Age: 35
Yale Law School graduate, eight years ago
Single
Never lost a case
God, the man has a résumé that matches that of my father, two brothers, and Mitch, my ex. If only I’d stuck to fucking that man in his office, I might not have minded that he’d also fucked his secretary in his office. Funny how that works. And on that insightful note, I shut my computer. Time to shower, dress, and head to court, sans a stop by the coffee shop for a white mocha and a brush with Mr. Arrogant Asshole.
By the time I’m out of the shower, I start to wonder if I’ve let my irritation and attraction to Reese Summer cloud my judgment about meeting him. In an effort to not appear unprofessional, have I decidedly acted unprofessional? I’m going to want to interview him. Why would he grant an interview to a woman who stood him up? Of course, I didn’t agree to meet him and it wasn’t a date, but still…
By the time I’ve dressed in a fitted black suit-dress with a V-neck, and have pinned my hair neatly at the back of my head, I’m certain I’ve misstepped. Determined to fix that problem and catch Reese before he leaves the coffee shop, I pull on a black blazer and my knee-high black boots, and then slip my briefcase and purse across my chest on my way to the door. I’ve just finished the fifteen-floor elevator ride and stepped into the lobby when my cellphone rings.
I cross the lobby while scooping it out of my unzipped purse to note my friend Lauren Walker’s number.
Waving at Adam, the doorman, I exit the building and answer the call. “How’s the baby?” I ask, answering the call.
“Are you talking about the one in my belly or the one in my bed?” she asks.
“You’re the only person on this planet that would call your beast of a husband and ex-FBI agent a baby.”
“Baby is the wrong word,” she concedes. “Protective bear is more like it. He hovers worse than the DA, and I know you know what that means.”
After three years of working with her and under said DA’s operation, I do, but I get it. She miscarried last year. Her husband is worried. Still. “Royce can’t be that bad.”
“He is. So are his brothers. Soon I will have a drone following me to the bathroom.”
I laugh. “That would be bad. Really bad. But sympathy aside. How are you feeling?”
“Sick. I hear that’s actually a good thing. But me aside, I have a client meeting in a few, but there was a purpose to this call other than drones and hovering men. I thought you’d want to know that Royce got a call from the defendant in the case you’re covering.”
I frown. “Nelson Ward wants to hire your husband’s company to protect him?”
“He isn’t pleased with the company he’s using to handle the threats he’s getting.”
“And?”
“Royce immediately declined. He just feels it’s bad mojo to aid in the defense of a guy who might have killed a pregnant woman, especially with a pregnant wife of his own.”
“I think he has a point.”
“Of course he does, but I know Reese Summer. I don’t believe he’d take this case if he believed Nelson to be guilty.”
I turn a corner and keep walking, weaving through the crowd. “You’ve met Reese?”
“Yes. I know I told you that.”
“No. No, you did not tell me that, though I suppose it’s logical, since you’re both working criminal defense attorneys. Are you telling me now that you’re going to talk Royce into taking the case?”
“No,” she says. “I tried and failed, and I know what battles to pick with the Walker men. And I read your rundown on opening statements, which was not only excellent, by the way, it cements my belief that Mr. Hotness wins again.”
“Mr. Hotness?” I ask, stopping dead in my tracks only a few steps from the coffee shop. “What does that mean?”
“Oh gosh, you don’t know Mr. Hotness? What kind of reporter are you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Reese was on TV last year, and it sparked all kinds of fantasy blogs about him. It’s insanity the way it took off. He hates it.”
“Reese Summer is Mr. Hotness?”
“Yes, but like I said. He hates it. He feels it degrades his skills. He’s a good guy. And he is hot, but don’t tell Royce I said that. He’s been very jealous since I got pregnant again, which is just silly. I’m pregnant, for God’s sake.”
“Like you have eyes for anyone but Royce anyway.”
She sighs. “I really do love that man. Anyway, I have to go. But for the record, I’ll bet you a Chocolate Avalanche Sundae at that ice cream place we found a few months back that the woman’s ex-boyfriend killed her.” There are voices in the background before she says, “I need to go, but I expect courtroom gossip you tell no one but me.” And on that note, she hangs up.
I lower the phone and blink with the realization that right now, the biggest gossip I have to share, or withhold, is me meeting Mr. Arrogant Asshole while reading about, and admittedly living, a mini-fantasy about Mr. Hotness, both of which are Reese. How is this even possible?
I glance at the time on my phone and realize how close I have to be to missing him before he heads to court. Shoving my phone back inside my purse, I hurry forward and open the door just as Reese is exiting. Before I can even blink again over this man, his hands come down on my shoulders and he turns me to the side of the door. “You’re late,” he says, his hands scorching my arms, while a fall breeze is now tinged with the spicy, masculine scent of his cologne.
“I don’t remember setting a date or time.”
“And yet we did,” he says. “But you obviously had to talk yourself into showing up.”
“I came for coffee.”
“Liar,” he says.
“I came—”
“For me,” he says, his voice a low rasp as he adds, “Come for me again. Tomorrow. An hour earlier than today.”
