"I will hate Trenton Knightley forever, no matter what, and you may tell him I said so. I will also kill Gerald Matthews and anybody else who thinks I deserve to get stuck with this."

Ten o'clock Monday morning, and Hannah was ready to toss her license to practice law-firmly tied to a large rock-into the Potomac River. She'd spent the last hour once again reviewing the first December child support docket with Debbie, the paralegal formerly a.s.signed to Gerald.

"How could Gerald meet with his clients only at court?" Hannah asked. "How can you represent somebody you've never met?"

Of the twenty cases, not a one was ready, and court was less than two weeks away.

"I'd meet the clients, Hannah," Debbie said, tossing back professionally streaked blond hair. "I'd run the child support guidelines, tell the client what the court's options were, tell them what Gerald looked like, and that would be that."

"What about what the clients want? Didn't Gerald even ask them that?"

"They want to have kids and not pay for it," Debbie said, opening another file and running a designer nail down the case log. "That's the impression I got."

She exhibited about as much compa.s.sion as some of the born charmers Hannah had had as foster care caseworkers. Real a.s.sets to the community.

"Look, Deb, whatever you did, it was enough so Gerald could breeze into the courtroom, open the file, and sound like he'd prepared the case from scratch. I saw him do it all morning on Friday. But clients have to have a chance to tell us what their priorities are, what their worst and best cases would be. We should be asking them what they think the judge needs to know to make a fair decision."

"Whatever you say."

Right. Fair was not a useful concept in most legal contexts. "If you think I'm about to make a first-cla.s.s jacka.s.s out of myself, Deb, please tell me now."

Deb smiled, albeit sardonically. "If you sat in court all morning on Friday, then you know making a jacka.s.s of yourself for the cause is part of it."

By lunch time, using two phones, they had scheduled appointments for every client, this time all dads. Hannah took several of the case files back to her office to review in detail later that day, springing Deb for a lunch appointment that had been distracting her for the past half hour.

Gino? Matthews? Her nail stylist?

Hannah was just tearing into the first four-inch-thick folder when Trent appeared in her doorway.

"I'm here to see if you've quit. I haven't quit yet myself, in case you were wondering." He sounded half-serious.

"You're tempted?"

"I'd miss the Christmas party, and it's the only time we get to see Mac truly socialize. How was your morning?" He slid into a chair and crossed an ankle over one knee.

"Did you know Gerald never met with his clients except at court?"

"Sometimes the clients don't want to take time off from work to come in. Deb could get the information over the phone."

"Oh, no. They came in here, every one of them, and the hours are on Deb's time sheet to prove it, but she told them what Gerald looked like, and he met them when their cases were called."

"I don't like it," Trent said, frowning. "I like less that it became standard operating procedure in my own department and I hadn't noticed. I'll take another look at Gerald's time sheets, too, but you didn't hear me say that." He hated it, in fact, if the bleakness in his eyes was any indication.

"When was the last time you had a vacation?" Hannah asked.

Trent flipped his tie, an image Grace would have loved of a charging, winged unicorn done in silver on a blue background.

"Where did that question come from?"

"You look tired, and it's Monday morning." He looked in need of a hug and nap-or something.

"Late nights, looking over files when the moon is full, and I can't burn the candle at both ends quite like I could fifteen years ago."

"You're not old." Though Hannah had known seven-year-olds who'd been old.

"I'm over thirty, and sometimes that feels old. So who's on your docket?" He took up the nearest file and opened it. "Rene Fontaineau. I know this guy. Mac defended him on a subsequent DWI and some a.s.sault charges. He's a tough hombre, but he doesn't seem to have trouble attracting the ladies."

Hannah was reminded of Deputy Moreland's familiarity with Rory Cavanaugh. "The joys of small-town practice. I bet Mr. Fontaineau is short."

Trent looked up from the file. "He makes up for it with att.i.tude, which can be useful."

Hannah stood and came around the desk to take the other guest chair. "Are you sure I'm the best person for this job?"

He tossed the file back on the desk. "Why do you ask?"

