by Jules Court
His unexpected kindness was almost her undoing. She wanted to throw herself into his strong arms and cry out her confusion. Am I doing the right thing trusting her? And why do I suddenly want to trust you so badly? And to let someone—to let him—take care of her.
But she took care of herself. She always had. Forcing the tears back, she plastered on a smile.
“You can’t fix everything with food.” She put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him back down on the bed. “But you do have something else I want.”
Chapter Fourteen
Nelson stopped at the edge of Danny’s desk. “Hey, thanks for the easy collar,” he said with a smirk. “This one’s going to look very nice in my arrest stats.” He waved the Whitford file in Danny’s face. “Can’t believe you’re torpedoing your career for a piece of defense lawyer ass.”
Danny kept his hands loose and a neutral expression on his face. “My stats don’t need any padding,” he said.
But it was inevitable—by telling the sarge he had to be reassigned because he had a conflict of interest, everyone would be speculating about his private life. Didn’t matter, though. He wasn’t ashamed of Erin. So what if she was a defense attorney? If he took one lesson from being undercover, it should have been that life wasn’t black and white. No one was morally pure. Not him, not Erin and definitely not Nelson.
“And call Ms. Rafferty a piece of ass again and we’re going to have a problem.” He turned back to his paperwork, dismissing Nelson’s attempts to bait him even though hearing Nelson talk about Erin like that made him want to punch him in his beer gut.
Nelson turned his attempts to Brian. “You okay with your partner putting some broad he’s nailing over you?”
“Don’t be a douche, Nelson,” Brian said. “We already did all the work for you, so just take the gift and say thank you.”
When Nelson sauntered off, Brian said quietly, “You did the right thing.”
Danny had to blink a few times. “Thanks, brother,” he said. Nelson had been right, he had screwed over Brian by asking to be transferred off the Whitford case. And now Brian was partners with the guy who was not only rumored to be a dirty New York cop, but also a collaborator who was sleeping with the enemy. That is, if the enemy was returning his calls. Erin was dodging him after slipping out of bed while he slept.
He rubbed his chest against the sudden ache.
* * *
Erin was trying to keep her wandering attention on some deposition transcripts when a knock sounded on her door. Smarmy Scotty opened it without waiting for her to say, “Come in.” He walked over to her desk like he owned the place and sank down into the chair facing it.
“Hi, Scott. Why don’t you come in and take a seat?” she said.
He ignored her sarcasm. “Trouble in paradise?” He leaned back and crossed his legs at the ankle.
“What are you talking about?” This was strange even for him.
“Your hot Latin lover got transferred off the Whitford case. Rumor is he asked for it. Guess your honeypot wasn’t as sweet as you thought it was.”
She stood up from her desk, fists clenched. “What the hell?”
“Don’t play coy. Everyone knows you were screwing around with that cop to get some inside knowledge. Why else? Not sure about your taste, but I gotta admire your ambition.”
Scotty was just playing his head games with her. He had to be. She should have never gone out with the jerkwad in the first place and he’d been unbearable since she dumped his sorry ass. “Jealous?”
“Of some soon to be rent-a-cop? I don’t think so. Just saying you could do better. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with Gunderson down in the basement working the pro bono cases.”
“Get out of my office before I slap you with a sexual harassment suit.”
“And destroy your reputation even more? I don’t think so.” He smirked off.
She threw her pen across the room in impotent rage. What was she even doing this for? For the chance of being partner one day? Would she like herself then?
She focused on breathing in. Think of good things. She looked down at her inbox with the court notice that one of her pro bono cases, State of Massachusetts v. McDonough, had been dismissed. That had been a good day. She’d managed to get Valerie McDonough in a drug treatment program and the prosecutor had agreed to drop the charges if she complied with the program. Chances were Valerie would wind up using again, but there was a glimmer of hope. Maybe she would be one of the ones that could make it out. At least Erin had helped her get that shot.
After this case, she’d talk to Gunderson about taking on more of the pro bono work. Scotty had thrown out the suggestion as though it would be punishment, and not long ago, she’d have agreed. But something had changed. Had she changed?
Maybe it was time to change some other things. She picked up her phone and dialed. “Hi Mom. Can we talk?”
“This isn’t a good time for me, sweetie. I’ve got an appointment to get my nails done.”
“It won’t take long and I just need you to listen for a minute.” She drew in a deep breath and steeled herself. “If you want to be in my life, some things need to change.”
* * *
The arrest warrant came down that afternoon. Smarmy Scotty had been right about one thing—Detective Cruz hadn’t been the one to serve it. When she went to the station to meet her client, he’d been placed in a room with a Detective Nelson and his partner, Detective Murphy. Murphy was professional enough, but Nelson kept giving her this little knowing grin. He was just being a sexist prick, she told herself. After making sure that her client would keep his big mouth shut and that the detectives wouldn’t try and question him further, she left.
Eric would be arraigned in the morning, at which point his rich daddy would bail him out. And she needed to get back to her office and work on his defense...and think about what the change in detectives meant.
