Suddenly One Summer
Page 25

Another knock at her door.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
Muttering under her breath, she climbed out of the tub and quickly dried off. After wrapping the towel around herself, she headed into the living room and looked through the peephole on her door.
Ford stood in the hallway.
She groaned in annoyance, half-shouting through the door. “What?”
He blinked at the unceremonious greeting, and then cocked his head. “What are you doing in there? I can see your lights on through the balcony—you’re obviously not sleeping.”
Oh, really? Who was spying on whom now? “I was trying to take a bath.”
“Oh.” He paused, as if considering this. “All right, I’ll come back. What do you need, ten minutes?”
“Ten minutes?” She rolled her eyes. Men. “That’s hardly enough time to—” Feeling stupid arguing through the door, she sighed in frustration. “Just hold on.” Figuring she might as well get this over with, she grumbled under her breath and went into her bedroom to throw on jeans and a T-shirt. On her way back to the door, she removed the clip she’d used during her bath and shook out her hair.
She threw the door open and got right down to it. “So. To what do I owe this pleasure, Mr. Dixon?”
His lips twitched at the corners. “That’s an interesting way to wear eye makeup.”
Victoria stepped back and checked out her reflection in the foyer mirror, and saw that she had two big black raccoon-like smudges of mascara under her eyes. Oh, for Pete’s sake. She gestured impatiently for him to enter. “Well, come in already. I’ll be right back.” She left him standing there and went to the bathroom to grab her makeup remover, then scrubbed her face clean and headed back out into the living room.
She found Ford standing by the couch, checking out a photograph of her and her mom from law school graduation.
“I know someone else who went to Northwestern Law. Cade Morgan. Two years ahead of you, I’m guessing?”
Clearly, somebody had been doing a little research on her, if he knew what law school she’d attended. “I know the name. Listen, I have a tub of steaming hot water and a nice jammy zinfandel waiting for me. Maybe we could cut to the chase?”
Ford turned to face her. “My sister said you offered to take on her case.”
“That’s true.” And if he’d come here tonight to tell her he had a problem with that, unfortunately, he’d just have to get over it. She may have stumbled unintentionally into being Nicole’s lawyer, but now that she’d made a commitment, she was all in.
“She also said you’d mentioned cutting her a break on your rate.”
“Also true.”
He studied her. “Why would you do that? You don’t even know my sister.”
Victoria leaned her hip against the back of the couch. “She needs help. I can help her. It’s not all that complicated.”
He came around the couch, moving closer. “I looked into you, you know. Your firm appears to be quite successful.”
“I do all right.”
He stopped in front of her, shifting uncomfortably. “So, if someone with your . . . seemingly acceptable legal skills”—he looked slightly pained by the acknowledgment—“has decided to help my sister, I suppose I shouldn’t get in the way of that. Even if it does mean we have to work together.”
Victoria, who’d been rather enjoying seeing Ford stumble his way through this begrudging, quasi–thank you, blinked at this last part. “I’m sorry. Did you say, ‘work together’?”
“Trust me, I’m not thrilled about it, either. But seeing how you’re Nicole’s lawyer, and I’m the one who’s going to track down Peter Sutter, I figure we’re pretty much a team now.”
A team? Oh, now that was cute. But, unfortunately, not the way she operated. “Right. I remember Nicole saying something about you using your resources at the Trib to find Peter Sutter.” Victoria waved this off. “That won’t be necessary anymore. I plan to hire a private investigator to handle that.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “But I already told Nicole I would do it.”
“Well . . . un-tell her, then.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said. “Okay, yes, fine, it is personal. You and I hardly mesh well. But on top of that, I don’t subcontract out the investigative work in my cases to relatives of clients. Period.”
Ford considered this. “How much will a PI charge you?”
She thought back to the last time she’d worked with a private investigator. “Around a hundred an hour. Maybe more.”
“And you’ll just pass along that cost to my sister, despite the fact that she has someone who’s offered to do the work for free?”
Victoria bristled at the implication. “I didn’t say that.”
“Then . . . what? Your firm eats the cost of the PI? All we have is a name and the bar where Nicole and Peter Sutter met. Do you realize how long it could take to find this guy? We could be talking about thousands of dollars here. I can save you that expense.”
The practical businesswoman in her paused at that.
But.
“I just don’t think you and I working together is a good idea.”
He met her gaze boldly. “I can handle it if you can.”
“I never said I couldn’t handle it.” And the truth of the matter was, technically, Nicole had every right to use her brother to track down Peter Sutter, whether Victoria liked it or not. She didn’t have to give Victoria the go-ahead to use a private investigator for that.
“Then it’s settled,” Ford said.
Not seeing how she had much choice—most unfortunately—she wanted to get one thing straight from the beginning. “If we do this, we do it my way. I want to be kept fully in the loop with everything you’re doing. I can’t be worrying that you’re running around knocking on the door of every Peter Sutter in town, demanding to know whether he knocked up your sister.”
“Just so I know, is it your plan to be this bossy the entire time we’re working together?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “You’re welcome to walk away anytime.”
“This is my sister we’re talking about.” He took a step closer. “Which means you’re stuck with me, Victoria. Like it or not.”