Page 2 of Take the Bait

Asshole.

He reached out and took her hand, which she realized with a start she’d been standing there holding out, like some kind of moron, the whole time they’d been sizing up each other’s physical assets, contemplating screwing each other, and discarding the notion.

Dang it. Had she already stacked up a third strike by standing here forever with her hand out?

No. Definitely not. It was a power move to be the first person to offer one’s hand for a shake and an even bigger power move to wait out one’s opponent, silently insisting he shake hands in return.

Unlike the rest of him, his hand wasn’t sweaty at all. But it was warm. Powerful. And holding her much more slender hand with surprising gentleness.

Huh. She’d fully expected him to wring her hand so hard she winced in pain.

“So,” he murmured…holy crap, without releasing her hand, “you got stuck with the pro bono gig for Wimpy. Who did you piss off?”

Her first reaction was to choke back laughter at the nickname for her new employer. She hadn’t heard that one, yet. It was doubly humorous because WMP was arguably the biggest legal bully in the state of New York. Its senior partners prided themselves on throwing their weight around for the Big Apple’s richest assholes.

She tugged her hand free nervously.

Well, crap. He smirked as he let her hand go, making it clear he could’ve prevented her from withdrawing her hand from his if he’d chosen to.

That didn’t count as strike three against her! It was a sidebar, a personal interaction, and not part of their professional combat.

As for his question about how she got stuck with this case, in truth, she’d volunteered for it when the pro bono case had been assigned to the firm by the court. Since promotions at WMP were heavily weighted toward associates who won the most cases, none of her fellow new hires were eager to take on a wild card case that could be a big fat loser.

She might have come from a mediocre law school and taken her classes at night while she worked days to pay for them, but she was willing to do the dirty jobs and work harder than anyone else to prove she belonged at a fancy firm like WMP. She figured that had to count for something with the senior partners, right?

The fact that she’d offered to take the case had also earned her the heartfelt gratitude, unspoken pity, and faint hint of contempt from her fellow junior associates. But she wasn’t about to tell this ADA that.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” he said conversationally. “I was in the building playing squash with Judge Smythe. Did you know there’s a gym in the basement?”

“I do, now.”

He continued, “Just as we finished, I got an emergency phone call—had to race upstairs to help a new ADA with a deposition going sideways. That ate up my time to shower and change. It was a choice between showing up like this or keeping you waiting.”

“You mean waiting even longer,” she retorted. “You’re nearly a half-hour late.”

“Sorry about that. I blame Judge Smythe. The old geezer’s so competitive he insisted we play a tie breaker to determine a winner. The deposition was merely the cherry on my sundae of tardiness.”

“Uncooperative witness?” she asked in reluctant commiseration.

“Incompetent stenographer.”

“Ahh. That sucks.”

He rolled his eyes. “The D.A.’s office films every deposition, and our sound guy’s great. He’ll have caught everything the witness said. My junior colleague wasn’t aware of that and panicked.” He shook his head. “Defense lawyer’s screwed, though. Didn’t bring a camera, and the printed transcript is gonna be a mess.”

Note to self: ask her boss to pony up for a videographer if this guy ever interviewed her client.

She followed Townsend to the ugly metal table and caught his faint grimace as he stared at it, his gaze abruptly distant as if he was remembering some other table like it. What was that about?

She was distracted, though, when Townsend pulled out one of the heavy metal chairs and gestured for her to have a seat. The polite gesture threw her mentally off balance a lot harder than she cared to admit.

Most men these days didn’t bother with such old-fashioned niceties, and in her experience, most women today felt perfectly capable of opening their own doors and pulling out their own chairs.

“Uhh, thanks,” she mumbled as she sank onto the cold, uncomfortable aluminum.

“Met your client yet?” he asked, moving around to the other side of the table.

Interesting. Townsend had taken the prisoner’s seat. The one facing the two-way mirror and placing his back to the door. Was that another gentlemanly gesture, or was it a subtle statement that he was so confident he didn’t care if he gave her the attorney’s seat?

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