Alexis looked at her and raised one brow. “He started all of this? Wonderful. I’m going to have to figure out a way to keep him off social media.”
“Good luck with that. He’s on it all the time. It’s how he stays connected to his fans.” Abby went to one of his pages and pointed out a few of the replies he had made to those tagging him and hash tagging about him. “See? Here he is thanking them… he is grateful for their support…. He feels sure he will win it because he’s innocent… it just goes on and on. I don’t know how you plan on keeping him off of any of the social media outlets that he’s on. His fans are going to demand updates.”
Alexis narrowed her dark brown eyes. “His fans aren’t trying to defend him in court. I’m glad you showed me this, too. It’s something I wouldn’t have thought of, and I’ll definitely have to address it when I talk with him tonight.” She looked at Abby thoughtfully. “Actually, you’ve already been a big help about this. Do me a favor please? If you hear of anything coming up about this that I might not know of, let me know… I guess, kind of keep me in the loop about it? Thanks.”
Abby nodded happily. “I get to help you! Yes! I am so excited! I’ll be on top of all of it for you. Anything I hear that I think might be helpful for you, I will let you know about.”
“Thanks, Ab,” Alexis said with the first smile she’d had all day. “You’re the best.”
They talked about other things then, and ordered dinner. Alexis was feeling better about having her sister’s support for the case, but not at all about having to take the case, and that bitterness stayed with her right up to the meeting that was scheduled at nine that evening.
Chapter2
Alexis told herself that she shouldn’t have a chip on her shoulder as she prepared for her meeting that night, she told herself that whether she thought it was stupid and superfluous herself, it was obviously very important to Lucas Ryan, or at least it ought to be, and that he would be relying on her to help him. She decided to go with that perspective of it, because maybe if she had a better attitude about it, perhaps it might be easier to get through. If she had to do it, she didn’t want to hate it all the way through and make herself miserable.
The clock on the wall read nine and she sat in one of the cushioned chairs in the lobby on her floor. Everyone else in the office was gone for the night, so she wanted to wait near the elevator for the men to arrive. She thought about how she needed to be professional with them and take the case seriously. She thought about how she would have to try to find a way to prove his innocence, which seemed like it might be an impossibility, considering the fact that the drugs were found on him and in his house when he was arrested. She knew that the police couldn’t have gone in and arrested him without a search warrant, and she wondered how they had gotten it and what they knew when they went in. There were so many questions to find the answers to if she was ever going to get to truth. She kept feeling like it was a monumental waste of time, and that even if she did get him off of the charges against him, he’d probably go right back to it and be arrested again in no time.
She looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was a quarter past nine. She frowned and rubbed her fingers over her forehead with one hand, tapping the manicured nails of her other hand against the seat she was sitting in. She thought about getting witnesses from the party to testify on his behalf, and wondered if that would be enough or if there would be more that she could do to prove his innocence. The biggest problem with that was she didn’t believe that he was innocent. She believed that he was guilty as hell, but she was on the wrong side of the case for that opinion, and if she was going to have any hope at all of convincing a jury that he was innocent, she was going to have to believe it herself somehow, and she knew she’d have to convince them, because if she didn’t, it was going to be her job on the line.
The clock on the wall showed half an hour past nine. She groaned and stood up, pacing around the floor with her hands on her hips. She had thought about calling Warren to find out where they were, and she had just about made up her mind to do it when the elevator light came on and the doors slid open. Turning to face the two men who walked out of it, she was struck with a sense of surrealism for the briefest of moments. There in front of her was a man she had seen on the screen so many times. She wasn’t necessarily a fan of his, but it was a little off-putting to her to see him standing in front of her, looking at her.
The other man, who looked totally unfamiliar to her, walked over to her first and shook her hand. He was dressed in an expensive suit that seemed to hang on his thin, wiry body. Everything about him seemed thin, from his thinning hair to his thin fingers and the narrow line of his half-hearted smile.
“I’m Warren Paul.” He announced in a thin voice. “We spoke on the phone earlier today.” His eyes met hers and she was certain that there were more layers to the man she was looking at, than any other man she had ever known.
“Hello, Warren. Thank you for coming in. I believe our appointment was at nine, however.” She said, looking intentionally at the clock on the wall and then back at him.
He shrugged as if it was nothing. “This was the soonest we could be here.” He said coolly. Irritation burned in her stomach and she bit her tongue, stopping herself from saying anything that might be rude or uncalled for, but she was certainly thinking it.
Turning toward the man beside him, she held her hand out and he took it. His grasp was firm, and he looked her directly in the eyes as he introduced himself. “Hello, I’m Lucas Paul. I’m sorry we’re late. It’s been a busy day for us.” He seemed polite, though she sensed a bit of indifference in him as well.
Lucas Paul was often called the most beautiful man in the world, or the sexiest, or the most handsome, depending on the publication that was featuring him. He was six and a half feet tall, built with a solid body of muscle; toned, tan, and sculpted as if he had been carved out of marble by Michelangelo. He had sky blue eyes that were framed by long thick black eyelashes and set just under a dark and level brow.
