DEFENSE

by Glenna Sinclair

  I couldn’t believe Galiema had ditched me. This was a high-profile case, and she’d left me to handle it alone! I tried calling her cell but didn’t get an answer. I didn’t even bother calling John Newland; the other named partner of my company was never on call. In fact, the only time I ever saw him was in company meetings. Galiema was supposed to be my mentor, and now she’d left me in the lurch. Anger quickly replaced my anxiety.

  I strolled down the corridor, following the signs to the holding cells. The floors smelled of disinfectant. The walls were mint green. The whole place reminded me of hospitals.

  I reached the holding cells at the end, which was being guarded by a six-foot man in a stiff blue uniform.

  “Katie Scott, attorney,” I said, flashing my badge. “I’m here to assist Mr Harrison Wrexler.”

  The guard gave me a strange smile, one I couldn’t quite read. Either he was amused by my childlike appearance or he was insinuating that I’d have my hands full with a man like Harrison Wrexler. I practiced my poker face. Finally, realizing he was getting no reaction from me, the guard nodded and unlocked the door. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

  Harrison sat at the desk, his face nestled into his arms. The chains of his handcuffs were spread out on the desk in front of him. He was naked from the waist up, and I noted he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  Standing opposite him were two detectives. I went over and introduced myself, shaking hands with each in turn.

  “Good luck with that one,” the first detective said. “You’d think if you’d been charged with murder you might be compelled to stay awake, but not him. Been sleeping like a baby since he got here.”

  A soft snoring noise came from the hunched figure at the desk.

  The detectives left to allow me and my client some privacy to talk through the charges before they would later return and begin incriminations.

  “Mr Wrexler?” I said to the slumped figure. “I’m your attorney, Katie Scott. I need to ask you some questions.”

  Without looking up, he said, “I’m not talking to you.”

  I was surprised by his British accent.

  “You’re British,” I said dumbly.

  “I’m English,” he replied testily, raising his head at last and locking angry eyes on mine. “No one says ‘British’ apart from you bloody Yanks.”

  I should have said something about how no one calls us “Yanks” anymore, but all I could do was stare. Harrison Wrexler’s face was a work of art. He’d been beyond beautiful on the television screen, but now, in the flesh, his face took my breath away. His skin was a milky brown color, and his eyes were bright, pale green. His jaw was perfectly chiseled, and he had amazing cheekbones. If he hadn’t been a basketball player, Harrison Wrexler would surely have been a model.

  A whole host of dirty thoughts raced through my mind. I could feel the echoes of the orgasm Nick had given me pulsating inside of me and could imagine them being caused by Harrison Wrexler instead. I forced the thoughts away. What was it Galiema had said? That Harrison was all fast sports cars, wrecking hotels, and binging on prostitutes… That wasn’t the sort of guy I should be fantasizing about, not to mention the fact he was a client.

  I sat down. The chair was hard plastic.

  “How did you manage to sleep on something this uncomfortable?” I said, pulling some papers from my bag.

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” Harrison replied. “I was avoiding answering their questions until my lawyer arrived.”

  Well, he was certainly smarter than your average criminal.

  “Mr Wrexler,” I said, trying to let practiced formality override my nerves and arousal. “Have you been made aware of the charges you’re facing?”

  He nodded glumly. “Murder.”

  “Okay. And have you said anything to the police so far? I need to know everything you’ve told them.”

  He looked into the far distance, and I found my gaze roving along his profile, from the smooth slope of his forehead to the perfect angle of his nose, past the thick, full lips and the crevice between them, his chin, then finally to his bare chest. When I saw the blood smears I immediately snapped back to attention. I could be dealing with a murderer here. Fantasizing about him was creepy.

  “I can’t remember,” Harrison said into the air. “It all happened in a blur. I think I said that I had to help Shantelle. I said she’d fallen. I can’t remember what else I said. I just remember saying over and over again that I needed to help her.”

