Counselor Undone Read online

  His personal experiences with women suggested no such magic exists. In his opinion, what his father had felt for his mother amounted to lust at first sight, and his father had simply gotten lucky. His mother had turned out to be as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. More often than not, the women Michael encountered showed themselves to be calculating, manipulative, and creatures of false passion or coyness.

  He found it interesting that the most genuinely passionate encounter of his life had occurred with a complete stranger. The woman had been not only beautiful, but also spontaneous and sexy and the most naturally responsive woman he’d ever touched. And what had he done?

  He’d let her walk away.

  He tensed. Idiot!

  Turning abruptly, Michael rushed into the party. His eyes skimmed the crowd. Packed from wall to wall, the normally cavernous room shrank to a tiny blockade. Couples huddled together, discreetly making time or swaying together on the makeshift dance floor. Groupings of friends and acquaintances chatted and laughed. The crush made his search dense work, but his height allowed him to see over ninety percent of the party guests. When he didn’t see Juliet immediately, an unfamiliar wave of anxiety rushed over him.

  Anticipation slipped towards dread. His eyes scanned the room again and finally located her on the platform leading to the front door. She stood talking on a mobile phone. Her demeanor turned animated. He couldn’t hear her side of the conversation, but he recognized signs of distress in her expressions. After a few moments, she closed her eyes, lowered the phone, and blew out a breath. That she might have trouble concerned him. He moved towards her, his desire to learn her identity now coupled with a strong need to make sure she was all right.

  He’d only taken a few steps when she looked up and saw him advancing towards her. A look of astonishment crossed her face. Turning quickly, she opened the door, exited, and closed the door behind her.

  Michael quickened his pace, muttering apologies as he pushed past people left and right. When he finally made it to the door, he swore. His unsuccessful tugging revealed she’d locked it. Disengaging the lock, he simultaneously admired and cursed her ability to keep her wits about her while making a hasty getaway. He’d lost precious seconds in his pursuit.

  The door finally swung open, and relief washed over him. She stood in front of the lone elevator located at the end of the hall.

  “Wait!” he called.

  A resonant ding announced the arrival of the elevator a half second later. She raised her hand, palm out, before stepping inside. He couldn’t tell if she’d meant to wave goodbye or simply to tell him not to follow her. Either way, he had no intention of letting her get away.

  He dashed into the stairwell. The overly bright white lights shocked his pupils after the soft yellow lighting of the hallway, but he didn’t slow down. He descended each flight of stairs in a rush, leaping three and four steps at a time. The tinny reverberation of his footsteps on the metal stairs bounced around the whitewashed walls. The sound mocked him with the possibility of failure.

  He made it to the lobby level in time to glimpse the hem of Juliet’s flowing gown flutter on a gush of air and disappear inside the revolving panes of the glass exit. He pressed forward. Darting into the slowing turnstile, he pushed hard, but the natural lethargy of the revolving door fought against his urgency.

  Trapped inside the circular, mechanical obstruction, he watched a taxi pull to a stop in front of Juliet.

  She reached for the door handle.

  “Porca Madonna!” His exasperation defaulted, without conscious thought, to his mother’s native Italian tongue and sweat beaded his brow. No. No. No. Getting this close and failing became untenable. With one last burst of muscle, he plowed his way free. “Please wait!”

  She stopped and eyed him over the taxi door she’d pulled open.

  Gulps of air expanded his lungs in a staccato rhythm. Not wanting to spook her any more than he already had, he stood immobile at the building entrance. “I just want to talk to you for a minute.”

  She waited, but didn’t speak.

  “I have to know your name.”

  “Just call me Juliet.”

  He swallowed his disappointment. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to tell me your real name. I’ll have to live with that. For now.” He ran a hand through his hair, shoving wayward locks off his forehead. “Let me buy you dinner tonight.”

  She shook her head.

  “Tomorrow then or any day you choose. Give me a chance, Juliet. I realize I didn’t behave . . . um . . . like a gentleman upstairs. And I apologize if I offended you. But, I promise I’m not an axe murderer or a stalker or generally a molester of women—”

  She laughed, a light airy sound. “I don’t know why, but for some reason, I believe you.”

  “Then have dinner with me.”

  “I can’t. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  He opened his mouth to protest and began to move forward.

  She stopped him. “No. Try to look at this from my perspective.” She paused briefly to duck her head inside the cab and murmur something to the driver. When she looked back at him, her lips held a reluctant smile. “If we had met under different circumstances, I’m sure I’d find your dinner invitation flattering. Tonight, well . . .” The hand she’d rested on top of the cab door tightened.

  Although he stood some distance from her, Michael noticed the gesture. It didn’t bode well.

  She averted her gaze. The taxi had stopped outside the parameter of the security floodlights so shadows danced across her masked face. “My friends are always telling me I need to be more spontaneous.” She looked back at him with a simper. “I doubt our meeting upstairs is exactly what they had in mind, but I’d like to be able to look back on tonight and remember it as my adventurous rendezvous with a sexy stranger. That will be a lot easier for me to do if I don’t have to face you tonight or the next day or the day after that. Please try to understand. I need you to let me go.”