Had Danny asked to be taken off the case because he didn’t want to have any contact with her? Maybe that’s what he’d been calling to say. Or maybe because he did want contact. They couldn’t be in a relationship and be on opposite sides of the same case. Her pulse leaped at the thought. Because that meant he’d put her before his job.
No one had ever put her first.
She walked past the squad room, trying not to crane her head too obviously to look for him. It was a mixture of disappointment and relief when she didn’t find him. She wasn’t sure what she would have said.
The two-block walk back to her office brought zero clarity to her thoughts. She entered the elevator and punched six for her floor. She moved to the back of the car when the second floor chimed and more people got on. Her mind whirled about. The third floor chimed and the doors opened. Someone jabbed her with a briefcase and it barely registered. Could she just go on as if Danny leaving the case meant nothing? As if a senior partner treating her as a “honeypot,” as Scotty had sneered, was an acceptable price to pay to be allowed into the clubhouse?
The floors kept chiming, people moving on and off, and her thoughts were more tangled than ever. The doors opened on the sixth floor and she automatically moved forward.
But instinct made her step back. She jabbed the button for eight, the floor that held the partners’ offices, while Danny’s voice echoed in her mind. Get out of your head.
She straightened her suit jacket. It was time to quit overthinking and start living.
She marched down the hall to Mr. Wyatt’s office. “Is he in?” she asked Olivia, at her desk stationed outside his office door.
“Yes, but—”
“Thanks,” she said before she knocked once and pushed open the door.
Wyatt looked up from his paperwork, a look of irritation on his face. “Ms. Rafferty, would you care to make an appointment?”
&nb
sp; “No. This won’t take long. Just came to tell you I’m quitting.” Saying the words was like letting a floodgate open. Relief rushed through her, weakening her knees a little. “You’ll have to find someone else for Eric Whitford’s bail hearing tomorrow morning.”
“This is outrageous even from someone like you.” His aristocratic nostrils flared with annoyance that a lowly serf would dare go against his orders.
“Like me?” A townie from Revere who struggled with her accent, didn’t know who her father was, waited tables to get through law school, and struggled with her temper? In her neighborhood, you struck back harder or you stayed a victim. But she was done pretending to be anyone else.
“We knew you were a little rough around the edges when we hired you, but we thought you’d be able to learn to fit in.”
“Was I fitting in when you gave me a case because you thought I was sleeping with the detective on it?”
“This conversation is over. Consider your resignation accepted.”
“I wasn’t resigning from the firm, just the Whitford case. But I will take a transfer down to pro bono.” Where she definitely would never make partner. Somehow that didn’t seem so important anymore. Maybe she’d start her own firm in a few years.
“Why would we do that?”
“Because this firm doesn’t want the bad publicity of a wrongful termination suit,” she said. She held her breath, wondering if Wyatt would call her bluff, because there was no way she’d drag Danny into this any more than she already had.
Wyatt tapped his chin. “Fine,” he snapped. “But don’t be expecting a Christmas bonus.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Wyatt,” she said.
Outside in the hall, she gave in to temptation and did a little victory jig, much to Olivia’s confused amusement. Now there was only one more thing she had to do.
* * *
Danny was making chocolate cake. Not because he wanted it, though. It was for her. But he’d probably just stick it in his overflowing freezer, along with all the other food he made that no one would ever eat.
He opened the oven door and slid the cake pan in just as his buzzer sounded. He didn’t need the confirmation of her voice on the intercom—somehow he’d known it would be her. Who else just showed up and jolted him out of his safe routine?
When she stepped inside, he said, “We’ve got thirty minutes.”
“Before what?”
“Before your cake’s done.”
“How did you know I was coming over?”
“I didn’t.”
“And you made me a cake?”
He shrugged. “I like to cook. And you like cake. It’s a good match.”
They were a good match. She had to see it now. He reached for her coat to slide it off her, because she was staying.
“Did you ask to be transferred off the Whitford case for me?”
He nodded.
“What if I’m not worth it?” She looked up at him with huge eyes. “I mean, once you have me you might get bored.” A sudden panic crossed her expressive features. “You do want me, right? That’s why you asked for the transfer.”
“You’re a lot of things, but boring isn’t one of them.” He eased her suit jacket off. “With you, I’ve never felt more alive. I don’t want to go back.”
“I don’t want to go back either,” she whispered. “But I’m scared.”
“You know this isn’t just sex anymore?”
“It was never just sex.”
This was the moment she had to be brave. Erin stood in his living room and looked up into Danny’s dark eyes. The eyes she could lose herself in. But instead of losing herself, she saw something different. She saw herself reflected back, but a different her. The person she wanted to be if she only took that step.
She took a deep breath and held out her hand. “We have thirty minutes,” she said. “Let’s make them count.”
He laughed and swung her up in his arms, carrying her off to his bedroom, where they would enjoy those thirty minutes.
