Legal Desire

by Lisa Childs

  But Allison was more prone to act like nothing bothered her than to cry. No. Her tears were real. Just more hurt than angry.

  “Allison...” he murmured again, and he started toward her with his arms outstretched.

  But before he could pull her into an embrace, she stepped back and began to laugh and laugh and laugh as if she was unable to stop.

  * * *

  Allison’s chest hurt from her laughter. Or maybe that was from the tears. She had no idea. And clearly neither did Trevor. He stared at her in horror as if he’d thought she’d lost her mind.

  And maybe she had when she’d barged into his office with all her threats. But she was getting a grip now. She drew in a deep breath to stop the laughter, to stop the tears.

  She hated crying—especially now when she had no right to her tears.

  “Are you okay?” Trevor asked her. He held his arms out, but his hands just touched her shoulders, turning her fully toward him.

  She shrugged. She had no idea if she was or what she would do now. “So this is karma...” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “I did that to so many other people,” she said and she gestured back at the television screen. “I was the source for reports like that. Now I know what it feels like.”

  And she didn’t like it.

  “You issued statements about our cases,” he said. “You helped me show what those corporations were covering up.”

  “Your cases were easy,” she said. She’d never had a crisis of conscience over them. “But Ronan’s... What we did to Muriel Sanz...”

  “Made her a household name,” Trev said. “Her career is bigger than it ever was. Hell, she was just voted the world’s most beautiful woman.”

  But the magazine that had given her the title was only looking at her outside. Thanks to McCann Public Relations, everyone had thought the supermodel was ugly inside—that she was a liar and a cheat.

  But that had been Ronan’s client, Muriel’s ex-husband.

  “Stop beating yourself up about that,” Trevor told her.

  How had he known that it bothered her? Most other people thought she truly was an ice queen who had no feelings and no conscience—just like her mother.

  She shivered. But Trevor had gotten to know her, so well that it scared her even more than someone trying to take down her firm. But since Trevor knew her so well, he would know exactly how to hurt her, take away what mattered most to her. Her company...

  “Was it your idea?” she asked, and she gestured at the television again. It had stopped at the end of the report.

  His eyes widened in shock or maybe innocence. Was it real or feigned, though? She couldn’t trust anything about him—anything he said or did.

  He shook his head. “I was with you right after I left here.”

  “You could have called her on the way to my office,” she said. “Or you could have had one of your partners or Miguel do your dirty work.”

  Just like they had always had her do it.

  Karma really had bit her in the ass. She deserved this, whatever this was.

  “It was the mole,” Trevor said.

  “What mole?”

  “Our mole.”

  But was it their mole? What if it had never been their mole?

  “You said the cases that were sabotaged were ones I had worked on,” she said.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Every one of them I had touched?”

  “Yes, that’s the only reason I thought it could have been you. You were the only thing every one of them had in common.”

  She released a shaky sigh as she realized what that meant. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, “It was me...”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TREV FELT AS if she’d punched him in the throat. He couldn’t breathe for a moment. His heart stopped beating. Had she just confessed?

  “What?” he asked. “You are the mole?”

  She shook her head, so violently that her hair tangled around her face. She reached up with a trembling hand to push it away. “No. The mole was never after Street Legal,” she said. “The mole was after me!”

  Trev felt as if he’d been hit again for a moment. What if she was right? But then he considered what she’d said, and as a lawyer his first instinct was to argue with her.

  “It wasn’t you who could have lost his license when those forged documents got to Muriel,” he said. “That was Ronan.”

  “The mole couldn’t have known for certain that Muriel would bring those documents to the bar association, though,” she pointed out. “Maybe he thought she would only go to the press with them.”

  Trev drew in a shaky breath. She was right. “But helping out the district attorney...”

  “Blew my media defense of the accused out of the water,” Allison pointed out. “Hillary didn’t just make Stone look like a fool. She made me look like one, too.”

  “And me...?” he asked. “Why go after me?”

  “For the same reason as the others,” she said. “I was promoting your case in the press. If you lose, I lose, too.”

  He shook his head. “I think you’re taking this too personally.”

  She gestured toward that television screen. “How can I not? I thought she was my friend,” Allison said, and her voice cracked with emotion. “That story wasn’t really about any of you. It was about me. And it made me look horrible.”

  He couldn’t argue with her about that. It had made her look horrible while it had cleared up Street Legal’s reputation. All their bad press had been made to look like her fault.

  One of his partners wouldn’t have gone to the press, would they? Since the practice had been Simon’s idea—one he’d come up with when they were living on the streets—he would do anything to protect it. And he was very well acquainted with all the local reporters.

  “My business is ruined,” she said. “Who would ever trust me again after that report?”

  Trev flinched.

