by Penny Wylder
“How’d that go?” Andrew asks.
“About as well as you’d expect. My uncle didn’t think much of a career in music, so he wasn’t exactly surprised. He stipulated that when I moved back in with him I was going to make an attempt at a serious career. He paid for a paralegal course and told me he’d hire me at the firm if I passed. As part of the agreement, I had to keep the job for at least a year. I actually don’t think he expected me to do it.”
“But you did.”
“Yes. So now I’m stuck in Florida for a year.” I fidget with my hands. “Though it hasn’t been all bad.” I look over at him and flash a small smile.
Andrew is quiet for a little while, and it looks like he’s thinking. Finally, he asks, “Do you have your music with you?”
“At the guest house?”
“Yeah.”
I shrug. “Some of it.”
“I’d like to hear it sometime.”
The thought of that turns my stomach in knots. It would be like him seeing me naked. I mean, he’s already seen me without clothes…but it’s a different kind of naked. “Maybe…” is what I say out loud.
A while later, Andrew chuckles. “I understand now why you were so panicked about Roger finding us together.”
“Yeah. I’d like to avoid that.”
He glances over at me and says, “I think that can be arranged. Your uncle only sees what he wants to see.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I say. “He’s watching you pretty carefully.”
“For business. He’s not watching my personal life.”
I know that’s not true, but I don’t say anything. We’re pulling up to the gates of the Sterling Estate, and the size of it still blows me away. Instead of continuing to the guest house, Andrew pulls up to the main mansion. I forgot that the meeting would be in there, and suddenly I’m nervous all over again. He parks the car in the massive driveway and turns to me. “Ready?”
“Ready,” I say. “Oh, and let’s not mention the car if we can avoid it. I don’t need another failure for him to add to the list.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he laughs. “But won’t he notice that your car is missing?”
“Believe it or not, he’s paying more attention to you right now than to me. He barely notices that I’m there, he won’t notice the car.”
Andrew gives me a look that I can’t quite puzzle out, but it doesn’t matter because now we’re at the doors and going into the mansion, and…whoa.
Chapter 8
The inside of the Sterling mansion is just as impressive as the outside. A little chime sounds as we pass through the doorway into a spotless white entryway. My first impression is of soaring ceilings, open space, and clean lines. While the guest house feels somewhat homey, this feels modern and palatial. Even if it is impressive, I could never imagine living here. I feel like I would always be afraid of breaking something in my own house. Besides, I can’t believe I’d ever need this much space—though having my own recording studio would be nice.
One of Mr. Sterling’s staff guides us through several hallways to a dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the back of the house and the gardens. A huge table dominates the space, and my uncle and Mr. Sterling are already seated. Even though I’ve seen pictures, he’s not what I expected. He looks younger than his photographs, and an air of sadness hovers around him, I assume because of his recent loss.
“Ah, there you are,” my uncle says. “Timothy, you’ve already met my colleague Andrew Finch, and his is my niece and paralegal Naomi Grayson.”
“Hello,” Mr. Sterling says while shaking my hand. “Thank you for coming to help.”
“My pleasure,” I say, wondering if that phrase is too formal. I’m not exactly sure how to interact with a millionaire on trial for his wife’s murder.
He shakes Andrew’s hand as well, and we all sit down. Andrew sits next to me, and suddenly it feels too close and too intimate despite the fact that we just spent an hour in his car together. Here it’s different. My uncle could see the smallest gesture, and then everything would fall apart.
“We won’t meet for overly long today,” Uncle Roger says, “but I thought it might be a good idea for Andrew to hear your version of events, and we just received discovery from the prosecutor. I’ll glance at them and see if there’s anything we need to take notice of. Naomi?”
I grab the file out of my bag and hand it to him. I’m glad I remembered to take it out of my car when Andrew found me. “Take notes,” my uncle says to me, “So you can familiarize yourself with the issues and catch anything we miss.”
“I’m ready whenever you are, Mr. Sterling,” Andrew says.
“Sure.” Sterling clears his throat and begins. “I know that a lot of people speculated otherwise, but the truth is that my wife and I were happy. We were trying to have a child, though that’s not public knowledge. The night…the night she died we had a fight about whether or not we should continue trying to conceive. I wanted to move on to other options—IVF, adoption, surrogacy. I wanted a kid, and I didn’t care if the kid was biologically mine or not. But Amber always dreamed of having her own children, and the argument just got out of hand. We both said some hurtful things, and I left so we could cool down. I drove around, just on the property, for a couple of hours. When I came back, the bedroom was destroyed and she was…lying there.”
"And then what did you do?" Andrew asks gently.
Mr. Sterling's face goes gray. "I checked to see if she was breathing, and then I called the police."
I can't imagine what it would be like to find someone you love that much dead on the floor. With my parents it was a phone call. I didn't have to see their bodies after the accident, didn't have to keep it together until the police arrived.
