"Or it's propinquity. We work together every day, so naturally some feelings arise."

"That's gotta be it."

"Or it's reverse chemistry. We really don't like each other, so this is some mutually codependent, destructive urge that manifested itself simultaneously in both of us."

"Or a rational, synergistic coupling," he said, using her own words against her.

"I doubt it." She was hugging herself with both hands.

Steve came to her, put his arms around her from behind. "Whatever it is, why not go with the flow?"

She wheeled to face him. "And where will that take us? Besides your bedroom?"

"I don't know. I just thought-"

"Isn't that just like you, Solomon? Do what feels good and d.a.m.n the consequences."

"Do what feels right. And this feels right. Why fight it?"

"For one thing, I'm engaged." She held up her ring finger.

"A lawyer would notice you didn't say, 'I'm in love with someone else.'"

"That's implicit in 'I'm engaged.'"

"Love's never implicit in anything."

"Okay, I love Bruce. I love him a lot. I'm going to marry him. Satisfied?"

"If you are."

"I'm not going to play this game."

Suddenly, a woman's voice sang out of the darkness. "I knew it!" A second later, Jackie showed up. "What'd I miss?"

"Nothing." Victoria raked her hair with her fingertips. "We were just planning trial strategy."

"Sure you were. I saw Bad Boy cop a feel, then you took off without your purse, which you wouldn't do if the place were on fire. Then Bad Boy follows you out here, so I thought maybe, just maybe, you might need your lipstick, which believe me, you do." She handed Victoria her purse.

"Oh, G.o.d, Jackie." Victoria opened the purse and fished for a mirror.

"Relax. Bruce is describing the horror of root rot, which he claims is like genital warts. The doctor's enthralled. And what do you have to say for yourself, Bad Boy?"

"Nothing happened out here," Steve said.

"Don't worry. I won't rat you out. Vic's my best friend. But it's not fair."

"What?" Steve asked.

"She has two fiances," Jackie said, "and I don't have any."

Bruce Kingston Bigby and Victoria Lord request the honour of your presence at their marriage on Sat.u.r.day, the eighth day of January Two Thousand and Six at six o'clock in the evening Church of the Little Flower 2711 Indian Mound Trail Coral Gables, Florida.

Black tie dinner to follow at the Biltmore Hotel*

*No animals or animal prducts will be used in food preparation.

Twenty-five.

A KISS IS NOT A KISS.

Where the h.e.l.l was she?

It was 10:37 A.M., according to the Miami Dolphins helmet clock on Steve's desk, and Victoria was MIA. Not like her at all. She usually got half a day's work done before most people had finished their Wheaties. Or in his case, a handful of guava pastalitos with cafe Cubano.

What if she'd quit? Quit the case and quit him.

No answer at her apartment, no answer on her cell phone. She probably spent the night at Bigby's house, a thought that depressed Steve even more.

Kissing me and sleeping with him. The wench.

Thinking about Bigby made Steve feel devious. Not lawyer devious, that was a given. Personal devious, and that wasn't him. Even as an adolescent, he never bird-dogged other guys' girls, cheated on exams, or boasted of his own conquests. And his lies were always harmless and easily disproved, like exaggerating the size of his p.e.n.i.s.

So where the h.e.l.l was she?

Steve was supposed to be interviewing new clients-the Barksdale publicity had flushed out a few quail-but his heart wasn't in it. He was still thinking about THE KISS. Feeling it. Tasting it. The physical sensation lingering on his lips, sweeping through his body, searing itself on his brain. Or what was left of it.

What the h.e.l.l's going on?

His mind drifted to other kisses. Two decades ago, he'd planted one on fourteen-year-old Sarah Gropowitz in the theater balcony during the movie Witness. He remembered waiting until Harrison Ford got his car started in the barn, and Sam Cooke was singing that he didn't know much about history.

Ford takes Kelly McGillis in his arms, and they dance, a brazen sacrilege, because of her Amish upbringing, to say nothing of her recent widowhood. Young Steve figured this was the kind of scene that turned chicks on, forbidden love and all that. Just as Cooke confessed that he was equally deficient in biology, Steve leaned close to Sarah's Clearasil-spotted face. Puckering up, Steve strafed her like a cruise missile hitting a terrorist camp. For his efforts, he got a mouthful of her jujubes, a cackling laugh, and derision from his peers for weeks to come.

Thinking about the movie deflated him. Harrison Ford didn't get the girl. True to his nature, the hard-boiled cop returned to his city. And true to her roots, Kelly McGillis hooked up with a strapping, blond farmer. Sort of an Amish Bruce Bigby. All of which led Steve to two disheartening conclusions.

