Free Truly Madly Deeply Boxed Set by Carly Phillips Page B

Alix.”
    Not you
. The unspoken words lingered in the air. He didn’t believe her, and the realization startled him. As an attorney, he recognized the many ways open to a client determined not only to withhold information, but to remain detached from the surrounding proceedings.
    Chelsie exhibited classic symptoms. She couldn’t meet his gaze. She fiddled with unimportant tasks and any object in the vicinity of her hands. She reiterated her point
ad nauseam. It’s a temporary arrangement. I’m here for Alix. We’re here for our niece.
How many times would she repeat the refrain? As many as it took for her to believe the words herself.
    Just a week ago, Griff would have used her own defenses against her, jumping on his belief in her eagerness to end the arrangement and abandon them both before Alix was ready.
    Now he saw all too clearly that Chelsie fought her own inner battles that had nothing to do with him. Did that mean he had forgiven her past mistakes? Decided she had nothing in common with Deidre and his mother? On those points, he’d reserve judgment.
    She closed the last button on her suit, hiding all evidence of the beautiful body beneath. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
    He nodded.
    She walked away, then stopped to glance back at him. “Tomorrow’s no good. It’s my sleep-over night at the shelter.”
    He clamped down on his disappointment. “The next day, then.”
    She nodded and rushed down the hall.
    Griff leaned against the wall and groaned. Bad enough the sexual attraction grew with each passing day. But did Chelsie Russell have to tug at his already battered heart? He hadn’t a clue how to kill his growing feelings. Worse, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
    * * *
    Griff eased himself into the worn booth at the diner. “Sorry I’m late. A client wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
    Ryan shrugged. “Refill. Coffee, black,” he reminded the passing waitress. “And a BLT.”
    The woman looked at Griff. He glanced at his watch and shook his head, so she placed her pad in her apron and moved on.
    Food would have to wait. “I’m already half an hour late to put Alix into bed and I still have a quick meeting with a client.” He and Ryan always met on Wednesday nights, but since Griff had started his own practice, Ryan had grown used to Griff’s no-shows. “You look exhausted. An all nighter?”
    “I spent last night staked out in front of some dive in the ‘Combat Zone’,” Ryan said.
    “Boston’s answer to sleaze. What were you doing in a red-light district?”
    “Domestic dispute.”
    “I thought you didn’t take those kind of cases anymore. Breaking up marriages made you sick, or some such nonsense.” Griff snorted. “If you ask me, anyone who hires you for a case like that is halfway to a divorce already.”
    Ryan shook his head. “Still cynical as ever, I see.”
    “Like I don’t have a reason,” Griff muttered.
    Ryan cocked an eyebrow. “Back to the all-women-are-alike mentality?” he asked.
    “Aren’t they?”
    “I don’t know. Was your sister-in-law anything like Deidre?”
    That gave him pause. In truth, he’d always liked his brother’s wife. Never once during the frequent family dinners and nights he’d shown up unannounced had he ever sensed a similarity between his aloof fiancée and the warm, loving woman his brother had married. Nor had he seen a comparison to his mother, who’d earned the name only by giving birth to two children.
    “No,” he reluctantly admitted. “Shannon was unique.”
    “She was special, but not unique. Exceptions to every rule,” his friend said with a smug grin.
    Were there? Griff couldn’t help thinking of Chelsie. She was Shannon’s sister, and blood counted for something. If the past few weeks were any indication, Chelsie might well be more like her sister than like her wealthy, selfish parents.
    Time would tell.
    “Maybe you just haven’t found the exception of your own,” Ryan suggested.
    Maybe he had and wasn’t ready to