Legal Desire

by Lisa Childs

  He hadn’t known. He wasn’t like Edward; he didn’t listen at doors.

  He shook his head.

  “Maybe it should be,” Miguel said. “You’d do this city a lot of good.”

  He shrugged.

  “He’s not leaving us,” Simon said as he joined them in the office.

  Miguel pointed toward the television. “That’s not what she’s saying.”

  Simon shook his head. “That’s not true.” He turned toward Trev. “Why’d you leak this story? We agreed that this would never go public.”

  That was why they’d been so careful to limit who’d learned about it. The other guys hadn’t even told the women in their lives. So Trev shouldn’t have felt bad that he hadn’t told Allison.

  But he did.

  He’d had a few opportunities to come clean with her since she’d learned that he’d suspected her of being the mole. She might have understood if he’d told her right away. But he’d continued to keep the secret.

  “Secret’s out now,” Ronan said as he joined them. “Did she put this out there to detract from what’s going on with her?”

  Trev shook his head. “No.” He’d made certain to say—loudly—that the story could not come out now. There was no way she’d spoken to that reporter.

  Miguel rubbed his head. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Are you running for an election or not?”

  “Not,” Simon answered before Trev could. “This was just a ploy for him to get closer to Allison McCann and find out if she’s the mole.”

  “This proves she is,” Ronan said as he pointed at the TV. “She’s the only one besides the four of us who knew about your bogus run for office.”

  Trev shook his head. “No. This proves she’s innocent.”

  “Are you so sure?” a female voice asked from behind the big body of the receptionist.

  Miguel’s face flushed that once again he’d left the front desk unprotected. He hurried off, leaving Allison standing alone in the doorway.

  And Simon and Ronan exchanged a look.

  “Are you confessing?” Simon asked her.

  She nodded. “I confess to being a fool. I thought you were serious.”

  Trev was serious. About her...

  But he doubted she was going to believe that or anything else he said at the moment.

  “I tried telling you,” he said.

  “Not very damn hard.”

  That was true, and he flinched at the direct hit. Sure, she’d stopped him the night before and in her office. But he could have told her had he not been so afraid of losing her.

  “I came here to apologize,” she said. She gestured at the television. “I knew you didn’t want anyone to know that you were going to run. Now I know why.”

  “So you are the source for this story?” Ronan asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  Trev ignored his friend. And she did, too. “You know who it is,” he said.

  She nodded. “Edward.”

  He was the only one who could have overheard what they’d discussed in her office. “That’s why I said that,” he explained. “I knew it would make him run right to the press.”

  “Edward?” Simon asked. “Your assistant?”

  She nodded again.

  “But why?”

  Trev glared now at his partners. They were so concerned about the damn mole that they didn’t realize what was really going on, that Trev was losing the one thing he hadn’t even realized he’d wanted.

  Love.

  In fact, he’d thought he’d wanted nothing to do with it. He’d never intended to risk his heart. But it didn’t matter that they’d agreed on no emotions. He was emotionally involved. Hell, he was in love.

  Maybe Ronan, who was usually oblivious, realized that because he tugged Simon out of the office. Once in the hall, he closed the door behind them, shutting Trev and Allison inside together.

  Alone.

  He’d faced some tough juries and judges in his career as a lawyer. But he’d never had any doubts that he could sway them to his side, that he could convince them to trust him and accept what he told them.

  Until now.

  Now, when it mattered most, he wasn’t sure he would be able to win Allison over again. Or had he ever really had her?

  He’d thought so when she’d been so insistent that he distance himself from her. He’d thought she’d cared more about him than herself.

  And that was when he should have told her the truth. But he’d been afraid that this would happen, that he would lose her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “About what?” she asked, and she arched a red brow over one of her pale eyes. “About Edward?”

  “About us,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” she said. And she turned and reached for the doorknob. “I’m sorry it ever happened.”

  But he held the door shut, like he had before. He wasn’t going to let her leave. He couldn’t lose her. Just the thought of it had his chest aching with a hollow feeling he hadn’t felt since his mother had left him.

  Allison couldn’t leave him, too. “Damn you,” Trev murmured. But he wasn’t sure if he was cursing her, his mother or himself. Probably himself.

  He was the one who’d screwed this all up. He could only hope that she would give him the chance to fix it—to fix them. “Don’t go,” he implored her.

  * * *

  She was wrong. She’d been so wrong about every man currently in her life. Maybe she’d even been wrong about her grandfather. Maybe he hadn’t been as sweet and honest as she remembered.

  Trev certainly wasn’t. He held the door shut. She couldn’t budge it. She couldn’t escape him. So she turned and put her back against the door and stared up at him.

  “Which is it?” she asked. “You’re telling me not to go even as you’re damning me.”

  “I’m damning me,” he said. “I should have been honest with you from the get-go.”

