Chapter 1
Zion
“So, tell me about Belize,” I said leaning in to show how interested I was in hearing the rest of the story.
Tyler Zane leaned forward gently in his chair across the table from me and paused a moment, his sensual mouth poised as if he was about to speak something profound. I looked into his beautiful blue eyes and held my breath for a moment. I’d been waiting for this for a while.
I couldn’t believe I was at Mesa Palo, the hottest restaurant in the city, very exclusive and hard to get into, and I was with Tyler Zane, the youngest junior partner at Wilson, Bane, and Brock, one of the most prestigious law firms on the west coast. I’d been eyeing him from the day I started my internship there and finally after several weeks of flirtation Tyler and I were having dinner together.
“It’s really great,” he said. “The climate is beautiful, the people are warm and really hard working, and there is a lot of room to really do some great work down there. I really miss it. That is one of the downsides to being a junior partner. I just don’t have the time to donate to noble causes like building houses in Belize. I used to do it every single summer for at least a few weeks with my neighbor’s church group. It was a blast.”
“That’s great,” I said. I loved that he was into noble pursuits that way. Tyler was so confident that it bordered on cocky and if you didn’t really know him or weren’t able to look past that then you would never really get to know this side of him. I think this is what attracted me to him the most.
“How about you?” Tyler asked. “Done much traveling?”
I shook my head. “No, not really. But I’ve always dreamt about going to Nepal.”
“Yeah, Nepal is good,” he replied. “It’s very majestic and I love all the mountains.”
“It’s definitely on my list of places to visit,” I said. “As well as Japan and Australia.”
“You want to go down under? Yeah, that place is a trip. I went there a few times as a kid with my folks and I try to make it back there every few years if I can.”
“Is that where this love of travelling came from? Your folks?”
“Yeah, and I hate to be stuck in one spot for long.”
“Does that mean you don’t plan to be with the firm that long?”
He nodded. “Good guess. I mean, I love what I do, but I’m not sure that I want to be doing it ten years from now. I might be able to make full partner by then, but then what will I do? I don’t want to stay in the same place and just stagnate.”
He cut off a piece of his salmon and forked it into his mouth. He seemed to pause to savor it almost as if he was trying to emphasize the fact that he was putting something between his lips. I found it both enticing and a bit off putting. Very arrogant, but something about him really drew me to him.
I had started my internship just a few weeks ago and so far, I was enjoying every single bit of it. I loved the people, the work I was doing, and I loved learning about the legal profession. I had almost two years left to go in law school and I hoped to enter the firm as an associate when I graduated. It had been my life’s dream to practice law ever since I was twelve years old. And I’d worked so hard to make this dream a reality. Now it was coming closer and closer.
And I was in the process of meeting some amazing people, some of them super-hot men like Tyler. Wow, he was incredibly good-looking. He was charming and he was really the type of guy that I could see a future with, but one thing at a time. We’d just started talking and this was our first actual date. So far, I was having a great time.
“I can understand that,” I said. “So, what does your dad do? Is he a lawyer as well? Did he kind of drive you into the field?”
“No, he is actually a plumber,” he replied. “He’s been a plumber for about thirty years. I guess he likes it. He works for himself, makes good money, and he gets to work with his hands. My dad is a simple guy. He has always been that way. He hasn’t wanted much in life and he hasn’t really gotten it.”
“But you are different. You want the brass ring.”
“Yep. I want it all, as much as I can get. That is the goal in my life. I want to do everything I want to do and I want to be in a position to never worry about money. ‘I can’t afford it’ should never be in my vocabulary.”