“I have to explain something,” she said.
He leaned toward her, his forearms resting on his thighs. His expression was attentive, his dark blue eyes fixed on her face. “Yes?”
Her throat went dry. “I, um. I need to apologize for what happened. You know. At my folks’ house.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. Then the other. Then his whole mouth curved in a smile. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead in a sexy, mussed look that tempted her to push it back into place.
“You mean when you told your entire family you were hot for me?”
She winced. “That wasn’t exactly what I said, but yes. It was completely unprofessional of me.”
“I thought it was charming.”
“Really? I would have thought a man like you would get tired of women saying things like that. They practically line up to be taken advantage of. Doesn’t it get old?”
As soon as the words were out, she wanted to call them back. She slapped a hand over her mouth, but it wasn’t enough. Oh, God, she hadn’t really said that, had she?
Horror and humiliation blended into what was becoming a familiar feeling. Zach leaned back in the sofa and shook his head.
“I see you’ve been doing your research,” he said evenly.
She couldn’t tell if he was just annoyed or completely furious. “Sort of. A little. I do like to know about the people I’ll be working with, and you have something of a reputation.” She shook her head. “But I don’t mean that in a bad way. I’m sorry. I can’t seem to engage my brain and mouth together.”
He looked at her. “Is it circumstances or me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe both.”
Humor brightened his eyes. “Want to start over? Clean slate on both sides.”
In this case she wanted more than a fresh start; she wanted to travel back in time and do the whole thing over. But as that wasn’t available, she would accept what he offered.
“Absolutely.”
He held out his hand. “Then we’ll ignore the fact that you think I’m irresistibly sexy, and I’ll do my best not to come on to you. Deal?”
She’d been about to put her hand in his when his words sank in. Come on to her? As in he thought she was…well, attractive?
It wasn’t that she had a low opinion of herself. Men found her appealing. She had dates, boyfriends. But Zach wasn’t just any guy. He was a world-class player. His women were starlets and models. In the smorgasbord of women available to him, she was little more than an appetizer.
“Deal,” she said and slid her hand against his.
The heat that flared, along with the sparks arcing up her arm, nearly made her laugh. Okay, one problem solved, but the issue of the wayward hormones needed more work.
She pulled her hand free and reached for her briefcase. “Ready to talk about the party?”
“Sure. It’ll distract me from the hell of my day.”
“Stressful case?”
“Mediation.” He dropped his hands to his lap. “The couple had been married for over twenty years. The wife stayed home to take care of the kids. He hit his forties and decided he wanted a new-and-improved spouse. Fairly typical.”
Katie wasn’t sure what to do with the information. “Who were you representing?”
“Her. She got a decent settlement. I guess the real question is why she married the guy in the first place.”
“Probably because she loved him.”
Zach looked at her. His dark blue eyes seemed to flash with anger, and there was a cynical twist to his mouth. “I don’t see a whole lot of that in my line of work. In my world, relationships don’t work, and the kids nearly always pay the price for that.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I’ll step off my soapbox for now.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re obviously concerned about the people you deal with. I think that’s good.”
He smiled. “Katie, I’m a mean, hard-assed, son-of-a-bitch lawyer. I don’t do ‘concerned.’”
He was right-she’d heard he was a tough opponent. Word had it he was smart, ruthless, and never gave away any advantage. Between that and his reputation with the ladies, she’d assumed he was self-absorbed and someone she really wouldn’t like. But he’d surprised her twice in less than five minutes. First with his gracious offer to forget what had happened at the hacienda, and just now with his comments about kids getting caught in their parents’ problems.
Maybe she’d judged him too quickly. Maybe there was a real person under the sharkskin. Maybe she liked him.
“Okay. Enough about the law. I have a very large charity event to plan.” She pulled several folders from her briefcase. “I looked over the notes you gave me and went to see the hotel that had been reserved. Apparently no one had arranged for a contract, so nothing was firm.”
A tickle of nerves swept across her chest, but she ignored it. She was the professional here. Zach had hired her to make the fund-raiser a success. That’s what she intended to do.
“I want to change venues,” she told him. “The original hotel is older, and while the architecture is lovely, the ballroom isn’t very big. With a crowd of over two thousand people to consider, space is important. We need spillover rooms. Also, I thought it would be fun to make the locale more of an integral part of the party, rather than just the background.”
She glanced at Zach to check for some kind of a reaction, but his expression was unreadable. Assuming silence meant agreement, she passed him a brochure.
“The West Side Royale Hotel?” he asked. “It’s new, right?”
“Refurbished. What I like best about it are the gardens. They start by the ballroom and flow throughout the property. The man in charge is a botanist. He’s done amazing work. A cancellation cleared the weekend we’re interested in. They’ve got a big hole in their schedule, and they’re willing to deal to get it filled. They’re offering a great price to give us the rooms we need.”
Zach flipped through the brochure. The hotel had been done Art Deco style.
“What do you mean rooms?” he asked. “Isn’t there one ballroom?”
Okay, now came the selling part. This is where she proved she was worth what he was paying her. “There can be. That’s more traditional. I’ve pulled articles on different fund-raisers held in Los Angeles. They’ve ranged from funky with organic food and barefoot guests to elegant black-tie. I wanted something different, something special. Something successful. To that end, I’m thinking of a two-tiered system.”
Zach raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“The cost of a ticket is a thousand dollars per couple, right?”
“Yes. The partners set the price.”
“So that can stay the same. The cost of the party is about two hundred dollars a person, leaving a good chunk of money for the charity. But out of the two thousand to twenty five hundred people who will attend, at least three hundred and as many as five hundred are serious players in the charity game. They give away millions of dollars every year. Why not to your charity?”
“We’re not going to invite them to the party and then go begging for additional donations.”
“Agreed. But you could charge them more up front.”
“What?”
She held up a hand. “I’m suggesting that a few hundred special guests receive an invitation to attend the fund-raiser, but that they are invited to a more exclusive party held at the same time. They’ll have the same dinner and the same entertainment, but there will be separate activities both before and after the meal.”
“Such as?”
Katie opened a pale blue folder and unfolded a map of the hotel grounds. She pointed to the main ballroom, and the gardens beyond, then showed a small ballroom flanking the main one.
“I was thinking of games of chance,” she said, “but not gambling. That’s so overdone. More like carnival games, but instead of winning a goldfish at the ring toss, you could win a diamond bracelet worth, say, five grand. We could do ski vacations in Gstaad and balloon trips in France. If we keep the prizes around five to ten thousand a piece and charge the couples twenty-five thousand to participate, we’re still coming out ahead of the thousand-dollars-a-plate donation.”