Law, Lies, and Love Affairs

It's Just a Weekend

Oh yeah. Stevie was out the door and down the steps of the converted house before Mike had the chance to walk all the way around the car. So he just leaned on the hood and took a long look at the most gorgeous and most frustrating woman he'd ever met. And congratulated himself on suggesting the black dress because, damn, she looked amazing in it. Or at least as much of it as he could see through the gap in her coat. Her hair was pulled back in some kind of fancy twist instead of the pony tail she usually wore, and it made his fingers itch to reach up and unfasten it and watch it spill around her shoulders.

"I'm not sure where to put this," she said, and thrust some kind of an oversize tote bag at him.

"You brought an overnight bag?" He felt his pulse speed up. Yeah, he'd given some thought on the drive over to the possibility that the evening would end with the two of them in his bed, but could it really be this easy?

"Don't get your hopes up, Romeo. I just need you to drop me off someplace after dinner."

Right. With Stevie, nothing was ever easy.

He opened the car door, stashed the bag behind the passenger seat, and then watched as she slid into the low two-seater sports car, and unapologetically admired the long legs extending from the hemline of her dress down to the high heeled ankle boots.

"What?" she said, looking up at him.

"I'm just surprised to see you in something so impractical and stylish."

"Is that an insult?"

"It's a compliment."

"If you say so."

He shut the door and circled the car, getting back into the driver's seat, and shaking his head. He had no idea why he was so attracted to someone who seemed to go out of her way to annoy him. But he had been from the first moment she'd stood up in the first year contracts class to ask a question. That day was also the first time he'd asked her out – and the first of the half-dozen times she'd turned up her studious little nose and said no, brushing off his invitations with a thinly veiled contempt for the lifestyle she assumed he enjoyed as a trust fund baby. 

She was always up for debating legal points with him, inside and outside of class, though. But the rivalry between them hadn't started in earnest until they tied for the highest grade – and the coveted book award – in that same contracts class, and each beat the other out by a slim margin in two other classes.

Of course they were both on law journal, and both ended up editors, although neither of them had scored the top spot of executive editor. The more heated their arguments about legal theories and court decisions, the more the chemistry flared between them. Chemistry she brushed aside with a shrug and a few glib comments about him only wanting what he couldn't have. 

 And now, finally, he was taking her out to dinner. And hoping to spend a lot more time with her over the long weekend. He glanced over at her as he pulled away from the curb, hit the accelerator and shifted into a higher gear.

"I didn't know they made cars with stick shifts anymore," she said.

"Putting an automatic transmission in this baby is just . . . wrong." He glanced over at her. "It was a special order."

"I'll bet."

He grinned. "Nothing but the best to pick you up for our first date."

She leveled her eyes at him. "This isn't a date."

"Oh, I think it's definitely a date."