Even though Sasha had dropped her gaze, Felix continued to stare at her, but his hard look softened and he frowned as if trying to puzzle her out. He wasn’t unsympathetic toward her, Coco decided, just confused and angered that the other woman didn’t understand his position. Sasha was angry that he wouldn’t accept her word as evidence—she couldn’t comprehend his need for proof.
His gaze slid across to Coco, and for a moment they studied each other. She’d seen the look on his face when he’d appeared in her office, when she’d suddenly looked up and caught him watching her. He had feelings for her. Clearly, though, he wasn’t sure whether she returned them.
She kept her expression carefully blank, not wanting to give him encouragement. Because what would be the point in saying Yes, Felix, absolutely I do return your feelings—I’m crazy about you and the thought of you returning to Auckland and never seeing you again is going to break my heart? Why put them both through that? He had a life in Auckland, she had one here, with her mother and her job, and a relationship wasn’t going to work, so why voice how she felt? It would be like declaring to a diabetic that she’d baked a wonderful treacle tart.
He moved his gaze back to Sasha. “So you can’t remember whether Mr. Dell asked all the secretaries whether they were busy, or whether he asked you specifically?”
“No.” Sasha kept her gaze on the cat.
He nodded and thought for a moment. “Something else I’d like to query is related to the document you stated that Mr. Dell asked you to retype.”
“Yes.”
“You said that the office had already received a typed copy of the call logs relating to the case.”
“Yes.”
“And that you found it strange that Mr. Dell had asked you to retype it.”
“Yes.”
He tipped his head. “I asked Miss Stark to find the original file for me, and she couldn’t locate it.”
Sasha looked up and her gaze met Coco’s. Coco’s heart sped up, but she forced herself to stay calm. Yes, although they hadn’t spoken about it directly, Sasha had obviously hoped that Coco would support her in this case. But Coco wasn’t prepared to lie for her.
Sasha’s eyes narrowed as she looked back at Felix. “Then someone’s deleted it.”
Felix frowned. “Deleted it?”
“To frame me.” Twin spots of colour appeared on Sasha’s cheeks. “To make it look as if I’m lying.”
Felix took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sasha, I find it extremely farfetched to think that someone would go to all that trouble to frame you.”
“Really?” She glared at them. “You yourself told me that a man’s career is at stake here. As is mine, I have to point out. But don’t you think it’s at all possible that Peter Dell could stretch to deleting a file to cover himself? I know perfectly well what a negative outcome to this case would mean for him. It could destroy his career, and rightly so. And he would be perfectly aware of that. If I’m right, and if he’s at fault, do you not think he’d try to cover his tracks?”
Felix ran a hand through his hair, which Coco was beginning to realise meant he was agitated. Sasha unsettled him, and he didn’t like it. “Well, those are the two main points I wanted to address with you,” he said, moving to the edge of the settee. “Thank you for your time.”
Sasha stared at him. Obviously sensing an emotion he didn’t like, the cat jumped off her lap. “Is that it?” she said. “You come to my house, throw two accusations at me, basically call me a liar and then just leave?”
Although he barely moved, Coco felt him stiffen. He narrowed his eyes. “Miss De Langen, it is my job to investigate this matter, and you are not helping your case by being so hostile.”
Sasha jumped to her feet, her eyes glassy. “This is just so unfair. I’ve practically been assaulted and just because I got some details wrong, you think I’m a liar.”
“That’s not the case at all,” he said softly, as if calming a rabbit that had been scared by a loud noise, “and you really need to stop treating me like I’m the enemy.”
“I know you’re only here to prove Peter Dell’s innocent,” she yelled. “To twist the truth. You’re a company man—Mr. McAllister would have told you how important it is to prove Peter didn’t do it.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Felix said steadily. “To be honest, I find it insulting that you would assume I’d do anything other than search for the truth.”
Her lip trembled. “I wasn’t going to tell you this because I’m a private woman, Mr. Wilkinson, and I don’t like everyone knowing about my love life. But do you want to know the reason that I know there’s no way I could possibly have led Peter on? Why I wouldn’t have been sending out the wrong signals?”
Felix frowned in response.
Sasha bit her lip. “Because I’m gay.” Then she burst into tears.
Coco sat mutely next to Felix in the taxi as it wove its way through the Wellington afternoon traffic. He hadn’t said a word since they left Sasha’s house, following an awkward five minutes in which Sasha had sobbed, Coco had attempted to comfort her, and Sasha had promptly asked them both to leave.
What was Felix thinking? He sat looking out of the window, his elbow resting on the sill, his fingers touching his lips. His gaze seemed lost in the distance.
Had he been convinced Sasha was lying up until her revelation? Because clearly she wasn’t. Felix must now be convinced that Peter Dell’s assurance that Sasha had approached him and declared her affection for him must be wrong.
