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  “Thank you,” Nell said, taken aback.

  “You’re fun to look at,” he said and grinned at her as he lifted his wineglass. “Thank you for brightening my day.”

  He drank, and Nell thought, He’s still a weasel.

  “So nine at my office tomorrow, then,” Jack said, putting his glass down. “And that’s it for business.”

  The waitress brought their food, and Nell sprinkled vinegar on her fries and waited for Jack’s next move.

  “I would never have pegged you as the Reuben type,” Jack said, starting on his Caesar salad.

  “I’m not a type,” Nell said and bit into her corned beef.

  “I’m beginning to see that,” Jack said, his voice warm. “You know, I’ve been dumb.”

  No kidding.

  “I have to stop chasing these younger women. Start concentrating on the smart, sassy women my own age.” He smiled at her over his wine again, and Nell thought, I’m twelve years younger than you are, you asshole, but she smiled back at him to keep him going.

  “Yeah, there’s a lot to be said for seasoning,” she said, popping a vinegar-soaked fry in her mouth.

  “And you do look spicy today,” he said. “You sure you don’t want wine with your lunch?”

  Yeah, what wine goes with a Reuben and fries? “Diet Coke’s my drink,” she said. And Glenlivet.

  The waitress had cleared off a table next to the wall and now she motioned two people to it. That looks like Lu, Nell thought and then choked on her fry.

  “Are you all right?” Jack said.

  Nell nodded, grabbing her Diet Coke to wash down the rest of the fry as Gabe stopped at their table.

  “Jack,” Gabe said, and Jack jerked a little and then turned around. “We don’t see you down this way much.”

  Jack stood up to shake his hand. “I just came down to steal Nell from you. She’s working for us now.”

  “Is she?” Gabe said, and Nell braced herself for the storm, but there wasn’t one. “She’s a terrific secretary.” Gabe said, and nodded at Nell. “Best of luck,” he said and went over and sat down across from Lu, which put him right in her sight line.

  “He took that pretty well,” Jack said, sitting down again.

  “I don’t think he wants me back,” Nell said, feeling sick. “We had some conflicts.”

  “I heard that wasn’t all you had,” Jack said. “Suze said you and Gabe were an item.”

  “Well, we got deleted,” Nell said, and then, since Gabe was watching, she forced a smile and said, “So that’s two positions in my life I have to fill, boss and lover.”

  “Only one,” Jack said, meeting her eyes. “I’m your new boss.”

  “Then I’m halfway there.”

  Across the room, Gabe shook his head and turned his attention back to Lu.

  “I have a court date this afternoon,” Jack was saying, “or I’d take the time to show you around the firm myself.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time,” Nell said, still smiling like a maniac. “I’m sure there are lots of things for me to do at O&D.”

  “And I’ll make sure you enjoy all of them,” Jack said.

  I’m going to throw up now. Nell looked over at Gabe, talking seriously with Lu, and thought, I should be over there. She leaned forward and flirted with Jack for the rest of lunch and didn’t look at Gabe again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Suze braced herself when Gabe got back, praying he’d keep right on going into his office, but Riley, the big schmuck, said, “How was lunch?” from the couch he was sharing with Marlene. Suze glared at him over her mu shu pork, and he stared calmly back at her over his General Tso.

  “Interesting,” Gabe said. “Jack and Nell were there.”

  “Really?” Riley said, and Suze thought, I’m going to put vinegar in your coffee tomorrow.

  “He hired her,” Gabe said, watching Suze.

  Riley sat up, not kidding around anymore, annoying Marlene, who’d been doing her abused dog routine in hopes of some chicken. “To work at O&D? And you had to go and piss her off. You couldn’t be nice so she’d tell us things.”

  Gabe looked at him with contempt. “Of course she’s going to tell us things. Why do you think she took the job? What I want to know is why did they hire her? Trevor said he’d tried to get her out of here before because of the diamonds. What if there’s something else here?”

  Riley shook his head. “You know, your faith in yourself as the center of her universe is touching. She took the job because she needed the money. I just hope to hell she doesn’t decide she needs the boss, too.”

  Gabe’s face darkened and Suze said, fast, “You have a phone message. Somebody named Gina Taggart wants you to meet her at the Long Shot at eight tonight. I told her you’d call her back.”

  She held the message slip out to him and he took it. He started to say something to Riley, and then he shook his head and went into his office.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Suze said.

  “No.” Riley sat back and gave Marlene a piece of chicken. “He’s too damn sure of her.”

  “You know, she probably did take that job to look around,” Suze said.

  “I know,” Riley said.

  “Then why—”

  “Because he needs to worry about her,” Riley said. “Otherwise he’ll just sit in that damn office and wait for her to come back, the way his dad always did with his mom. He’s following a tradition here. Remember how long they both waited to move on each other?”

  Suze nodded.

  “You want to watch that mess again?”

  Suze shook her head.

  “Well?” Riley said and stabbed his fork into the garlic chicken. Marlene moved closer and fluttered her eyelashes.

  “I don’t want him yelling at me the way he yelled at Nell,” Suze said. “I want him happy.”

  “He’s not going to yell at you,” Riley said. “You’re not screwing up his life.”

  “No, he’s doing that,” Suze said and Riley grinned at her.

  “I see you’re developing a keen understanding of the McKennas,” he said.

  “Only one of them. You are still a mystery to me.”

  “Part of my charm.”

  “A seventeen-year-old mind in a thirty-five-year-old body. How do you keep that working for you?”

  “Thirty-four,” Riley said. “And I’m good, sweetheart, I’m very, very good.” Marlene moaned, and he added, “See?”

  “Yeah, you’re hell with dachshunds,” Suze said. “But will she still want you when the chicken’s gone?”

  “So young to be so bitter,” Riley said and went back to his office, Marlene trailing him in her trenchcoat.

  * * *

  Jack had, not surprisingly, overstated O&D’s recognition of Nell’s skills. He’d also evidently not tipped his assistant, Elizabeth, that he had ulterior motives in hiring her, because once he’d introduced them, smiled warmly at Nell, kissed her on the cheek with an extensive grasp on the shoulder, and then left, Elizabeth looked at her with loathing and said, “We’ve found the perfect job for you.”

  Whoops, Nell thought and considered clueing Elizabeth in to the fact that Jack’s interest was part of some plan. The fanatical light in Elizabeth’s eyes stopped her. Elizabeth would tell Jack immediately. So all Nell said was, “Wonderful,” and followed Elizabeth to a windowless room filled with mismatched filing cabinets and overflowing cardboard boxes and a battered desk with a computer on it from the early nineties.

  “This is the newsletter room,” Elizabeth said triumphantly under the one working fluorescent light. “We need it organized. I understand you’re wonderful at organization. So we’d like you to file these and then index them.”

  “Index them,” Nell said.

  “Go through and make a list of names with issues and page numbers,” Elizabeth said. “Not difficult.”

  A reasonably bright third grader could do this, Nell thought, but she smiled and said, “Wonderful. I love to org