It's A Wonderful Midlife Crisis (Good To The Last Death #1) - Robyn Peterman Page 0,11

if he was, he certainly wasn’t going to kill me in the break room of the law firm that had just hired him.

I’d never laid eyes on him in my life, but I would swear I knew him. My insides clenched as I stared. I was torn between the desire to touch his face or run like the devil was on my heels. Running would have been smarter, but hindsight is twenty-twenty while real life is extremely near-sighted. In my case, probably blind.

“And you are?” he asked in a voice that could melt chocolate.

“One of the paralegals,” I replied tightly. Turning away, I busied myself trying to figure out what to do with the coffee and filters. Leaving them on the counter now seemed like an epic fail. The nagging feeling of danger remained, but the pretty-boy lawyer wasn’t carrying a machete, so I figured I was safe. Safe being a relative word.

If I didn’t make eye contact, I could pretend he was fat, hairy, ugly and smelled bad—which, sadly, he didn’t. He smelled like heaven… all sexy, soapy man with some kind of clean, woodsy aftershave.

“And does the paralegal have a name?” he inquired casually.

I could hear the amusement in his voice and it ground on my nerves. His question wasn’t out of the ordinary for polite behavior. I simply despised my visceral reaction to him. He was absurdly beautiful, but looks could be wildly deceiving. I’d learned that the hard way multiple times. I certainly wasn’t going to test my theory again with an ambulance-chaser—especially one that my supervisor wanted to nail.

“No, she doesn’t,” I replied evenly and went about my business.

“Now that seems a bit odd to me,” he said, leaning on the counter.

He watched me haphazardly shove the coffee into a cabinet that held toner for the printer and the filters underneath the break table.

“Odd? Not at all. Clearly, you’re not from the south. I go by miss or ma’am, and I’ll even answer to ‘hey you’ as long as you say please and thank you,” I replied as I bravely made eye contact and then regretted it.

He could not be a lawyer. This guy had to be a movie actor doing research for a job, or possibly a serial killer. He was far too good-looking to have brains. People like him did not exist.

“Well, I have a name,” he said as he removed the coffee from its incorrect home and placed it next to the coffee maker. “Would you like to know it?”

“Nope,” I replied as I followed suit and quickly plopped the filters next to the coffee while my embarrassment mounted.

What the hell was wrong with me? I was far too jaded by men to let this one fluster me. Plus, he was a lawyer at the firm where I worked. I was a paralegal who wanted to stay employed. Bad behavior was going to bite me in the ass. I had dead people trailing me. If I lost my job, I’d have to spend more freaking time with them.

Shit.

With a huge internal sigh, I plastered a fake smile on my face and extended my hand. “Let’s start over. I’m Daisy and I was rude. Sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the breakroom. Most of the lawyers around here don’t get their own coffee.”

“Laziness is a boring trait,” he commented as he readied the pot to make more coffee and ignored my outstretched hand.

What an ass. “Yep, well, you better find a new profession, buster,” I said, and then slapped my hand over my mouth. I wanted to die—violently. “Oh hell,” I choked out. “I meant…”

His laugh went all through me, and because I was clearly losing my marbles, I desperately wanted to make him laugh again, even though he had no manners and was probably a serial killer. His eyes lit up when he laughed. The man went from plain gorgeous to otherworldly beautiful.

What the hell was wrong with me? I was an idiot to be insultingly entertaining to the rude dude who had the power to send me packing.

“I have to go,” I mumbled as I felt the heat crawl up my neck and head for my face. I forced myself to meet his gaze. “It was… umm… nice meeting you. I’m sure you’ll enjoy working here. It’s a very friendly place usually. I’m the exception. Well, not always—only if people are lawyers. Whoa, whoa, whoa… that was a joke.” I tried to laugh, but it came out somewhat tinny.