Had Christopher McAllister told him to make sure that Peter was found innocent? Coco found it hard to believe, but it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. She liked Christopher, but he hadn’t got where he was by being a soft touch, and he wouldn’t want the company he’d spent years building to crumble over what he might have thought was one stupid mistake by his co-founder. Also, it was entirely possible that Christopher wasn’t aware of Peter’s continual indiscretions, and that he thought the incident with Sasha was a one-off.
She risked another glance at Felix. He didn’t seem like the sort of man who would do what he was told by his superiors and ignore the truth of a case. She couldn’t imagine that he ignored the facts in the courtroom just because it would win him a trial.
The taxi pulled up just down from their building, but for a moment Felix sat listlessly, not making a move to get out. A wave of pity swept over her. He was a good man who’d been unravelled by the strange, socially awkward Sasha, who’d accused him of being sexist, something he would obviously never normally consider himself at all.
She reached across and took his hand. “Would you like to go grab a coffee?”
He looked across at her then, surprise lighting his features, and a smile curved a corner of his mouth. “Sure.”
He paid the driver, getting a receipt for expenses, and they exited the taxi and walked across to Bella’s. They took a seat, ordered a latte each in a mug, and then sat looking at each other.
Coco studied his calm brown eyes, wondering what he was thinking. He must be spectacular in court, she thought. He had the sort of personality that would win juries over with the least amount of effort. Plus he looked hot as sin in his slate-grey suit, white shirt and silvery-grey tie with a faint red stripe. His dark hair looked just the right amount of ruffled, and he wore an expensive-looking tie pin and cufflinks. He exuded taste, style and sex.
“What made you want to be a lawyer?” she asked, trying not to think about sex.
He looked down and played with the sugar container for a few seconds before looking back up at her. He seemed embarrassed.
“I…ah…was a miscreant in my youth,” he said.
She laughed. “You? Mr. Idealistic?”
His lips twisted wryly. “I wasn’t always this perfect.”
“Really?” She smiled.
He played with the sugar again and sighed. “When I was at school, I got in with the wrong crowd. My older brother, Matt, was the perfect student, and
my younger brother, Toby, was the cool one. I didn’t know where I fitted. I rebelled and bunked lessons, played up in class. Most of the boys I was mates with were the same as me, restless, typical teenagers, looking for fun and fed up with school. But a couple who were friends of friends were nasty pieces of work.”
He sat back as the waitress delivered their coffees, then took a sip from the mug before he continued. “One evening I had a cold and didn’t feel like going out, so the guys went out without me. They were messing around on the school grounds. An old guy and his dog passed them, and the boys started taunting him. They threw things at the dog, and one of the objects hit the old guy. He walked over and gave them a mouthful. The rest of them would have run off, but one of the nastier boys stood up to him and started pushing him around.”
Coco stared, horrified. “Oh jeez.”
“It gets worse. They beat him badly. And the worst thing was that afterward, he went to the police, but he couldn’t identify the boy who beat him, and the others covered for him. A bunch of the kids were taken to court, but the main guy was the son of one of the board governors, and he paid for an expensive lawyer who got them all off. I changed after that. I couldn’t bear to be near those kids. I threw myself into my schoolwork and turned things around. I hated that lawyer, for defending those kids who he knew must be guilty. I was determined to be the opposite—to fight for the innocent. And I’ve been fighting ever since.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Coco smiled. Mr. Idealistic. “That explains a lot,” she said. He shrugged.
She stirred her coffee and took a sip. “So you’ve never defended someone in court you’re sure is guilty?”
“I’m a family lawyer, not a defence lawyer.”
“Don’t be picky, you know what I’m saying. You stand up in court and defend your clients. Are they ever guilty?”
He took a long breath and let it out slowly. “The defence lawyer doesn’t make a case. The prosecutor makes cases. The role of a defence lawyer is to sow doubt.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
He shifted in his seat. “If defence lawyers only defend people they think are innocent, then they’re substituting their own judgment for that of the judge and jury.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
“Coco…”
“A yes or no will suffice.” She didn’t want to make him squirm, but suddenly it was important for her to know.
He leaned forward. “Ideally, the answer would be that yes, I had defended someone I knew to be guilty. Like I said, the defence lawyer shouldn’t make decisions of guilt or innocence, but rather assist the judge and jury in making that determination. However, you’re asking what does a lawyer do when asked to defend, say, a rapist who has already committed an offence in the past and who is almost certainly guilty? Or especially who admits his guilt to his lawyer? The law demands he have a defence, but it must be down to each individual lawyer to say whether he or she can stand up in court and defend that man, knowing him to be guilty.”
Coco took his hand. “And what would your decision be?”
He looked into his mug. “I couldn’t do it.”
Suddenly she understood—he was ashamed of his answer. In spite of what had happened in his youth, he wanted to be professional—the sort of lawyer who believed that the job was separate from the powers of light and dark, the kind who fought for their client, even if the client privately admitted he or she was guilty. But poor kind-hearted Felix was too ethical, too honourable to do that. He really was a defender of the innocent, a knight in shining armour, whose principles and integrity meant he had to believe in the person standing before him, who threw his heart into every case, and that was why he was having such trouble with this one.
