Hell, I’ve never seen him at a loss for words about anything. Yeah, he regularly drifts off into thoughtful silence, but it’s not this.
The dude looks like a love sick puppy.
Over Savannah Lewis. This is not good news.
Suddenly, his gaze jerks to mine. “Have you met her?”
“Yeah, I met her.”
“How?”
And this is where the situation gets complicated.
“I heard about her situation from …” Shit. How do I say this?
I ran into her sister and became borderline obsessed with her. I wanted to do something, anything, to make her life easier. The easiest way I could keep them both out of abject poverty was to pay Savannah obscene piles of money to cook for you.
Jesus, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. In addition to being borderline insane.
I’m pretty sure even Ian would notice how crazy that would sound, so I pan out to give him the mile-high view. I clear my throat. “I heard about her from an acquaintance.”
“What’s her situation?”
“You know I can’t talk about my clients.”
“Is she your client?”
I was hoping he wouldn’t ask, but since he did, I just shrug. “She was involved in a nasty lawsuit. It should’ve been an open and shut probate case. Her representation fucked thing up. By the time she figured it out and fired the guy, she had a shit ton of legal bills. I figured hiring her as your personal chef would kill several birds with one stone.”
“That’s uncharacteristically altruistic of you.”
Yeah. It is.
“What can I say? No one can be an asshole 100% of the time.”
And at the time, I told myself I was just doing a good deed. Helping someone who’d been screwed over by a bad actor.
Do I still believe that? Now that I’ve slept with Trinity?
I have no fucking idea what I was thinking.
“I think some people would argue with you on that point,” Ian says.
Based on his sour expression, I’m guessing he’s thinking about Ava and the public things she said about him.
I know there are two sides to every story. And while I had a ring-side seat to their relationship, I wasn’t in it. I’m sure Ian was exactly as emotionally absent as she claims. And if that was the worst of what she’d said about him, I’d let it go. But it is far from the worst.
Ian is as flawed as the next person, but he’s also a genuinely good person who’s trying to do his best for other people. And he would never hurt a fly.
So for that bitch to go on the record, with wide teary eyes and a quaver in her voice, that he hurt her and that only her NDA is protecting her? I call bullshit.
Before I can say anything else about Ava, Ian asks, “Can you tell me anything more about the case?”
“Not much. If you’re curious, ask her yourself.”
He snorts. “Yeah. Because that’s something I’m going to do.”
“It could be. You’re a curious guy and you don’t like unanswered questions.”