Meet Cute Page 2

  Beyond being attractive he has that magnetic appeal so many actors possess. It makes him the perfect lawyer. His beautiful face and commanding presence scream trust me. But I know better.

  I hate that I can still appreciate how nice he is to look at. I wear a tight, practiced smile as I hold out a hand even though the last thing I want to do is touch him—okay, that’s a lie, I actually have a nervous flutter in my stomach. It’s annoying.

  I wait for him to recognize me as his eyes move over me in a slow sweep. They linger on my legs for a few seconds, probably because of my patterned hose—it’s how I spice up my business wardrobe. When his eyes finally return to my face, his brow furrows slightly while he shakes my hand. “Daxton Hughes. Nice to meet you.” His eyes drift to the mug on my desk, and a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. Motherfucker. He doesn’t even remember me.

  I pull my hand from his grasp, frustrated by the tingles shooting down my arm into inappropriate places thanks to a freaking handshake. “Why don’t we all have a seat?” I better not sound breathy to anyone but myself.

  They settle into the chairs around the table in my office. I wish I could hide the mug, but the image is on both sides.

  Dax stretches out his long legs and slips his phone into his pocket, muffling the constant buzzing of messages.

  “My assistant, Laura, indicated that you’re interested in setting up a trust for your daughter.” I flip open my laptop, and the theme song to It’s My Life fills the room. The timing couldn’t be worse. My best friend Holly regularly sends me memes and video clips as a joke. Normally it’s not embarrassing because the guy who starred in the show isn’t sitting across from me, with his parents.

  I slam my fingers on the keyboard, aiming for the Mute button, but all I succeed in doing is making it louder for a few painfully awkward seconds. “So sorry about that.”

  Daxton wears an amused smile. Maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world that he doesn’t seem to remember me. I fold my hands on the table and focus my attention on his parents. The back of my neck is damp and my face is on fire. “The trust for your daughter. How can I be of assistance?”

  Mrs. Hughes smiles kindly. Her graying hair is cut into a short, stylish bob. Her makeup is light and carefully applied. She’s not flashy, but she’s dressed nicely. She looks so sweet. It’s too bad she birthed a gorgeous asshole. I hope her daughter is nicer.

  “We’d like to secure Emme’s savings, and Daxton wanted to join us.” She pats his hand.

  Daxton smiles at his mother. “I thought it might be a good idea to tag along since the trust lawyer at my firm is on leave and they didn’t want to wait.”

  “Whitman and Flood is one of the best firms in the city. You’ll be in good hands here,” I say proudly.

  Evelyn nods her agreement. “I keep thinking she’s just a baby, but she’ll be thirteen soon enough and then eighteen is around the corner and the next thing you know they’re moving out.” She smiles fondly at her son. “Anyway, we didn’t set up a trust for Daxton when he was Emme’s age, and it probably would’ve been a lot easier on everyone if we had.”

  “Daxton was always very responsible with his money, except for his first year of college,” Mr. Hughes says.

  “You could hardly blame him for that. Daxton used to star on a TV show when he was Emme’s age.” Her gaze darts to my mug for a second.

  Daxton’s cheeks flush a little. “Mom, we’re not really here to ta—”

  “I’m sure Miss Flowers knows what it’s like to have braggy parents,” Mr. Hughes breaks in.

  I smile but the comment makes my heart twinge. It’s been a long time since someone bragged about my accomplishments, and the man who stole my biggest one is sitting on the other side of the table, and apparently doesn’t remember the way he screwed me. Not literally, thank God.

  “Please, call me Kailyn,” I say through a granite smile.

  Daxton’s brows pull down and he tips his head to the side, inspecting me.

  “Where did you go to law school, Kailyn?” Evelyn asks.

  “UCLA.”

  “Really? Daxton went to law school there, too! What year did you graduate? It couldn’t have been that long ago, you’re so young.”

  I fight with my hands to stay folded on the table rather than allow them to flutter around. “It’s been five years.”