  “Karma is a bitch,” she murmured, and her pale eyes were bright, glistening with what Trev suspected were tears. She blinked them away, though, before meeting his gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Tell your partners I’m not going to sue.”

  Trev wouldn’t blame her if she did. And if one of them had given the reporter that story, he would represent her himself. Pro bono...

  But at least she had her grandfather’s trust. If the business failed, she wouldn’t be homeless like he’d been after Wally had died. She would be fine.

  But she didn’t look fine. She looked sick and pale and shaky.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah.” But her voice cracked again and one of the tears she hadn’t blinked away overflowed a beautiful eye and trailed down her cheek.

  He reached out to wipe it away, sliding his thumb across the silky skin of her cheek. “We’ll figure this out,” he said. “We’ll find the mole.”

  She smiled at him but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “How many months have you and your partners been trying to figure it out?”

  “Too many.”

  “I wish you would have told me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” They should have. He realized that now.

  “But I understand,” she said. “I get that none of you would trust me.”

  He wanted to assure her that he trusted her now. But that little voice in his head, the one that had helped him survive the streets, whispered some doubts.

  Sure, the report made her look bad. But it also made her look innocent of being the mole. And she’d admitted that reporter was her friend.

  It was possible that she was the source for that story as she’d been for so many others. Maybe she’d figured it was safer to sacrifice her business than risk her freedom and a lawsuit from them.

  Ron
an had been talking about criminal charges and Simon had been talking about monetary restitution once they had their evidence.

  Her eyes widened as she stared at him. Then she expelled a shaky sigh. “Oh, you don’t trust me.”

  “It’s not that—”

  But she stepped around him and headed toward the door. He rushed after her and slammed his palm against it, stopping her from opening it no matter that she was turning the knob.

  “You can’t go,” he told her.

  “Why not?” she asked. “Did you call the police? Did you all issue a restraining order when you banned me from the building?”

  “Obviously, we didn’t ban you from the building,” he said. Or she wouldn’t have been able to storm into his office like she had.

  But he wouldn’t put it past Simon to have done it now. Just as he had his doubts, his partners would, too. They had all grown up the same way, in the same place, and they wouldn’t have survived had any of them been too trusting.

  “Then why won’t you let me leave?” she asked him.

  Because a horrible thought had occurred to him.

  “If you really are the one who the mole is after,” he said, “you might be in danger.” And there was no way he was going to allow anyone to hurt her.

  Anyone else.

  He knew that he already had earlier when he’d suspected she was the mole and now when he hadn’t been able to tell her that he trusted her.

  But he wouldn’t let her get hurt again, even if he had to put himself in danger to protect her.

  * * *

  Allison felt like the ice queen now—cold straight through her. Despite Trevor standing beside her in the small elevator, she shivered. Even the heat of his big, muscular body couldn’t permeate hers now.

  He cursed. “I’m sorry I didn’t have an umbrella.”

  The minute they’d stepped out of the cab, the sky had opened up and downpoured on them. But that wasn’t why Allison was so cold. Her chill came from within rather than her wet clothes, hair and skin.

  He rubbed his big hand over her shoulder and down her arm. “You’re so wet.”

  Hearing that, and remembering all the times he’d said that before, had a little ember of warmth flickering back to life inside Allison.

  He chuckled, as he must have realized what he’d said, too. And his arm tightened around her. He glanced at the control panel and murmured, “I’ve heard sex in an elevator can be exciting.”

  She chuckled now. “You heard that... Mmm-hmm...”

  “Seriously,” he said. “That’s the only way I know about it.”

  “No firsthand knowledge?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.” But then he reached for the top button of her dress.

  She giggled and stepped back just as the elevator dinged. The doors slid open on her floor. But it wasn’t empty.

  Thankfully, no reporters waited for her. They hadn’t been in the lobby, either, so Edward must not have told them where she lived like he’d told Trevor. He had texted her a warning that the media had camped out at the office, waiting for her to return.

  It was early afternoon, and she usually worked late. At least she had before she’d started seeing Trevor last week. But she wasn’t going back now.

  There wasn’t much to go back to except those reporters. She should give them a statement. Say something to exonerate herself and the firm.

  But what?

  She, who never ran out of things to say, could think of nothing. No spin to save this.

  To save herself.

  Trevor guided her out of the elevator and around her neighbors who didn’t even look at her. They must have seen the report, and the elderly couple was embarrassed for her.

  She was embarrassed, too, which made her feel like a hypocrite again when she thought of all the people she’d embarrassed with her previous press releases. And maybe that was why she was in no hurry to issue any statements to exonerate herself.

  She felt like she deserved this.

  But Trevor didn’t.

  While some of his partners seemed to have questionable ethics, he didn’t. He took on the big corporations for the little guy like his friend Wally.

  She paused at the door to her penthouse and stared up at him.