"Because these guys-ninety percent of them are guys-don't think enough of their own womenfolk to send along child support. Many of them aren't making the smallest effort. These are men who can't distinguish between their responsibilities as a dad and their hurt feelings or arrogance as jilted or disenchanted lovers, and they don't care if their own children are doing without because of it. How can I relate to them when I'm starting out as a member of the lesser, troublesome gender to begin with?"

How could she respect them, when they were every parent she'd ever seen go shuffling, kid-less and relieved to be so, out of foster care court?

"Mac has a whole sermon about this," Trent said. "It boils down to this, Hannah: everybody in the helping professions, lawyers included, has a tendency to take on the characteristics of their clients, especially if they deal with one particular kind of client steadily. You might want to ask yourself if you're doing it already."

A hug and a nap, this was not. "I haven't even met these guys, and if I had child support obligations, by G.o.d, I would pay them."

"I'm sure you would, as would I, but you're very close to deciding every guy in these files is a misogynist and a deadbeat with a defeatist att.i.tude."

Oh, h.e.l.l. Not more cleverness from the boss.

"Defeatist," Hannah said. "As in, how can I possibly do a good job with this docket?"

He smiled, more sympathetic than judgmental.

"You jumped to unflattering conclusions about your clients just as they jump to conclusions about their lawyers and the custodial parents: she doesn't use the money for the kids; she left me to make me start giving her money; she doesn't need the money as much as I do. The suspicion and disrespect are commonplace, and if you have that att.i.tude toward your clients, at least be aware of it."

"You don't pull any punches, Knightley." She wanted to lean on him as he dispensed his brand of wisdom, lean physically.

"I would not be this honest, this soon, if I didn't think you would appreciate my point."

"Oh, that makes me feel loads better." Except it did, that and the way he was looking at her so steadily. "What about Rene Fontaineau?" Hannah tapped the file on her desk. "Are you telling me I shouldn't be suspicious of the information he gives me, if he even shows up for his appointment?"

"I am not suggesting you abandon all caution and take Rene to your favorite watering hole on Friday night. I'm telling you to make sure your caution is your own, and not the dysfunctional miasma of your client population."

Were there miasmas down the hall in the corporate law department? "Now you make me feel like I need a gas mask."

Trent said nothing, while Hannah wished he'd take her hand. Just that, just a hand to hold.

"What am I supposed to do differently, then?" she asked. "I don't want to antagonize these guys, and I don't want to end up like Margaret Jenson."

"Most people like and respect Margaret, as far as I know."

"I like and respect her as well," Hannah said. Whose hand did Margaret hold? "What I know of her, but if succeeding in this profession means I am constantly subjected to the petty slights of the Gerald Matthews and John Linkers and Elvin Gregorys of the world, and the only way I can cope is to pretend-as Margaret pretends-that her skin is so thick she doesn't feel it, then I don't really want to be a part of this profession. You guys play too rough for something that isn't a game."

Though the student loan collections folks could play pretty rough too.

Another silence, and Trent's expression mirrored Grace's when Hannah threatened to serve boiled spinach for dinner.

"I can dish it out," he said. "I suppose that means I have to take it, but I want you to be honest with me, always, and that was honest. Margaret can be casual, about some things. We all can."

"Sorry." Hannah felt as if she'd disappointed him, or shown him something disappointing. "Seems to me if you don't treat people generally in a condescending, insulting manner, then why should your profession make it acceptable to treat them that way?"

"A fair question."

"You won't give me the lecture about toughening up?" Hannah tried a small smile, but Trent wasn't smiling back.

"I don't want you to toughen up," he said, and she had the sense he meant it. "Just because you're good at something, that doesn't necessarily equate with it being good for you."

"You speak from experience?"

"I was a good law clerk," he said, his expression bleak. "It about gutted me. I was a good husband too."

"Isn't this a cheery topic?" James Knightley strolled in, exuding s.e.x appeal and something else-something restless and unlawyerly. "Hannah doesn't have to give back the signing bonus if you put her in a clinical depression first, Trent. I know you family law types go in for soap opera, but Hannah isn't like you. Come, Hannah, my love. I'm taking you away from all this."

