstaff by name.

I've always detested people who respond to text messages with one word responses-ok, yes, no, or the absolute worst-k. So, I opted for no response. I'd be there in a few minutes anyway.

I pa.s.sed forward the fare when we stopped, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The wind whipped my hair in front of my face, tugging my shirt away from my skin and sending a round of gooseb.u.mps traipsing up my bare stomach. A horn blared as I pulled open the door to Brady's, the sound of it getting cut off when the door closed behind me.

I'd looked the place up online beforehand, checking out the menu so I knew exactly what I would order ahead of time. The best way to describe it would be to say that it was a pub, similar to Blackrose, but smaller, cozier. The room was edged with booths, a few high-top tables breaking up the open floor s.p.a.ce. A bar was pushed up against one wall; a row of TVs circled the outer edge.

We still had some time before tonight's baseball games, but already the fans were starting to trickle in, outfitted in their teams' jerseys. So far, I spotted a handful of Yankees and Mets fans, with the odd sprinkling of Red Sox, Phillies, and a random Cubs fan thrown in for good measure. The place would be a madhouse in no time, I was sure.

"Evening, ma'am. Can I get you a table or will you be sitting at the bar?"

I searched in vain for some type of nametag to see if this was Zack. His burgundy T-shirt held the restaurant's logo, but nothing else. "Actually, I'm looking for Ian."

"Are you now? And who would you be?" Folding his arms across his chest, he drew his eyes from my toes all the way to the top of my head. A small part of me would have been flattered that he was checking me out; he had an older, George Clooney, s.e.xy vibe going on. Except there was absolutely no heat in his gaze. If anything, I would describe it as frosty. Judgmental and frosty.

"I'm Bianca," I said with a pointed glare. "Look, he told me to give you his name when I got here. Is there a problem?" I tipped my chin up, infusing as much of my mother's authoritative tone as I could manage into my voice. I hated that tone. Mainly because it was always accompanied by a flare of her nostrils and an imperious lift of her eyebrow, but there were times when it served its purpose.

He laughed, a full belly laugh that started all the way down in his toes and took its time vibrating up through his broad chest and out through his lips. Using two fingers, he smoothed out his salt and pepper goatee. "No, no problem." His head tilted toward the back. "Back booth on your left."

"Thank you." I tucked my purse tighter under my arm and stepped around him. A few quick strides had me to the booth Zack pointed out. I came up alongside the high-backed booth and found Ian fiddling with his phone, one leg bouncing a mile a minute.

"Hey." Sliding across the red leather bench, I scooted my purse up against the wall and folded my hands in my lap.

"Hey," he replied, letting out a heavy breath.

"Is everything okay?" I frowned. "I'm not late, am I?" I searched the room to my left for a clock, but couldn't find one. I was sure I was right on time, a few minutes early even. "Late" wasn't a word that existed in my vocabulary.

"No, no, you're not late. It's just when you didn't answer me . . ." Ian shrugged, the left corner of his mouth tugging up into a smile. "Forget it."

Wrapping both hands around his pint of beer, he rotated the gla.s.s, his fingers creating tracks through the frosted condensation. Seconds pa.s.sed, then a full minute. I nibbled on my lip, keeping my hands rooted in my lap to keep them from tapping out a rhythm on the tabletop.

"So, what's the deal with Zack? Family, friend . . . bodyguard?" I gave a short laugh.

Ian chuckled, his eyes still studying the amber liquid in front of him. "Just a friend. He didn't give you a hard time, did he?" By the time he got around to asking the question, he'd finally been able to haul his eyes up to meet mine.

"Not really, he just seemed a little protective of you."

"Yeah." As we trailed into silence again and his eyes shifted away from mine, I let my gaze roam over him. No thermal tonight, but a black V-neck T-shirt on top. His hair had a haphazard messiness going on that made it unclear whether it was natural bed head or the effects of actual styling.

