Beauty Vs. The Beast. M.J. Rodgers
she’s not your patient anymore. She was waiting in reception that day when we had our little discussion, remember? She heard it all, every word. You think she’ll ever trust you again after what you did to me? You think she’ll ever even want to see you again?”
Damian remembered how Bette had nearly run out of the reception area that dreadful day. Maybe he really shouldn’t be surprised that she had decided not to continue therapy with him. Particularly since Priscilla had obviously talked to Bette before he could, just as she had talked to Tim Haley.
No use pointing out the total lack of ethics such behavior displayed. Priscilla was, obviously, in no mood to hear it.
“I want her videotapes, Damian.”
“Fine,” he answered. “I’ll pack them up and drop them off here on my way to the lake on Sunday.”
“Her videotapes aren’t still in your office?”
“I already moved all the videotapes to my home office. Now, if you’ll stop blocking the doorway, I’ll be on my way.”
Priscilla didn’t budge. Her hands set on her hips. “I saw Mrs. Nye on the news last night. I hope her attorney creams you in court.”
Damian was getting very weary of this vindictive trip Priscilla was on. Very weary. “I expected you to be a little more professional about our differences, Dr. Payton.”
“Me a little more professional? Ha! Look who’s talking.”
Enough was enough. Damian’s tone descended into an icy hush of warning. “This isn’t getting either of us anywhere, Doctor. Move aside.”
Her voice rose, even more belligerent and taunting. “What’s the matter? Can’t face a fight, Damian?”
Damian’s jaw clenched. “You know better. If you don’t stop blocking the doorway, Dr. Payton, I will physically move you out of the way. You make the choice. You have ten seconds.”
Damian watched Priscilla’s expression change from one of dare to one of growing disquiet as she read the intent in his eyes. He was not bluffing and she knew it. She scooted nervously out of the way.
“You always resort to violence, don’t you, Damian? Don’t you?”
Damian didn’t waste his time with a retort, nor a backward glance in her direction. He charged through the cleared pathway. He took the hallway in massive strides, shouldered his way through the outer doorway to the parking lot and made a beeline for his forest-green ‘61 Jaguar coupe, keeping cool in its private parking space beneath the shade of a thickly branched giant madrona tree.
This office complex had been his professional home since he had been lucky enough to find it tucked into a residential section along Lake Union seven years before. It wouldn’t be easy to find another that fit his needs so well.
Still, he was going to have to try.
Maybe it was good that this change was being foisted on him. Maybe he’d become too complacent. Maybe he needed a little shaking up.
Well, need it or not, he was certainly getting it. And to think it was only a year ago that he’d refused to be featured in the Seattle Times supplement as a prime example of the ruggedly individual and intellectual Pacific Northwest bachelor.
Ruggedly individual? Intellectual? What a joke. It seemed as if lately, all he’d been doing was marching straight into the sea of professional and personal suicide like some brainless lemming. What else could possibly go wrong?
Damian dug into his pants pocket for his key as he approached his car. He opened the driver’s side and carefully set the last box of patient records in the back seat. As he straightened up, he noticed a blue envelope beneath the windshield wiper.
He snatched it, expecting it to be yet another announcement for yet another new espresso shop. No wonder everyone was sleepless in Seattle. He was just about to throw the blue envelope into a nearby waste bin, when his eyes caught sight of the business card taped to its front.
His business card.
His eyebrows met in a dark frown. This was no casual advertisement. This was from someone who knew him. Damian slit open the sealed envelope and slipped out the single sheet of pale blue paper from inside.
The words on the page were large, blunt and perfectly even. They looked as if they had been formed by someone passing a thick black felt-tip pen over a stencil. He sensed a careful, composed and calm hand had modeled them. The meaning in the words themselves, however, gave him a sense of something quite different.
You are going to pay. I’m going to make sure of it.
Chapter Three
“Dr. Steele, is something wrong?” Kay asked. Over the last week of working closely together, she couldn’t remember ever seeing Damian with a frown. “Are you worried about how things will go this morning?”
He was sitting next to her at the defense table in the courtroom, smelling like a hint of spicy after-shave on clean-shaven skin, looking far too good in a single-breasted, Italian cut navy suit, a French-cuffed white shirt and a tie with a subtle geometric pattern. His quick smile showed bright against his summer tan.
“I’m not worried about the suit. I have a good lawyer.”
The compliment slipped beneath Kay’s careful professional guard. She let out a deep, internal sigh. If he had told her she was attractive, she could have ignored it. But this compliment to her competence managed to find her Achilles’ heel.
Maybe it was because so few men had ever really made the effort to see past her outward packaging, and those few who did had not been that complimentary about what they found.
Her eyebrows dived together in a frown. She reminded herself for the millionth time that it did not matter that so many men ended up uncomfortable with her. All that mattered was that she was comfortable with herself.
She was beginning to feel comfortable with this client of hers, too. All week long as they prepared for the preliminary hearing, he had treated her with charming deference and respect, never once getting out of line. That first day in her office, he had said he could control his impulses, and he had certainly proved it this week.
Unless he no longer had those impulses. Well, he wouldn’t be the first to be turned off by her once he got to know her.
Now, why did that thought suddenly depress her? Theirs could only be a professional relationship. If he was turned off by her, so much the better.
“I do have a request, however,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve suffered all week with this Dr. Steele label. Go back to calling me Damian. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean I’m getting carried away by your ability and beauty, or that you’ll soon be having to fight me off. I promise that as difficult as it is, I’ll do my best to be a gentleman.”
His smile was dazzling and dynamite. Kay could feel it lighting a fuse at the base of her spine. And she could also feel his attraction for her registering happily—very happily—in every female cell in her body.
She let out another internal sigh. Why did it feel so good to know he was still attracted to her? Damn. This was totally illogical.
She took a deep breath and tried to keep her tone as even and professional as possible as she looked at his ruggedly handsome face.
“Sure, Damian. Not a problem.”
But, once again, the sound of his first name passing her lips set off a warm hum inside her mouth that made her self-conscious. She dropped her eyes to the papers on the table in front of her.
Damian smiled as Kay turned away. Always the careful lawyer. She assiduously kept her position on the professional side of the line.
If