“Ah, yes, I remember now. You were going to join a big firm and make a million bucks. How’s that working out for you so far?”
“Pretty damn fantastic.”
“Glad to know I won’t be confusing you with Atticus Finch.”
He shouldn’t let the disapproval in her voice faze him. “I might sound mercenary, but I don’t work for free. Do you?”
“No, but I like to think that what I’m doing is helping the community.”
“So do I. Representing clients who need my help fighting the legal system is all part of the checks and balances our democracy depends on.”
“Sounds like high-priced fancy lawyer speak to me.”
There was that judgmental tone again. She might think him an arrogant asshole, but he was who he was and he had no problems with that. Normally, he’d blow her off at this point. There were simply too many willing women in the world to waste his time on one that needed more than some simple wining and dining.
He should smile and guide the conversation toward something safe and bland, finish his dinner, pay the check and say good-night. After all, she was nothing more than a girl he liked thirteen years ago.
A girl he’d more than liked, if he was being honest with himself.
If circumstances had been different back then, he would have wanted their relationship to evolve and progress. Maybe they would have broken up after a few months. Or maybe not. They’d never really know.
The thing was, she wasn’t just a woman he wanted to sleep with again.
Her opinion of him mattered.
He didn’t believe in fate or karma or any of that psychic woo-woo shit, but the idea that meeting up again with Jenna after all these years was nothing more than a stroke of dumb luck seemed too coincidental. Tonight he had a chance to make things right with her and he wasn’t going to blow it. He laid his napkin across his lap and prepared to do the unthinkable. He was going to defend his actions.
“Let me see if I can explain this to you. Take the Arthur Clendenin case. There’s no doubt the old guy had a lot of money, but that’s not the only reason I decided to represent his widow. I was the fifteenth lawyer Tiffany came to for help. The prenup she’d signed was cut and dry. The other partners at my firm asked me to turn her down flat.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Tiffany genuinely cared for the old guy, and it was obvious from talking to his staff and the people who knew him that she made him happy. Which is more than you can say for those money-grubbing kids of his. What most people don’t know is that a big chunk of the change she won in her suit she gave right back to all the charities Arthur supported.”
“But not all of it?”
“Tiffany’s a good person. Not a saint.”
“So that’s why you took her case?” she pressed. “Because she’s a good person?”
“It was a factor,” he answered cautiously. “And the money, of course.”
“And all those pictures of the two of you in the tabloids?”
His relationship with Tiffany wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t something he’d ever been comfortable talking about, so he gave her the simplest explanation. “Like I said, we’re friends and friends do things together.”
“If you say so.”
Her tone implied that she either didn’t believe him or that she simply didn’t care. He wasn’t sure which was worse. Biting back his disappointment, he switched the topic to something safer.
“City manager, huh? How did that happen?”
She told him about getting her master’s at Cornell (he was impressed, but then she’d always been impressive) and her subsequent jobs in Tampa and Clearwater. As a kid, she’d spent a lot of summers visiting her favorite aunt and uncle in Whispering Bay, falling in love with the beautiful beaches and the quiet lifestyle. After Uncle Bob had passed, she’d made a point to visit Aunt Viola, who was childless, as often as possible. When the city manager position became open, she’d immediately applied, and the rest was history.
“You think small-town life will suit you?” he asked.
“Definitely. I have big plans for this town. What about you? Is Miami permanently home now?”
“As long as Martinez and Martinez keep paying me what they do, then yes.”