Page 4 of Dark Seduction

“Sure,” I stammered, trying to wait until my brain caught up. As I strolled to my chair behind my desk with Max gazing at me with this curious glint, and a smirk out of the Joker’s playbook.

“I guess you haven’t figured out why I’m here.” No it wasn’t that. I had this nagging thing in the back of my head about who the dude was sitting near Max across from my desk with an equally disturbing smirk, as if he knew something that I didn’t.

“This is Charles St John,” said Max.

He gave me a wide-open full-toothed smile along with his gleaming fresh blue eyes and said, “You can call me Saint.” I narrowed my eyes slightly, glared at him, and thought that would be the last thing I’d called him, because as young as he was, he had the look of the opposite of a saint. Those eyes, that mouth, and the way he carried his body had all the making of a troubled youth, and had to be someone’s nightmare, whether man or woman, or maybe both.

“I think I’ll call youMr. St. John for the moment. I suppose you’re a client.” My glance wandered over to Max.

“See, I told you, Charles, nothing gets past Cole. He’s the best we have in the legal department involving contracts. That’s what we’re here for today.” Max’s dark eyes met mine. “Charles wants out of his contract on this TV movie where he signed for three seasons—”

“How many seasons has he done so far?”

“I’ve done one season, and I don’t want to continue—”

“I don’t need to know all of that, because I could tell you now, if you signed the contract for three seasons, then it’s practically impossible to break that contract—” Max glanced over at Charles, and Charles narrowed his glance and tightened his jaw.

“I thought you said he’s the best—” Max stood, and I had a thought that tore through my brain. I was going to lose a job I’d wanted that had all these perks that would send my income through the roof. I had promised Daniel that he could retire and travel with me, and he had nothing to worry about.

A man in love would promise the love of his life the world when they were making love and the lovemaking had all the expectations he’d dreamed about all his life. The only problem was no one could predict the future, and the future was uncertain now and staring back at me.

This young man of maybe twenty looked seventeen or nineteen and not a day more, but I knew Max, and if he’d been younger, Max would have had a parent or two traveling with them.

I’d been raised up as the best and the brightest in Max’s law firm, and he’d vouched for me, but I wasn’t Houdini, and evenhecouldn’t make it out of the water. If we took Hercules, who had the task of cleaning the stables of the gods, he could probably get Charlie out of the contract, but I was no Hercules just a mere mortal.

Max’s voice cut through my fears. Max sat again and glared at me with a raised eyebrow.

“You can do this Cole. I have confidence in you.” He rose from his chair. “I have to go now, I’m having lunch with my wife, and I don’t want to be late.” Max turned before he exited my office. I sat with this worried look, my forehead furrowed, and my mouth open. He didn’t give me a chance to explain why this couldn’t be done.

“Take care of our client. He’s important, and at the rate he’s going, he’s going to make money for all of us, if just through recommendations to his young friends.” Max extended his hand, when I stood with him facing me. At the end of his large hand was his finger pointing at me.

“You can do this—” I took a chance and answered him.

“That will be hard to do,” I said.

“At the salary you’re getting paid, hard is easy. We deal in the impossible every day, and you haven’t reached that point yet. I’ll tell you when it goes to impossible, because that’s another step up the ladder you might be looking at in another two years. If it was impossible, I’d have brought it to Wilcox on the thirty-first floor.” And he offered me a closed smile, turned in his expensive blue suit, with an equally expensive white shirt and Italian silk tie.

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