“So he’s a player,” Melissa said in disgust. “Do you think he’s trying to go for round two?”
“There’s more to it than that. He’s Neil’s cousin. The groomsman his mother called you about. And I only just found out yesterday.”
Melissa gasped. “What?”
“And there’s more.” Blair found herself spilling out the whole story about the animosity between the two men and the engagement ring, but she left out the part about him taking her home. There was only so much humiliation she could take in one day.
Melissa leaned forward to get a better look at Blair’s left hand. “He actually claimed the ring?”
“Neil and his mother just about flipped their shit, and I could tell that Garrett loved every minute of it.”
“So he’s here to stir up trouble.”
Blair nodded slowly. “Looks like it.”
“Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me.”
“I should have told you yesterday, but I was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“Because I fell for his charm and let him dump me.” Although that wasn’t quite true. She’d never felt like he was using her or pretending to have feelings he didn’t. But that had only made it worse in the end.
“You’re not the first person to fall for a smooth-talking, good-looking man, and our very line of work depends on you not being the last. But the fool-you-once adage seems apropos here.”
“Agreed,” Blair said absently, then she shuddered and looked her assistant in the eye. “Thanks for having my back.”
Melissa stood. “What are good assistants for?”
“You’re coming tomorrow night, aren’t you?”
Melissa looked surprised. “Sure, I can come and make sure everything goes okay if you want.”
“No. Not for work. As my friend.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened as she stared at Blair.
Blair shook her head. What had she been thinking? A few moments of sharing her emotions and she’d presumed their relationship was more than professional. What if Melissa asked for a transfer now? Especially knowing she might be out of a job next week. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to—”
A wide smile spread across Melissa’s face. “I’d love to come. Thank you for asking.”
Blair’s face started to heat up. “Well, I’d give you the details, but it turns out that you know them.”
She laughed. “Sure enough.” She walked to the door and started to open it before turning around, her hand on the knob. “Thanks, Blair.”
Blair’s eyes met hers. “Thank you.” Then she remembered something else. “Oh, can you get me a stack of dollar bills by the end of the day? At least twenty . . . no, better make it forty.”
Melissa’s eyebrows rose in amusement. “Planning a racy bachelorette party?”
“Hardly,” she grumbled. “A tight-ass wedding shower.”
As Melissa walked out of the office, Blair wondered if there were enough bills in circulation to help get her through this weekend.
Chapter Nine
Garrett longed to loosen his tie, but to do so would be, one, unprofessional, and two, it would give Blair the satisfaction of knowing she was getting to him. Not that she didn’t already know. The smirk on her face when she shot glances at him between questions was proof enough of that. But he felt like he was choking. He was choking all right—on embarrassment.
He kept reminding himself that Brian Norfolk wasn’t really his client. That he hadn’t been the one to prep Amanda Beasley for the deposition. But even though Lopez had done a shitty job—so much so that he wished he had the authority to fly back to San Diego and demand his resignation—there was no denying that it was a crap case. If Rowena Norfolk’s attorney had been content to just go through the motions, it would have gone smoother, but Blair Myers Hansen didn’t understand the concept of going through the motions. She was smart, articulate, and ruthless. It didn’t hurt that there wasn’t an attorney alive who could make Lopez’s client look like a saint. Under the circumstances, Garrett was semi-holding his own, but Blair was a barracuda.
Back when they were together, he’d loved to get her riled up. Her eyes always lit up with a righteous fire when she was in the middle of an argument. But their arguments had mostly been over politics and current events—topics they had enjoyed debating. Afterwards, they would laugh together and then take the same passion they’d harnessed for their disagreement to their bed. He hadn’t lied to her when he said she was in the top five of the best lays he’d ever had, but he hadn’t told her the truth either. No one else had even come close.
“Mr. Norfolk,” Blair said, her voice sounding like honey off the comb, but only a fool would fall for it. Garrett was sure her beauty had helped lure Norfolk into complacency. She wore a gray dress today that clung to her curves. Her hair was up again, and she had on a pair of three-inch black patent leather heels. She flipped through the papers in front of her before glancing up at him with those wide blue eyes. “These numbers just aren’t adding up.”
Brian Norfolk gave her a shit-eating grin. “Maybe numbers just aren’t your thing, sweetheart.”
The look she gave him would make most men tuck tail and run. But Brian Norfolk was an arrogant fool. Garrett couldn’t stand the man. He was a fifty-seven-year-old screenwriter who’d experienced only moderate success until four years ago, when one of his movies suddenly became a blockbuster. The money had gone to his head, and while he’d fooled around on his wife more than once over their twenty-year marriage, he’d decided it was finally time to upgrade. But he’d tried out quite a few women before settling on the woman who was currently living in his San Diego condo, waiting to get her hands on his money. Consequently, he was trying to bilk his wife in every conceivable way. Knowing Blair, she’d sink her teeth into this man like a dog with a bone, and while Garrett would love nothing more than to see her take the prick down a few rungs, his job was to decrease the carnage as much as possible. He’d reluctantly warned Norfolk not to take Blair lightly, but the man was clearly ignoring his advice.
The corners of her mouth tipped up slightly, but he knew that look. She was preparing to go in for the kill.
She pulled a stack of papers from a folder and spread them across the table in front of him. “Mr. Norfolk, these are your tax returns for the last four years. Yes?”
He leaned over and scanned the papers. “Yeah, that’s right.”
She slid them to the side and pulled another stack of papers from her folder. “These other papers list your assets, investments, and monthly expenses. These were filled out by you, were they not?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“So are you very familiar with what’s on these sheets, or do you need a moment to look them over?” she asked in a patronizing tone.
His body stilled, and he sat up straighter, turning to look at Garrett. Garrett nodded for him to answer, and he turned back to Blair. “No, I know what’s on there.”
She tilted her head at him and proceeded to go through the entries in detail, pointing out all the discrepancies. “Maybe you’re right and numbers aren’t my thing. So how about you save us all some time and tell me where I can find the three million dollars that seem to be unaccounted for? I know you live quite the wild life now, but surely even you couldn’t have frivolously wasted three million dollars.”