thing.
Maybe not. Maybe he’d just imagined it, because an instant later, her expression was as bland as when he’d first spotted her.
“Welcome to Berkeley, Mr. O’Connell.”
After that, it was all business. She drove him to his hotel, made polite but impersonal small talk through a standard hotel meal in a crowded dining room, shook his hand at the elevator in the lobby and said good-night.
The next morning, she picked him up at eight, chauffeured him from place to place all day and never once said anything more personal than “Would you like to have lunch now?” She was courteous and pleasant, but when he opened the restaurant door for her—something he saw irritated her—and their hands brushed, it happened again.
The rush of heat. The shock of it. And now he saw it register on her face long enough for him to know damned well it really had happened, though by the time they were seated, she was once again wearing that coolly polite mask.
He watched her order a salad and iced coffee, told the waitress he’d have the same thing, and contemplated what it would take to get that mask to slip.
Minutes later, he had the answer.
When he’d had the dubious honor of shuttling Big Names from place to place, he’d boned up on their most recent cases and on things in the news that he’d figured might interest them.
His Ms. Perez had done the same thing. He could tell from the always-positive, always-polite references she made during the course of the morning. She’d read up on his own work and reached conclusions about his stance on the work of others.
What would happen if he rocked her boat? Their salads arrived and he decided to find out.
“So,” he said, with studied nonchalance, “have you been following Sullivan versus Horowitz in Chicago?”
She looked up. “The women suing that manufacturing company for sexual discrimination? Yes. It’s fascinating.”
Cullen nodded. “What’s fascinating is it’s obvious the jury’s going to find for the plaintiffs. How the defense could allow seven women on a jury hearing a case that involves trumped-up charges of corporate discrimination I’ll never—”
Score one. Those gray eyes widened with surprise.
“Trumped up? I don’t understand, Mr. O’Connell.” Maybe it was score two, or had she simply forgotten to reciprocate on the first name thing?
“It’s Cullen. And what don’t you understand, Ms. Perez?”
“You said the charges were—”
“They’re crap,” he said pleasantly. “Shall I be more specific? It’s nonsense that a company shouldn’t have the right to hire and fire for reasonable cause. The manager of that department should never have loaded it with so many women. Not that I have anything against women, you understand.”
He smiled. She didn’t. Score three.
“Don’t you,” she said coldly, and put down her fork. Oh yeah. Definitely, the mask was starting to slip.
“The only reason you believe all that claptrap about affirmative action,” he said lazily, “is because you’re going to benefit from it. No offense intended, of course.”
That had brought a wash of color into her cheeks. It was a stunning contrast—the brush of apricot against her golden skin—and he’d sat there, enjoying the view as much as he was enjoying the knowledge that she was at war with herself.
Was she going to “yes” the honored guest to death, or tell him she thought he was an asshole?
“Hey,” he said, pushing a little harder, “you’re female, you’re Hispanic…Life’s going to be good to you, Ms. Perez.”
That did it. To his delight, what won was the truth.
“I am a lawyer, like you, or I will be once I pass the bar. And I am an American, also like you. If life is good to me, it’ll be because I’ve worked hard.” Ice clung to each syllable. “But that’s something you wouldn’t understand, Mr. O’Connell, since you never had to do a day of it in your entire, born-with-a-silver-spoon life.”
Whoa. The mask hadn’t just slipped, it had fallen off. There was real, honest-to-God, fire-breathing life inside his well-mannered, gorgeous gofer.
She sat back, breathing hard. He sat forward, smiling.
“Nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
“I’ll phone Professor Hutchins. He’ll arrange for someone else to drive you around for the rest of the time you’re here.”
“Did you hear me, Ms. Perez? That was a great performance.”
“It was the truth.”
“Sorry. Wrong choice of words. Mine was the performance. Yours was the real thing. Honest. Emotional. Wouldn’t do in a courtroom, letting it all hang out like that, but a really good lawyer should have at least a couple of convictions he or she won’t compromise on.”
She glared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I told you. Integrity, Ms. Perez. And fire in the belly. You have both. For a while, I wasn’t sure you did.”
He picked up his glass of iced coffee and took a long sip. God, he loved the look on her face. Anger. Confusion. Any other place, any other time he’d have used that old cliché, told her she was even more lovely when she was angry, but this wasn’t a date, this was what passed for a business meeting in the woolly wilds of academic jurisprudence.
Besides, she’d probably slug him if he said something so trite.
“I don’t…What do you mean, you were performing?”
“Monroe versus Allen, Ms. Perez. One of my first big corporate cases—or didn’t your research on me go back that far?”
She opened her mouth, shut it again. He could almost see her mind whirring away, sorting facts out of a mental file.
“Mr. O’Connell.” She took a breath. “Was this some kind of test?”
Cullen grinned. “You could call it that, yeah, and before you pick up that glass and toss the contents at me, how about considering that you’ve just had a taste of what you may someday face in the real world? You want to blow up when stuff like that’s tossed at you, do it here. Out there, you’ll be more effective if you keep what burns inside you. Discretion is always the better part of valor. Opposing attorneys, good ones, search for the weak spot. If they can find it, they use it.” He smiled and raised his glass of iced coffee toward her. “Am I forgiven, Ms. Perez?”
She’d hesitated. Then she’d picked up her glass and touched it to his. “It’s Marissa,” she’d said, and for the first time, she’d flashed a real smile.
Cullen got to his feet, slid open the terrace door and went back into the coolness of the living room.
The rest of the afternoon had passed quickly. They’d talked about law, about law school, about everything under the sun except what happened each time they accidentally touched each other. She’d dropped him at his hotel at five, come back for him at six, driven him to the dinner at which he’d made a speech he figured had gone over well because there’d been smiles, laughter, applause and even rapt concentration.
All he’d been able to concentrate on was Marissa, seated, as a matter of courtesy, at a table near the dais. No black suit and clunky shoes tonight. She’d worn a long silk gown in a shade of pale rose that made her eyes look like platinum stars; her hair was loose and drawn softly back from her face.
The dress was demure. She wore no makeup that he could see. And yet she was the sexiest woman imaginable, perhaps because she wasn’t only beautiful and desirable but because he knew what a fine mind was at work behind that lovely face.
Even