Sterling continues, "When the police got there, they took my statement. They took her body, and I think I answered questions from the detectives for a couple of hours before they left. I couldn't sleep in a crime scene, so I went to the guest house for the night. A couple of days later, the police came back and arrested me. They hadn't found evidence that linked to anyone but me. I was the only witness, no one could prove my alibi, and we had fought just before she died. In their minds I was the only choice. But I didn't kill her. I loved...I love my wife."
Mr. Sterling looks away, and I can see he's trying to mask the fact that he's tearing up.
Andrew nods. "I read in the report that your security system didn't show you leaving the house. Do you know why that is?"
"I have no idea. I can't explain it."
I hate to say it, but I can understand why the police thought he was guilty. Not from his story, but from the fact that there's just no evidence that makes him look innocent. If he didn't do it, someone worked really hard to make it look like he did. This is going to be a hard case to win, even for lawyers as good as my uncle and Andrew.
"They've included your blood alcohol test in discovery."
"I wasn't drunk," says Mr. Sterling. "Yes, I'd had a drink, but I was well below the legal limit."
"It doesn't matter. They'll use it to point to potentially erratic behavior," Andrew says.
"That's hardly fair," I say.
My uncle looks at me sharply, a reprimand in a look. Shutting up now.
"If trials were fair," Andrew says, "the world would be a much better place."
He puts his hand on my knee under the table, and my entire body stiffens. My uncle gives me another look, and I try to give him my best 'I'm here and I won't bother you at all anymore' smile. I've been taking notes like he told me, but I slowly move one of my hands under the table, and grab Andrew's hand, which is slowly moving up my thigh. I don't dare look at him, even though I want to give him my best death glare. I can't believe he would risk this kind of thing right now when we're talking about a murder, but my mind flashes to him jerking off with my uncle five feet away, and this is tame by comparison.
I can't deny that the danger of being discovered makes my body
wake up and start to pay attention, but still...not the time.
Andrew takes advantage of where my hand is and weaves his fingers though mine, gripping them. Suddenly my hand is trapped by his, and my heart rate picks up. My uncle is talking about something else in discovery, but I feel like I can't hear him. I'm just glad he's looking at Mr. Sterling and not toward Andrew or me. Who knew that just holding hands could be this hot?
But of course he can't just leave it be. I can practically feel him grinning beside me as he starts to move his hand—and therefore my hand—down my leg and toward his. I jot down a note. It's gibberish. Anything to make them think I'm still paying attention to the meeting and not to the fact that my hand is being guided...well, I think I know where it's being guided.
Andrew says, "I'm sure that's just a precaution. I doubt they'd take that tack in court."
I'm blushing now because I have no idea what he said it in response to, and I'm blushing harder because Andrew has placed my hand over his very, very hard cock. He flexes his hips just barely, so it rubs against my hand, and I can't believe that this is happening, that I'm doing this right here, inches away from other people. Andrew moves my hand slowly, up and down so that I'm rubbing him through his pants. My god, he feels even bigger when I'm touching him like this.
I can feel myself warming up, the heat spreading from my center outward. How is it possible that I'm turned on by this? Does it matter? I can't even think about it right now because Andrew closes his fingers on top of mine and squeezes so that I'm squeezing him. Oh my god, I think my fingers would barely wrap around him.
Then without warning, he lets go of my hand. I pull it back in a daze just as my uncle turns to me and asks, "Naomi, what do we know about the alarm company technician?"
What? "I'm sorry?"
"The alarm company technician that was asked to verify the entries and exits on the night of the murder. What do we have on him in our files?"
"Right," I say, shaking my head a little to clear it as I reach for the documents. "Robert Greene. He's been at the company for more than twenty years. He's a...senior technician and installer. Manages many of the company’s high profile accounts."
My uncle is frowning at me. "Anything else?"
"No...I don't think so. I'll have to double check."
"Do that."
I know that he's not happy with me, but I feel like my head is in a fog. I'll kill Andrew later—now that he knows what’s at stake for me with this job, the fact that he would go and jeopardize it...I'll kill him later.
“I think that’s all we need to cover for today,” my uncle says. “I’ll let you know if anything else comes up. Otherwise I’m at your disposal in the guest house.”
Mr. Sterling shakes all of our hands again. “Thank you. While you’re here, please feel free to use the pool and the garden. Make yourself at home. I know it’s an inconvenience to be all the way out here.”
“Not at all, Timothy,” says Andrew, standing. I notice that his briefcase is held in an overly casual way to cover his problem and I barely keep myself from snickering. Serves him right.
As we all head out of the mansion, I realize that my uncle is going to see that I’m getting in the car with Andrew if I drive with him down to the guest house.
“I think I’d like to walk back,” I say. “See the grounds for a bit and get some fresh air.”
Uncle Roger is on his phone and barely acknowledges my statement. So much for him noticing. Andrew raises an eyebrow at me, and I know he’s picturing us fucking somewhere on the grounds, probably in the hedge maze. I shake my head at him. I have a long way to go before I’m going to have sex in public. If ever. I think later we’re going to have a talk about boundaries. There have been too many close calls. I watch as he gets into his car before I head off across the grass.
