He was grinding his teeth, chewing his lower lip and fiddling with his pen all at the same time when a slight noise alerted him to the fact that he wasn’t the only person in the office suite. He spun to see who’d stepped into the conference room and saw Phoebe behind him.

She’d taken off her jacket and was wearing a T-shirt that didn’t have quite enough room in it for her breasts and didn’t quite make it to the waistband of her very short skirt. Plus, she was sending him a provocative smile and gazing at him with sultry eyes.

Yep, I’m in trouble.

“Hi, Phoebe.” He used his hearty tone, the one he used with women when he was trying to tell them he wasn’t interested. “I’m just about outta here. See you in the-”

She was blocking his way. “Don’t leave.” Her voice was so soft it was hard to believe it belonged to Phoebe the lawyer. “Ihave a bottle of simply wonderful wine in my office. Come in and have a taste.”

It occurred to Carter that he would have to confront the problem at one time or another, and it might as well be now, when he was a little bit mad at Mallory. “Okay, I will,” he said. “Thanks.”

The twenty-fourth floor was still brightly lighted, awaiting the services of the cleaning crew, except for Phoebe’s office, where he observed at once that she’d dimmed the lights. Big trouble. She began to open the wine, not talking, just lifting her gaze to his between turns of the corkscrew and gazing at him like a snake might gaze at a mouse. Not that Phoebe looked like a snake or he felt like a mouse. It was just that he knew devouring him was what she had in mind.

He tried a little commentary on the weather.

“Mmm,” she said.

He made mention of the political situation in the Middle East. “Mmm,” she said.

“How about that California state budget shortfall!” he tried next.

She didn’t even bother with the “Mmm.” She poured the wine, brought him a glass and sat on the arm of his chair, draping her arm around the back.

He got up. She followed, cornering him at the windows. He was thinking, Twenty-four floors. A guy could get hurt pretty bad jumping twenty-four floors.

Nonetheless, he opened the curtains, getting ready, just in case. The office looked out on a slice of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, a Norway spruce well over one hundred feet tall and sparkling with maybe thirty thousand lights. It gave him an idea that was better than jumping. “It’s almost Christmas,” he said, and turned to face her. “What do you want for Christmas, Phoebe?”

She gazed at him with longing. “You,” she said on a soft breath.

“What’s your second choice?” He spoke as gently as he could.

She stared at him, and he was horrified to see that her eyes were brimming. “You mean, what do I really want out of life?” Her voice quavered.

He nodded dumbly, scared to death she was about to tell him.

“What I want is for my father, just once, to tell me I handled a case right,” she stammered out. “All this-” she waved a hand at the wine, her tight T-shirt”-was his idea. I didn’t want to do it this way. It’s not the right way and, besides, anybody with two eyes can see you’re in love with Mallory.”

Carter handed her his clean breast-pocket handkerchief and one of Maybelle’s cards, then stood there awhile, just patting her shoulder and asking himself if she was right. Was he in love with Mallory?

Each morning Mallory asked herself how life could be more perfect. At dawn on Thursday of their third week in New York, with Carter sleeping beside her, she knew how. He was still sneaking away a couple of times a week on this pretense or that. He didn’t stay out late, he didn’t come home mussed or go directly to the shower, he just-went out. Of course, she was sneaking away, too. But she was seeing Maybelle, which wasn’t hurting Carter a bit. She’d seen Maybelle Monday night and last night at seven. Monday she’d told Carter she needed a manicure, and she and Maybelle had talked while she did have a manicure at Saks’s Elizabeth Arden Salon.

Late yesterday afternoon she’d sneaked out of Phoebe’s office while Carter was gathering some things together, leaving him a note saying she was going to buy a new suitcase and would see him at home. She’d picked out a suitcase in ten minutes and then taxied up to a boutique on the Upper East side where she and Maybelle had talked and selected two dinner dresses and two more jackets for Mallory.

“Variety is the spice of life,” Maybelle had said.

“So I’ve heard.” Mallory spoke through clenched teeth, predicting correctly that she was in for another of the bankruptcy nightmares that had been plaguing her.

“Not variety in everything,” Maybelle had added, sounding unusually absentminded, “jes’ in clothes.”

So while she’d been as thoughtful of Carter as she could possibly be, on Tuesday night he’d said, “I have an errand to do. See you at eight.”

He’d said it as if he didn’t owe her an explanation, and, of course, he didn’t. It was his reputation as a ladies’ man that worried her. For all she knew, he saw her as just another of his string of women, while she…

His face was toward her and she gazed at it, at the dark lashes that lay against his skin, the crispness of his tousled hair, and admitted to herself that if she hadn’t already given him part of her heart, she wouldn’t have been so determined to have sex with him. Had her feelings for him been locked up inside her, simmering, for all these years and she’d just now felt confident enough to let them out?

But Carter had never said he loved her or indicated in any way that he felt committed to their relationship. She had to face the possibility that he never would.

Except for that, she thought sadly, everything was perfect.

“Hi,” he said in the husky voice of a man just waking up. His smile was slow, warm and altogether irresistible.

She settled her head down into her pillow. “Hi,” she said as she felt his fingers trail lightly across her bare skin. Perhaps just having him committed to her for the next half hour was enough.

The delights of the early morning made it even more incomprehensible when he said offhandedly that evening, “I told a guy I knew in college I’d meet him for a drink. You don’t mind if I skip out for a while, do you?”

The truth was that she minded terribly. As she fiddled with things on her desk, trying to stay busy while he was gone, the phone rang. It was Bill Decker, who spent a minute exchanging pleasantries with her and said at last that he needed to speak to Carter.

She didn’t know why he would need to say something to Carter he couldn’t say to her as well, but she didn’t want to sound jealous or competitive, so she said, “He’s not here just now, Bill. Frankly, I don’t know where he is, but-”

Bill’s chuckle interrupted her. “I think I can guess,” he said.

“Where?” She snapped out the word.

“Okay, I’ll level with you. Wasn’t going to, thought it might embarrass Carter, but I’ve been putting a bee in his bonnet about Phoebe Angell.”

“Oh?” This time she managed to smooth out her voice. “What about Phoebe?”

More chuckles. She wished he’d choke and there wouldn’t be anybody around who knew how to do the Heimlich maneuver. “In a conversation I had with her,” he said when he apparently felt he’d chuckled enough, “it was clear she was interested in him. I suggested he pay a little attention to her, stroke her up a little.”

“When he returns from stroking,” Mallory said, feeling cold all over, “I’ll ask him to give you a call.”

She stood absolutely still for what seemed like an hour. Then she knew what she had to do. She had to see Maybelle. Maybelle would know it was an emergency. She’d find time for her in her schedule. Mallory flung on her coat and boots and went out into the night.

“You done good, hon,” Maybelle told Carter after he’d described his encounter with Phoebe. “You’re a fine man and you did a kind thing. You followed your own conscience without hurtin’ her any more than you had to. And-” she punctuated this by pointing a gold fingernail at him “-you found out what she wanted most in the world.”