Love And War - Mallory Monroe Page 0,5

But she’d hoped many times before and was crushed by the weight of that thing called reality. She wasn’t getting her hopes up again. Not yet.

Then she looked up, and saw that Sal had arrived and was heading for her table. “It’s a false alarm, anyway,” she said to Trina. “He’s here.”

“Oh, good. Talk to you later, girl. And if he wants some, give him some for crying out loud! Me and Reno did it on our first date!”

Gemma smiled. “Bye, girl,” she said, and ended the call.

As Sal made his way around table after table to get to her booth, she sighed. He looked sooo gangster! He was wearing a double-breasted suit with bling to boot. He looked more like a godfather, in the Mafia sense, than the businessman he was known to be. And she was an attorney? An officer of the court? What in the world was she doing so much as even considering a relationship with a guy like him?

But she liked him. She didn’t know why. He wasn’t even her type. Every man she had ever been truly attracted to in the past was black. Now she was interested in this Italian? And not exactly an upstanding Italian citizen, either, if she were to be honest with herself. But the truth was the truth: she liked Sal. That night he drove her home from Reno’s get together, and spent hours talking with her even after she turned down his request for sex, impressed her.

But she felt it was more than that. It was the ease with which she could talk to him. It was his sense of humor. It was the fact that she sensed a decency about Sal that the most pious of men couldn’t match. And that, for her, was what mainly kept her interested. But she had no clue if her instinct would be proven wrong, or proven right?

For Sal’s part, he was taking it easy, too. He was late, but he wasn’t going to apologize. He’d look like the sap Tommy was accusing him of being if he couldn’t even be late to meet this woman. But then he saw the woman, and his outlook changed.

She was stunning, he thought, as he made his way toward her booth. So elegant and sharply dressed. She was even wearing reading glasses, those half-moon kind that sat on her small nose, and that gave her a look of smartness with her sharpness. And her high cheekbones, and flawless black skin, she was radiant. Sal was struck by her beauty. And for the first time in his life, as he walked up to her, Sal Gabrini felt as if he was out of his league.

“Sorry I’m late,” was the first thing out of his mouth, and he could have kicked himself for saying it. The very thing he declared he would never say, he already said. What the fuck, he wondered, was wrong with him?

Gemma removed her glasses and sat her phone aside. “How have you been?” she asked with genuine affection.

Sal felt it. “I’ve been good,” he said with a smile, as he took his seat across from her. “And you?” He stared at her, as if she was about to give him a life or death answer. He felt awkward as hell, like he was too big for the seat.

“It was a tough day in court,” Gemma said, “but that’s the life of a defense attorney. You don’t pick your clients. Your clients pick you.”

“And they’re always guilty anyway, right?” Sal asked.

But Gemma shook her head. “No, not always. Not all of them. The system can be pretty rigged against the poor. But I know what you’re saying. Everybody claims to be innocent. But sometimes they are innocent.”

“I hear ya.”

The waiter arrived and Sal ordered their finest wine. After the waiter left, he leaned back and stared at Gemma. He suddenly didn’t know what to say. The kind of women he usually dated weren’t conversationalists either. They were bed-hoppers. What would you talk to a lawyer about anyway, he wondered, except how she could get you out of trouble?

“How’s Seattle these days?” Gemma finally asked. “That’s where you’re from, right?”

“Right. And it’s okay. Nothing to write home about, but good. But, to be honest with you, I’m out of town more than I’m in town lately.”

“Out of town on business?” Gemma asked.

“Yep. Among other things. So, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not so good anymore.”

Gemma smiled.

“But it’s home,” Sal added.

Then the conversation died