Table Of ContentCopyright © 2010 by Christine Warren.
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ISBN: 978-0-312-94794-1
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2010
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here
One
“Danice Carter, Esquire. Just the woman I wanted to see.
“Well, take a good, long look then, because you’ve got about twenty-seven
“Well, take a good, long look then, because you’ve got about twenty-seven
seconds before I pull open a window and fling myself out.”
Stocking feet slapped across the chilly marble in front of the sixteenth-floor
elevators, then onto plush tweed carpet as Danice stalked toward her office. She
hadn’t had a particularly pleasant afternoon.
ignoring the danger signs, Celia turned to follow. “How did things go with
Wilkinson’s team?” Danice shoved open her office door and launched her soft-
sided briefcase toward the back wall with the approximate force of an anti-
aircraft missile. ‘Peachy. Their client has decided that in addition to causing the
collapse of his business, Henry Hollister and Grissom Holdings are also
responsible for the boom in the Chinese economy, the global recession, the
greenhouse effect, and unrest in the Middle East.”
“Ah.”
“They’ve adjusted their demands for the settlement accordingly. I believe the
offer they presented me contained language about me giving lap dances in the
hall of Satan while they drink the blood of all of Grissom’s senior corporate
officers from a golden chalice?’ She used one of the .shoes in her hand to gesture
toward her briefcase. “The papers are in there. Feel free to go over them and tell
me if I’m wrong?’
“I’ll get right on that?’ Celia pursed her lips and took a seat in front of Danice’s
desk while the other woman flung herself inelegantly into the leather executive’s
chair behind it. “Do you want me to call around and see if I can find you pasties
and a G-string?”
Danice glared at her. “You giving up your career as a paralegal for a future in
stand-up comedy?”
“Maybe. I like to keep my options open.” Celia tilted her head and widened her
eyes ingenuously. “Did you offer up your sense of humor as a sacrifice to pacify
the Wilkinson camp?’’
“No, I dropped it on the corner of Lexington and fifty-first, along with my
afternoon latte and the heel of my-hundred-dollar Kate Spade pump.” Scowling,
Dan ice wound up like a Starting pitcher and threw her shoe toward the front
wall, savoring the satisfying thunk of leather on drywall. If only she’d stuck with
softball as a teenager, maybe she could have had the satisfaction of leaving a
dent. “If only that had been Wilikinson’s fat head?’
“Mm, I hear clients don’t appreciate being assaulted by legal representation.
They might even file suit.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Damn, girl, you need to lighten up.”
Danice sighed and dropped her head to the back of her chair. “I’ll put that on my
list. Right after world peace and saving the whales.” She shifted her gaze to
Celia. “What was the straw you had for me?”
“Straw?”
“When I came off the elevator, you said you’d been looking for me. I assume
you have a straw for my back?”
Celia grinned and took in her boss’s sleek, camel-colored sheath dress. “The
color’s right, but there’s something about the face that doesn’t fit the picture.”
“Thank God for that, at least. I don’t have time for a nose job.” Bracing her
hands on the arms of her chair, Danice pushed herself upright and leaned her
elbows on her desk. “You’ve got something for me?”
Celia offered up a slim brown folder. “This.”
Danice flipped open the cover and frowned down at a short stack of papers that,
at first glance, didn’t ring any bells with her. “Any clue what it’s about?”
“No, but it came down from on high. Ms. Eberhart brought it to me herself just
after lunch.”
“Really?” That actually made Danice take notice. Her brows lifted, and she
looked down at the papers with renewed interest. “If it came via Patrice
Eberhart, I’m assuming the responsible heavenly throne belongs to Mr. Yorke?”
“You opened the folder.” Celia shrugged. “At this point, you now officially
know more than I do. I was told ho see that you got the folder as soon as you got
back to the office. My work here is done.”
“You wish, Tonto. What did Ms. Eberhart tell you when she gave this to you?”