“I need—”
“Good,” he says. “And I want to hear more. Tomorrow. I have to go.” He releases me then he’s walking away. I rotate to watch him depart, and Lord help me, the man really is Mr. Hotness and I can still feel him everywhere, and he didn’t touch me anywhere but my arms. He’s also gone before I’ve confessed my identity, and I consider chasing him down and explaining myself, but he’s headed to court. I’m the last thing that he has on his mind today. And yet he was here. For me. I’m not sure what to do with that little tidbit of information. But then, men like him love the chase, and I didn’t fall at his feet.
It’s about the chase.
Until he decides I set him up to get the interview I still need from him. This really can’t end well, or even naked. No one is going to come, at least not Reese and myself together.
I arrive to the courthouse an hour before start time, but, frustratingly, the picketers and crowds are pure insanity. I push through it all and by the time I make my way to the courtroom, I end up in the same back row as yesterday. Then again, I think, as I try to get comfortable in the hard seat, maybe I need to keep a low profile until I deal with the Reese Summer situation. Situation. There’s a way to describe what’s happening between me and that man.
Pulling my journal from my briefcase, I open it to my writing from yesterday, and grimace at my scribbled note about women who fall in love with convicted killers. Mr. Hotness isn’t the defendant, but the story idea is still a good one. Setting that aside for now, I start jotting down notes related to Lauren’s comments, with a focus on who might be guilty of the murders, if not the defendant. I’m pages into my thoughts when the action in the courtroom begins, and it’s not long before Reese is at his table, and I find myself remembering his words, spoken all gravelly and low: You came for me. Come for me again. There had been a glint in his eye, I realize. Cocky bastard knew exactly what he was implying about me and my, well…orgasm. And holy hell, as he walks to the bench to greet the judge, I’m fairly certain a number of women sigh for no reason other than that he is in the same room. I really hate that I�
��m one of them, but I’m not going to deny that he’s a good-looking man. That isn’t the point in all of this. His attitude and my job are.
The trial begins, and the prosecution claims the reins, continuing its opening statement narrative, painting a picture of a selfish billionaire who wanted his cake and to eat it too, a.k.a. a wife and a mistress. It’s dirty, gritty, nasty legal work. It’s also delivered clumsily, filled with empty spaces, and theories that have no factual support. And from where I sit, Reese does an incredible job of tearing down every witness that is presented.
So much so that by lunchtime I set aside Lauren’s praise for Reese and decide that my original assessment of the man is correct: He is most definitely the kind of man who will fuck you and fuck you over, unless you fuck him and fuck him over first. Professionally speaking, of course, and as a general observation, made objectively by a woman who has not gotten naked with him. Which brings me to who is actually naked and exposed right now, and it’s not me or Reese, but rather everyone else in the courtroom.
As if proving every mental point I’ve just made, he approaches a witness for the prosecution and proceeds to turn the woman into a silly schoolgirl, who fidgets, smiles nervously, and bats her eyes at him. She also proceeds to look like a liar when she can’t keep her story straight. It seems that her claim to have seen the defendant with his “alleged” mistress, as Reese calls her, proves less than reliable. Apparently, she’s not sure what she saw after all.
Unsurprisingly, once she’s off the stand, the prosecution asks for an early, and long, lunch break. “One hour,” the judge allots, giving nothing but the standard break, which to me says that he believes the witness list is not only long, but destined to be drawn out.
The gavel is clunked on the wooden block on top of the judge’s desk, and the courtroom becomes a gaggle of people standing and moving toward the door. I don’t get up. I can’t. The walkway is packed and I’m trapped. I try to make good use of my captive position, watching the front of the courtroom for a story. The prosecution scrambles to a back room while Reese lingers at his table, conversing with his client and co-counsels. Interestingly, Reese stands close to the accused. He leans toward him. Lauren is right. This is a man who believes his client is innocent. Or Reese simply loves everyone who pays him and pays him well.
The courtroom doesn’t just begin to thin out, it empties out like a suction draining a swamp, and suddenly, I’m out in the open, exposed, a woman watching Reese Summer in a sea of empty seats. It’s in that moment that he leans in close to his client to say something in his ear. In doing so, he faces the courtroom, and me, and his gaze seems to fall on me: The woman who almost stood him up for coffee, who is now sitting in his courtroom, staring at him. This feels like a scene out of a stalker movie, and I’m the stalker.
He doesn’t react to my presence. Maybe he doesn’t recognize me. Maybe his mind is elsewhere. Whatever the case, he continues to stare at me with no external reaction before pulling back to look at his client, his attention back where it belongs: Not on me.
“Miss,” a security guard greets me, suddenly towering above me. “We need you to exit the courtroom.”
I frown and look at grandpa in blue, wondering if the man is serious. How was I supposed to leave when I was blocked in? My walkway is clear now, and I leave my comment in my head. “Of course,” I say, as he steps into the aisle in a fashion that prevents me from walking in any direction but the door. Maybe he thinks I’m a stalker, too.
I move in front of him and exit the courtroom. And that is how my thirty-second encounter with the man of the hour, Mr. Arrogant Asshole, Mr. Hotness, ends: With me escorted to the door by an armed guard. So much for professionalism and discretion.