He drew her to her feet and kept his hand in hers, sheer silliness on his part.

"Trent will work you right through your lunch hour, and I'm here on my white horse to prevent such a tragedy. You want us to bring you back anything, Trent?"

"You're being invited to lunch, Hannah," Trent said, rising. "You may decline, but your knight in Savile Row armor will only pester you that much more intensely, until Mac and I have to beat him away for you."

"I'm to go quietly to my fate?"

"She catches on quickly," James said, putting Hannah's hand on his arm as if they were at some cotillion. "Must be destined for the corporate law. Ta, Trent. Don't work too late on an empty stomach."

Hannah just had time to grab her purse and coat, and James had her out the door.

Submitting to her fate.

It was an interesting fate. James took her to the same restaurant Trent had, but he got them a quiet booth in the back and slid in beside her on the seat.

Right beside her.

And where Trent had a kind of warmth to him, James gave off heat, flirtatious, naughty-man, not-quite-pandering heat. More silliness.

He stole from her plate, and he tried to feed her a bite off his fork, but she took the fork from his hand and set it back on his plate. He ordered them dessert with two spoons, as if women were supposed to prefer sharing with him to having both halves of a chocolate mousse.

"That's enough, James."

He was James to her after a meal like that.

"Enough?"

"You've been flirting your eyelashes off, and fine eyelashes they are too, but we're not sharing a d.a.m.ned dessert."

He sat back. "That's your final word? I didn't get the impression you were seeing anybody, Hannah, and I know how to treat a lady." He reached for her hand and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. "I don't kiss and tell. Ever."

For all his innuendo, she knew exactly what his comments could turn into. Maybe not this very day, but soon, when he'd decided he'd had enough of enjoying the chase: a detour on the way back to the office, probably to his place, because James Knightley wasn't a hotel room kinda guy, and maybe a few sheepish grins from Hannah's coworkers when she rolled into work after a three-and-a-half-hour lunch, but otherwise, there wouldn't be a ripple on the pond.

He'd see to it.

"James Knightley, you are an idiot."

She should have been offended, but for all he was doing a great imitation of the opening moves to an irresistible fling-or a s.e.xual hara.s.sment lawsuit-she had the sense it was just that, an imitation.

"I'm a good-looking, talented idiot who could show you a very good time."

"You're going to be my boss."

"Not for six months, and Hartman is a family firm, Hannah. We're used to dealing with overlapping roles on staff. We've never been sued by an employee, and we never will be."

"Even with your cruising the new hires so shamelessly?"

The flirtatious light in his blue, blue eyes died, and Hannah caught a glimpse of ruthlessness.

"For your information," James said, "my actions are far more circ.u.mspect than my reputation suggests. Trent and Mac are a couple of monks, and it amuses them to play up my every peccadillo and flirtation. Then too, in the legal community, being a cross on my fuselage seems to have acquired a certain cachet I did nothing to promote."

"Let me see if I know the next verse. You haven't been with anybody for months, right? Who knows where things might lead, after all? You're very attracted to me."

He frowned and looked very much like his oldest brother.

"Things would lead nowhere. All I offer is a diversion. I don't flirt under false pretenses."

The real James Knightley had just joined the discussion.

"I don't flirt with you under any pretenses at all. You will be an interesting boss to watch, James, but I won't be sharing your dessert spoon."

Hannah took a bite of mousse and slid her spoon very slowly out of her mouth.

He smiled at her, really truly smiled, and for the first time since they'd sat down, Hannah was dazzled.

"You're OK, Stark," he said, digging in with his own spoon. "You want me to order you another one of those?"

"May I get it to go?"

"Sweetie, you can have whatever you want."

She'd meant the second mousse for Trent, but he was behind a closed door, getting ready for a two-day trial that kept him out of the office on Tuesday and Wednesday. James poked his head into Hannah's office a couple of times, asking her if she needed anything and putting as much innuendo into the question as possible.

Sweet and silly. Hannah looked forward to working for him, because whatever test she'd pa.s.sed at lunch, he'd pa.s.sed a test with her too.