by Linda Verji
Spencer frowned. “I don’t want anything.”
“Don’t you?” She arched her eyebrows. “We both know you didn’t come here to give me a ride – it’s just an excuse. You came here hoping that I’d forgive you. That I’d help you get rid of your guilt.”
His eyes flashed and for a moment she thought he’d deny it. But he didn’t. He pulled in a deep breath and stared at the ground.
She continued, “That’s why I’m sorry.” Though there was more than an arms-length between them, it still felt like he was too damn close. Feeling suffocated, she took a step back before adding, “Because there’s only one way you can get forgiveness from me.”
His head came up swiftly and eagerness lit his gaze. “What can I do?”
She offered him a cold smile. “Turn back time.”
His shoulders slumped and disappointment clouded his expression.
“Take me back to a time when I hadn’t met you, when I was a budding attorney and not an ex-con, when my father was alive.” Bitterly, Kelly added, “If you can’t do that then don’t show your face to me again.”
Spencer sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop!” she retorted sharply. “Stop saying you’re sorry. If you’re looking for pity or forgiveness, visit a priest because you won’t find it here. Your apologies are only making me angrier.”
“Kelly, I know that I don’t deserve your forgiveness and I-” His voice cracked. “-and I don’t expect to get it but-”
“But nothing!” she cut him off mid-sentence. “If you’re really sorry then remember me. Live with the guilt of what you did. The next time you meet a defendant in court, remember me.” She glared at him. “As for me, I’m going to try very, very hard to erase you from my memories. You’re a nightmare, a horrible nightmare that nobody should have to endure or remember.”
Pain crossed his features at the cruelty of her words, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.
She continued, “I’m sorry that I ever met you. If you have any decency, then you’ll make sure that we never cross paths again. Please, please, please-”
“Kelly,” a feminine voice cut into her words.
Kelly turned only to find Sin waving at her from the edge of the crowd with a wide grin. Sin’s high-pitched voice, attractive looks and skimpy booty shorts were enough to draw most of the crowd’s attention to her, but she only had eyes for Kelly. The curvy, honey-toned, curly-haired woman was the picture of excitement as she made her way to Kelly and Spencer.
“Sorry, I’m late.” Sin beamed as she drew her friend in for a hug. “Traffic.”
“That’s okay!” Kelly smiled, feeling lighter now that her friend was here. “I’m just glad that you came.”
It was only when Sin pulled back from Kelly that she finally noticed Spencer. She reared backwards in shock. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“I don’t know either,” Kelly said.
“Why would you come here?” Anger flashing in her eyes, Sin turned to Spencer. “Are you crazy? I should just punch you, you bast-”
“Sin.” Kelly grabbed her friend’s arm to keep her from jumping Spencer. “Let’s go.”
“No, we need to teach this-”
“Let’s go.” Kelly cut her off. Without a backward glance, she dragged Sin away, leaving Spencer behind to wallow in his useless guilt.
CHAPTER 1
~ Five months later ~
Kelly tapped her feet impatiently as she sat at the reception of Chambers & Quinn LLP. Calm down, she tried to soothe herself mentally, but it wasn’t enough to calm the apprehension pulsing through her. In the last few months, she’d been to so many of these things that one would’ve thought that she’d be used to them by now. But she wasn’t. The thought of sitting before a panel of interviewers and telling them why she was the best candidate still scared the living daylights out of her.
Many of the other interviewees seated around the lounge looked just as nervous as she did. They wrung their hands, cracked their knuckles, tapped their feet and snuck glances at each other to evaluate how competent the competition was.
The door to the interview room suddenly opened and everyone’s gaze swung to it. A second later, a pair of male interviewees came out.
“What was it like?” someone whispered to them.
“It was okay.” One interviewee shrugged confidently, but the troubled look in his eyes said that the interview hadn’t gone quite as well as he was pretending.