  I took notes as he spoke. Anything he’d said to the police could be used as evidence against him in court, so it was essential for me to know if he’d incriminated himself in any way.

  “You didn’t say anything about how you’d both been drinking? Or that you’d consumed drugs?” I said, glancing over the typed report in front of me, relieved to have a reason to avert my gaze from his magnificent beauty. “Your breathalyzer test showed quite a high level of intoxication.”

  “I admitted to drinking, but I hadn’t taken drugs,” he said gruffly. “But I suppose since it was midnight on a Friday night and I’m a multimillionaire sports star, they assumed I was high....”

  His speech ended with an accusatory sneer, as though implying I thought the same. Little did he know that what I was actually thinking was that at midnight I’d been fucking a random guy on a kitchen table while staring at his face.

  I put my pen down and rubbed my eyes. It was late, and my mind was a mess after everything that had happened.

  “Mr Wrexler,” I said. “I’m not here to judge you. But it’s my job to represent you, which means I need to know absolutely everything that might incriminate you, right down to the amount of drugs and alcohol you’d consumed.”

  He looked at me sternly. “I don’t do drugs.”

  I noted a hint of emotion flicker across his features—a look that was somewhere between sorrow and grief. In that moment, I believed him. What Galiema had told me was wrong. Harrison Wrexler wasn’t a hotel-wrecking, cocaine-snorting prick. And he wasn’t the stereotypical wild, arrogant millionaire. As he looked at me, imploring me to believe him, to understand him as a person rather than a caricature in a newspaper, I couldn’t help but feel like there was a whole lot more to Harrison Wrexler than anyone knew.

  Without thinking, I leaned over and touched his hand lightly. A surge of desire pulsed up my arm, like electricity. “Please, Harrison, I need to know everything that may be incriminating.” My voice had become a little breathy, and I was frustrated with myself for revealing to him so blatantly that I was attracted to him. “Even things that happened in your past may be used against you if this goes to trial.”

  Suddenly, Harrison’s hand shot out from beneath mine, making it fall against the cold, metal tabletop with a thud.

  “You want to know what might incriminate me?” he snapped. “How about the fact that I prowled the nightclubs looking for a drunk, willing girl who’d come home and fuck me? How about the fact that I tied up her hands? That I ripped her bra? What about me strangling her and pulling her hair? What about the fact that the neighbors would have heard us arguing on the balcony before she fell, not to mention that I’d been fucking her so hard earlier that night she’d been screaming? How much more incriminating does it need to be?”

  I squirmed in my seat. I knew that everything Harrison had just said should revolt me, but instead, it had aroused me. This guy was basically admitting to being some kind of kinky sexual deviant, was possibly even admitting to raping someone, and all I could feel was excitement crackling through my veins. There was something dangerous about Harrison Wrexler, like he was a man on the edge. Something that told me taking on this case was going to be more than I bargained for.

  “That’s very useful,” I said quietly. I looked down at my notes, trying to break his gaze, trying to focus on my work rather than my throbbing clitoris. “Maybe we ought to talk about Catherine.”

  Harrison immediately stiffened beside me, as though the mention of her name was p
ossibly the last thing I should have said at that moment.

  “What about her?” he demanded.

  “It says in your notes that you were in contact with a shrink following the death of your wife in suspicious circumstances.”

  “It wasn’t suspicious,” he barked. “She took an overdose and died. End of story.”

  “But you’ve had intimacy problems ever since?”

  “How the fuck do you know that?” Harrison suddenly cried, banging his fists on the table. “That was between me and my therapist! It was supposed to be confidential!”

  “I’m afraid nothing is confidential when it may be evidence of a crime,” I said. “Your therapist should have explained that to you before he took you on as a client. I’m afraid the only person you can ever have complete confidentiality with, Mr Wrexler, is your lawyer.”

  I let the words hang in the air as it dawned on me that I was in an incredibly privileged position right now. Harrison Wrexler was clearly a man with a lot of baggage—baggage that he could only entrust to me.