  “Can’t find your keys?” he asked.

  She pulled the key ring out of her purse, but she held tightly to the keys when he reached for the ring. “You saw me home,” she said. “You don’t have to come inside.”

  “I have to make sure you’re safe,” he said. And he took the keys from her hand and unlocked the door.

  “You can see,” she said, “nobody’s here.”

  But he walked through the foyer and checked out every room. “Are you a bodyguard or a lawyer?” she asked when he joined her in the kitchen.

  “I will gladly guard your body,” he told her with that wicked grin of his. But instead of touching her body, he touched her hair. “You should take a shower, warm up.”

  She did feel frozen to the bone like the ice queen she’d tried so long to convince everyone else she was. Maybe she’d been too convincing.

  “You can go,” she told him again. “I’m safe.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not safe at all.”

  But she suspected he wasn’t talking about her being in danger but about her being the danger. She was a danger to him. Someone had already gone after him and his partners in order to get to her.

  “Trevor—”

  He pressed his fingers over her lips as if he knew he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “It’s your turn to do what I say,” he said. “And I’m telling you to get into the shower. Now, before you turn blue.”

  Her skin was so pale that it did tend to turn bluish when she got cold enough that her veins stood out. She shivered as the chill permeated even deeper into her bones.

  She would argue with him later, once she was warm. Then she would make him see that his partners were right. It was best she had nothing to do with Street Legal or with him.

  But once she was standing in the master bath, on the cold marble floor, she struggled with the buttons on her wet dress. Her fingers were so cold that they were nearly numb. Then a shadow fell across her, and she glanced up to find that Trevor had joined her.

  “What?” she asked him. “Did you forget to check the shower for the bogeyman?”

  He shook his head. “No. I realized I’m wet and cold, too.” He’d already unbuttoned his damp shirt. He pushed it from his shoulders and dropped it onto the floor. Then he reached for the buttons of her dress, but like in her office, he only undid a few of them before giving up and lifting it over her head. It dropped to the floor with his shirt. Then his jeans and underwear joined the pile.

  And her purple lingerie slipped off next, the bows untied. She shivered despite the heat of his gaze, the desire in his green eyes.

  He cursed, probably still over not having an umbrella. Then he turned on the shower. It heated quickly, so he tugged her into the big, open spa-like shower with him. The warm spray sprinkled down on her.

  Then Trevor stepped into the shower with her, and she warmed even more, the heat of desire filling her as she watched the water streak down all his sculpted muscles.

  The man was masculine perfection, his muscles rippling as he moved. While she stood there, too entranced to move, he washed her hair and her body, his hands sliding a soapy loofa over her every curve.

  She moaned as he focused on her breasts. Then he moved the loofah lower, between her legs. She moaned louder and arched her head back; water splashed her face and ran down her throat.

  And Trevor groaned. “You are so damn beautiful...”

  He kissed her neck and traced her collarbone with his tongue as if licking the water off her. Then his mouth was on one breast, teasing the nipple into a t
ight point.

  She moaned again.

  And he moved the loofa, teasing her with it. Her legs began to shake. So he lifted her from her feet. But the shower floor was slick, and he nearly slipped.

  With a chuckle, he moved to the bench. He sat down on it and lifted her so that she straddled his lap. She hadn’t seen him do it, but he must have brought in a condom packet with him. Because he tore it open and rolled it over his shaft, then he eased her over it.

  She cried out at the sensation of him filling her, of him filling that hollowness that had ached inside her earlier—when she’d heard they’d suspected her of being the mole. That he was supposed to get evidence to prove that she was...

  Was that what he was doing now? Or did he believe her?

  She didn’t care at the moment. All she cared about was the way he made her feel. The tension that had been wound so tightly inside her all day broke as her body convulsed in an orgasm.

  It wasn’t enough, though.

  At least for him because he kept moving until she had another and another.

  The cords in his neck and the muscles in his arms stood out as he struggled for control. He was holding back his own release to give her pleasure.

  She’d never had as selfless a lover as Trevor Sinclair. She’d never known as selfless a man except for her grandfather.

  Trevor wasn’t done giving her pleasure. He touched her breasts and lowered his head to hers, kissing her deeply. Then he reached between them, rubbing his thumb over her clit, and she came again, screaming his name.

  Finally, his big body tensed before shuddering with his own release. He groaned and leaned his forhead against hers, staring deeply into her eyes.

  What was he looking for? The truth? She’d already given it to him. She wasn’t the mole.

  But there was something she needed to tell him. She slid off his lap, finished showering and dried off. Instead of heading toward the bed, she found a long, thick robe and wrapped it around herself. Then she headed back to the living room and stared down at the park.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked as he joined her. He’d dressed again in his damp clothes. Water streaked from his hair, over his face and neck.