Fresh nervousness spurted through Kelly. However, it was nothing compared to the terror that wrung her nerves when a woman walked out of the interview room and announced, “Brian Walsh, Kelly Garner, the interviewers are waiting for you.”
On weak limbs, Kelly stood as did her co-interviewee, Brian. Brian gave her a slow once-over as if evaluating her value as an opponent then smirked before leading the way into the interview room. Obviously, he didn’t think she was any kind of competition.
And he was probably right.
The moment Kelly entered the interview room, she came to a shocked standstill. The room was just as big, cold and intimidating as she’d imagined, but that wasn’t what brought her to a screeching halt. All her attention was on the interviewers – no, on one interviewer; the beautiful, slender redhead seated at the far right end of the three-person interview panel.
Angelina Ward.
The last time Kelly had seen the woman, she’d still been behind bars and Angelina had come to give her the good news about her release. After that, the only contact they’d had was over the phone.
Frankly, Kelly wasn’t surprised that Angelina had cut off contact. The woman was probably still reeling from the guilt of having lost the trial that had sent Kelly to jail. Not that Angelina had anything to feel guilty about. Though she’d tried her best, the results had been rigged from the start, which was why Kelly hadn’t contacted the woman either. She knew that she was a painful reminder to Angelina about her failure. It was only right that she allow the woman to forget her. If she’d known that Angelina now worked at Chambers & Quinn, she never would’ve come for this interview.
A sudden thought struck Kelly. Chambers & Quinn had called her out of the blue for this interview. Was it Angelina’s doing? Was this her way of making up for the past?
Angelina’s head rose at the entrance of interviewees. When her eyes settled on Kelly, they widened in obvious surprise. Her surprise was answer enough; she had nothing to do with the call to Kelly.
“Please take a seat.” One of the male interviewers gestured for Kelly and Brian to take the two seats directly across the interviews. “I’m Mark Cousins. I head the Civil Litigation Division in Chambers & Quinn.” He gestured towards the blond male interviewer beside him. “This is Roland Watson, Family Division.” He pointed to Angelina. “And this is Angelina Ward. She heads Criminal Justice. Why don’t you tell us about yourselves?”
“Hello,” Brian immediately jumped in. “I’m Brian Walsh. I graduated from…” and on he went.
Kelly only half-listened to Brian’s answers. She was too busy formulating her own answers. Maybe this interview would be different from the others. Maybe this time she’d actually get to answer one or two questions before someone recognized her and derailed the whole interview.
“…I think my strengths make me the perfect addition to Chambers & Quinn,” Brian finished.
“Excellent. Excellent.” Mark nodded approvingly before turning to Kelly. With a smile he asked, “What about you-” He glanced down at her résumé. “-Kelly Garner, Tell us about yourself.”
Kelly took a deep breath and started, “I graduated-”
“Wait a minute.” Roland cut her off mid-sentence. His lazer-sharp gaze fixed on Kelly, he asked, “You’re Kelly Garner?”
“Yes, I am.” Kelly nodded even as the muscles in her stomach knotted in immediate tension. This interview wasn’t going where she thought it was, right? Trying to forestall an impending disaster, she continued from where she’d left off, �
�I graduated top of my class from-”
“You’re that Kelly Garner?” Mark cut her off mid-sentence as he stared at her in bug-eyed shock. “The Kelly Garner who was charged with murder a year or so ago?”
Yup! This was going right where she expected it to go. Swallowing hard, she nodded. “I guess I am.”
“I knew I recognized that face.” Roland beamed at the other interviewers. Brian, meanwhile, turned his head to stare at Kelly. A second later, recognition lit up his blue eyes.
Great. Just great. Kelly sighed internally. Here we go.
“They released you after they found out that it was Jonas Ingram who killed Claire, right?” Roland said.
Well duh! How the hell would she have been here if they hadn’t? Restraining her instinctive response, Kelly said, “Yes, they did.”
“Now that we’ve established that she’s Kelly Garner, can we get back to the interview?” Angelina tried to herd everyone back to the matter at hand.