His black hair usually looked tousled and a little unkempt, but on him it was a fashion statement, and in the opinion of most, a truly sexy one at that. His jaw was squared, his nose aquiline straight, and his lips were full and round. Kissable, was what most people said. He stood upright and his good posture gave him an air of confidence and ease all at once. She thought it was strange that it was something she noticed about him right away. One of the other things that struck her immediately was that he did not look like he was on drugs of any kind, and that surprised her.
Alexis shook his hand as firmly as he grasped hers. “I’m Alexis Harper. It looks like I will be your legal counsel. Please, come with me. We need to get started right away.” She turned and walked away from him, annoyed that they had been more than half an hour late and that they had both been so nonchalant about it.
If she had been half an hour late for anything, she would have been mortified, explaining herself to no end, and begging for forgiveness from anyone who had to wait for her; or at least, that’s how she imagined she might be in her mind. She was never late for anything, so she had no idea how she would really react to it.
She walked them down the hallway toward her office, which was the only one in the long dark hall with a light on. They sat down at her desk and she sat facing them, her legal pad ready, her tablet on and glowing, and a barrage of questions hovering near the edge of her mouth. She offered them something to drink, and left to get it. When she came back, she saw Lucas’ gaze drifting slowly over her from head to toe, pausing on her curves, until his blue eyes reached hers and he gave her what she was sure was probably his sexiest smile. Her stomach turned and she felt the hardened ball of irritation in her grow.
It wasn’t enough of an insult, she thought to herself, that she had to take his case to begin with, but to add to that the fact that he was checking her out and flirting with her, was almost more than she could stand.
She set their drinks down on
her desk and sat down across from them, taking her pen in her hand and doing her best to focus on the questions she had for him. He seemed laid back and casual to her, resting comfortably in the chair he occupied. He crossed his leg and let his eyes wander over every fine feature of her face, and then drop to the top button of her blouse which was undone, just above her cleavage.
She could feel his eyes on the swell of her breasts, and it fired the irritation in her to a point of anger. She knew then that there was nothing she was going to like about him. Nothing at all, and defending him was not going to be something she could do with a fair and open mind. She pushed the biting thoughts out of her mind and tried her hardest to remember that her career was riding on the line with his case, which was just enough incentive for her to remain civil to him, though he wasn’t deserving of it at all.
“So, Lucas, could you tell me please what happened at your house?” she asked, clearing her throat and looking him dead in the eye. She had hoped that by keeping his gaze on her eyes, it might keep his eyes off of her body. It didn’t. He looked at her as he spoke, but he glanced at almost every part of her as they talked, and she felt as if she might as well not even have bothered to dress, because she was fairly certain that in his mind, she was sitting there without her clothes on. That only served to make her even angrier about having to defend him.
He shrugged. “There was a party and I was drinking quite a bit, of course; I was celebrating. I went into my office to meet a couple of guys and I met them…” he hesitated then, thinking back as well as he could about the events that night, “…and… I… well… I met them, and we toasted my Oscar win… and then… I really can’t remember anything after that. I guess I must have blacked out. The next thing I remember was waking up in a squad car on my way to the police station. I was booked and tossed in jail.” Anger colored his face. “Then I guess Warren came and got me bailed out.”
Warren sat quietly and Alexis wrote down everything he said. She frowned and looked back up at him. “Do you know who the men were that you met?”
He shook his head. “No, I’d never met them before. There were a lot of people at the party who I didn’t know.”
Alexis looked at the notes she had made and knew she was going to have to ask him the obvious question. “Were you using any drugs?” she looked at him directly with a completely stoic face. She was a master at keeping her opinions and feelings to herself when she needed to; it was one of the things that made her a good attorney.
Frustration colored his face he sat up in the chair and glared at her. “No! I wasn’t on any drugs! I said I was innocent and I am! I don’t know where the drugs came from!”
She watched his reaction and wondered whether or not he was telling the truth. “Where were the drugs?”
He sat back against the chair and sighed heavily. “The cops said they found them in my desk and in my pockets, but I didn’t have any drugs on me, or in my house before that night. I don’t know where the drugs came from. They weren’t mine. I don’t do drugs.”
She made herself keep a straight face. “If you didn’t have any drugs in the house before the night of the party, and you don’t do drugs, then how did the police officers get a warrant to search the house and find drugs?”
He shook his head. “They didn’t have a search warrant. They had an arrest warrant, and they came in and arrested me.”
“On what charge?” she asked pointedly, looking him directly in his blue eyes. There was a fire there that hadn’t been there earlier when she’d met him. She saw that his emotion was getting to him.
“Possession of an illegal substance.” He answered in a low tone. “I don’t know how they got that. Somewhere along the line this was fixed, because I don’t do drugs and I didn’t have drugs.” He stated flatly.
She leveled her gaze at him. “Except you did have drugs; they were on you when you were arrested, and they were found in and on your desk. So, that isn’t exactly circumstantial evidence. That’s just… evidence. The drugs were on you. You can say they weren’t yours all you want to, and you can say that you weren’t doing them, but in the end, that’s what the law is going to look at. Possession. That’s going to be hard to get out of.”
