Practice Makes Perfect(43)

“Why are you here?” she asked bluntly.

After skeptically eyeing the cloudy glass of Eau du Lac Michigan she had poured him, J.D. took a sip, then paused as if still figuring out the answer to that himself.

“I have questions,” he finally said.

“Questions?” Payton asked, surprised. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that.

“About the deposition,” he explained.

“Oh. Well, you read the transcript. Was there something you didn’t understand?”

“Yes.” J.D. set his glass down on the nearby end table. He stood up and peered down at her, reminding her just how tall he really was. “Why did you do it?”

Payton cocked her head. “You didn’t really think I would screw up a deposition, did you? Aside from my reputation”— she emphasized this in reference to his earlier insult—“I would never do that to a client.”

J.D. waved this off. “No, I get that part. But I talked to Tyler. He said that you came to him about the deposition. You had me in a corner—if you’d done nothing, I would’ve been screwed. You know how Ben works: there’s no room for error when it comes to his clients.” He paused, coming around to his original question. “So? Why did you help me?”

She held up a hand. “Easy there, buddy. I didn’t do it to help you.”

“Okay, fine. Why then?”

Payton, herself, had thought long and hard about this very question after she had gotten home that evening. So she told J.D. the only logical answer she’d come up with.

“I decided that I don’t want to win by default. If the Partnership Committee chooses me—when they choose me, I should say—I want to know that it’s because I earned it, not because some stupid mix-up edged you out at the last minute.”

J.D. didn’t say anything at first. Then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He hesitated with the next part. “Well, regardless of your motives, the real reason I came here tonight is because I . . .” He took a breath, as if needing to steel himself. “I wanted to thank you. And to apologize. When I found you in the conference room after the deposition, you had this satisfied expression on your face and, well, I guess I assumed the worst.”

He paused.

“Is that it?” Payton asked, not entirely mollified by this apology.

“Oh—I was just waiting for you to say something sarcastic about ass**les and assumptions.”

Payton gave him a level stare. “As if I would be that cliché.”

She noticed he was watching her. Again. “What?”

J.D. grinned. “Now I’m waiting for you to do the thing with your hair. The little flip.”

Payton glared. Note to self: invest in hair clips.

“You know, as apologies go, this one could use a ton of improvement,” she told him. “Is there more?”

“Not really.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “Well, except that I was thinking . . . I don’t want to win by default, either. So maybe we could call a truce.”

“A truce?” Payton asked. “That’s very magnanimous of you, considering the next play is mine. What do I get out of this?”

J.D. took a step closer to her. “Hmm. How about the satisfaction of being the better person?”

Payton paused, highly intrigued by this. “You would admit to that?”

J.D.’s eyes shone with amusement. He took another step closer. “In this context, Ms. Kendall, yes.”

Payton considered the terms of his proposal. Higher stakes for her there could not be.

“All right,” she agreed. “A truce.”

She had to tilt her head back to meet J.D.’s gaze, they were suddenly standing that close. Uh-oh, she thought, this is how it all started last time. She felt that familiar rush and thought about stepping back, but heaven help her if she ever gave an inch to J. D. Jameson.

“I suppose now I owe you.” J.D.’s voice had turned softer.

Payton shook her head. “No, you really don’t.”

He nodded yes. “I read the transcript.”

“You said that already.”

“You were amazing, Payton,” he murmured, his voice husky.

Well.

Goddamn if that wasn’t just about the sexiest thing she had ever heard.

J.D. gazed down at her with a coy expression, as if interested to see what she was going to do next. And from his look Payton realized that somewhere in the middle of all this, the game between the two of them had changed.

It had all started with that stupid fight in the library. Or had it begun before that . . . ? Standing there, looking up into J.D.’s fantastically blue eyes, Payton suddenly wasn’t so sure.

Hmm. He had really long eyelashes for a guy—she had never noticed that before. Almost blondish, like the warm streaks of gold in his brown hair. And speaking of his hair, she kind of liked the way it was slightly mussed that night. Something about it made her want to grab him by that designer tie of his and get him really mussed spending hours doing something she suspected would be far more amazing than this afternoon’s deposition.

Wow—she really needed to get laid.

Not by J.D. He was far too type A for her tastes. She’d bet he’d be all controlling and dominating in bed. Although that could have potential . . .