“Exactly what I just told you. To make sure you got that as soon as you got in.
And to buzz her so she’d know you were back?’
Danice rolled her eyes and reached for her telephone. “See, that last part was
what I really wanted to know. I’ll buzz her myself.”
“I was getting to it. You’re always rushing me’ Celia teased as she rose. “You
have notes for me from this Wilkinson meeting?”
Danice nodded toward the window. “In my briefcase.”
“Okay. Thanks, boss.”
Slim, creamed-coffee fingers punched in an internal dialing code then tapped
restlessly on the desk while Danice waited for an answer.
“Mr. Yorke’s office. How may I help you?”
“Ms. Eberhart, this is Danice Carter. I’ve just returned from an outside meeting,
and my paralegal gave me a message that you might need something from me.”
The crisp, schoolmistress voice responded promptly. “Ms. Carter. I assume that
you have received the file I left with Ms. Alta.”
“Yes, Celia did give me a file, though I haven’t reviewed it yet. As I said, I’m
just back to the office.”
“Yes. I shouldn’t worry. Mr. Yorke has asked me to invite you up so that he can
provide you with the background for this particular assignment. I’m certain your
review of the provided materials will be more productive after you’ve talked
with Mr. Yorke.”
Danice felt her eyebrows shoot up and decided it was a good thing that her Big
Boss’s assistant couldn’t see her face at the moment. It might not instill the right
kind of confidence if it were known she’d nearly passed out at the news that one
of the firm’s senior partners had requested a meeting with her.
Matthew Yorke IV wasn’t a senior partner; he was the senior partner, and the
namesake of one of the prestigious old firm’s founders. The closest she’d ever
come to speaking with him during her five years working for him had been when
she’d excused herself as she walked in front of him at last year’s company
holiday party.
“Of course,” she said, carefully keeping the shock out of her voice. “I’d be
happy to make time for Mr.
Yorke. When would he like to set up a meeting?”
“Actually, Mr. Yorke would like for you to come up now.” There was a short,
significant pause. “If you’re available.”
Danice stifled the urge to laugh. Not because the comment was funny, but
because it was ridiculous.
What did the woman expect her to say? That she’d check her calendar and get
back to her? “Of course.
I’ll be right up.”
Hanging up, Danice flipped the folder in front of her closed and pushed to her
feet. Then she swore.
“Celia!”
A minute later, the paralegal’s head appeared in the door. “You rang?”
Danice nodded and dropped back in her chair. She opened her bottom desk
drawer to pull out the makeup bag and mirror she kept there for emergencies. “I
need shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“Yes, shoes. I told you, I broke mine on the way back here from the Wilkinson
meeting, and I can’t go up to Mr. York’s office in my bare-assed feet. I need
shoes.”
Celia blinked and drew back in shock. “Mr. Yorke? You’re going to Mr. Yorke’s
office? Now?”
office? Now?”
Danice swiped a powder pad over her cheekbones and nodded. “That’s what I
just said, isn’t it? He wants to see me about that file Ms. Eberhart brought
down.”
“In person? Mr. Yorke wants to meet with you in person?”
“Yes,” she insisted impatiently, reaching for a mascara wand. “And I can’t go up
there in bare feet. So where can I get me a pair of shoes in the next five
minutes?”
Celia kicked off her heeled loafers and stepped onto the carpet beside them.
“You can take mine. But seriously, Mr. Yorke asked to meet with you in person
to go over that file? What on earth could be so important that Matthew Yorke the
Fourth, lord of all he surveys and potential secret ruler of the universe, would
want to meet with an assistant associate whose name he probably can’t
remember unless his personal secretary is whispering it in his ear?”
“Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence.” Danice grimaced and twisted the
bottom of a tube of lipstick.
“What size shoe do you wear?”
“Seven. I’m totally, confident in you. I just didn’t think Mr. Yorke was.”