  Harrison stared at me, a stunned looked on his face. “You mean you?”

  “Yes,” I said, shuffling under his intense scrutiny. “You could tell me that you threw this woman, Shantelle Leeson, off the balcony in a psychotic episode, and I would be bound to take that information to my grave. It’s called client-attorney privilege, Mr Wrexler.”

  Harrison sat back and took a deep breath. “That makes you a very important person to me, Miss Scott.” Then he looked up at me, his gaze intense. “I assume you’re a miss?”

  I nodded, still reeling a little from the intensity of our exchange.

  “And is your name short for Katherine?”

  “Kathleen, actually,” I said.

  “You should go by Kathleen, then. ‘Katie’ makes you sound immature.”

  I raised my eyebrows. But before I had a chance to contest, Harrison spoke again.

  “If you’re my lawyer, and my life is in your hands, I’m asking you to go by Kathleen. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, stunned by how quickly the whole interview had flipped around.

  “So,” I said, trying to get back to business with a nervous cough. “Shantelle was...the first woman you were able to become intimate with after your wife’s death?”

  It felt so intrusive asking Harrison such a question. I’d never before felt like a snoop. Usually as a lawyer I found it easy to ask the most intimate questions, but somehow with Harrison it felt like I was ripping off a scab from a deep, raw wound.

  “Yes,” he said mournfully.

  “Why Shantelle?” I said. “Why tonight?”

  He looked at me quizzically. “Are you asking for the case or for yourself?”

  “The case, of course,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure that was true.

  Harrison regarded me for a long moment. I could feel the heat prickling under my skin as his gaze roved from my head to my neck, then along the curves of my breasts beneath my stiff suit.

  “It was the end of the season,” he said with an exhalation. “I’d lost Catherine at the beginning but played on. Basketball was the only thing I had left.” His eyes skirted up to mine. I could see deep sorrow within them. “But facing the end of the season felt like she’d died all over again. I was low. Lower than I’d ever been, I think. Lower even than when I’d lost her the first time. It all came crashing in that night and I was thinking of…ending it.”

  “You were contemplating suicide?”

  Harrison nodded painfully. “I was scared of what I might do, so I went to a bar and I found a girl. I just thought that if I had company, maybe I’d stay safe. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to pick someone up....”

  I didn’t doubt it for a second. Harrison Wrexler could probably walk into a bar and click his fingers and a whole harem of women would flock to him. I thought of Jessica and her easy ability to attract men, unlike me and Nick, who were left floundering hopelessly, groping for whatever came our way that we could cling on to.

  Harrison continued. “I found Shantelle and took her home. Of course, she was expecting sex. I felt obliged…”

  I frowned as I regarded the man in front of me. He was far more complicated than I’d originally anticipated. Harrison Wrexler was far more than a gorgeous, rich sports star.

  “I wouldn’t normally do those things,” he added. He looked up into my eyes. “I usually like it slow. Soft. Gentle. Romantic.”

  I could feel the heat under my collar. My throat was growing incredibly dry. Between my legs I could feel pulsations, like echoes from when Nick had been penetrating me. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to have Harrison Wrexler make slow, precise, romantic love to me.

  “But I felt obliged to give Shantelle what she wanted. Hence the binding and strangling…”

  I felt like I’d been lost in a dream. I had to tear myself out of it and back into the moment.

  “So you’re saying that there’s an innocent explanation for the marks that will be found on her body? That’s good. We’ll just need to find some witnesses to corroborate your story. Men who’ve had similar sexual encounters with the deceased before.”

  “You mean you’re going to drag her name through the mud?” Harrison said harshly. “Make out like she’s some kind of slut who deserved it?”

  “If it gets you free,” I replied, “then yes, I will.”

  Just then, the sound of a key jangling in the lock made me sit back.

  “Lawyers make me sick,” Harrison said with finality.