I exit the side door of the courtroom, Nelson Ward walking in front of me, Elsa and Richard, my co-counsels, beside me, while I have one thing, the wrong thing in the middle of a trial, on my mind: A woman. They reach the private room where we’ll have lunch and talk strategy, and I watch them enter before turning on my heel and heading the other direction.
“Reese.”
I turn to find Elsa, who is a stunning older version of Cat by fifteen years, standing at the door. Only I don’t want to fuck Elsa. I’ve never wanted to fuck Elsa, and not because of a ten-year age difference between us. Because the woman has the personality of cardboard, despite her brilliant mind. But I have wanted to fuck Cat. From the moment she tugged on my sleeve and cast me in an irritated, green-eyed stare that told me at least ten things about her personality, all of which became: I want to fuck her.
Instead, she was already fucking me.
Fucking reporters, and that has to be her story. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” I say to Elsa, already giving her my back and walking down the hallway.
I exit to the main corridor, happy as hell that the press has rules to follow that don’t include accosting me and security has a tight handle on the boundaries. Of course, some of them might decide that equates to a challenge, I think, with Cat in my mind. I scan the corridor and get lucky. I spy my little blonde game player headed down the hallway to my left. I don’t need encouragement to follow. I’m already making tracks in her direction, and when she turns right, I step up the pace. Her path leads me to a set of stairs, in a less-populated part of the courthouse. The sound of her footsteps leads me up the stairs, and I reach the top just in time to see her enter a room to my right.
I pursue her, and when I discover that room is a bathroom, I don’t care. This woman played me, and I don’t like to be played. She finds out now that it ends now. I follow her inside.
I find Cat standing at the sink, three open stalls behind her. She whirls around as I enter, her pretty pink painted lips that I wanted to kiss this very morning parting in shock. “You do know you’re in the bathroom, right?” she demands.
“Since the door said bathroom, yes. I know.” I close the space between us, and she doesn’t back away. She stands her ground, her hands settling on her curvy, but slender, hips. Her perfume flowery, roses, I think. Sweet, like I knew she would taste, right up until a few minutes ago.
“The sign says women,” she says, “not bathroom. Not men. And unless you have unexpected equipment, or you simply identify as a woman, and that’s what you’re telling me, you can’t be in here.”
“Good to know you understand limits,” I say. “Unfortunately, you don’t know how to use them in your job. And stalking the defense is not how you get a story.”
She glowers. “Stalking you? Last I heard, stalkers do the following. You were in line behind me when we met, not the opposite. And you were the one who cut in front of me. And, in case you didn’t notice, I’m well known in that coffee bar. I didn’t just show up there because you were there.”
“You mean my choice of coffee shop near the courthouse worked out for you.”
“I live right by it and I’m there all the freaking time, and we both know that you are not.”
“You expect me to believe that you didn’t know who I was?”
“Believe what you want,” she says, “but no. I did not know you were there. I didn’t even know who you were until opening statements.”
“Then you aren’t a well-prepared reporter.”
“Look here, Mr. Hotness,” she bites out, immediately adding, “Mr. Arrogant Asshole. Knowing who you are and knowing what you look like are not the same.”
I arch a brow at the irritating territory this has now entered. “And yet you know about Mr. Hotness?”
“Because Lauren Walker is my friend and she told me about your female following this morning. She also told me you hate that name, which may or may not be believable, since she also told me you were a nice guy.”
“I am a nice guy. When it’s deserved. How do you know Lauren?”
“How is that your business?” she challenges.
“You were talking about me with her.”
“The entire planet is talkin
g about you right now, so no. That does not make anything about me or my conversations your business. And for the record, I wasn’t going to meet you this morning at all, which is why I was so late.”
“Why not?” I demand, that reply hitting me in all kinds of wrong ways. “You knew who I was by then, by your own admission.”
“Because I didn’t want some scandal to come out of it or for you to think I was going to get naked with you for an interview. I still need and want one, but not that way. And yet here you are. In the ladies’ room of the courthouse. Seriously? What are you thinking? You have reporters following you around.”
“Says a reporter following me around,” I counter.
“I’m not following you. That isn’t my style.”
“And yet you showed up this morning,” I say.
“I decided that I needed to tell you I was a reporter before you found out, but you left before I could. And I didn’t want to hurt your big-ass freaking ego by making you think I didn’t want to meet you.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“Did I what?”
“Want to meet me.”
“Does anyone ever want to meet an asshole?” she snaps.
“Did you want to meet me, Cat?” I press.
“Does that matter at this point?”
Good question, I think, and yet it does. “Answer,” I order.
“I would have if you were just another good-looking asshole, because then I could have—” She stops herself and repeats, “If you were just another asshole.”
“Good looking?”
“Asshole,” she replies.
“Then you could have fixed me?”
“You don’t fix assholes.”
“Then why consider meeting me if you didn’t know me and you thought I was an asshole?”
“You get naked with assholes and then you say goodbye.”
My cock is instantly, readily on alert. I step closer, a lean from touching her. “That was your plan? To fuck me and say goodbye.”
Dirty Rich One Night Stand: a sexy standalone novel Page 2