  “Oh my goodness! Daxton!” She grabs his arm. “You went to law school at the same time! Did you know each other?”

  “We might’ve run into each other once or twice on campus.” I look to Daxton, waiting for him to acknowledge, to remember. Waiting for a sign that he feels some kind of remorse over what he did. While we never hung out, we were always competing with each other. We bantered in class, especially during debates, sometimes to the point where the professor would have to put a stop to it. It felt a little like verbal foreplay at the time. It kept us both entertained, or so I’d thought.

  Daxton’s eyebrows shoot up. “Holy shit!”

  “Daxton!” His mother slaps his arm.

  “Sorry. Wow. Kailyn. I didn’t recognize you.” He rubs his fingers over his bottom lip, eyes moving over my face again in a way that reminds me a lot of how he looked at me in law school. “You, uh…look so different. Good. You look good.”

  I give him a tight smile and adjust my glasses, wishing I’d worn contact lenses today. “Yes, well, T-shirts and jeans don’t quite cut it in the business world, as I’m sure you know.”

  His eyes drift down. “I liked you in jeans and T-shirts.”

  “Did you have classes together? Were you friends?” His mother seems oblivious to the tension flaring between us.

  “We had a lot of classes together,” Daxton replies, gaze locking on mine.

  Why is it so hot in here all of a sudden? “But we weren’t exactly friends.” I pick up my pen and flip it between my fingers to avoid pulling at the collar of my blouse, which feels too tight.

  He tips his head to the side, his expression curious. “We were friendly rivals, though, weren’t we? You kept me on my toes, always two steps ahead of everyone else, me included most of the time. It was hard to compete with beauty and brains.”

  I bark out a laugh. At one time I’d almost believed we were friends, but he’d proved me wrong. “Rivals, sure. Friends don’t generally screw each other over by stealing the top spot in the class, do they?”

  “Stealing…what?” His brow pulls down. “I worked my ass off for that. You can’t be mad about that after five years.”

  I sure as hell can still be mad about it, especially when he’s acting like he earned it fairly. As we stare each other down, I briefly wish I’d pursued criminal law instead of trust law as a career. Then I would have much better knowledge of how to get away with murder.

  At the clearing of a throat, I’m suddenly aware that I’m being completely unprofessional, and this juvenile battle is being witnessed by my potential clients, who are also his parents.

  “Well, you two are certainly full of fire, aren’t you?” his mother chuckles.

  I don’t want to let it go, but if I push this further, I’m at risk of embarrassing myself, and I don’t want to give Daxton the satisfaction of seeing how much he gets to me. Still. But this is the first opportunity I’ve had to confront him in five years, so it takes an infinite amount of grace to stow the anger and fix my face with a fake smile. “Daxton and I were always competing for head of the class. In the end I came in second. Anyway, you’re not here to talk about law school. Let’s discuss Emme’s trust and how you’d like the funds allocated. I’m sure we can set up a great plan that will help her manage her money responsibly as she grows.”

  I spend the next hour reviewing the insane amount of money this almost-thirteen-year-old girl has amassed from six years’ worth of commercials. It makes me wish for the briefest moment that my parents had been more Hollywood. And then I take a look at Dax and remember why it’s good not to fall into the trap of believing you’re above reproach. S
o much so that he’s convinced himself he earned something he stole.

  Once we’ve addressed the major concerns, I inform his parents that I’ll have papers for them to review in a couple of weeks.

  As I usher them out the door, Daxton snags a card. “It looks likes you’ve really got it together here.” He scans my office.

  “It’s a great firm.” Hints of my personality bleed through in the quirky memorabilia and trinkets I keep on my desk and that hang from the wall.

  “It was nice to see you again, Kailyn,” he says, but this time his eyes aren’t on the walls. Once again he’s checking out my legs as he does another slow sweep of my funky patterned hose.

  “Likewise,” I reply, but my tone sounds a lot more like fuck you.