  For several seconds, neither of them spoke. They stood quietly regarding each other.

  Finally, he nodded and gave a half bow. “As you wish, milady.”

  Her lips curved up at his gesture before she slid into the back of the yellow cab. The taxi door made only a faint click when she closed it, but the snick reverberated in his ears as if the door had been slammed. The psychologically deafening sound echoed the finality of an unexpected opportunity slipping forever out of his reach.

  * * *

  Six days later, Michael sat at the large mahogany desk in his corner office staring blankly out a wall of windows while a tablet stylus did somersaults between the fingers of his left hand. He was supposed to be choosing a new second chair for his patent infringement case not browsing the downtown skyline from his twenty-fifth floor Remington Towers office suite near Crown Center. Chase currently served as his second chair, but Chase needed to take the lead in another case because the wife of one of their equity partners had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and the partner needed time with his family.

  A file folder of forgotten resumes sat open on Michael’s desk. He’d read through them several times and had narrowed his selection to one of two candidates. They both looked good on paper, but the non-quantifiable qualities that didn’t show up on paper meant a lot as well.

  This case represented a significant opportunity for his firm, both in dollars and legal notoriety. He considered it the linchpin in his strategic plan to launch the firm as a national player in the world of business litigation. A successful outcome meant instant nationwide publicity for the lawyers involved. He’d already been interviewed for writeups in prominent legal and business journals. He needed to make the right choice. Yet, he couldn’t force his mind to focus on the task at hand.

  On days like these, he’d usually take a motorcycle ride to clear his head. Nothing like speed on an open road to get the blood flowing to all extremities including his brain. Unfortunately, it was too cold for a ride. A
lthough this winter’s weather had stayed unusually mild, it would be several months before the temperature warmed enough to take the bike for a spin. Which reminded him he needed to make an appointment with his mechanic to get his bike checked and prepped for the spring riding season.

  Michael looked at the electronic tablet on his desk. He made himself a reminder to get a service appointment then glanced at his court docket. Maybe he should work on reconciling his calendar. He’d promised his baby sister he’d attend the annual family Independence Day gathering. He’d committed to staying for the entire picnic this year and not simply putting in an appearance then rushing back to the office to bill more hours. He hated to disappoint Raina, but given the current status of his case, that might be a tall order.

  Michael tossed his stylus onto the desk in frustration. The opponent’s motion for summary judgment had arrived this morning. The motion requested the court decide the case in the opponent’s favor because, according to opponent’s counsel, the factual information exchanged by the parties during discovery mandated a judgment be entered in its favor by law—no need for a trial.

  If the motion prevailed, it was game over for Metra Pharmaceuticals. His client would be held liable for patent infringement, ordered to cease the manufacture and sale of their extremely successful immunotherapeutic drug Davrosil, and forced to disgorge to the opponent all profits made from selling the drug.

  While this would normally be enough to concern him, today a whole other distraction worried his brain. A week had passed since he’d touched her for the first time. Fleeting thoughts of her hounded him from time to time, but for some reason, today the memory of her wouldn’t leave him alone. Juliet.

  Where was she? What was she doing? Whom was she doing it with?

  The last question in particular bothered him.

  He slid his hand into his right pant pocket and fingered the sterling silver chain he’d been carrying around for six days. He tended to finger it absently when his mind wandered to Juliet. He needed to get to work. If Chase caught him daydreaming about her, Michael would never live it down. His buddy already ragged him heartlessly, and without remorse, about being hung up on what Chase had dubbed his “mystery woman.”

  Michael knew better. Curious? Definitely. Hung up? Hardly. He had no intention of letting any woman put the shackles on him. Of course, you couldn’t tell Chase anything. Chase and his wife had been happily married for four years before he lost her. Marriage wasn’t for Michael, but he’d more than love another chance to experience the sumptuous creature he’d kissed by accident on New Year’s Eve.

  He’d searched for her. He’d tried to let it go, let her go, but by the end of the next day, he’d felt a driving need to find her. The search had required Chase’s help since Chase had served on the party planning committee. Chase had contacted every guest and inquired about each of their companions. Strangely, no one could identify the mystery woman or the original Juliet as legitimate invitees. He and Chase had concluded, on top of everything else, his Juliet might have crashed the party. It figured.

  The guest chair to his right squeaked, and Michael pulled his hand from his pocket. What was that old expression? Think of the devil and the devil shall appear. Okay, so maybe it was “speak” of the devil, but for the moment, it was all the same.

  “Chase.” Michael acknowledged his partner with a bland look.

  “Welcome back.” Chase took a seat opposite Michael’s desk.

  Michael’s perplexed expression made Chase grin. “I stood in your doorway for several minutes. What were you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Or should I ask whom were you thinking about?” Chase made absolutely no effort to hide the amusement in his sky blue eyes.

  Annoyed, Michael turned squarely to his desk, picked up his stylus, and let it resume its somersaults between his fingers. “Did you need something?”

  At Michael’s curt avoidance of his question, Chase sighed. “Man, tell me you are not still hung up on your beautiful party crasher.”