He was an optimist and a romantic, and Coco loved him for it.
Shit. Loved him?
Felix raised his eyes and looked into hers. She was too shocked at her revelation to do anything but stare at him.
She couldn’t possibly love him. She’d known him less than a week. It didn’t make sense. She wasn’t in love, she was in lust. They’d purposely settled on a physical relationship because they didn’t have the time for an emotional one. Sure, they’d been attracted to each other from the beginning, but he was in Wellington temporarily, and he obviously wouldn’t want anything more than a brief fling.
He looked at her with tender affection, a smile gradually spreading over his face as she continued to study him. His hand was warm beneath hers, and his eyes were warm.
“Meet me again tonight,” he said.
She released a slow breath. “I can’t. Frances is visiting her daughter and I don’t have anyone to look after Mum.”
“Then tomorrow.” His eyes twinkled. “I’ll work on exotic fantasy number four.”
I shouldn’t. I mustn’t.
“Okay.” Jeez, she was weak.
He reached across the table, slipped a hand behind her head and leaned forward, pulling her toward him. Their lips met briefly in a sweet kiss before they parted to sit back in their seats.
“What was that for?” she asked, amused.
His fingers stroked hers where they lay next to their coffee mugs. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I miss you when I’m not near you.”
She caught her breath. “Felix…”
“I know.” He looked down at her left hand, his fingers stroking hers. He brushed lightly over her empty ring finger, lingering for a moment. Or was it her imagination?
“We have to be careful,” she said softly.
“I know—it’s so difficult working together.”
That wasn’t actually what she’d meant, but she decided not to correct him. “Exactly. Especially with the nature of the case. I can’t imagine what Dell would say if he knew about us.”
Felix shifted in his seat. “I know.”
“Or Sasha, for that matter.”
His wry look told her he knew exactly what she meant. “I did not expect her little revelation,” he said, withdrawing his hand to lift the mug and take a mouthful of his coffee.
“Me neither.” She sat back, relieved and disappointed at the same time at the turn of the conversation. “I guess it simplifies things for you, though?”
“Maybe.” His face went carefully blank, and he looked out of the window.
She puzzled over that. Surely it was an open and shut case now? How could Peter possibly be in the right if he’d declared Sasha had been the one who’d made the move on him, when in fact she was gay? Coco couldn’t believe that Sasha was the one at fault. It just didn’t make sense.
She wanted to ask him what he thought about the case, but that wasn’t fair, not when she was a witness. Still, she wished she could talk to him about it. It would be interesting to see what he really thought of Peter Dell and the whole situation.
“So what’s your next step?” she asked.
“I need to talk to the other secretaries. Establish whether they picked up anything strange about Sasha’s behaviour, and of course whether Dell has ever acted inappropriately to them as well. I’d like you there, if possible—I think a woman needs to be present during the interviews.”
“Yes, of course.”
He cleared his throat. “I need to interview you, too.”
She’d expected that. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right—of course you have to. I’m the office manager.”
Clearly, though, it made him uneasy. He played with the sugar container again. “I may have to ask some…searching questions. It may make you feel awkward. But I want you to know it’s purely professional.”
“I understand.”
He raised his gaze to hers then and looked pained. “I don’t want to upset you.”
“Felix, it’s okay. I don’t have anything to hide.” Guilt swept over her. Only a secret that would put the record straight and solve the entire case for him once and for all. But she was going to prete
nd that had never happened. It didn’t matter anyway—Dell was hardly innocent, and he’d sign his own death warrant by the end of Felix’s investigation. She was sure of that.
“What?” he said, obviously picking up on her unease.
“Nothing.”
He frowned. “Is something bothering you about Dell?”
She hesitated for a moment, wishing she could confide in him. She’d never told anybody about what had happened to her when she was seventeen, not her mother, not a counsellor or doctor, certainly not Michael. She’d pretended she was a virgin when she first slept with Michael, and he’d believed her.
But she couldn’t confide in Felix, because she knew he wouldn’t understand why she’d given in to Peter, nor why she’d kept it to herself. He’d see it as a weakness, and she didn’t want him to think she was weak.
She shrugged. “The whole case makes me uneasy. Peter’s my boss—he represents the firm I’ve worked at for ten years. It’s very unsettling.”
“I understand.” He picked up her hand again. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
He knew she was hiding something. She reminded herself that he was a skilled lawyer. They often had a strange sixth sense regarding whether a witness was telling the truth, and something she’d said—or done—had made him suspicious. But she had to remember that even though they were sleeping together, and they’d done the most intimate things a man and woman could do with each other, she didn’t know him. Her gut instinct told her she could trust him, but she couldn’t be a hundred percent certain he wasn’t trying to use her.
“I’m not,” he said.
She blinked. “Pardon?”
“Using you for information.”
It so mirrored what she was thinking that her jaw dropped.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said. Was that hurt flickering in his eyes?
Five Exotic Fantasies: Love in Reverse, Book 3 Page 22
