Page 65 of Monster

I blinked. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It just doesn’t shock me that my mother’s fighting you on it. She doesn’t quite have all of her priorities in line sometimes.”

He reached for his wine. “Is there anything in the kitchen missing that you’d like there? A type of wine, or ice cream perhaps?”

“You’re not going to answer my question, are you?”

I got my answer when all he did was take a sip of his wine. So, I played along.

“Some coffee gelato to have if I ever wake up in the middle of the night would be nice,” I said.

He set his wine down. “Noted. Though, now I’m curious: what makes you get up in the middle of the night for ice cream?”

I picked up my wine. “Nightmares.”

His eyes held mine. “What do you have nightmares about?”

I took a long pull from my glass and refused to answer him, like he just did me. And when that cheeky little grin of his spread across his face, I knew he got the picture.

“Okay, okay. I hear you loud and clear,” he said.

I smiled. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

The door behind me opened and I turned around to see a parade of food coming in our direction. Our plates of lobster and steak were sat in front of us before a bowl of exotic fruits was placed in the middle of the table. The mushroom sauce steamed in a small boat pourer and the fresh loaf of bread called to me, especially with the creamy butter that almost looked freshly churned.

And after preparing my plate the way I wanted it, Teo’s voice sounded again with yet another question.

“Do you miss work at all?”

I cut into my steak with ease. “Actually, I do.”

“What do you miss about it?”

I dipped the steak into the mushroom sauce spreading on my plate. “I don’t know. I think I just miss the feeling of helping. You know, feeling useful. Like I made a difference.”

“It’s nice to speak with someone that hasn’t lost their passion to help others.”

I nodded. “It’s what got me interested in being an attorney in the first place. I mean, it’s a family business, sure. But, I’ve always been my own person. And when I made the decision to go to law school and follow in my mother’s footsteps, I felt ready to take on the world. I wanted to make a positive impact in people’s lives. I wanted to defend those who usually didn’t have a defense. I wanted to go after those kinds of public figures that no one else dared to go after.”

“You wanted to put your life on the line to help someone else.”

I took a bite of my steak and chewed it slowly, savoring the decadence of it all. I moaned softly to myself as my eyes fluttered closed with the easy summer sun gracing my bare shoulders.

It wasn’t until I opened my eyes that I saw Teo staring at me with a mixture of awe and shock on his face.

“What?” I asked.

He took a bite of his lobster. “Nothing. You just keep surprising me, is all.”

I shrugged. “I do that to people sometimes. I mean, I know my mother can be ruthless, but I think people wrongly equate me to be exactly like my mother. And I’m not.”

“No, you most certainly aren’t.”

My eyes found his. “What does that mean?”

He stabbed at a piece of passionfruit. “Why did you study law in the first place? I mean, what drew you to it? Other than your family, of course.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You aren’t going to answer any questions about yourself, are you?”

“Depends on the question.”

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