“You’re doing it right now.” Heavy sigh. “You tried to undermine me in front of the client. Then you went to my father. If he didn’t know me, he might have believed you.”
Taking a deep breath, she stared out the passenger side window at the rushing scenery. Skylar Griffin was still the most stubborn, arrogant, irritating man she’d ever met. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash an old fight in the confines of his mid-life crisis car. Plus, she hadn’t gone to his father. His father had come to her. Clearly, he’d been worried about Skylar’s ability to do his job.
She decided not to tell him that. The last thing she needed was for the two men to get into a fight and make an already uncomfortable situation unbearable.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Thirty-eight. You?”
Okay, so he wasn’t exactly middle-aged yet. At least not in her book. She’d always considered forty to be the start of middle-age. “I turn thirty in a few weeks.”
“Age is important for us to know.” He nodded his approval. “Smart. Small details are important, but they will definitely want to know how I proposed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Can’t wait to hear this. What does Skylar Griffin think is a romantic way to propose to a woman?”
He scoffed. “Are you saying I can’t be romantic?”
She shrugged, no comment.
Another sigh parted his lips. “This isn’t a fair test. I need to know more about you, likes and dislikes. That’s where I would get the idea of how to propose properly.”
“Lilies are my favorite flower. I would hate it if someone proposed in a public place like a sports game because I value my privacy and don’t want to be put on the spot. What if I want to say no?”
“I pity the guy that proposes to you. He’d better hold onto the receipt for that ring.”
A tiny arrow pierced her heart. For some reason, his comment stung. She wasn’t a total shrew. “I don’t have time to date one person long enough for that to happen.”
He snapped his fingers. “Yes!”
She jumped, startled.
He went on. “My parents might ask us about that, how we found time for each other.”
Their situation was becoming more complicated by the second. How did she allow herself to get mixed up in Skylar’s messy plan? “I don’t have time for this,” she mumbled.
“What was that?” he asked in a loud voice. “I didn’t hear you.”
Making her hands into fists on her lap, she said, “I am in the middle of an important case right now, and I don’t have time for distractions.”
The last word made him chuckle. “Is that what I am? A distraction?”
He had no idea how on the mark that word was concerning him. The man sitting beside her, weaving in and out of traffic like a Nascar driver was the most distracting person she had dealt with in years. She couldn’t give her client one hundred percent of herself if she had him on her mind.
“Tell me about your case,” he said.
“But you still haven’t told me how you proposed. We’re nearly there, and we still have so much to learn about each other.”
He drove in silence, waiting for her to answer his question.
She sighed. “I have the Jensen case.”
Kyle Jensen, 15, was accused of killing his foster parents. He insisted he was innocent, but all the evidence pointed to him. Neighbors told the police the family fought almost every night, and he didn’t have an alibi.
“They gave the case to you? I can’t believe it. I turned it down and my father gave it to you?” Skylar slammed the steering wheel with an open hand and cursed. “That kid is guilty as sin. We shouldn’t be defending him at all.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe he did it.”
Skylar scoffed. “Wow. Do you also believe in aliens?”