Chasing Waves

Chapter Six: sea you in court

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6: Communication between the parties may only occur outside of business hours when:

(a) absolutely necessary per the exception of necessity in Annex 1; or

(b) coincidental to the coordination of the Partnership.

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"We're really doing this, sweetpea?"

Honey's eyes shot up from her paperwork, narrowed and cold. "Don't call me that."

"Sweetheart?" Adam corrected.

Seated at the head of the dining room table in her and Daisy's apartment, wearing a fitted white blazer dress and heels that rivalled the size of her net worth, Honey held Adam's stare for three whole seconds before opening the file in front of her. She clicked her pen, then wrote something in bold red letters at the top of the page.

Three. Whole. Seconds.

Nice.

"You know ..." Adam reclined in the plush leather chair across from hers, complete with light timber arms engraved with ornate whorls and swirls. Her entire apartment was like that, like her: crisp and sleek and gleaming, every last detail punctuated with some delicate flourish. "When I said lunch date, I had a little more than crackers in your apartment in mind."

"That's because this isn't a date.'"

"It's not?" Adam clasped the arms of his seat, watching her write in her elegant scrawl, and totally didn't flex his arms. "I'm here, you're here ..."

"Do you see any food?"

Adam eyed the spread laid out in the space between them; an edible barricade. "Yes—"

"No. You see crackers and dip. Because this"—she motioned between them—"is not a date, Mr Ripley."

"You don't need a three-course meal complete with dessert for it to be a date—" Mrs Ripley, he would have liked to add. Just to piss her off. Maybe she'd glare at him again.

"A date has meals," Honey insisted. "A meeting has nibbles. We have nibbles, therefore this isn't a date." Honey slammed the file shut. "It's a meeting."

Adam cocked his head with gusto. "I've never heard that rule."

"It's food one-oh-one."

"For you, maybe. Food one-oh-one for me was, just because it smells like a chocolate cookie, doesn't mean that you should eat it. You'll probably choke on the wick."

Smiling coolly, Honey leaned forward and whispered, "I think you were dropped on your head as a child."

"Mum swore it was an accident," Adam whispered back.

Honey just slid the file across the table with Bond-like ease.

"Passing notes, Toffee?" He swore her eyes narrowed as he reached for the papers. "What in the world could you have written if that good little mouth of yours is too afraid to say it out loud?"

Honey grit her teeth. "Read. It."

In that little blazer dress of hers, surrounded by papers and files, her voice forged from unyielding command like she was leading some important meeting for a bunch of stuffy suits ... Adam swallowed. A new development; he was usually the dominant one.