AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I glance at the time on my phone and realize how close I have to be to missing him before he heads to court. Shoving my phone back inside my purse, I hurry forward and open the door just as Reese is exiting. Before I can even blink again over this man, his hands come down on my shoulders and he turns me to the side of the door. “You’re late,” he says, his hands scorching my arms, while a fall breeze is now tinged with the spicy, masculine scent of his cologne.
“I don’t remember setting a date or time.”
“And yet we did,” he says. “But you obviously had to talk yourself into showing up.”
“I came for coffee.”
“Liar,” he says.
“I came—”
“For me,” he says, his voice a low rasp as he adds, “Come for me again. Tomorrow. An hour earlier than today.”
“I need—”
“Good,” he says. “And I want to hear more. Tomorrow. I have to go.” He releases me then he’s walking away. I rotate to watch him depart, and Lord help me, the man really is Mr. Hotness and I can still feel him everywhere, and he didn’t touch me anywhere but my arms. He’s also gone before I’ve confessed my identity, and I consider chasing him down and explaining myself, but he’s headed to court. I’m the last thing that he has on his mind today. And yet he was here. For me. I’m not sure what to do with that little tidbit of information. But then, men like him love the chase, and I didn’t fall at his feet.
It’s about the chase.
Until he decides I set him up to get the interview I still need from him. This really can’t end well, or even naked. No one is going to come, at least not Reese and myself together.
Chapter three
Cat
Iarrive to the courthouse an hour before start time, but, frustratingly, the picketers and crowds are pure insanity. I push through it all and by the time I make my way to the courtroom, I end up in the same back row as yesterday. Then again, I think, as I try to get comfortable in the hard seat, maybe I need to keep a low profile until I deal with the Reese Summer situation. Situation. There’s a way to describe what’s happening between me and that man.
Pulling my journal from my briefcase, I open it to my writing from yesterday, and grimace at my scribbled note about women who fall in love with convicted killers. Mr. Hotness isn’t the defendant, but the story idea is still a good one. Setting that aside for now, I start jotting down notes related to Lauren’s comments, with a focus on who might be guilty of the murders, if not the defendant. I’m pages into my thoughts when the action in the courtroom begins, and it’s not long before Reese is at his table, and I find myself remembering his words, spoken all gravelly and low: You came for me. Come for me again. There had been a glint in his eye, I realize. Cocky bastard knew exactly what he was implying about me and my, well…orgasm. And holy hell, as he walks to the bench to greet the judge, I’m fairly certain a number of women sigh for no reason other than that he is in the same room. I really hate that I’m one of them, but I’m not going to deny that he’s a good-looking man. That isn’t the point in all of this. His attitude and my job are.
The trial begins, and the prosecution claims the reins, continuing its opening statement narrative, painting a picture of a selfish billionaire who wanted his cake and to eat it too, a.k.a. a wife and a mistress. It’s dirty, gritty, nasty legal work. It’s also delivered clumsily, filled with empty spaces, and theories that have no factual support. And from where I sit, Reese does an incredible job of tearing down every witness that is presented.
So much so that by lunchtime I set aside Lauren’s praise for Reese and decide that my original assessment of the man is correct: He is most definitely the kind of man who will fuck you and fuck you over, unless you fuck him and fuck him over first. Professionally speaking, of course, and as a general observation, made objectively by a woman who has not gotten naked with him. Which brings me to who is actually naked and exposed right now, and it’s not me or Reese, but rather everyone else in the courtroom.
As if proving every mental point I’ve just made, he approaches a witness for the prosecution and proceeds to turn the woman into a silly schoolgirl, who fidgets, smiles nervously, and bats her eyes at him. She also proceeds to look like a liar when she can’t keep her story straight. It seems that her claim to have seen the defendant with his “alleged” mistress, as Reese calls her, proves less than reliable. Apparently, she’s not sure what she saw after all.
Unsurprisingly, once she’s off the stand, the prosecution asks for an early, and long, lunch break. “One hour,” the judge allots, giving nothing but the standard break, which to me says that he believes the witness list is not only long, but destined to be drawn out.
The gavel is clunked on the wooden block on top of the judge’s desk, and the courtroom becomes a gaggle of people standing and moving toward the door. I don’t get up. I can’t. The walkway is packed and I’m trapped. I try to make good use of my captive position, watching the front of the courtroom for a story. The prosecution scrambles to a back room while Reese lingers at his table, conversing with his client and co-counsels. Interestingly, Reese stands close to the accused. He leans toward him. Lauren is right. This is a man who believes his client is innocent. Or Reese simply loves everyone who pays him and pays him well.
The courtroom doesn’t just begin to thin out, it empties out like a suction draining a swamp, and suddenly, I’m out in the open, exposed, a woman watching Reese Summer in a sea of empty seats. It’s in that moment that he leans in close to his client to say something in his ear. In doing so, he faces the courtroom, and me, and his gaze seems to fall on me: The woman who almost stood him up for coffee, who is now sitting in his courtroom, staring at him. This feels like a scene out of a stalker movie, and I’m the stalker.
He doesn’t react to my presence. Maybe he doesn’t recognize me. Maybe his mind is elsewhere. Whatever the case, he continues to stare at me with no external reaction before pulling back to look at his client, his attention back where it belongs: Not on me.
“Miss,” a security guard greets me, suddenly towering above me. “We need you to exit the courtroom.”
I frown and look at grandpa in blue, wondering if the man is serious. How was I supposed to leave when I was blocked in? My walkway is clear now, and I leave my comment in my head. “Of course,” I say, as he steps into the aisle in a fashion that prevents me from walking in any direction but the door. Maybe he thinks I’m a stalker, too.
I move in front of him and exit the courtroom. And that is how my thirty-second encounter with the man of the hour, Mr. Arrogant Asshole, Mr. Hotness, ends: With me escorted to the door by an armed guard. So much for professionalism and discretion.
Reese
I exit the side door of the courtroom, Nelson Ward walking in front of me, Elsa and Richard, my co-counsels, beside me, while I have one thing, the wrong thing in the middle of a trial, on my mind: A woman. They reach the private room where we’ll have lunch and talk strategy, and I watch them enter before turning on my heel and heading the other direction.
“Reese.”
I turn to find Elsa, who is a stunning older version of Cat by fifteen years, standing at the door. Only I don’t want to fuck Elsa. I’ve never wanted to fuck Elsa, and not because of a ten-year age difference between us. Because the woman has the personality of cardboard, despite her brilliant mind. But I have wanted to fuck Cat. From the moment she tugged on my sleeve and cast me in an irritated, green-eyed stare that told me at least ten things about her personality, all of which became: I want to fuck her.
Instead, she was already fucking me.
