Free The Laws of Seduction: A French Kiss Novel by Gwen Jones Page A

Jake’s firm which was, by that time, pretty successful. See, she was killing it in the corp law department, as this was the glory days of arbitrage, and Mom was as ruthless as they got. So while she raked it in representing companies eating each other alive, the firm got richer and richer and the ’rents couldn’t live life large enough. Until I threw a wrench in the picture.”
    “Your mother got pregnant.”
    “Exactly.” She laughed harshly. “I guess that’s when Mom had to put down the coke spoon.”
    Rex cocked a brow. “I get the impression you’re not your mother’s biggest fan.”
    “Let me put it this way. My mother never let me forget she had to start working part-time after I was born, while Dad went full-bore into more and more lucrative cases—rich men killing their wives, international embezzlement. All headline stuff, all Main Line, and boy, did his cock get big then.” She scowled into her drink. “After that he was home even less, and I think she resented me even more.”
    “So I’m going to take the leap and assume this is when he started taking on mistresses.”
    “ Oh no ,” she said with lethal emphasis. “This is when he started fucking anything with a pulse. Like the new clerk fresh out of law school.”
    Charlotte rose and went to the window, bracing her hand against the molding as she crossed her legs at her ankles, showing Rex the bloody-colored sole of her shoe. “I don’t know what it is, maybe it dates back to something primal. Like when two tribes would go to war and after one side would win, they’d kill the other tribe’s men and their babies, then impregnate their women with their issue. Maybe it was the same thing with my father. Maybe he needed to slough off the old for the new.”
    She held the tumbler of scotch to her cheek. “But that would’ve been too ordinary, and my father was more original than that. This was back in the day when an ass grab at the office was fully sanctioned, and although women were expected to produce, expecting to advance because of it was almost laughable.”
    She reeled on him, her anger almost palpable. “So yeah, he took up with the law clerk and yeah, he started fucking her and eventually he stopped coming home at all. By this time he was bringing in so much dough he was made a full partner, even though my mother had earned twice as much when she was working full-time, and in far less time than it had taken him. Didn’t matter. And apparently, neither did she. Not anymore. Because after that he dropped the coup de grâce. He got the partners together and had her fired, putting the law clerk and her brand-new degree in my mother’s place.”
    After a few beats, Rex said, “I don’t know what to say.”
    She turned back to the window. “How about”—her fore- and middle fingers curved in faux quotation marks—“ and your point is ? Standard operating procedure in your line of work, isn’t it?”
    He got out of the chair and went to her, grasping her arm as he turned her around. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know how I run my company or how I work.”
    She pushed him away. “I know enough that I had to put up with your CEO a couple months back. Had to watch him worm his way into Dani’s shorts until he wore her down.”
    “Oh come on,” Rex scoffed, “they were in love .”
    She stared at him. “Do you have any idea how absurd you sound saying that?”
    “Oh, oui . So much I took a sock in the mouth just for doubting he meant it.”
    “Then you know what a ridiculous notion it is. How people use it to manipulate each other.”
    She didn’t know how close to the Meaning of Life she just came by saying that. He could almost kiss her for her perspicacity. “I know.”
    “Of course you do,” she said. “It’s your modus operandi. I’m sure you have seduction down to a sixth sense. I wouldn’t doubt you have forms of it tailor-made for each of your victims. Though this