Unfortunately, her two male colleagues were like two dogs that had suddenly found a bone and weren’t about to let it go.
Mark peered at Kelly with unabashed interest. “I’ve seen you on TV and in the newspapers a couple of times but you look much better in person.”
“She does look good, doesn’t she?” Roland agreed. “I’ve heard that prison jumpsuits make everyone look shaggy. I guess it’s true.”
“You don’t look as violent as your juvenile record,” Mark said.
What the hell was she supposed to say to that?
“Thank you for the compliment,” Kelly said, her voice tight with annoyance. Trying to salvage the situation, she asked, “Would you like me to tell you about myself like Brian did?”
“No need,” Roland said dismissively even as a subtle sneer played on his thin lips. “You’re already famous.”
“Yeah. The papers covered everything we need to know,” Mark agreed.
“That’s a different situation. This is a professional one and we should keep it that way.” Angelina shot her fellow panel-mates a warning look before turning her attention back to Kelly. “Kelly, please tell us about yourself and your professional qualifications.”
“Sure.” Kelly sat up in her seat. “I graduated top of my class from Stetson and passed the bar exam in one tr-”
“Wait a minute.” Mark cut her off. He turned his head to face Angelina. “Weren’t you her lawyer?”
Angelina didn’t answer, but the way she bit her lip was answer enough.
“You were, weren’t you?” Roland laughed. “Oh, this is gold. This. Is. Gold.”
Brian giggled as he shot Kelly a derisive look.
It was that giggle that did it. Kelly had been in this situation so many times that she knew what would follow. First came the giggles, then the laughs, then the stupid questions about how it felt to be in prison. Someone would probably make a dumb comment about lesbians, someone else would want to know how accurate the reports on her juvenile record were, another person would want to know if all the stories about her father were true, more stupid questions would follow. End result: she wouldn’t get hired.
Kelly pushed her chair back and stood. “Thank you for your time.”
“Hey, where are you going?” Roland called out. “We’ve still got questions for you.”
Kelly didn’t even look back; she just kept walking to the door. Seconds later, she was outside the interview room.
You won’t cry. You won’t cry, she recited internally even as tears clogged her throat. This is what she’d come to. She was now a freak on display for everyone to poke and prod. She’d worked so hard and for so many years to be a lawyer and to change herself from a juvenile gangster into a productive and law-abiding citizen, yet all it had taken was one night for all her hard work to crumble. Unfair wasn’t big enough of a word to describe her situation.
Ignoring the questions that her fellow interviewees called out to her, Kelly headed towards the elevators. The doors opened, and she entered the elevator then selected ground-floor.
“Hold it for me,” someone called out. A second later, Angelina got into the elevator.
The two women were silent for a long time before Angelina finally said, “I’m sorry about what happened in there.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kelly said without looking at the woman.
“I tried to stop them but-” Angelina sighed. “Can I take you for lunch?”
“It’s eleven a.m.”
“Then a drink,” the other woman suggested. “So we can talk.”
Talking was the last thing Kelly wanted to do right now. She turned her head to meet Angelina’s eyes. “Honestly, I just want to be alone right now.”
Disappointment flashed in Angelina’s green eyes. “Oh.”
“I’m sorry.” Kelly offered, “Maybe we can set it up for another time?”
“Sure. Sure.” Angelina rifled through her jacket to come up with a business card. Handing it to Kelly, she said, “Call me when you have time.”
“Will do,” Kelly agreed even though she had no intention of calling the woman again. Too many memories. The elevator doors opened into the ground-floor of the building. Kelly started to get off but a moment later turned, “Could you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
Kelly asked, “Could you tell whoever set up this interview not to do it again?”
Angelina frowned. “Someone set it up?”
“Yes.” Kelly stepped out of the elevator. “Please tell them not to do it again. I don’t appreciate being toyed with.”
“I’ll find out,” Angelina said just as the doors began to close. “Call me.”