  He has the nerve to wink as he slips the card into his breast pocket and follows his parents out of my office. Once he’s gone I flip the double bird at the wall and mouth all sorts of profanity. It’s highly immature. That man brings out the worst in me. I wish I’d had five minutes alone with him so I could finally confront him about what he did and rip him a nice new asshole.

  I glance at the clock and realize I’m running late for lunch. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem since I often skip real food in lieu of a bag of Sour Patch Kids, or whatever candy I have stashed in my desk—not particularly health conscious of me, but it gets me through when I don’t feel like taking a break.

  Today my best friend and I have a lunch date at our favorite bistro and I have a full schedule this afternoon, so being late means less time with her, and I now need to vent post–Hughes meeting. I shoot her a message to let her know I’m on my way. Holly’s already seated on the patio when I arrive. She pushes away from the table and pulls me in for a tight hug. “Thanks for making time for me.”

  Holly is a compulsive hugger, and even though I expect the affection from her, it still takes a moment before I remember to return the gesture. “Of course. Anything for you.”

  Holly and I have been friends since I moved next door to her at the age of three. Apart from when she went to college in Santa Barbara, we’ve always lived in the same city.

  “So you’ll never believe who came by my office this morning,” I say as we drop into the chairs across from each other.

  “Does that mean you want me to guess?” Holly half smiles and raises her eyebrows.

  “You can try, but I doubt you’ll get it right.”

  “Oooh, now I’m really intrigued. Was it that guy from that law conference last month, the one who wanted to see your not-so-legal briefs?”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh my God, no, and that was literally the worst line in the history of lines. Try again.”

  “Just tell me. You’re all worked up about it with the way you’re fidgeting, so it’s got to be good.” She motions to my hands.

  I’m twisting my napkin into what could approximate a sword, or a knife.

  Before I can respond the server comes by. Neither of us needs to open our menu. We come here so often we could practically recite it to each other.

  Once our server has taken our order, Holly makes a go-ahead motion with her hand and props her chin on her fist.

  “Daxton Hughes.” When she does nothing but blink at me, I add, “You know, the guy from It’s My Life. The show we watched like it was our religion every Tuesday for years.”

  “Oh, I know who Daxton Hughes is. You pretty much talked about him nonstop for the entire three years you were in law school, and the ten years before that, too.”

  “Well, he turned out to be asshole, in the end, didn’t he?” I mutter. “And that hasn’t changed at all in the last five years, either.”

  “Oh? What happened? What was he there for? Oooh! Does he have an illegitimate love child he’s trying to keep secret?”

  I glance around the restaurant and make a keep it down gesture. The meeting wasn’t really about him, so telling Holly isn’t a big deal, but I don’t need to broadcast it. “No, he was with his parents and they’re setting up a family trust.”

  “That’s way less exciting than an illegitimate love child.” Holly frowns. “It’s actually sweet that he would help his parents do that.”

  “Do not call Daxton Hughes sweet! He is the opposite of sweet.”

  Holly bites back a smile. “Let it all out. You know you want to.”

  I glare, but she’s right. I’m so agitated now. “You know what’s even worse? He didn’t even recognize me at first.” I start flailing, as is typical when I’m edgy. “We went to law school together for three years.”

  “Five years ago.”

  “Still, you’d think he’d remember the person he intentionally screwed over.” I grip the edge of the table and lean forward. “He couldn’t believe that I was still angry that he stole the top spot!”

  The corner of Holly’s mouth twitches. “Pretty sure you’d get the top spot for holding a grudge.”

  “It’s not funny! You’re supposed to be sympathetic!”

  “I am sympathetic. But from what I remember, you two were always in competition with each other.”

  “He handed in my paper late!”

  “Why didn’t you just email it?”

  “My professor was old-school and shunned technology. If he’d handed it in on time like he said he would, late marks wouldn’t have been deducted and my GPA would’ve been higher than his. I even went to the professor about it and he said there was nothing he could do.” I lean back as the server sets our plates in front of us. I unwrap my silverware and aggressively stab a sweet potato fry.