Inevitably, my eyes drifted down to the artwork that patterned his arm. From where I sat, I could pick out a blue daisy and a fox, the edge of a pocket watch peeking out from the edge of his sleeve. Someday I'd like to take the time to luxuriate in their details and unravel their hidden meanings. a.s.suming they had meaning, that is, and that I ever had the opportunity to study him that closely.

The appearance of our waitress put an end to our conversational stalemate. Her voice was velvety and smooth like a cup of thick hot chocolate, flowing out from between lips that were painted an obscenely bright shade of red. "Can I get you something to drink, hun?"

"Perrier, please."

She nodded and looked over to Ian, letting one finger trail across her collarbone. "You ready to order, or do you need a few more minutes? I'd be happy to come back."

I gave my head a little shake, but Ian seemed completely oblivious to her innuendo. He looked over to me. "Do you need a minute?"

"No, I'm good. I'm going to have a chicken Caesar salad, dressing on the side, please."

"Alright." She scribbled into her notepad. "For you, Ian? Your usual?"

I shot a look between the two of them. She knew him too?

"Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks."

"Anytime." Tucking the pen into her ap.r.o.n, she gave him a quick wink and disappeared.

"Come here a lot?" I asked.

He grinned. "How could you tell?"

"Besides everyone knowing your name?"

"Ah." He leaned back against the wood back of the booth, dropping his hands out of view. "Yeah, my name is no secret around here."

I leaned my arms against the tabletop and angled toward him. It was brief, just a millisecond, but I caught his gaze detouring from my face southward. Interesting. "You mind letting me in on the secret?"

His forehead creased as he drew his eyebrows together. I liked his eyebrows, which all in all was an odd sentiment to have. But they were thick and bold, not plucked and waxed like some guys had taken to doing. "What secret?"

"Your name." I laughed. "I've only caught the first half of it."

"Right." He laughed with me, shaking his head to himself. He reached his hand across to the table toward me. "Ian Xavier Mathis."

I fit my hand into his. "Bianca Catherine Easton."

"It's very nice to officially meet you." Perhaps involuntarily, he circled the rough pad of his thumb against the back of my hand, and it felt like someone took a full syringe of electricity and shot it straight into my veins.

"Likewise."

His thumb stilled its pattern tracing, his smile slipping just a fraction of an inch, and he pulled his hand back to his side of the table. Reaching for his beer, he took a healthy swallow. "So, are you from around here?"

I sat back as the waitress finally returned with my Perrier. Cracking it open, I slipped the straw in and took a small sip, letting the bubbles dance across my tongue. "No, Texan born and raised."

"Really? I'd never have guessed that." His eyes narrowed as he scratched a finger against his chin. "There's not even a hint of southern tw.a.n.g that comes through in your voice."

"Well, my tutor would be very happy to hear that." I rolled my eyes at that memory, and the hours I'd spent eradicating that exact drawl from my voice. "How about you?"

"I'm from upstate originally, moved to the city a few years back. My brother lives in the city too, but my mom's still up north. Your family still in Texas?"

"Yup, my parents are still there." Hoping to make a move to DC soon, though, I finished the thought in my head.

"No siblings?"

I drew my lip between my teeth and bit down on it, shaking my head. "Nope, just me." An odd, but familiar, pang hit me squarely in the chest, and I felt the vibrant smile on my face starting to wane. Ian shifted forward toward me, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he took in my change in expression. Fending off his oncoming question and rearranging my features into a happier semblance, I asked, "So, what do you do here in the city? Job-wise, I mean."

"I'm a musician."

I took a moment to swallow down a mouthful of my drink. "Would I have heard any of your stuff?"

He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. "I guess that depends on what kind of music you listen to."

"Cla.s.sical music mostly. You don't happen to play the violin or the piccolo, do you?"

He barked out a laugh that was nearly drowned out by the steadily increasing volume of the crowd around us. "C'mon, can you actually picture these dainty things flying across the keys of a piccolo?" Holding his hands up at me, he wiggled his fingers.