“Mm.” Kelly offered a non-committal mumble before heading towards the exit.
The chances of her calling Angelina were exactly zero. Though the woman was the best person to help Kelly out in her job-search, it would be the height of parasitism to ask her for help. She’d already done enough to help Kelly.
Perhaps if Kelly hadn’t been thinking so deeply about her relationship with Angelina, she would’ve watched her step better. One second she was walking to the exit, and the next moment she crushed into a hard, muscular chest.
“Oh!” Her hands automatically moved upwards to grab the man’s shirt so she wouldn’t fall backwards. The man gripped both her arms and dragged her forward, securing her further against him. Her purse fell to the floor as did the envelope she was carrying, spilling all its contents.
“Sorry,” the man apologized, his deep voice rumbling above her head.
“It’s ok-“ Kelly paused when her gaze finally met that of the man holding her.
You have got to be kidding me. Spencer Chambers? With more force than required, she shoved him away from her.
“Kelly?” His eyes widened in obvious shock as he took her in.
Despite her irritation, Kelly found herself giving him a quick once-over. She’d never seen him dressed this casual. In their previous meetings, he was always clean shaven and in a suit. Today, he was wearing casual khaki pants to match his simple white shirt. The shirt was open at the collar and its sleeves were folded at the elbows to show off his muscular arms and tan skin. To finish off his ‘just about to go on vacation’ look, he was spotting a faint stubble and his hair was tousled as if he’d just run his fingers through it.
The jerk looked sexier than ever.
Damn him!
Kissing her teeth, Kelly lowered to her haunches so she could pick her spilled documents. Spencer lowered himself next to her to help out. Immediately, his cologne lit up her sense. Oh jeez, why did he have to smell so good? Annoyed with both herself and him, Kelly snatched her documents from his grip then stood up.
He stood too. “What are-”
She didn’t stay to listen to the rest of what he wanted to say. In silence, she skirted past him and stomped towards the swivel doors. She had made it clear, hadn’t she? She wanted him out of her life.
STILL REELING IN shock, Spencer watched Kelly walk away.
She was the last person he’d expected to see when he’d walked into this building. Five months! Five months since he’d last seen her! One would think that by now he would’ve forgotten her or at least gotten rid of some of the guilt that plagued him whenever he thought of her. One would be wrong. She was the mistake that haunted his days and nights. Even taking an extended leave to travel the world hadn’t been enough to exorcize her.
Seeing her here again and seeing the hatred in her eyes was like getting slapped in the face. Obviously, she hadn’t forgotten him either.
What was she doing here anyway? Before he could figure it out, a male voice yanked him back into reality. “Spencer?”
Spencer turned to find one of his old law-school classmates coming his way. Spencer forced a smile. “Miles.”
“As I live and breathe.” Miles, a short, pudgy man in a swanky suit, closed the distance between them to pump Spencer’s hand in a firm handshake. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. I thought you were out in South America.”
“I was and now I’m back.”
“Good to see you, man.” Miles pointed towards the opening elevators. “You headed up?”
“Yeah.” The two men stepped into the elevator. Spencer selected the fifth floor while Miles pressed the third floor button. Spencer asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Case. Opposing counsel for a suit one of Watson’s clients filed.”
“Ah!”
Miles gave him a quick once-over, taking in his casual clothes before asking, “What are you doing here? Decided to finally work here?”
Spencer scoffed. “Not likely.”
“I wouldn’t blame you even if you decided to work here.” Miles studied him. “After the whole fiasco with the former D.A., it’s gotta be awkward to go back there.”
Awkward didn’t even begin to describe the atmosphere at Spencer’s former workplace. That’s what happened when you put your boss in prison.
Kelly’s case had had more far-reaching consequences than anyone had ever imagined. At first Spencer had steadfastly believed in Kelly’s guilt. Why? One – because all the evidence he had at the time said she’d done it. Two – because his ex, who’d cheated on him with another man, was her lawyer.
