Recluse (Wolfes of Manhattan 2)

She sighed. “Sure. Let’s have dinner. We should talk.”

Talk? That was never good. She was the one who’d said she didn’t want to spend the night together at the hotel. Of course, I hadn’t argued the point either.

“Charlie?”

I turned. A large man with silvery hair stood in her office doorway.

“Blaine? What are you doing here?”

Blaine Foster. The partner at Lacey’s firm who Charlie’d had lunch with.

“Just came by to see Lacey.”

“About what we discussed earlier?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, actually.” He nodded toward me. “Could you excuse us, please, Mr. Wolfe?”

“He knows everything you told me,” Charlie said. “He can stay.”

“I’m not here on business,” he said.

“Then I’m definitely staying.” I smiled and took a seat.

“Roy…” Charlie began.

“Is there something going on I should know about?” Blaine asked.

“Nothing that’s any of your business,” I replied.

“Okay, then.” He cleared his throat again. “How about dinner?”

“Love to,” I said sarcastically.

“He was talking to me, Roy.”

I simply smiled.

“I already have plans,” Charlie said.

“Change them.”

I stood. “They’re with me.”

“You? Roy ‘pretty boy’ Wolfe?”

I cocked my head. “Pretty boy? This pretty boy would be happy to slam your head through the wall.”

Charlie stood then. “Blaine, please leave. Unless you have more information for me—”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then you can tell me here. Now. No need for you to spend your money on another meal for me.”

“Maybe I like your company.”

Then I saw it. That look in his eyes.

He’d slept with Charlie.

My Charlie.

I lowered my eyelids slightly and clenched my jaw. “Get out,” I said.

“Is this your office, Mr. Wolfe?”

“It’s my company,” I said.

“Last I heard, it’s your brother’s company. You don’t even have a position here.”

Charlie moved from behind her desk and positioned herself between us. “Stop it, both of you. Blaine, I’m having dinner with Roy tonight. Sorry, he asked first. If you have information—”

“Never mind,” Blaine said. “I’m done here.”

“Good,” I said through my clenched teeth, after he’d left and closed the door.

“Thanks a lot,” Charlie said. “Now I’ll never get whatever information he had.”

“He didn’t have any information.”

“And how do you think you know that?”

“He wanted to fuck you, Charlie.”

Her cheeks reddened. “I assure you—”

“Don’t even try. I could see it. You and he were together.”

“For a little while. I ended it.”

“Why? A big partner in a successful law firm? He’d be a catch. Of course, a Wolfe would be a much better catch.”

She huffed, her hands whipping to her hips. “Get out.”

“Sorry. I own this building.”

“You’re ridiculous. If you think for one minute that I was interested in either Blaine or you because of money, you don’t know me at all.”

Yeah. I was a jerk. A first-class douche.

“Our dinner date, then? What time should I pick you up?”

“I’m not going to dinner with you.”

I sat down. “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“I said I’m sorry.”

I was. I’d been a jerk for no reason.

“Uh…okay.”

“So then…dinner?”

“Roy…”

“Come on. I said I was sorry, and I need to talk to you about some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Dinner, okay?”

She sighed. “All right. But I’ll meet you there. I’m going to be working until the last minute.”

“All right. I’ll email you the details.” I stood. “See you later.”31CharlieEight o’clock at the Red Room.

I was hardly dressed for the Red Room. The place reeked of cocktail dresses. Here I was in my crisp linen suit. Navy blue, the professional color. A power suit, career counselors called it. Yeah, I’d gone to a career counselor after high school, since I couldn’t afford college without going into major debt. I got no help from my father, who was busy with second kids. And my mother was a marketing assistant, which created another dilemma. She earned too much for me to qualify for any financial aid other than loans, but not enough to actually afford to pay for tuition.

Them’s the breaks, as my high school guidance counselor had said.

Yeah, he really said that, bad grammar and all.

The career counselor had steered me to an inexpensive—well, inexpensive compared to college. I still had to take a small loan—paralegal course of studies at the local community college, one of the few that didn’t require a college degree. I had great grades, so the counselor helped me get in.

Blaine had once called me a workaholic.

Seriously. A senior partner in a Manhattan law firm had called me, Charlie Waters, who didn’t have a college degree, a workaholic.

I wasn’t a workaholic, but I did have a work ethic. My mother might not have been able to afford to send me to college, but she did teach me the value of working hard and doing the best job possible.

But was there any truth in Blaine’s words?

I truly had worked up until I had to leave to meet Roy. But could those last-minute things have waited until morning?

Being dressed a little nicer would have made a nice statement.

Power suits might be professional, but they were blah.