I had failed on both counts.
“So,” I said at the end. “There it is.” I pushed the paper toward him again. “Please accept my letter of resignation,” I requested formally.
I had never wanted anything less.
Greg scowled at the paper, rubbed his knuckles into one palm, then switched and did the other, like a boxer getting ready to train.
“No,” he said at last.
I balked. “No?”
His mouth spread down and out, a silent expressive rebuttal. “Nah, no. I don’t think so.”
I frowned. “Greg, did you hear everything I just said? I was involved with the defendant’s wife.”
“So recuse yourself from the case,” he argued back. “Don’t cost me one of the best prosecutors I have. You have more convictions than anyone else on my team, Zola. Two more years, you could end up department chief.”
“Convictions aren’t everything,” I replied. “Some might say that just makes me a dirty cop.”
“Yeah, well, yours are also fairer than everyone else’s,” he said grimly. “You and Derek make a good team. You always have.”
I sighed. “Greg, I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying. I was in love with her. And because she royally fucked me over, I think it’s pretty clear I can’t do this with a clear head. If I ever could. My judgment is compromised, probably always was. We’re going to lose on that alone.”
Again, the nonchalant shrug that was starting to become really fuckin’ infuriating. “Again, so you recuse yourself. This case hasn’t gone to trial, Zola. Did you lie about how any of your evidence was obtained?”
I swallowed and shook my head. “No, but—”
“Did you depose her? Were you planning to call her to the stand during the trial?”
“Well, no, because we assumed they would claim spousal privilege, so—”
“And was your pursuit of justice in any way corrupted, for better or for worse, because of her relationship with Calvin Gardner?”
At that, I remained silent. I wanted to say no. I wanted to say that my dogged pursuit of Calvin Gardner over the past several months had been purely because he was a rotten fuckin’ guy who deserved to have the book thrown at him for the things he had done.
But that would have been a lie.
Greg tapped his fingers on the desk like he was tapping out numbers. “Look. It’s not good, I’ll grant you that. But, Zola, you didn’t break any laws here. Sure, you crossed some ethical boundaries, but from what you said, it doesn’t sound like Nina Gardner was manipulating you in any way to benefit her husband, considering she probably hates the motherfucker more than anyone. Extortion. Kidnapping. Fuck, his behavior at the beginning of their relationship sounds a lot like grooming to me.”
I ground my teeth at the word “grooming,” then willed myself with everything I had not to run out of the room and chase Calvin Gardner with a baseball bat.
I blinked. No, sympathy for her was not what was needed now. “She’s still implicated in the crimes.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
My hands gripped the edges of the chair. “She all but said it. We have the video confirmation. But I can’t prosecute this anymore. I probably never should have.”
“So, you won’t.” He wrote something down on a legal pad. “I’m taking it on personally, given the sensitivity of the case. I’ll need all the files immediately, and meanwhile, someone from IT will erase the remainders from your hard drive. But we’ll get that conviction, Zola. And we’ll help the Newark ADA get hers too.”
I wanted to bury my head in my hands. “Anyone who takes it should probably call me to the stand too.”
Greg shrugged, unconvinced. “I think you’re being a little hard on yourself. You didn’t actually witness anything, so technically, your statements would all be hearsay. Do I think you should have kept your pecker to yourself? Yeah. Do I think you should have given this to me the second you realized who she was? Definitely. But given the circumstances around the Carson case, I also understand why you didn’t. Hell, Ramirez was pretty clear with you about it, wasn’t he?”
Grimly, I nodded. “Yeah, he wanted it done under the table when it was focused on Carson. We couldn’t risk the Manhattan DA or the Feds who were bought off by John Carson stepping in. So I was fully responsible for that one. We had nowhere else to turn.”
“Well, there you go.”
Cardozo grabbed my resignation letter off his desk and dropped it into the shredder by his feet. We both watched as the machine sliced my guilt to ribbons.
“Last thing,” Greg said. “I don’t want to lose you, but this wasn’t good, Zola. I’m probably going to have to put you on unpaid administrative leave until things die down. I’ll let you know. Can you handle that?”
I swallowed. It wasn’t great. I’d probably have to pick up some shifts at Jamie’s just to make my mortgage. Christ. I never thought I’d go back to waiting tables and bartending to get by after I finished law school, but here we were. Still, it was better than what I imagined when I first walked in here.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, it’ll be fine.”
“All right,” said Cardoza. “Get your things together. Figure out how to divvy up your caseload. And then we’ll see you in a few months, good as new.”
“Banks, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Looking good, Cap. A little quiet, though.”
I frowned at Percy, my second, who stood next to me with the same quizzical look on his face.
“Quiet?” he echoed. “Quiet in Fallujah?”
It was supposed to be a raid. They were supposed to go in and come right back out.
“All clear up here, Cap—oh, fuck!”
BOOM. The upper quadrant of the already-crumbling apartment building exploded.