  The door swung open. My heart was slamming into my chest as the two detectives came into the cell to begin their interrogation. I looked at Harrison, at the complicated, beautiful man beside me, and wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

  Chapter Four

  Harrison

  I lay on the hard bed, staring at the blank ceiling. Was this some kind of sick joke? To send me a lawyer with the same name as my dead wife? Katie. It’s what she’d gone by when I’d first met her; Catherine came later, at my insistence. Katie was the name of a little girl, not a powerful, sensual woman.

  As I lay there, sleep eluding me, I couldn’t help but play over the events from earlier in my mind. The abrupt shift from making aggressive love to Shantelle to the absolute terror of watching her fall from my balcony, to the mind-spinning confusion of being held in a cell at the police department, and it dawning on me that I was going to be charged with murder.

  Knowing that I’d be spending a night in the cells before my bail hearing was daunting. I’d never been in trouble with the law, despite what the papers tried to claim after Catherine’s drug overdose. The fact that one night in the cell may turn into twenty-five years was crushing down heavily on my chest.

  And then there’d been the girl…that damn lawyer...

  I’d seen the look of lust in her eyes. It wasn’t hard to notice, and the blush in her cheeks made it all the more evident. I was used to women fawning over me. But there was something different about this one, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was her reservedness, her lack of assuredness in herself despite her complete confidence in her ability as a lawyer. I couldn’t quite place it, but the girl had gotten into my head, and that’s where she’d remained. When I should have been contemplating my future, my career, my family and finances, all I could think about was her. Even when I’d barked at her and tried to get her to back down, to get those huge, blue, mournful eyes away from me, it hadn’t worked. She was persistent. She wasn’t afraid. And I was at her complete mercy. My life was in her hands. She had all the power in the world, and I was just a pawn. As a result, I felt drawn to her in a way I hadn’t felt towards any woman since Catherine.

  As I finally drifted off to sleep, I found myself looking forward to the bail hearing the next day, because then, at the very least, I’d get a chance to see Katie Scott again.

  ***

  It was cold when I woke. The sliver of sky I could see through my barred windows was
steel gray. It couldn’t have been much more than 6 a.m.; I guessed they kept to a strict, grueling, military-esque schedule in prison.

  Breakfast was cold toast with butter and stringy bacon, the sort that’s more fat than meat. It was as chewy as rubber. The coffee was watery and lukewarm. I could barely keep it down.

  “Used to gourmet, are we?” a man said as he thunked his tray down in the seat opposite me.

  I knew better than to get into a conversation. Everything I said could be twisted into an altercation, not to mention that the second I revealed my accent to anyone, I’d basically be putting a target on my back.

  “Hey,” the man said more forcefully, “I’m asking you a question.”

  I finally looked up. The man was fairly old, his skin pocked with old acne scars. Tattoos poked out the top of his green prison top, covered with a layer of white, bristly chest hairs. He looked like a Hell’s Angel.

  I made a noncommittal grunting noise, desperate to keep a low profile.

  The man suddenly grinned, and waved his plastic spork in my face.

  “I recognize you,” he said loudly. “You’re on the TV, aren’t you? You’re some kind of sports guy.”

  I tried to hunker down in my seat. The man’s voice was attracting attention—attention I really could have done without. Others were looking around now, and it took all of five seconds for someone to work out who I was.

  “No frickin’ way!” a short black guy exclaimed, leaping to his feet and gesticulating with excitement. “It’s Harrison Wrexler from the Washington Wizards!”

  I stood, too, abruptly, leaving my barely eaten breakfast behind, and attempted to leave the canteen. I didn’t want to cause any trouble while I was here. It wouldn’t do my case any good. But, as a minor celebrity, my presence was starting to whip people into a frenzy.

  I paced to the exit and was confronted by a group of three white men, the Hell’s Angel guy at their helm, blocking the way out. At six-foot-three, I was taller than all of them. But these guys were hardened criminals, men who’d been toughened up by years in the clink. I didn’t stand a chance.