  “It’s too late now,” she told him. And it was. She wouldn’t be able to trust him again, not that she ever actually had. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

  Or she would have fallen harder, would have been hurt more?

  But how much more could she hurt? Her heart ached so badly now. Her body did, too, as if it had been run over by a bus. “I came over here right after I fired Edward—”

  “You fired Edward?”

  It was something she should have done long ago. She’d considered it so many times, but she wasn’t the ice queen she’d wanted to be. She wasn’t her mother.

  She nodded. “Your plan worked to flush out the mole.”

  “Why was he doing it?” he asked. “What was his motivation?”

  He’d stopped his friend from asking the question, so she wondered why he was. Was he just stalling? Trying to get her to stay...

  That ache in her chest intensified, but it wasn’t about him this time. Maybe that was why she’d rushed over here. She’d told herself that it was to apologize for the story leaking to the media.

  But it had been because she’d needed him. She’d needed his comfort. His protection.

  But she should have known it was better to need no one. People always let you down. Never more so than now.

  “Is he in love with you?” Trevor asked, his voice gruff and his eyes dark with anger as if he was jealous that another man could love her.

  He couldn’t.

  If he did, he wouldn’t have suspected her of being the mole. He wouldn’t have continued to lie to her.

  “The only thing Edward loves is money,” Allison said. “And my mother was paying him quite a bit to sabotage me.”

  “Why didn’t she want your firm to succeed?” Trevor asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

  She shook her head. “She doesn’t car
e about the success of the firm. Street Legal was the only client she paid Edward to sabotage.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  She hadn’t at first, either. But Edward had explained it to her. He’d actually felt a little guilty for betraying her, so he’d told her everything. Well, he’d told her everything after she’d threatened to call the police.

  Unlike his empty threats, he must have known she would go through with it.

  She probably should have. But she’d realized he’d just been a puppet doing someone else’s dirty work.

  “Why would your mother go after us?” Trevor persisted.

  “You’re all young, rich, successful lawyers.”

  “Isn’t that her type?” Trevor asked.

  Allison’s face heated. “Yes, it is, and that’s why she did it. She didn’t want me getting involved with any of you—didn’t want me to have the life she’d wanted.”

  Trevor’s brow was furrowed yet with confusion. “I don’t...”

  Of course, he wasn’t the marrying type—like her mother—so he didn’t understand.

  “Your plan worked,” she said. “When she heard from Edward that you and I were spending time together—” her face heated again. Edward had always suspected she’d had a thing for Trevor Sinclair “—and then that you were running for office, she lost it.”

  Trevor finally nodded. “She didn’t want you to marry a politician and become first lady like she wanted.”

  Allison’s face burned with embarrassment. “She has no idea that there were no emotions involved with us, so she had Edward contact the reporter. She wanted to end our relationship. She didn’t know there was no relationship to end.”

  “Allison, that’s not true—”

  “No,” she interrupted him. “Nothing you told me was true.” And no matter how much she loved him, she would never be able to trust him.

  “I was trying to catch the damn mole,” he said. “I didn’t feel for you the way that I do now.”

  “Don’t!” she shouted. “Don’t lie to me anymore.”

  He shook his head. “I’m trying to tell you the truth. I was trying to last night and this morning. But you don’t want to hear it.”

  “What I don’t want to hear is a bunch of lies, a bunch of empty promises.” Like her father had always given her. We’ll still spend time together. I’ll come see you. I love you...

  Trevor was more like him than she’d realized. And because of that, she couldn’t love him. Whatever she’d thought she’d felt for him, it hadn’t been that.

  “I won’t lie to you anymore,” he said.

  She shook her head now. “That’s just another empty promise.”

  “Allison!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What we had was just sex. No emotions, remember?”

  “You didn’t start to care about me?” he asked.

  She drew in a deep breath before she replied, “No. It was just sex.”

  “Who’s the liar now, Allison?” he asked.

  She knew she’d been lying. But she didn’t know if it was now or when she’d actually thought she’d fallen for him. She was her mother’s daughter, and her mother had never cared about anyone but herself.

  How could Allison?

  It was better that she focus on business now and forget all about pleasure. She had to revive the firm. She wouldn’t let it fail because of what her mother and Edward had done. But from now on, she would be a little more careful about the clients she took on.

  No more lawyers.

  No more liars.

  “Let me go,” she told Trevor.

  But he’d already taken his hand away from the door. He wasn’t physically keeping her, and he pointed that out when he said, “I never really had you...”

  But he had. And even as she opened the door and walked away, she suspected a part of her would always be with him.

  Her heart...

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  OUT OF NECESSITY, Trev had become a fighter. He’d fought his entire life. For himself. For his mother. For Wally. For all the other people who’d been hurt.

  But now that he was hurt, he found he had no fight left. Maybe it was because of all those years he’d spent fighting. He’d just worn himself out.