“Fuck!” I shouted, jumping out of the shadows where I had been sitting with the only three members of the platoon I’d held back with me. “Goddammit.” I yanked my radio from my shoulder and called for backup.
The reply was immediate. “Roger, stand by.”
I scowled at the phone. “Fuck this.”
“Cap, what are you doing?” Perkins shouted as he watched me strip off the radio and toss it to him.
“There are three other Marines in there, Perkins, and I’m not leaving them to a slaughter when I’m the one who sent them!” I shouted. “Stay on the line and wait for orders. I’m coming out with my men or I’m not coming out at all!”
Without waiting for a response, I hurtled into the building, ignoring the rubble raining down above me and the rattle of gunfire that was suddenly everywhere.
I found two of them.
“Snacks! Bancroft! Grab my hands; let’s get you guys out of here.”
With more strength than I knew I possessed, I pulled the two men up from the stairs, thankful that they were both at least able to walk, even if their faces were badly burned.
“Cap,” Bancroft muttered. “It’s Napoleon, he was upstairs when it went off. We got most of them, but he’s still up there.”
I helped them out of the building where two of the men who were waiting outside ran across the street to help their platoonmates to safety.
“Cap!” shouted Perkins. “Artillery is here in six minutes!”
“I gotta find Napoleon!” I shouted over my shoulder even as I headed back into the building, gun drawn.
There was smoke everywhere—the fire that the bomb started had quickly caught on the cheap wood furniture and dry surroundings.
“Napoleon! Yo, Pletford, where are you?” I called through the smoke, stepping over civilian bodies and trying not to think too hard about whether they were dead or alive. I was halfway up the crumbling stairs when I saw the Marine’s legs limp at the top.
“Plet!” I yelled as I sprinted up toward him, praying I wasn’t responsible for a third dead Marine today. “Fuck, Plet, come on. Let’s get you out of here.”
I rounded the corner and dove for m
y compatriot, not even bothering to check for vital signs. I just needed to get him out.
“Come on,” I grunted as I threw one of his arms around my shoulder and tried to maneuver his dead weight over my back.
A loud moan emitted from Pletford’s body. His head lolled back, and his helmet fell off, revealing a long mane of golden hair dangling over my shoulder.
“What the…”
I pushed Pletford’s body against the wall so I could look into his face.
But it wasn’t Pletford.
A pair of pained, silver eyes gazed back at me atop a straight, elegant nose and a pair of lips that were red again, but for all the wrong reasons.
“Matthew,” Nina whispered as blood stained her mouth. She coughed, and more came out.
“Oh, fuck,” I cried. “Oh, fuck, no, no, no, baby, no…”
Nina lunged forward, her body sinking into the too-large uniform of the Marine I’d somehow lost to the fire.
“Matthew,” she said as she wasted away. “I’m so sorry.”
And then her eyes sank back as her body dropped limp in my arms. I shook her, trying to revive her there in the hall as another round of bombs sounded in the square outside.
“Nina!” I shouted. “No, no, no, we’ve got to get you out of here! Nina, goddammit, stay with me! NINA!”
“Mattie! Mattie!”
“Huh? What?”
I shook awake with the rush of a dog shaking water off his coat and almost twice as wet, given the sheen of sweat that covered my body.
Frankie stood next to the bed clutching the edges of her bathrobe, tired eyes wide with concern.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is everything all right? Where’s Sofia?”
“Mattie, everything’s fine. Sofia’s sleeping. You were shouting in your sleep,” she said. “I didn’t know you were having nightmares again.”
I didn’t respond. The fact that I was having nightmares again was news to me too, but it wasn’t something I was ever going to complain about. Most of the guys I knew who came back from Iraq suffered a lot worse than a bad dream every now and then.
I blinked, trying to get the image of Nina, bruised and battered, out of my head.
Put it away. You’re done with her now.
Maybe if I said it to myself enough times, I’d actually start to believe it.
“Anyway,” Frankie said. “I actually woke up because your phone was ringing.”
“Oh,” I said, still bleary from sleep. “Okay, um, sorry. I’ll silence the ringer.”
When she didn’t leave right away, I frowned. “Something else, Frankie?”
She just watched me for a moment. “Must have been quite a dream for you to sleep right through your ringer.”
Again, I took a deep breath. “I’m fine, Frankie. Go back to sleep.”
She gave me another long look, then trudged out of the room to her own across the hall.
I flopped back onto the bed. Five missed calls. Jesus, no wonder it woke her up. Five missed calls. All of them from Derek.
When I called him back, he picked up immediately. “Jesus, where have you been?”
I frowned. “Do you have a death wish? Can you ever call me at a normal fuckin’ time, man?”
There was a long sigh. “You’re going to want to come down here.”
I rubbed a heavy palm over my face, ignoring the scratch of three days’ worth of stubble there. “Derek, come on. Whoever you got, it can wait until—”
“Zola,” he interrupted curtly. “It’s Nina Gardner.”