  “Don’t start with me, Chase. I’m not hung up. Let it go.”

  “I don’t understand what it is about this woman. You couldn’t have spent more than thirty minutes with her tops.”

  “Forty-five minutes.” He’d looked at his watch when she’d ridden off in the cab. She’d pulled off at twelve forty-five a.m. exactly.

  “I stand corrected,” Chase deadpanned then leaned back in his chair. “I’m starting to worry about you, man. It’s not like you to become so preoccupied with a woman.”

  Michael shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Chase. I really can’t explain it. Something about her won’t let me go.”

  Chase studied him. For the first time, Michael saw his friend’s dawning acceptance that his interest in Juliet wasn’t some passing fancy.

  “I can’t believe the untraceable, unnamable duplicate Juliet bewitched you so completely.” Chase ran a hand through his ash blond hair. “Michael, I did what I could to determine who she may have come to the party with. You’re going to have to accept you might never find her.”

  “Intellectually, I know that, but my head isn’t winning on this. Something tells me she’s closer than I think. Something I noticed about her that night or something she said holds the clue to finding her. If only I could figure out what I’ve been overlooking.”

  Chase leaned forward in his chair. “Don’t go all dog-with-bone on me. I know how you get when on the trail of a missing link—that one piece of evidence an adversary doesn’t want found or the discrepancy in an argument that would shatter an opposing counsel’s whole legal premise. You do it better than just about any lawyer in the country—which is why we have several Fortune 100 clients on the firm’s roster—but this isn’t high-stakes litigation.

  “I don’t know what more we can do to find the mysterious Juliet. I’ll admit, I’m more than a little intrigued by the lady. She’s the first woman in whom you’ve displayed more than a passing interest in over a year. It’s the main reason I made such a pest of myself with the association’s party guests in an attempt to locate her. But, no luck. Maybe it’s time you let this go.”

  He laced his fingers together and lapsed into silence. Michael saw the wheels begin to spin behind his eyes.

  Sensing trouble, Michael warned, “Don’t even think about it, Chase.”

  “What?” Chase’s look of faux innocence almost made Michael laugh.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll have none of it. I’m not interested in dating another one of Grace’s friends.” Grace was Chase’s late wife. She’d been relentless in trying to pair Michael off with one of her friends. Since her passing two years ago, Chase had made it his mission to pick up where she’d left off.

  “What’s wrong with Grace’s friends?”

  “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Grace’s friends. I simply would rather not be privy to any more of your matchmaking by proxy. It was bad enough when I had to deal with Grace. Do me a favor? If you think these women are so great, you go out with them.”

  Chase got a faraway look in his eyes. “You know there’s not a woman on the planet who can take the place of my Grace.”

  “I’m not talking about replacing Grace, Chase.” Michael’s voice dropped to a hushed tone. “It’s been two years. It’s time to move on.”

  “Says the dyed-in-the-wool bachelor who, after being betrayed by his fiancée, staunchly proclaims he’s never getting married.”

  Michael squirmed. He couldn’t argue with that.

  “You know, Michael, I’m beginning to wonder if your mother’s right.”

  “Right about what?”

  “She believes despite not knowing her real name, you fell instantly and completely for the mysterious Juliet, which is why you can’t seem to move on.”

  Michael waved his hand in dismissal. “My mother is a hopeless romantic.”

  “That she is, but maybe she knows what she’s talking about.
It seemed to work for her and your father—that whole get engaged after knowing each other only two weeks fairy tale. Have you seriously considered that maybe you’re—”

  “No. I haven’t.” His voice took on an edge. “Enough about the missing Juliet. What brings you here?”

  “Well . . .” Chase’s smile immediately made Michael more nervous than the direction their conversation had started to take. “I’m wondering if you plan to grace us with your presence at this week’s briefing session. The new laterals and associates have been here for months, and you’ve yet to meet them.”

  Michael sighed. He really didn’t want to participate in the weekly war room session they used to supervise and train new lateral hires and associates. “Can’t you continue to handle these on your own? I’m not in the mood to manage the egos of another bunch of young professionals with a penchant for high-school-level drama.”

  Chase chuckled. “I know you eschew these administrative duties, which is why you’ve resisted for another year taking over the Managing Partner position your grandfather vacated when he retired three years ago. But you agreed to co-chair our group’s Associate Development Committee with me this year, and you’ve been extremely lax in your duties. Not to mention you know I need to take over the Werner case from Jackson soon. So, you need to make a decision on my replacement for the Metra Pharmaceuticals case. At some point, looking at resumes isn’t going to be enough.”

  Snagging the folder of pedigrees Michael had ignored all morning, Chase flipped through the dossiers for the senior associates on their team. “Eventually, you need to meet these guys in person to determine which one will suit your purpose best.” He tossed the folder back on the desk.

  Chase made a good point. No matter how many times he went over the resumes, it always came back to the same two possible candidates—on paper. Time he evaluated the next level. He flipped open the folder and placed the photo-included resumes of his top two candidates side-by-side on top.