  And Allison McCann wasn’t like any other opposition he’d ever met. She was stubborn and determined to stay away from him. He’d tried calling her. She declined them. And when he’d texted her, she’d blocked his number.

  She wanted nothing to do with him, and he could understand why. He wished he’d been honest with her from the beginning. But he hadn’t known her then.

  He hadn’t known that she wasn’t the mole, that she wasn’t the ice queen. He hadn’t known how much he would come to love her.

  God, he missed her. He ached for missing her.

  “You need a case,” Simon told him.

  As the managing partner, Simon handled their money, too. He liked the cases Trev took on because he brought in the most money. Usually, Trev liked the cases he took on, but he couldn’t get excited about one now. He couldn’t get excited about anything now.

  Not without Allison...

  “You need to stop moping around,” Stone said. “You’re depressing the hell out of everyone.”

  So this week’s business meeting was apparently all about him instead of the business.

  “Fuck you,” he told Stone.

  “Fuck somebody,” Ronan crudely told him. “Maybe you’ll stop being so tense and stressed.”

  There was only one person he wanted to fuck. No. He wanted to make love to her, but Allison wanted nothing to do with him now.

  “Muriel has a new friend,” Ronan said. “Maybe she can set you up with her.”

  He glared at his partner. Maybe Ronan meant well, but it was as if he’d plunged a knife in Trev’s heart and turned it. No. Allison had done that when she’d walked away from him the last time.

  Ronan held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m just trying to help. According to Mur, this woman’s been through a tough time lately. Maybe you can cheer each other up.”

  “Stop trying to fix me up,” Trev said.

  “We’re just trying to fix you,” Ronan said.

  And Stone added, “You seem broken.”

  He felt that way himself, like his heart was broken. But he knew there was only one person who could fix him.

  “I didn’t want to lose you,” Simon said. “But maybe she was right. Maybe you need to quit the practice and run for office.”

  Great. Now even his friends didn’t want him. He needed to stop moping around—just as they’d said.

  “I am no politician,” he said.

  “Not yet,” Simon agreed. “But if you hired someone to help you with your image...” He arched a blond brow.

  And Trev groaned. “It’s not going to work,” he said as he realized what his friend was up to: matchmaking. “Allison will never take me on as a client.”

  Simon nodded in agreement. “She refused to work with any of us again,” he admitted. “I’ve tried to hire her back a few times.”

  So his, apparently, weren’t the only calls she was refusing to take. That didn’t make Trev feel any better, though.

  “Is she still furious with us for thinking she was the mole?” he asked, eager for any news of her.

  Simon shook his head.

  “You’ve talked to her?”

  “No,” Simon said. “I watched the news. Haven’t you?”

  She’d cleared Street Legal of all of the bad publicity. She’d spoken with a red-faced Monica Waters about the perils of spreading unsubstantiated stories and how she regretted that she had done it herself in the past. She promised that she would do better in the future with her clients and the media.

 
And Trev knew that was no empty promise.

  “She’s right,” Ronan said with a ragged sigh. “We all need to be more careful.”

  Less ruthless.

  More considerate.

  Trev nodded in agreement but then absolved his friend of the guilt he must have still been feeling over how he’d believed his client over the truth. “Muriel’s career is doing great,” he reminded her lover.

  Ronan nodded. “Even better now that she’s hired a publicist. Maybe she can hook you up.”

  “Bette’s using the same agency,” Simon said.

  Trev snorted. “I don’t need a publicist. I’m not running for office.”

  “Trust us,” Ronan said. “You’re going to want to meet with this publicist.”

  And then he knew. Simon wasn’t the only one matchmaking. The notoriously antiYrelationship Ronan Hall was also matchmaking. But then Ronan had fallen in love. They all had, so they knew why Trev was so miserable.

  They knew that he was in love, as well. But unlike them, that love was not reciprocated. That was why he was miserable and they were all so damn happy.

  He shook his head. “She’s not going to agree to meet with me.”

  “Let Muriel and Bette worry about that,” Simon said.

  “And if she does, I’m not going to be able to convince her to give me another chance.”

  “So you’re giving up?” Stone asked with disgust. “You, who has always been able to argue your way in or out of every situation, is going to give up without a fight?”

  He didn’t want to fight with Allison, though. He wanted to love her. But he wouldn’t be able to do that if he didn’t fight for her.

  * * *

  Allison could not believe what had happened, that her business hadn’t only survived Edward and her mother’s sabotage, but that it was also thriving.

  She had quite a few new clients and was about to meet with a referral for possibly another one. She stared across her desk at two of those new clients. Bette Monroe’s brown hair was bound in a tight bun while Muriel Sanz’s curled wildly around her face. It had just about every color of hair in it, even some of Allison’s red.

  But these women weren’t just clients. They had become her friends, as well.