“Oh, just checking, because I don’t mind you covering my assets.”
He looked down at the floor and felt his face warm as he laughed. “That’s also in the contract . . . to make sure nothing happens to you.”
“Ah, nice recovery. You are indeed a gentleman.” She raised an eyebrow with a wider smile. “So, what’s wrong with you?”
“Pardon?” He tilted his head, it was a throwback reaction from his old roots, and then he caught himself.
&n
bsp; “Ooooh, I made the neighborhood come up out of you, after all.”
She doubled over laughing and he found himself chuckling quietly. She was right; it had leaped to the surface without warning, and the fact that it tickled her so was hilarious to watch.
“You were ready to square off on me and run the dozens, don’t lie.”
“Ma’am—”
“Anita, remember,” she corrected, touching his arm. “I’m really getting to the point of not caring about formality.”
“Anita . . . I was just going for clarity, but you did take me back to Detroit for a minute.”
“Uhmmm, hmmm.”
She hadn’t removed her hand and the warmth of it radiated up his arm.
“What I meant was, how come a fine, educated gentleman like yourself is still available?”
He shrugged, his smile fading. “My lifestyle leaves a lot to be desired, I guess.”
“Lifestyle?” she said, panic suddenly filling her eyes as she jerked back her hand.
“No, no, I’m not—”
“Whew, okay . . . no problem with anyone who is . . . a lot of my best friends are, but that would have been a real disappointment if you told me that.”
He smirked. “That’s the least of your worries.”
“Okay, Detroit, now you’re on the verge of talking trash.”
He had to laugh.
“So, what’s the deal?”
He let out a long breath and his smile faded. “I travel too much, I’m on long assignments overseas, and can’t be contacted in some of the places I go. I don’t make what some of the guys who’ve chosen high-profile corporate professions make . . . and the person I had in my life decided that was too much to deal with. It would’ve just been nice if she would have told me, rather than allowing me to walk in on a very bad situation.”
“Shut up!” Anita said in a low murmur. “Is she crazy? Didn’t she know you know how to kill people with your bare hands?”
He smiled. “When you know how to do that, losing it like that is the last thing you wanna do. I value my freedom; doing time in prison isn’t in my career plans.”
“So what happened?”
He shrugged. This was not at all the direction he’d ever thought a conversation with Anita Brown would take. He hadn’t even gone into full details with Lowell, just said that Monica had cheated and found someone new.
“It was what it was.”
“Spill . . . you have gotta tell me— I have always wanted to know what a man thinks when he rolls up on a situation like that. Normally it’s the other way around.”
His outrageous client sat forward so eagerly, like an entranced child, that he felt himself almost becoming hypnotized, wanting to purge his soul and tell her just to get it out of him once and for all.