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glass. She did likewise. They clinked glasses but held them touching for several moments while they looked closely at each other. Then she glanced up at the task light.
Acting on instinct and without consulting her, he depressed the button on his armrest that turned the light out. “Better?”
“Yes. The glare…” She spoke in a much lower voice then, as though the absence of the light invited whispering, and she didn’t finish whatever it was she was about to say. Instead, she took a sip of her Bloody Mary, a bit nervously he thought. Keeping her head down, she stared into her glass and nudged the floating lime with her swizzle stick. “What do you do?”
“About what?”
She raised her head and gave him a look.
He smiled. “Attorney.”
“Corporate?”
“Criminal.”
That got her interest. Turning more toward him, the toe of her shoe brushed the leg of his trousers, and suddenly his calf was an erogenous zone.
“Which side?” she asked.
“Defense.”
“I would have guessed that.”
“You would?”
“Um-huh,” she murmured as she took another sip of her drink. She’d looked him over. “You dress too well for a man who earns a civil employee’s salary.”
“Thank you.” And because she was still appraising him, he’d said, “And?”
“And you don’t look…” She tilted her head, considering. “Righteous enough to be a prosecutor.”
He laughed, loud enough to cause the man across the aisle to glance at them and adjust the volume on the earphones bridging his head. Taking the hint, Derek leaned closer to her, bringing his face to within inches of hers. She didn’t move away. “I don’t think anyone would use righteous as an adjective to describe me.”
“So the derogatory lawyer jokes don’t offend you?”
“Hell no. In fact, I’m the basis of most of them.”
Mindful of the man across the aisle, she clamped her teeth over her lower lip to keep from laughing. Straight teeth. A plush lower lip barely glossed. An overall sexy mouth.
“Why criminal law?” She was fiddling with the top button of her blouse, and for a moment, the motion of her fingers distracted him.
“Criminal law? That’s where the bad guys are.”
“And you defend the bad guys.”
Again he grinned. “Profitably.”
They continued to chitchat through those first Bloody Marys. They touched on their favorite restaurants in Atlanta, the serious traffic problem, this and that, nothing personal or consequential.
Then out of nowhere she said, “I take it you’re not married.”
“No. I’m not. What made you think so?”
“Deductive reasoning. If you were married, even unhappily, your wife would be with you. No woman would pass up a trip to Paris, not even if it meant suffering through the celebration of a mother-in-law’s birthday.”
“My wife could have come along but stayed behind in Paris for some extra sightseeing.”
She let that lie a moment, then looked down into her glass and swirled the ice cubes with the tip of the swizzle stick. “I doubt a wife would trust you to travel alone.”
“I look untrustworthy?”
“A wife wouldn’t have trusted other women.”
His ego spun drunkenly. He leaned maybe an inch closer. “You’re traveling alone, too.”
“That’s right.”
“Business or pleasure?”
She drained what was left of her drink, then looked down at her left hand, which was noticeably without a wedding band. “I went all the way to Paris to catch my husband in bed with his girlfriend.”
Bingo, Derek thought. He’d just won the lottery. Her pride had suffered a blow. She, of the cloud-gray eyes, kissable mouth, great legs, and shapely ass, had been dumped for another woman. She was vulnerable, in search of validation, in desperate need of reassurance that she was still an attractive, alluring woman.
He nodded toward her empty glass. “Another?”
Her eyes stayed on his, and he could tell she had reached a crossroads. Thank him politely but decline and return to her seat? Or stay and see where this went? She dragged that delectable lower lip through her teeth again, then said, “Sure. Why