Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) - By Elizabeth Ruston Page 0,64

Sneaking around with Joe in whatever town they happened to be in, both of them filling up their idle hours with as much sex as they could fit in before they had to fall asleep and go back to work the next morning?

As opposed to what? Sarah asked herself. As opposed to returning to her hotel room alone every night, eating bad food from room service, reading through documents until she passed out and woke up to the alarm and rushed off to some airport to do it all over again?

Chapman had the right idea, getting someone else to do the dirty work. Sarah would have much preferred being one of the attorneys back in the office, sending out discovery requests without ever having to catch a flight and face another long, tiring day of depositions and being in the same room with Joe for six or seven hours, then having to walk away from him again. And again.

A text popped up on her screen.

Feel like takeout tonight?

Why did he have to make it sound so easy?

Sarah turned off her phone.

But then a minute later, turned it back on again.

And sat staring at the text for a long time before turning the phone off for good.

Twenty-six

It was Thursday, she had to remind herself. The days strung together now like reruns of the day before. Every plane ride felt the same. All the hotel conference rooms looked alike. All the food tasted equally bad. Feel like takeout tonight? Of course. And a whole lot more than that.

Chapman continued with his new style of questioning, firing them off so rapidly Joe’s client barely had a chance to answer. Clearly Chapman was already done with the job. He had been a bad lawyer at the beginning of their travels together, but at least Sarah could tell he thought he was good. Now, he clearly didn’t care.

“Objection,” Joe said again. He’d already objected several times that afternoon, always with the same complaint. “Please repeat the question slowly and allow my client sufficient time to answer.”

Chapman scowled and did as he was asked, but in an exaggerated way, enunciating every word and speaking extra loudly as if Joe’s client, an elegant woman in her 70s, were both mentally deficient and hard of hearing.

The woman was neither, Sarah noticed, and so far had been extremely tolerant of Chapman’s boorish behavior.

“My husband and I moved to Boise after our son graduated from high school,” the woman said in answer to Chapman’s question, and Sarah wanted to throw something at his fat head when she saw him roll his eyes and pretend to be bored by what he was hearing.

Then don’t ask! Sarah wanted to scream at him. Stick to the facts of this case!

But Chapman was like so many other lawyers she’d come up against: convinced of his brilliance, in love with the sound of his own voice, and immune to anyone’s helpful suggestion that he pull his head out of his rear end and actually learn to do the job well.

“Objection,” Joe said again after another pair of rapid questions. “Let the record reflect counsel is not allowing my client sufficient time to answer.”

“Fine!” Chapman said, leaning back. “Take all day.” He twirled his hand at the woman. “Please, speak.”

Joe’s client looked at him coldly, but then answered him in her unfailingly dignified manner.

Sarah hid a yawn behind her hand and tried to tune out Chapman’s voice for a few minutes while she studied Joe’s client instead.

Sarah wondered if she would still be going to so much effort with her hair when she was seventy-three, like Mrs. Barrett.

Didn’t there finally come a point when people said forget it, take me or leave me, my hair is a kinky frightful mess and that’s just the way it is? When they gave up on makeup, too, and accepted the fact that their eyelashes were too pale, their nose too wide, their lips too thin, their cheeks not nearly defined enough?

Although looking at Mrs. Barrett, who had obviously taken great care with her appearance that morning, wearing not only makeup, but also simple, elegant jewelry and a colorful scarf to go with her sweater and long skirt, Sarah saw the appeal of not giving up too soon. Mrs. Barrett probably enjoyed her own reflection in the mirror. And her husband probably enjoyed her, too.

Sarah found her thoughts straying more and more to the personal lives of the people in that room. Chapman didn’t wear a wedding ring, which was