Maybe opposites attract, but they don't usually end up together.

And . . .

If Harrison Ford couldn't get the girl, how the h.e.l.l could he?

"Que pasa, jefe?"

Cece stalked into his office with the morning's mail in one hand, a twenty-five-pound dumbbell in the other. Today, she wore lower-than-low Brazilian jeans and a cropped tee. Trying to look like J-Lo or Shakira or Thalia-Steve couldn't keep them straight.

"Victoria call?" he asked.

"Why should she?"

"Because she's late."

"Slave driver." She dumped the mail on his desk. "Your next customer will be here ahorita mismo."

"Client, Cece. We call them clients."

She shrugged, her trapezius muscles fluttering.

"It's not like Victoria to be late."

Cece started doing one-arm curls with the dumbbell. "What's with you today?"

"Nothing. Nothing's happened."

"Didn't say anything happened. Why you wigging out?"

"I'm fine. Everything's fine. We've got a murder trial to prep, that's all."

"So how'd dinner go?"

"Kranchick adores Victoria and wants to run off with Bigby."

"So you snowed the doc?"

"I'm not sure. Vic and I weren't always on the same page."

"What a shock," Cece said, shifting the dumbbell to her other hand.

Steve riffled through the mail. He could hear the steel band warming up across the alley. Either that, or a truck was dumping sc.r.a.p metal on the asphalt.

"What's this?" Steve was holding a square envelope on fine linen paper. His name and address were written in calligraphy.

"Open it and find out."

"That's your job, Cece. Open the mail, calendar hearings, deposit checks."

"What checks?"

Steve opened the envelope and pulled out a wedding invitation. Bruce Kingston Bigby and Victoria Lord. Slipping it back into the envelope, he had the bizarre notion that he could stop the wedding by pretending the invitation did not exist.

What's going on, anyway? What are these feelings?

He felt like a man with a strange, undiagnosed disease. He felt no pain, but had a sense of impending doom.

Five minutes later, Cece was back in the waiting room, free weights clanging, and Steve heard a buzzing. Looking up, he saw Harry Sachs wheeling himself through the open door in his motorized chair. Harry was in his early forties, beady-eyed, jowly, and paunchy. He wore a gray U.S. Marines T-shirt with camouflage pants and paratrooper boots. An American flag flew from back of the chair and a decal read: "Help a Grenada Vet."

"I'm not gonna handle your divorce, Harry," Steve said.

"Who said anything about a divorce?"

"Every month you come in here saying you want out. I file the papers, then you and Joanne reconcile."

"She's still busting my b.a.l.l.s, but that ain't why I'm here."

Steve liked Joanne Sachs but knew she could be a nag, always insisting that Harry give up his chosen profession as a con man.

"Then what is it?" Steve said. "I already told you I won't sue your parents for being ugly."

"Not just for being ugly," Harry said. "For having the chutzpah to procreate."

"Forget it."

"Okay, but I got a new one that'll make us both rich. You know that strip club on the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway? The Beav?"

"Don't think I do."

"That's funny, 'cause two of the girls there recommended you. Not that I'd ever use another lawyer."

"I appreciate it, Harry. Tell me about the case."

"Discrimination. We're talking big bucks here."

"I'm listening and I'm fascinated," Steve said, telling two lies for the price of one. In reality, he was still thinking about the taste of Victoria's lips. And just why couldn't Kelly McGillis end up with Harrison Ford? And if she had, would he have come to the country or would she have gone to the city? That's the rub. Even if he ever got together with Victoria, who would change to accommodate the other? And wasn't it asinine even to be thinking these thoughts? She was about to be married, and in case he'd forgotten, the engraved invitation was there to remind him.

Harry Sachs buzzed his wheelchair closer to Steve's desk. "I been a regular at The Beav for years, ever since the cops shut down Crotches. I got the membership card, you buy ten lap dances, get one free, just like Frappuccinos at Starbucks. But they remodeled, and now the VIP lounge is up three stairs, and I can't get there."

"So?"

"Whadaya mean, 'so'? Equal access to public facilities. I'm talking punitive damages, a cla.s.s action."

"What's the cla.s.s, con artists?"

"The disabled. We got a right to get our rocks off. Life, liberty, and"-Harry grabbed his groin-"the pursuit of happiness."

"Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind."

"Sure it is. Didn't you see the Nick Nolte movie? Anyway, they're violating my rights. Some thanks I get for leaving my blood on foreign soil."

"Harry, the closest you ever got to Grenada was Club Med."

"I got the medals!"

"Off the Internet. C'mon, you were never in the Marines, and your wheelchair's a prop for your homeless-veteran scam."