In the past ten minutes, the temperature had spiked upwards a good ten degrees as people packed in around us, but with that comment, it easily went up another twenty. I could certainly picture his hands, his very large hands, doing plenty of things, but they had absolutely nothing to do with a piccolo.

I covered my mouth with my hand and cleared my throat, turning it into a semi-believable cough. Taking a pull of Perrier through the red-striped straw, I swallowed it down and firmly jerked my mind out of the gutter. "Fine, no piccolo, no violin." I crossed my arms across my chest and surveyed him through narrowed eyes. I held out my hand toward him and curled my fingers in a gimme gesture. "Let me see your hands."

He hesitated for a moment, suspicion coating his features. I flicked my fingers at him again. Giving in, he leaned forward on his elbows and extended a hand in my direction. I turned it so that it was palm up, valiantly resisted the urge to trace the lines that crisscrossed his palm, and instead ran my thumb along the tip of his thumb and forefinger. Calluses-just like I expected.

"Guitar," I said with a smug grin, releasing his hand and relaxing into the high back of the booth behind me.

"Impressive deductive reasoning skills." He nodded. "So, how about you? You don't happen to be a violinist, do you?"

"No, although," I held up a finger, "I play a mean piano. But, for my brief stay in the city, I'm moonlighting as a waitress."

His beer stilled on its route to his mouth. "Brief stay?"

"Yeah, I'll be calling this place home until December."

"And then?"

"Back to Texas, pa.s.s the bar, take a position at my father's old firm."

His eyebrows shot up, and it seemed the powers of movement returned to him as his pint gla.s.s finally made it to his mouth. "So, why the layover?"

The waitress returned with our dinners, pressing pause on our conversation. I twirled my fork between my fingers, picking up the thread of conversation once the waitress had, reluctantly, left us.

"I told you about the list I'm finishing for my friend?"

Ian nodded, his mouth too stuffed to do anything more. Turns out his "usual" was an enormous double burger covered in what looked like onion rings, barbecue sauce, and possibly even a mozzarella stick or two. For my purposes, I referred to it as the Heart Attack Special.

"Well, one of the items on the list is to live here for six months on my own. So, here I am." I shrugged and dunked a few pieces of lettuce in dressing.

Swallowing down his mouthful, his tongue darted out to lick away an errant drop of barbecue sauce. He caught me staring at his lips, and I was willing to bet that the flush working its way through my cheeks was even worse than the one creeping across his.

I got into Columbia Law on early admission, but apparently this-determining if this ridiculously hot, somewhat odd guy was actually attracted to me-I couldn't do. And without my brain bogged down by schoolwork, my s.e.x drive seemed to be making its obnoxious presence known. Welcome to life after grad school, where your brain is no longer firmly rooted in your skull, but has migrated south and taken up new residence in your lady parts.

Ian looked at me in question, and I realized I'd missed whatever he said since I was too busy fantasizing about his tongue on my lips.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"The list, do you have a copy of it?"

"Uh, yeah." Sifting through my purse I pulled out the extra copy I'd made, unfolded it, and slid it across the table to him. I carried it with me just in case inspiration struck.

He wiped his hands on the half-shredded paper napkin, and picked it up. I pushed a crouton around my plate while he read, debating how much I wanted to eat it versus how much I probably shouldn't. Complex carbohydrates were the devil.

"This should be our thing," he said.

"Our thing?"

"Yeah." He smiled at me. His face was made for smiling. It was the kind of smile that made you involuntarily smile back until your cheeks ached from the effort. "I could help you with some of these if you like. Or, not help really, but tag along if you didn't want to do them alone. That's a.s.suming that you don't have anyone to do them with, and . . . I'm rambling." He brushed a hand through his hair, drawing his shirt tight across his chest. He looked so adorably uncomfortable.

"I'd love the company." I speared another round of lettuce leaves. "While we're on the subject"-or at least hovering near it-"is there maybe a girlfriend at home who's going to be annoyed that you're hanging out with me?"