At the sound of the name, I sat straight up in bed. It echoed around my head—no, my soul—like a church bell, heavy and resonant.
“What?” I said, convinced I’d misheard him. “Did you just say you have Nina…”
“Gardner, yeah. She’s turned herself in.”
Holy shit.
I could imagine her clearly in the middle of the local precinct, sitting primly in the mint-colored interrogation room, hands folded on her lap over her designer dress. Wedding ring gleaming, hair glossy. Acting like the queen of her new, gritty domain.
“And, Zola, there’s more,” Derek said. “She asked to look at the videos you showed her. The ones of her running the properties with Vamos. I let her. I wanted to see what she’d do. She says she’s not actually in them.”
“I’m sure she did,” I said crabbily.
“But she says it’s someone she knows,” he continued. “Someone named Caitlyn Calvert.”
To be continued…in The Honest Affair
Coming Fall 2020
Thank you so much for reading The Perfect Woman. Nina and Matthew’s story concludes in the upcoming novel, The Honest Affair. You can preorder here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/thehonestaffair
Acknowledgments
Ho-ly crap. This book is done. I don’t think I’m alone in saying this year has presented some of the most massive challenges to writing I have ever faced, so many of which have to do with the extraordinary times we are living in. As a result, I was forced to delay the book’s publication not once, but twice in order to offer my readers the best I possibly could. So, first and foremost, my thanks must go to them. Thank you for your patience and for sticking by this story while it came to be. You are beloved and cherished.
I also must thank a few other critical people without whose help this book would not exist:
My alpha readers, Danielle and Patricia, who were appropriately demanding, yet endlessly patient, especially considering how many times I made them re-read whenever I changed the chapter order AGAIN. My beta readers, Dawn and Erika, whose gloriously detailed reading truly helped this story become the best it could. And my ARC team, whose constant excitement for Nina and Matthew’s story drove this forward, inch by inch, until it was done.
My nebulous but ever-growing group of authors peers. If I’ve sent you a random message over the past few months and you answered, thank you. What would I do without those contacts in a world that is becoming increasingly contact-free? Even if we haven’t explicitly talked about the books, your energy buoys me. In particular, Jane, Laura, Kim, Crystal, Claudia, Parker, and Harloe—I appreciate you more than you know.
The team of incredible women whose professional help keeps me on track and focused: my publicist, Dani, and the entire team at Wildfire; my editor, Emily Hainsworth, who juggles my multiple drafts with the ease of a circus performer; my proofreaders, Shauna Stevenson and Judy Zweifel. What would I do without you all? Probably nothing at all.
Lastly, my husband and step kids, who so helpfully juggled the constraints of homeschooling and childcare for a six-year-old in the Time of Corona to help me finish this book. I realize I haven’t exactly been a joy to be around the past few months, and your bottomless patience and love is astounding. I hit the jackpot with you.
To anyone else I may have forgotten while writing this, please forgive me. You matter so much more than I could possibly say. Thank you for your support and for reading in any way.
About the Author
Nicole French is a hopeless romantic, low-key fashion addict, and total bookworm. When not writing fiction, she is hanging out with her family, playing soccer with the rest of the thirty-plus crowd in Seattle, or going on dates with her husband. In her spare time, she likes to go running or practice the piano, but never seems to do either one of these things as much as she should.
For more information about Nicole French and to keep informed about upcoming releases, please:
Visit her website at www.nicolefrenchromance.com
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Also by Nicole French
The Hate Vow
Eric de Vries. Looks like millions. Worth billions. A body like the David with a mind to match.
Unfo
rtunately for this wayward heir, to keep his money, he needs a wife. And of all the women in the world, he chooses me.
Too bad I've hated him for five years, since he took all my tears and tossed me away. The guy slept his way through half of New England and discarded women like hotel toiletries.
Been there. Done that.
Still...what would you do for twenty million dollars? Would you wear the dress? Fake a smile for the man who broke your heart?
Or would you run far, far away?
Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll see you at the church.
Start reading here: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/thehatevow
Legally Yours
I had a plan.
Finish law school. Start a job. Stay away from men like Brandon Sterling.
Cocky, overbearing, and richer than the earth, he thinks the world belongs to him, and that includes me.
Yeah, no. Think again.
It doesn’t matter that his blue eyes look straight into my soul, or that his touch melts my icy reserve.
It doesn’t even matter that past all that swagger, there’s a beautiful, damaged man who has so much to offer beyond private planes and jewelry boxes.
But I had a plan: no falling in love.
I just have to convince myself.
Book I is available FREE: www.nicolefrenchromance.com/legallyyours
Bad Idea
Repeat after me: stay away from the hot girl.
The beautiful girl.
The f**king ray of sunshine in the middle of your delivery route.
Layla Barros is everything I never knew I wanted. Everything I’ll never have.
She’s an innocent young student.
The Perfect Woman (Rose Gold Book 2) Page 38