“I have no idea if he is or not, but I intend to make sure he becomes just as
confident as I can make him.”
She rubbed her lips together and tossed the lipstick back into the makeup bag.
“Shit, I wear a seven and a half. On my good days. Your shoes will be too
small.”
“Grin and bear it. Because it’s either wear my shoes,. or wear the sneakers you
have me keep for you for the days you decide to walk home, and I don’t think
they’ll go with that dress.”
“Then I guess they’ll have to do, won’t they?”
She sighed as she gave herself a final check in the mirror. She appeared exactly
She sighed as she gave herself a final check in the mirror. She appeared exactly
the way she strived to appear—a reasonably attractive, twenty-eight-year old
professional woman of indeterminate heritage. Her skin glowed the rich golden
color of café au lait, her brown eyes tilted up at the outer corners from within a
round and slightly shallow profile, and her thick black hair fell straight and
heavy to just above her shoulders.
As a child, some people had thought she was black, others Asian, or Latina, or
Native American, or Polynesian. Danice had defensively referred to herself as
100 percent American. She hadn’t wanted to be judged by the color of her skin
or the shape of her face or the texture of her hair or even by the ethnicities of her
parents. She had wanted to be judged for herself.
Until she started applying to colleges and discovered I hat in order to get the
education she wanted at a price she could afford, she would have to make a few
compromises with her dignity.
Those compromises had led her to Fordham University and then Columbia Law
School without bankrupting her grandchildren. They had also gotten her foot in
the door at Parish, Hampton, Uxbridge, and Yorke, one of Manhattan’s most
prestigious law firms. That was as far as Danice was willing to compromise her
principles. She’d let her skin tone open gates for her, but she’d seize control of
the castle based on skill, talent, and sheer force of will.
“All right. I guess I’m ready to go.” Snagging the file from her desk and slipping
it into a slim leather notebook, Danice stepped out from behind the wooden
barrier and into Celia’s shoes, wincing only a little at the pinching fit. “How do I
look?”
“Like a junior partner in the making, my friend.” The paralegal gave her an
enthusiastic thumbs-up.
“Knock ‘em dead?’
“Don’t say things like that. The man’s eighty-four years old. With my luck,
that’s just what would happen?’
Celia’s laughter followed Danice out into the corridor as she strode toward the
elevators. Honestly, Danice wasn’t quite certain what her co-worker was
laughing about. She hadn’t been joking. At eighty-four, the man could go at any
moment, and wouldn’t it just cap off her day if he did it in her presence?
moment, and wouldn’t it just cap off her day if he did it in her presence?
Twenty seconds on the elevator deposited her on the Parish Building’s
sacrosanct twentieth floor, the exclusive domain of the Senior Partners. There
were four of them, one for each of the four original founders of the firm. Each
had an office larger than Danice’s entire apartment, guarded by one of the four
fiercest personal assistants in Midtown Manhattan. And just opposite the
elevator, a shared receptionist staffed a U-shaped desk the approximate size of
Paraguay.
“Can I help you?” asked the woman, her pale silver hair a slightly warmer shade
than her voice. She looked to be about sixty, but based on the warmth of her
manner, freezing could account for having preserved her ~ well past her
hundredth birthday.
“I’m Ms. Carter’ Danice returned smoothly, her posture unconsciously
straightening and her own normally warm, husky voice icing over. “Mr. Yorke is
expecting me.”
“Is he.” The receptionist’s skepticism would have been insulting if it hadn’t been
so obviously... insulting.
As things stood, it made Danice want to snort. “I’ll just ring Ms. Eberhart and
alert her to your presence.”
No one got that good at insulting people obliquely without years of practice,
Danice decided as she waited for the older woman to make her phone call.
Maybe the gatekeeper had been here even longer than a hundred years. Maybe
she was left over from the founding of the firm in 1859. Somehow, Danice
wouldn’t have been surprised.
