Page 6 of By Invitation Only
CHAPTER TWO
Ididn’t see Sam the rest of the weekend. Granted, it was probably because I didn’t leave my condo except to go to my parents’ for our weekly Sunday night dinner. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it on purpose or if my brain was conveniently making up stuff for me to do instead of leaving, but I’d cleaned my entire place top to bottom, put some old clothes in a garbage bag to donate to Goodwill, and caught up on a lot of TV shows on my DVR. It was a productive weekend, and I didn’t hear a peep from Sam’s side.
No thumps.
No moans.
No screams.
And he never came back to my door.
Monday started like a lot of them did. I had to be in court first thing before heading into the office. I had a Settlement Conference on the docket, and luckily opposing counsel and I had come up with an agreement. No trial would need to be set, and it would save time and money for the clients. But I had another hearing that I knew wouldn’t be so easy. It was against an attorney who liked to drag issues out.
Dressed in a black pantsuit with a white blouse, I went through the metal detector and then made my way to the courtroom where my first hearing was scheduled. There were three different courtrooms that heard various family law cases throughout the day. When I entered the room with no windows, I took a seat in the back row next to my client who was already there.
“Morning, Derek. How are you?”
He turned his head to me. “I’ll be better once this shit is over with. Paps are following me around more than usual.”
A warm smile spread across my face. “That explains the few in the parking lot.”
Derek was an A-list actor. It also helped that he was easy on the eyes. He had a scruffy vibe going with shaggy brunette hair and a beard the ladies went crazy for. He was getting divorced from another actress because they’d each found other people they wanted to be with.
“I guess I should be used to it, though.”
“Living in the limelight does have their perks. That’s how you met Maggie, right?” Derek was already engaged to another actress, Maggie Sharp.
“Yeah, we met on the set of Manmade,” he confirmed.
I’d seen the blockbuster hit about a synthetic drug that burned one-percent of body fat with every dose. Derek played a doctor, and Maggie was his patient who didn’t follow the correct dosage. The premise was he had to save her before side effects killed her. Then, of course, the characters fell in love—apparently on and off screen.
The judge entered the courtroom, and we stood, waiting for him to take his seat before returning to ours. The bailiff called the Judge’s first case, and I watched as Booker Jameson (who I had my second case against) and Regina Rinks approached the designated tables in front of the judge with each of their clients.
I had a good rapport with Regina. We had the same way of doing things. We both wanted to get everything filed timely and have the cases settled in the six months it took for a divorce to finalize in the state of California.
Booker, on the other hand, liked to be difficult. He represented a lot of female clients, and I was almost positive they retained him because of his British accent, dreamy blue eyes, short blond hair that spiked up as if he just fixed it real quick after fucking a chick and, of course, his beard. A lot of women liked beards, and I did have to admit Booker looked sexy with his. When I first met him, I’d swooned at those features too. It was hard not to.
Until I realized how cocky he was.
He didn’t have a bad reputation, but I was positive he and Sam shared the same nightly extracurricular activities. He just had that way about him. His panty-melting smile didn’t help either.
I grabbed my phone from my purse to check emails and pass the time as I waited for my case to be called.
“We’re unable to come up with a Settlement Agreement, Your Honor,” Booker stated.
I tried to tune him out, I really did, but his accent was like silk moving across my skin. I looked up briefly, rolled my eyes, and returned back to my phone. After a few more minutes, the bailiff called my case. Derek and I stood, and we started walking down the middle aisle. Booker and Regina were gathering their belongings, so we waited for them to leave. I turned at the sound of the wood door opening to see Ernie Berg and Derek’s wife walk in the doors.
Regina left first, and we smiled at each other, and then Booker turned. His blue eyes met my brown ones, and he winked. He winked!
Jackass.
I stilled as he passed me. Instantly, the scent of sandalwood and musk hit me.Damnit! He smelled good too.
I did my best not to look at him as I moved around him so I could start my hearing.
My first hearing was short and sweet. We settled the case, and I had an hour or so before my next one against Booker. I decided to go outside to soak up some sun. Every day that I had court, I took the stairs. It was my thing. I didn’t go to the gym or anything of that nature, so I figured taking the stairs justified my laziness. At least that was what I told myself.
As I made my way down the stairwell from the third-floor courtrooms, I heard the door behind me open and then footsteps descend. I didn’t think anything of it until my name was called.
