Beautiful You Read Free Page B

he’d smiled very often.
    Still sprawled on the floor, Penny gasped. “It’s you!” She squeaked, “You’re him! I mean, you’re you!” He wasn’t a client of the firm. Quite the opposite, he was the defendant in the palimony case. Penny could only assume he was here to be deposed.
    He was seated in a guest chair, one of the firm’s highly carved Chippendale armchairs upholstered in red leather. The smells of leather and shoe polish were pungent. Framed diplomas and leather-bound sets of law books lined the room’s walls.
    Behind him was a mahogany desk that glowed crimson from a century of hand rubbing and beeswax. Standing on the far side of the desk was a stooped figure whose bald head glowed almost as red, spotted and blotched with age. In the gaunt face the rheumy eyes blazed with outrage. Thin, palsied lips revealed tobacco-stained dentures. On all of the diplomas and certificates and awards, inked in elaborate gothic calligraphy, was the name Albert Brillstein, Esq.
    In polite response to her stammering, the younger man asked, unflustered, “And who might you be?”
    “She’s no one,” snarled the man standing behind the desk, the firm’s senior partner. “She shouldn’t even
be
here! She’s nothing but a girl Friday. She’s failed the bar exam
three times
!”
    The words stung Penny as if she’d been slapped. In shame she looked away from the blue eyes and once more caught sight of her reflection in the younger man’s shoe. Her boss was right.She was just a gofer. She was nobody. Just some stupid bumpkin who’d moved to New York with dreams of finding some … destiny. Something. The brutal truth was that she’d probably never pass the bar. She’d spend her life filing papers and fetching coffee, and nothing wonderful would ever happen to her.
    Without waiting for her to get up, Mr. Brillstein snapped, “Out.” He pointed a trembling, bony index finger at the open door and shouted, “Remove yourself!”
    In the pocket of her skirt, her phone began to vibrate. Penny didn’t have to look to know it was Monique, justifiably exasperated.
    Brillstein was right. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in suburban Omaha. She should be happily married to a pleasant, even-tempered Sigma Chi. They would have two babies and a third on the way. That was her fate. She should be covered in baby spit instead of expensive double-shot espressos.
    Reflected in the shoe, there she was, made as tiny as Alouette D’Ambrosia had been shrunken in the screens of so many cell phones. Penny felt tears well up in her eyes and watched one spill down her cheek. Self-loathing flooded her. With her hand, she dashed the wetness away and hoped neither of the men had noticed it. Spreading her fingers against the carpet, she tried to push herself up, but the combination of whipped cream, caramel, and chocolate syrup was gluing her down. Even if she could get to her feet, she worried that the hot liquid would make her blouse transparent.
    Despite their cheerful color, the blue eyes watching her were as focused and unblinking as any camera. They were measuring and recording her. He wasn’t any more handsome than she was beautiful, but his jaw was firmly set. He oozed confidence.
    Mr. Brillstein stammered, “Mr. Maxwell, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this rude interruption.” Lifting his telephone and punching a few numbers, he said, “Rest assured that I’llhave this young lady evicted from the building immediately.” Into the receiver he bellowed, “Security!” Judging from the vehemence in his voice, this would be no simple dismissal. It sounded as if he planned to have her flung from the roof.
    “May I offer you a hand?” asked the blond man, reaching down.
    A signet ring with a large red stone gleamed on his finger. Later, Penny would discover that it was the third-largest ruby ever mined in Sri Lanka. It had belonged to sultans and maharajas, and here it was coming to her rescue. Its sparkle was