Chapter 9
When I reach the guest house, everything is quiet. There are files spread across the dining room table, so I know either my uncle or Andrew has been working in my absence, but neither of them is downstairs now. Good. Now I can check the files without being watched. If I missed anything I’d rather be able to think of a way to frame it instead of looking like an idiot. Even though I already looked like one.
I find the file box that contains all of our information on Robert Greene. I was right about everything, but we also have a list of all the high priority clients that he services for Trident Security. I make a note to tell my uncle when I see him, though I don’t see what that will really contribute to the case. I take the time to look through all the other files in the box just in case I get another pop quiz. Lots of information on the security system for the Sterling Estate, some information about the company itself and its employees.
I’m bogged down in a detailed description of the way the security system logs all of the openings of the doors and windows when the doorbell of the guest house rings. I go to the door and open it to find a young man, maybe a couple years older than I am. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” he says, “I’m looking for Naomi Grayson.”
I frown. “That’s me, but I don’t—”
“Naomi,” I hear from behind me. Andrew joins me at the door. “I called him. This is Josh. He’s here for your car keys.”
“What? Why?”
“I arranged for him to tow it to his garage and find out what’s wrong. They’re the mechanics that Mr. Sterling uses, and the garage isn’t too far from here. ”
I’m shocked that he took the time to do that—that he would even think to do that. I grab my keys from my bag in the dining room and hand them to Josh. “Please be careful with her,” I say. “I’ve been through a lot of stuff with that car.”
Josh smiles as he takes the keys from me. “We’ll make her good as new, promise.”
He heads back to his truck, and I’m left wondering how I didn’t notice that there was a giant-ass tow truck in the driveway when I opened the door. You’ve seriously got to work on your observation skills, Naomi. “You didn’t have to do that,” I say to Andrew. “I was going to take care of it.”
“I know you were, but I figured it might be easier if you didn’t have to worry about one more thing.”
How true that is. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Something in his tone makes me look up at him, and I’m struck by the genuine truth there. He wanted to do this for me. I feel myself being drawn in by him, and that can’t happen. Not until I’ve shared what’s on my mind. “You and I need to talk about something.”
“Oh?”
I lead him through the kitchen and out onto the patio. I don’t want to risk being overheard by my uncle in the dining room. As soon as he shuts the door I turn to him.
“Listen. As much as I like you, and how you make me feel, I’m not a fan of close calls. I told you what’s at stake for me with this job. I can’t afford to lose it. You can’t do things like what you did in that meeting, and with the coffee room this morning and in my room here yesterday. It’s too many close calls.”
“I see.” He looks at me, and my body instinctively heats up under his gaze. “Though you have to admit there’s something about the close call that’s undeniably hot.”
I try to disagree immediately, and can’t. “That’s not the point.”
“Just think about it, and imagine me fucking you right up against this glass, your uncle able to come into the kitchen any second and see us.”
The image fills my mind and my pussy reacts immediately. “Andrew—”
“I like a little danger, and the look on your face says you do too. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I take a breath and turn away to look over the grounds. I get too caught up in him too quickly. Looking away is good. “I need this job, Andrew. I have nowhere else to go, and I can’t risk it.”
I feel him behind me, and his hands snake around my waist until he’s holding me completely. The gesture is both comforting and sensual and I let myself relax against his chest.
“I don’t think I’m quite ready to give up spontaneity, but I think we can compromise,” he says.
“Oh? How’s that.”
He presses a soft kiss behind my ear. “Think of it as more of planned spontaneity. I tell you what I want, you tell me what you want. Then we can both agree.”
Something loosens in my chest, and relief washes over me like a cool wave. I was worried he might say he didn’t want to play by my rules, that he didn’t care what I thought. I would have been forced to say no to everything, and I just don’t want that. “I can live with that.”
“I won’t put you in any more positions like at the meeting,” he says. “I wasn’t really thinking about the consequences, and I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven,” I say. “Though I do want to know what you were thinking about.”
He laughs in my ear. “How hard you make me whenever I’m near you.”
It’s true. I can feel his erection behind me, and the knowledge that I—still mostly a virgin—put it there fills me up with a mixture of awe and pride.
“I know that we’ve both had a bit of…sexual frustration today, and I’d like to point out that my room is the furthest from your uncle’s in the house.”
I turn around so that I’m facing him. “Oh, you noticed that?”
“I did. I think he may have chosen his intentionally so that he’s far away from me, but that does have its advantages.” He covers my mouth with his, a hungry kiss that demands everything. My body reacts immediately, like it’s been waiting for its fix of Andrew. I’m growing wet and my nipples are stiff and aching against the fabric of my shirt. Then he releases me and steps away completely. It’s jarring. I feel like I just came down a staircase and missed a step. “I think we can both fix our frustration if you make a visit to my room tonight. After Roger is sleeping, of course.”
“Of course,” I say, my voice rough.
