"Has Phoebe produced the pictures of her clients' hair yet?" she asked him.
"Nope. They're not due for another ten days."
"Can we get her to speed it up?"
"Probably not."
"We can try."
"You try."
"I will," Mallory said. "What about the other damages they're claiming?"
He answered her with half his brain. He really didn't think she was dating Kevin Knightson. He was as sure as he needed to be that Kevin was more interested in other men than in Mallory. So what was the connection?
"It's a shame we didn't succeed in negotiating with the plaintiffs back in the spring." She sighed, and Carter held his breath, waiting for her breasts to pop completely free from that sexy little jacket. "If we had, we might have managed to rehabilitate Tammy Sue. She might be selling cosmetics in a department store now."
"Your legal department negotiated just fine. Problem was that Phoebe got hold of them. Do we know how she did it?"
"The way I heard it," Mallory said, "she and her parents were at their country club in New Jersey talking to friends who knew somebody who knew somebody whose hair had turned green-you know how news spreads. Phoebe grasped the implications of a bit of gossip and zeroed in. She's a vulture," she concluded just as their drinks arrived.
A vulture and a black widow spider. Phoebe had slipped him her home phone number as they were leaving her offices. Once again, Carter faced the shameful possibility that he'd been given the case for just that reason, to seduce Phoebe into a settlement.
He took a sip of scotch. It went down smoothly, warming his throat. He could do it, seduce Phoebe into a settlement. Justice would be done. Sensuous was willing to make a fifty-million-dollar lump sum restitution to the plaintiffs. Phoebe would get fifty percent of that. Phoebe was asking for a hundred million. If the judge came even close to that, after years of filing appeals and generating their own enormous legal fees, it could bankrupt the company.
A vulture and a black widow spider. Phoebe had slipped him her home phone number as they were leaving her offices. Once again, Carter faced the shameful possibility that he'd been given the case for just that reason, to seduce Phoebe into a settlement.
He took a sip of scotch. It went down smoothly, warming his throat. He could do it, seduce Phoebe into a settlement. Justice would be done. Sensuous was willing to make a fifty-million-dollar lump sum restitution to the plaintiffs. Phoebe would get fifty percent of that. Phoebe was asking for a hundred million. If the judge came even close to that, after years of filing appeals and generating their own enormous legal fees, it could bankrupt the company.
Carter looked at Mallory. She was chasing salt around the edge of her glass with the tip of a little pink tongue. Watching her was more warming than scotch. He thought about Phoebe, her spiky hair, her lipstick. Why did women wear gray lipstick? Did they think men were necrophiliacs?
Yes, he supposed he could seduce Phoebe, gray lipstick and all, but he wouldn't enjoy it and he'd hate himself. Nope, this one he was going to handle with his brain, and make sure Mallory noticed.
Mallory was sipping her drink and periodically checking her watch as she went on about the case. Should they push a little harder when they were reminding the witnesses of the settlement they might already have gotten? That's what she was saying when Carter cracked. He simply could not turn her loose in this town or, even worse, turn her over to the care of some man when she was showing her cleavage, wearing that skirt that displayed her thighs-oh, God, great thighs, too, slim but not skinny. Thighs to stroke. Thighs to slide between-
"Y'know," he said, feeling like a whirlpool of boiling hormones and trying to sound like the most dedicated, responsible lawyer ever to grace the bar, "we don't have any business going out tonight. Either of us. We ought to have a working dinner together. This is some good brainstorming we're doing here. I'm going to call Brie and tell her we'll make it another time." He looked expectantly at Mallory. Her turn. She looked surprised and ominously uncertain.
"I can't"
He frowned at her.
"Well, I guess I can" she amended herself.
His heart lightened. He lifted his eyebrows, silently telling her, "Go on, go on."
"Here's how it is," she said finally. "I'll have to break the date in person and then meet you for dinner. I should be able to make it by eight-fifteen. Want to order from room service or go out?"
"I'll see if I can get a reservation at the JUdson Grill. It's noisy enough that we'll be able to talk without anybody overhearing us." He picked up the phone and dialed Directory Assistance. He knew he couldn't spend the whole evening in the suite with her without jumping her. This was only Step One-don't let anybody else jump her. Step Two was win her respect for his intelligence and professional skill, which to him meant settling this case and effectively saving her company. His mouth watered just thinking about Step Three, when he'd make her desire his body, which had always been the easy part for him.
"Got the reservation," he yelled through the door when she withdrew to do who knew what before rushing out to taunt her date with her utter desirability-and then ditch the bastard.