  “You know, Kay, maybe you should pull out one of those It’s My Life Daxton Barbie dolls you have and perform some voodoo. It might make you feel better.”

  I roll my eyes. “I didn’t expect to see him, like, ever again, and he was so smirky and smug and kind of flirty and just…gah! And he’s still hot, and he still has all his hair. I just hate him!”

  “So does that mean we’re not having that It’s My Life rerun marathon this weekend?”

  I shoot her a dirty look. “That show is banned for life. Oh, and thanks so much for that clip you sent me this morning. It just happened to pop up right as the Hugheses came into my office.”

  “Oh my God! What are the chances of that happening at that exact moment?”

  I shoot anger beams at her from my eyes. “I almost died of embarrassment.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to have a rerun marathon? It might be cathartic to yell at him, even if it’s just on a TV screen.”

  “Har har, Holly, har har.” I exhale a long slow breath and run my hands over my thighs. I really need to calm down. “Okay, I think I’m done venting. Sorry. That man just riles me up in the worst way. Let’s change the subject. How’s work? How’s that adoption case you were dealing with? Is everything okay there?”

  Holly smiles, but it’s sad. “Physically, Hope is thriving.”

  “Uh-oh. It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.” This is what I need, a distraction from Daxton Hughes and his gorgeous smirk and asshole attitude.

  “Unfortunately the birth mother has had a change of heart and there’s a problem with the adoption paperwork.”

  That makes me sit up straighter. Holly is a social worker and often deals with custody issues. “What kind of problem?”

  “The lawyer who drew up the contracts was sloppy about it, and the adoptive parents, the Lipsons, didn’t see the loopholes. It looks like the birth mom might be able to take custody of Hope.”

  My stomach sinks. Her mother is a recovering addict, and while she was clean through the pregnancy, past behavior has had her falling into old patterns when the stress gets to be too much. Sadly, retaining custody of Hope is more about the government check than being able to raise her.

  I tap on the edge of the table, considering the options for the Lipsons. As someone who was adopted at the age of three and removed from a home where love was only shown to the public assistance check that came on a monthly basis, I found the tr
avesty in this a particularly difficult pill to swallow. “What if I could take on the case pro bono?”

  Holly shakes her head. “You’re working toward a partnership. You don’t have time to take on something like this. Besides, it’s so close to your own experience.”

  “Which is exactly why I should take it on. Who better to fight for these parents than someone who’s experienced the flaws in the system? It might actually help me earn the partnership in the long run. I’ll talk to Beverly, but I think she’ll see the benefit.”

  “Are you sure? It’s a lot to add to your caseload.” Holly’s hopeful expression fortifies my resolve. While I’ve spent the past five years working primarily in trusts, I’ve always been interested in this side of law. Enough that I’ve studied adoption contracts and cases outside of work hours. It’s sort of a hobby, which is a little sad, I realize, since it’s also related to work.

  “If it keeps one little girl with a loving family, then it’s worth it. I’ll just have to cancel all my Friday night dates.” I grin cheekily, hoping to lighten the mood.

  Holly rolls her eyes. “You can’t do that. I’ll be lonely.”

  We both laugh.

  Holly pokes at the lemon floating in her glass with the end of her straw. “But seriously, we should probably think about dating actual men one of these days.”

  I snort. “Boyfriends are too much work. They want things, like time and energy.”

  “And blow jobs, don’t forget those.” Holly snickers.

  “Yes, all things I don’t have to spare or really don’t feel like giving freely. Besides, I have cats. They’re lower maintenance.” Linus and Shirley are my sweet tabbies. The only time they’re a problem is when I’m cooking bacon, but otherwise they’re incredibly well behaved.

  She spears a fry and points it at me. “If you ever run into Daxton again, you could give hate fucking him a try. I hear it’s a good way to exorcise a grudge.”

  “Since I’m not planning on running into him ever again, it looks like I just get to hold on to that grudge.”