He frowned and leaned forward, looking her keenly in the eye as he tilted his head slightly. “You don’t think I’m innocent do you!” it was a statement, not a question.
She pursed her lips a moment and then shook her head. “No, I’ll be honest with you. I really don’t.”
Lucas glared hotly at her and furrowed his brow. “Is that so? And just how do you expect to convince anyone else that I’m innocent if you don’t even think I’m innocent? This was a setup, I’m telling you! I was framed! They weren’t my drugs!”
“We have to prove that!” she snapped at him, leaning forward and looking him straight in the eye. “You have put the burden on us to prove that you were innocent when the drugs were on you and in your home, and the only defense you have right now is to say that they weren’t yours and you didn’t use them! That’s nothing!” she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her hand on her forehead.
“We are going to have so much work ahead of us trying to prove you were innocent, when everything about this case proves that you are not!” She lowered her hand and leaned forward again, composing herself. “Is there anything you might not have told me yet? Anything that stands out to you; no matter how small or insignificant, that you can think of that I should know?”
He shook his head. “No. Just that they weren’t mine. I don’t know where they came from.”
“You said that already. Where were the drugs when they were found on you?” she asked with a sigh.
“In my pockets. Two of my pockets. I had a jacket on… a black tuxedo jacket, and when the cops arrested me they said the drugs were in the pockets,” he replied in a low voice as he rubbed his fingers over one temple and closed his eyes.
She wrote down more notes and looked back up at him. “When was the last time you had your hands in your pockets?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her, shrugging. “I didn’t have my hands in my pockets all night. I don’t use my pockets. I never use my jacket pockets. I only use my pants pockets. I think it looks tacky to have anything in front jacket pockets.”
She nodded, writing more notes. “This is your jacket, correct? You didn’t wear anyone else’s jacket or rent it or borrow it?”
He looked at her in surprise and blinked. “No… why would I do that? It’s my jacket.”
Pressing her full lips together into a firm line, she shook her head. “So, it’s your jacket and you never use the pockets and the drugs were found in the pockets. Did you take it off at any point? Give it to a coat check clerk or anything?”
Lucas shook his head. “No, I wore it all night. I never took it off.”
Alexis sighed. “This isn’t looking good.” Did you see the drugs in your pockets, or were you aware of them being there at any point in the evening?”
He shook his head again. “No. There was no time when I knew they were there. As I said, I don’t keep anything in those pockets, ever, and certainly not drugs.”
“Yet that’s where the police found the drugs when they arrested you at your home.” she said coolly, looking up at him from her notes.
He shrugged. “I guess so. At least, that’s what they said in their report.”
She sighed. “Where were you when they arrested you? What room?”
“I was in my office,” he replied, watching her closely.
“You were in the office where you had gone to meet the men you didn’t know. You went in, you met them, you had a drink, and then you blacked out from that point, during which time you were arrested, and you woke up in the back seat of a squad car, and that’s all you know. You don’t know how or when the drugs made it into your pockets. Right?” she asked, clarifying everything she had written.
He nodded. “That sounds about right.”
“Did anyone see
you go into the office? Was anyone else around that you can remember or that you think might have seen what happened while you were in there?” she asked seriously.
“No, there wasn’t anyone else around.”
“Well, what about the guys that you met in the office? You don’t know who they were? Where they went?” she asked in confusion.
“I don’t know who they were. All I know is that one minute we were drinking to my Oscar win, and then next I woke up in the squad car,” he replied with a slight attitude. She could see that he was becoming frustrated.
“Do you think either of the men in your office had anything to do with the drugs?” She looked up at him, her pen poised over the paper beneath her hand. The yellow paper was filling up swiftly as she made notes.
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I had never seen them before in my life. I don’t know who they were, and I don’t know if they had anything to do with it.”
She lowered a brow. “How come you were meeting with strangers in your office?” she asked, suspicion thick in her voice.
Lucas grew frustrated again. “I don’t know! They were just there! Someone said that there were a couple of guys in there waiting to meet me… there were people all over the party waiting to meet me or talk to me. I had just won an Oscar for chrissake. Everyone wanted to talk to me and hang out with me. They were just two more guys who were doing the same thing!”
Alexis gave her head a shake and wrote more notes. He watched her and lowered his voice just a little. “You still don’t believe I’m innocent, do you!”
Another statement. He glared hotly at her.
She looked up at him and laid her pen down on the paper. “No, Lucas, I don’t believe you are innocent. I believe that you are an actor with a drug problem and you were meeting a couple of guys who were going to give you drugs, and it went south somehow. I believe that you knew there were drugs in your front pockets the whole time they were there. I believe you just don’t like that you got caught and busted, and now I have to try to figure out a way to get you out of it. But you know what? It doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters is what a jury of your peers believes, and what I can make them believe, and right now, you aren’t giving me anything at all to go on!”
Hollywood's Baddest Page 4