A moment later, Patrice Eberhart emerged from a corridor behind the reception
desk and nodded to Danice. “Ms. Carter. If you’ll follow me, please.”
Resisting the urge to check herself for goose bumps, Danice turned and did as
instructed. She hadn’t noticed the temperature on this floor being cooler than the
rest of the building, but the greetings definitely were. Either everyone here
needed to be kept in a meat locker to keep from decomposing, or being or
associating with a senior partner required the surgical removal of one’s
personality.
Pausing before a paneled door of dark wood, Ms. Eberhart rapped softly, then
Pausing before a paneled door of dark wood, Ms. Eberhart rapped softly, then
performed an impressive move involving opening the door no more than three
inches and somehow squeezing through the crack and closing it firmly behind
her. For a second, Danice thought she might have turned into a mist to manage
it.
Like a vampire.
The stray thought wiped the burgeoning smile from Danice’s face. According to
her dear friend Reggie, vampires didn’t turn into mist. That, apparently, was all
Hollywood mythology. And Reggie ought to know, since she’d recently married
a vampire and become one herself Damn, Danice thought, shaking her head.
Somehow she didn’t think she’d ever get used to thinking things like that,
especially not here within the safe and utterly normal confines of an
unrelentingly respectable law firm. And definitely not without someone jumping
out from behind a door and telling her she’d been punked.
The door opened again, this time wide enough for an actual human being—or an
actual vampire, she supposed—to pass through, and Ms. Eberhart stepped aside
to wave her in.
“Mr. Yorke will see you now.”
The older woman managed to make it sound as if an audience with Matthew
Yorke IV was slightly harder to get than one with Elizabeth II, and significantly
more important. Danice had to stifle the urge to curtsy.
Instead, she nodded with a touch of arrogance of her own and strode forward
toward the thin, stooped figure behind the huge, antique desk. As she extended
her hand, she heard the click of the door closing behind her.
“Mr. Yorke.” She smiled, shaking the old man’s hand firmly but carefully. It
would hardly help her career if she were to unintentionally break something.
“It’s certainly a pleasure to see you again, sir.”
“Ms. Carter, please have a seat,” he replied in a surprisingly robust voice. He
gestured toward the elegant and uncomfortable Queen Anne armchairs facing his
desk, and Danice sat.
She had seen Matthew Yorke up close and in person precisely three times before
this afternoon, so she recognized him, but this was the first time she’d had the
this afternoon, so she recognized him, but this was the first time she’d had the
opportunity to observe the sharp intelligence in his faded blue eyes. Some
people, she thought, might be too distracted by the wrinkled skin and thinning
hair to notice that the old man watched the world around him with the canny
patience of a wolf She wasn’t one of them. Instinctively, she straightened her
spine and met his gaze with her own.
“I hope you won’t mind if I call you Danice?’
“Of course not. Please do.”
Matthew Yorke settled himself carefully into the huge, worn leather chair behind
his desk and laced his fingers together over his stomach. “I had Patrice bring me
a few tidbits of information about you the other day, Danice. I have to say,
you’re certainly justifying the firm’s confidence in you so far.”
A long, slow blink was all the outward reaction Danice allowed herself Inside,
she couldn’t decide if she should laugh or slap his face. The declaration had
more than a touch of feudalism to it, carefully couched in a backhanded
compliment. The man was either stuck in the Dark Ages or a master of
psychological warfare.
Maybe both.
“Thank you, sir’ she said, her voice bland. “I always do my best for the firm, of
course.”
His nod dripped with royal condescension. “You graduated at the top of your
class from Columbia. We have high expectations for your future.”
“As do I.”
She detected a glint of what she thought might be approval in his eyes before he
continued.
“I was especially impressed with your handling of the Howard-McKinley
matter,” he said, naming the case of a small software firm that had sued a former
employee for breach of contract after he failed to prove as innovatively brilliant
as he’d claimed when he’d been trying to get the job.
