Just One Taste...(13)

He'd told Gilbert he'd filed the new will, though he had no intention of  ever doing so. The old will would stand, and his friend would thank him  when he changed his mind.                       
       
           



       

The law was supposed to be blind. The people entrusted to dispense and  defend it fiercely loyal. Joseph knew he wasn't allowed to judge his  clients. He was obligated to be their instrument within the law. He'd  done so without fail for almost thirty years.

But he couldn't file that document. He couldn't leave a loyal wife and  mother with nothing, just because she'd signed a prenuptial agreement,  and reward some silicone-enhanced bubblehead, who'd obviously given  Gilbert some kind of drug to get him to change his will.

What an idiot. No decent man would bring such humiliation on his family.  If his client hadn't already died, Joseph would have strangled him  personally. But he was dead, and no one, save him, Millie and his law  clerk, would ever know about the other will.

And maybe a Daytona Beach stripper.

He cast a quick glance around his pristine office. The oxblood-colored  leather furniture, the calm landscape paintings, the solid mahogany desk  and cabinets, the books, awards and objets d' art. He'd both inherited  and earned them. His experience with the law gave him a perspective that  escaped most men. He deserved to right a few more wrongs.

Millie's eyes filled with tears. "He said he was leaving me. He was going to marry her."

"He didn't." Thank God. Then Joseph really would have had a mess on his  hands. "How are the boys holding up?" he asked in an effort to shift the  subject.

Millie clenched her hands in her lap. She glanced nervously around his  office. "They're … embarrassed. The kids at school have obviously heard  the … rumors. The … circumstances. Of course half the teasing comes with a  pleaded introduction to that woman."

Millie had two sons at Georgia Tech and another who had established a  thriving family practice in the suburbs. How Joseph would have liked one  of his girls to see the doctor's appeal. Of course Angelica had married  well, and Vanessa … Well, there was no telling that child anything.

"The scandal will pass," he said to Millie. "Brian has been a wonderful family spokesman. You've done such a great job-"

"Are all men led around by their dicks?" she bit out, jumping to her feet.

Joseph flinched at her tone and crude language. Millie was the epitome  of a proper, elegant Southern lady, though he supposed she had a right  to her anger.

"No, Millie," he said, rising and moving around the desk toward her.  "They're not. Something happened to Gilbert. She drugged him-"

She barked out a laugh. "Right."

"-or he was going through some kind of crisis." He grasped her hands in  his. "He would have come to his senses. I'm sure of it. He would have  come back on his knees, begging you to forgive him, grateful to have  such a beautiful wife."

She glanced down at their joined hands, then back up at him. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Joseph."

He could smell her expensive perfume. He fought against unwanted desire. "You're strong, Millie. You're going to survive this."

She took a deep breath, then turned away. "I guess." She walked across  his office and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond her, he  could see the Atlanta skyline. An expanse of gray-blue sky set against a  collection of vertical steel columns. He knew if he looked down he'd  see the familiar hustle and bustle of the city. The whole business made  him tired.

Maybe he really was getting old.

"I almost hired a gigolo last night," Millie said quietly.

"You what?"

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. A smile hovered at her lips. "A gigolo. A man you pay to have sex with you."

"Good God, Millie. What are you thinking? Now's not the time-"

"To let my libido do the thinking? You're wrong, Joseph, now's the perfect time."

The sexual tension in the room was palpable. Joseph had been tempted  before-what man could say he hadn't?-but he'd never betrayed his wife. A  man had a duty to his family, an obligation to loyalty. Despite the  strayings of his clients and contemporaries, he had no intention of  bringing down scandal on his family or disrespect on himself and his  firm.                       
       
           



       

He had to regain control of this meeting. "I know this has been a  nightmare for you, but revenge isn't the answer. You'll regret it  later."

"I don't see how."

Great. How would that look? If the stripper did challenge the will, he  certainly didn't need the grieving widow holed up in a local hotel with  some hired lothario.

"Just go about your normal routine. Wait until we get this will through probate."

"Okay." She sniffed, then flung herself into his arms. "Oh, Joseph, what am I going to do? I'm so miserable!"

With that, his wife walked into his office.





5



LUCAS SWIVELED HIS home-office chair to face the window behind his desk.  Towering steel buildings dotted the skyline. Heavy, charcoal clouds  hovered behind them. Rain would undoubtedly ruin trips to the lake and  pool in the afternoon. Afterward, the humidity wouldn't decrease. It  would just produce steam. Summertime in the South.He had projects to  work on-a pro bono case he was pursuing for a widow, calls to make  regarding the law student he was mentoring-but he didn't move.

Where is she now?

In his mind, he watched her turn, glance at him over her shoulder and  smile. He smiled in return. He walked slowly toward her; he stroked her  cheek, pushing her hair back behind her ear … .

Though he knew obsessing about Vanessa was a bad idea, he indulged  himself anyway. He recalled her enthusiasm for her business, her playful  indulgence with the party guests, her rapturous expressions as they  made love.

Pick up the phone.

No.

He couldn't logically explain his sudden reluctance to find out who she  was. But he trusted his instincts. The fantasy, the mystery of last  night still hovered in the air like rolling fog. He didn't want the  clouds to clear.

Ridiculous.

Resolving to get to Vanessa later, he shook off the ghosts of  trepidation and turned to his computer. With the odd encounter at the  party last night between him and "Anthony," the drunk junior executive  from Douglas and Alderman, foremost in his mind, he searched Google for  the attorneys, starting with Douglas.

What was going on with the ultraconservative firm? Generations of moldy  money and community respect could produce scandal, but it was generally  quiet. An embezzling charge or two, infidelity occasionally, a trust  fund purged for drugs once in a while. Unfortunately, it happened in  every community.

From Douglas and Alderman, however, he hadn't heard a whisper of  negative gossip. They appeared to staunchly support their clients,  discreetly defended them in court when necessary-which was hardly  ever-and quietly cashed the checks of the privileged as reward for a job  well done.

He couldn't imagine what had convinced a junior partner to babble on about something amiss at the firm that was his livelihood.

It had to be something big. Ya can't have two wills. Ya just can't. Two  wills-at least for one person-was definitely not a good thing. For a  lawyer or a beneficiary.

In the computer search, unsurprisingly, the Douglas Foundation came up  first. It, after all, was the only Douglas enterprise that actually  wanted publicity. Of only the respectable kind.

He skimmed through a couple of articles about monetary recipients from  the foundation-the United Way, the Cancer Society, the children's  hospital among them. All were respectable and expected. He glanced at a  few posed publicity photographs lifted from newspapers, featuring the  foundation's director, Elise Douglas, who looked vaguely familiar.

He moved on to sites specifically mentioning the firm of Douglas and  Alderman. There wasn't much. Their primary objective was, after all,  discretion. A lawsuit won here and there that had minor public interest.  A client caught in an affair-with-the-secretary scandal, where the firm  tried-unsuccessfully-to get their guy custody of his two children.

The firm didn't even have a Web site.

Next, he checked on the other name Anthony had mentioned-Switzer. He  found some articles there. Gilbert Switzer was a prominent neurosurgeon,  who'd been praised for both his medical skills and generosity, giving  often to the art museum. He and his wife, Millicent, were high-society  pillars, obviously moving in the same elite circles as the Douglases.  There was even a picture of the four of them together at the opening of  the new cardiac wing of a downtown hospital.