"It's just a working dinner," Mallory said breathlessly to Maybelle fifteen minutes later.
"Whoopee!" Maybelle cried. "Progress! Dickie!" And then to Mallory, "We gotta go shopping."
Mallory gasped. "I can't. I told Carter I'd be at the restaurant at eight-fifteen."
"So? I've gotta get back here at eight to meet with the president."
"The president?"
"Yes?" Richard said, gliding through the door.
"Get us our coats. Get the car. We're goin' to Bergdorf's."
"The president?" Mallory repeated.
"Uh-oh, a shopping spree," Dickie said, but was back in half a minute with Mallory's black cashmere and a coat for Maybelle that appeared to be several llamas sewn together.
She shrugged it on over a top that featured sequined diagonal stripes in purple, yellow and red. It made her look like a parrot. The llamas toned down the effect a bit. "Not our president," she said suddenly, as if Mallory's question had just registered. "He's the president of a little country, the kind they call 'emergin'.' Needs an image change if he's gonna win the next election. I shouldn'ta been blabbin' about it, either. Come on, hon, no time to waste."
"I don't need more clothes," Mallory protested as Maybelle dragged her to the car. It was an enormous pale blue Cadillac of indeterminate vintage, with Richard at the wheel.
"No, y'all jes' need more clothes like that little red jacket," Maybelle said. "Ain't no wonder he didn't want you seein' anybody else tonight."
Was that why he'd suggested the working dinner? "I have to admit he forced my hand and that's the only reason I wore the red jacket," Mallory said, and told Maybelle about the mustard shower.
Maybelle cackled. "Sounds like he wanted y'all out of that black jacket right bad."
"So I'll wear the red one again."
"Caint wear it ever' day or he'll catch on," Maybelle argued.
"Then I'll wear my black suit tomorrow whether he likes it or not."
Maybelle gave her a look.
"Okay," Mallory said, capitulating, "maybe I could buy another sexy jacket to wear tomorrow. But after that I really must leave to meet Carter."
"Id-zackly what I had in mind," Maybelle said smugly. "Jes' stick with me, hon, and you'll be at that restaurant right on time."
"Maybelle, we haven't seen you in weeks," gushed a salesperson, rushing across a carpeted floor.
This was Bergdorf Goodman, as expensive a store as one could ever hope to avoid, and they were on the third floor-designer clothing. Yet the saleswoman was rushing toward a parrot wearing cowboy boots and shrouded in llamas. Mallory found her hospitality heartwarming.
Maybelle shrugged off the coat and dropped it on a bench as if she owned the place. "Haven't had a client who needed clothes in weeks. This one needs 'em bad and fast." Her tiny figure buzzed from one rack of clothing to another, a hummingbird now rather than a parrot.
"We need a coupla sexy suits-"
"I said one suit. I mean one jacket," Mallory puffed, pausing to zero in on a price tag and wipe her forehead. "I'll wear it with my black pants and skirt."
"Or some other black pants and skirt," Maybelle said.
"What I really need are some of those plastic shoes that go over your own shoes-"
"We'll find y'all some cute snow boots later," Maybelle said.
Mallory caught up to her in the Gianfranco Ferre in-store boutique and spoke to her in a hushed whisper.
"Maybelle, I do make a very nice salary, but I can't afford"
Maybelle brushed off this absurd reasoning with a diamond-studded wave. "I have a charge account here," she said. "We can talk about the money later."
Mallory groaned. Later it would still be too much money.
Somehow she was in a dressing room, with Maybelle and the saleswoman ripping clothes off her and stuffing her into new ones.
"I think we can make it to the weekend without new undies," Maybelle confided in the saleswoman as if Mallory were not there. "Now, hon, that's what I call a black suit."
Mallory turned slowly to the mirror. This suit jacket had narrow shoulders, a fitted waist and was too short to cover even half her rear end. The pants were so narrow-legged that without the vents, she couldn't have gotten her bare feet through them.
She looked terrific in it. Even she had to admit it. She gritted her teeth. "Okay, I'll take the whole suit. But not another thing."
She looked terrific in it. Even she had to admit it. She gritted her teeth. "Okay, I'll take the whole suit. But not another thing."
"Keep your new pants on," Maybelle said. "It'll save time."
In addition to the black suit, Mallory left the floor with a featherweight jacket that matched her eyes and a coordinating top, one skirt that wasn't as short as Phoebe Angell's but almost and another very curvy one in the new midcalf length. Both Maybelle and the saleslady, whose eyes had begun flashing dollar signs, insisted the longer skirt had to be worn with very high heels to achieve the proper proportions.