She couldn’t see much past that, but she didn’t need to figure it out all at once. She just needed to allow herself to take a chance on what was happening between them. Just let it come to life.
* * * * *
Now available from Carina Press and Jules Court
When attraction burns this hot, it’s only so long before someone has to break.
Read on for an excerpt from
HOT IN THE CITY
After thirty-six hours on call, the last thing Priya Shah needed was to fulfill some dude’s exotic Kama Sutra fantasy. She was more than capable of getting herself off, and bonus: afterward, she wouldn’t have to kick out some random.
So when she saw a male denim-clad thigh slide onto the neighboring barstool, she jammed a fry in her mouth and kept her eyes fixed on her book. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the Thorny Rose had plenty of empty barstools. No reason for him to sit right next to her unless he was one of those guys for whom a single woman out in public was like waving red in front of a bull. And at this moment, she just wanted her cousin to show up so she could go home for at least twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Sara should have been here a half hour ago, when her shift started. She had until Priya hit the bottom of her basket of fries to show up. After that, Priya was taking her crabby self off to bed and silencing her phone. Whatever Sara desperately needed to talk to her about would just have to wait.
“Hi,” her new neighbor said.
She flipped a page. “Not interested.”
“It’s Dr. Shah, right?” His voice was deep and warm.
She looked up and into a pair of familiar green eyes. The hot ginger cop. Was here. She dropped her book on the bar.
“You stitched me up in the emergency room a few weeks ago,” he said as though she wouldn’t remember. Like red-haired cops with knife wounds strolled into her ER on a regular basis.
Vinnie the bartender, sporting his signature T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, approached. He arched his heavy eyebrows together in a “this guy bothering you?” look.
She gave Vinnie a slight shake of her head. This was more like the universe throwing her a bone. Literally. The cop looked worth losing sleep over.
At first, he’d been nothing but a diagnosis, a shallow laceration with no sign of infection. It wasn’t until after she’d sutured the taut skin and peeled off her gloves that she’d become aware of him as a man.
The police officer had grabbed her naked hand. “Thank you,” he said, but didn’t release his grip. His eyes focused on her mouth.
Their hands were joined, bare skin to bare skin. A spark lit up within her core. She licked her lips as he moved his head forward.
The intercom had crackled, breaking the spell, and she sprang back from danger. “I have to go,” she stammered before fleeing to the safety of the nurses’ station.
Vinnie’s voice snapped her back to the present, where her former patient was sitting too close to her.
“Can I get you something?” Vinnie asked hot ginger cop, whose name she couldn’t remember.
She hadn’t made a note of it before stitching him up, and afterward she’d resisted the temptation to look at his chart. That way led to digging through his patient file for his marital status—unprofessional topped with more than a dollop of skeevy.
“Is Sara Murphy working?” the cop asked.
Her burgeoning fantasies fizzled. A band of pain radiated across the top and sides of her head, signaling the arrival of today’s tension headache. What had Sara gotten herself into now? No doubt it had something to do with that loser Sully. She’d promised Priya they were done, and Priya had believed her because Priya was an idiot. But Sara was the queen of spider monkey dating—she never let go of the last br
anch until she was holding a new one.
Vinnie narrowed his eyes. “Who wants to know?”
From under the collar of his dark T-shirt, the hot ginger cop pulled out the badge hanging around his neck. “Detective Brian MacGregor, Boston PD,” he said.
Priya was going to have to scrape together a retainer for a lawyer. Her old college roommate, Erin Rafferty, was a defense attorney and would help her out as a favor, but she couldn’t keep taking advantage. Erin had already helped Sara out of her last jam.
How much did Priya even have left in her bank account? Maybe she could work out a payment plan with Erin and make her take the money this time. She ground a french fry into a glob of ketchup.
“Why do you need to talk to Sara?” she asked Detective Brian MacGregor, whose name she wouldn’t be screaming out in bed.
His focus leveled on her. “You’re acquainted with Ms. Murphy?”
“She’s my cousin.”
“Do you know her current whereabouts?”
“No,” she said. And even if she did she wasn’t telling. She needed to get Sara to a lawyer.
Brian turned his hard gaze back to Vinnie. “Does Sara still work here?”
“Not after bailing on her shift,” he said. “Sorry, Priya.”
While in school, Priya had spent nights on the other side of the bar slinging drinks for Vinnie. She’d persuaded him to give her cousin her job. And for a while, she’d really thought Sara had turned it around and was taking to gainful employment.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Thanks for giving her a shot. I’m sorry she flaked on you.” But leopards and spots. Sara couldn’t change any more than Priya could. It was only laser focus on her career keeping Priya on the straight and narrow. It would only take one slip. She’d already proven that.
Detective MacGregor pulled out a business card. He plucked a pen from the cup sitting on the bar, scribbled on the back of the card and held it out to her. “This has my cell number on the back. Call me immediately if you hear from your cousin or if you know where she is. It’s imperative that I talk to her.”
