She felt like there was something that she was missing, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “How do you go from being buzzed to passing out in a matter of minutes if you weren’t using drugs?” she asked herself more than him, though she said it out loud.
“I don’t know,” he answered quietly. “Maybe I was a little more drunk than I thought. Either way, I still shouldn’t have passed out.”
She didn’t believe him. There had to be drugs involved, she told herself. She felt as if she wasn’t ever going to get him to admit to it, though, and that not getting him to admit to it was going to kill her case.
Sighing, she looked up at him again. “Can I see the inside of the house please?” she asked, hoping that it would give her some clue as to what might have happened that night.
He grinned and stood up out of his chair. “Definitely. Come with me,” he drawled invitingly, giving her a wink. She felt her cheeks warm again and her body tingle a little as he glanced over it again, taking in her curves and lines once more.
She looked away in annoyance and followed him as he led her through the kitchen to the stairs that went up from the foyer. He went up and she followed him, staring at the gorgeous house he lived in. They reached the second landing and he walked her past a couple of guest bedrooms that looked as if they had never been used, a couple of full bathrooms which also looked unused, and at the end of the hall he opened up a set of light oak double doors and turned to smile at her as she walked in behind him.
She realized that she was standing in his bedroom and her breath caught a little as she looked around. There was a king-sized bed set against one corner of the room and a matching wardrobe, dresser, and nightstand tables. She turned to look at him and saw that he had moved very close to her, his eyes trained on her mouth. She blinked and felt her heartbeat pick up a little.
“I could show you all kinds of things in here…” he offered with a soft velvety voice, his blue eyes lifting from her mouth to meet her dark brown eyes. She tried to draw in a breath and couldn’t. He smiled wickedly at her and reached his hand to her touch the soft silk sleeve of her blouse. “What do you think? Would you like me to show you anything in here?” His eyes locked on hers and she felt rooted to the spot like she couldn’t move at first, but something in her seemed to warm too much and it startled her, and she turned away from him and scowled, walking toward the doorway.
“This has nothing to do with your case, Lucas. Show me the office, please.” she snapped at him and he followed behind her, closing the doors sharply.
He reached for her arm, closing his fingers around it gently but firmly, stopping her. She turned and looked over her shoulder at him.
“What on earth are you so uptight about?” he asked in annoyance. “Can’t you just try to get along with me a little bit?” he asked in frustration.
She lowered her eyes at him. “I am trying to get along with you. I’ve almost bitten my tongue in half so many times just since I met you, in an effort not to say anything to you that might be offensive! Why can’t you just focus on the case like we’re supposed to be doing?”
He pulled her back up against his chest and nuzzled his mouth in her ear, speaking in a low voice. “You’re much too distracting for me to ignore.” He brushed his lips over the edge of her ear, breathing lightly against her skin as his other hand reached for her waist and closed around it, squeezing it snugly against him.
She grew breathless as her heart pounded and blood rushed through her, and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to steady herself from the dizzying sensation swirling around her. Struggling to take a breath and pull away from him, she forced herself to shake off her reaction to his touch and she looked at him with all the seriousness in her.
“Listen, I know you’re a big star and women must throw themselves at you all the time, but I am not going to throw myself at you, I am not going to sleep with you, and I am not going to put up with your come on s… I am your attorney. I’m here to save your ass from going to prison for drugs, and you need to get your priorities figured out and help me do that, or we’re going to lose. Both of us.”
He blinked in surprise and she turned toward the stairs, pulling her arm from his grasp. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, it would probably be helpful for me to see the office where you met those two men, and where you were arrested!”
Without a word, he walked past her and she followed him down the stairs and through the foyer, past the living room and down another hallway into an office that overlooked the back garden. He turned once they were inside of it, looking at her.
“Well, this is it. This is the office,” he said, his expression softened and a little cooler than it had been since she had walked into his house.
She looked around the room. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves, most of them filled with books, though there were a few knick-knacks in places; odd sculptures or figurines, old sailing ships in bottles, and a few other pieces of art. The far wall behind the desk in the office was nothing but a massive glass window. It overlooked a garden at the back of the house.
She let her gaze move around the room, seeing the chairs and sofa, the table that was set between them, and the free standing globe in the corner of the room. There was nothing that looked out of place. Nothing that could have given her any hint to what might have happened that night.
The drugs had all been confiscated by the police, and she was sure that they had scoured the room carefully, but there was nothing left in it that she saw that could be of any help to her. She walked around the desk and looked down at it, and noticed a letter lying on top of it. She read the title at the top of it and raised her eyebrows in surprise. “This is from the Young Actor’s Group at the community center?” she asked, trying not to sound as amazed as she was to see it on his desk.
He shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, it is. Don’t worry about that. That’s nothing.”
“Yes it is. What’s this about?” she asked without reading the letter.
Lucas walked over to the window and looked out of it onto the garden. “It’s about my being there. I go once a week every week to volunteer there and teach the young kids there some acting lessons. They are in underdeveloped neighborhoods. They don’t have anything available to them like what I am able to teach them.”
She could not have been more surprised by anything that he could have said or done. She stared at him as he looked out of the window, his fingers pushed down into his pockets up to the knuckles. “When did you start doing that?” she asked in astonishment.
He smiled a little. “About five years ago. My one stipulation is that the center keeps it a secret, and all the students in the class keep it a secret, and so far, all of them have. It’s like a secret club to them, and they love it. It makes them feel special.”
Alexis could not stop the smile from spreading over her face. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” she asked feeling a little put off that he’d kept it from her.
“I don’t want anyone to know about that.”
“Lucas!” she chastised him. “I have a very small time frame to build your case and make you look like an upstanding citizen who doesn’t use drugs, and this is exactly the kind of character building example that I could show a jury of your peers to give them some insight into what kind of person you are! Why on earth wouldn’t you tell me about this? Why wouldn’t you want to use this as part of your defense?”
He turned sharply then to look at her, and though he spoke calmly, he was completely serious as he answered her. “No! That class is for the kids! I don’t do it for publicity, or as some kind of golden boy accolade, or kudo builder… no… I do that for those kids. It’s all about them, and not at all about me. I’m just there to teach them. I don’t want to ruin that for them by having it overrun with media or so many kids from all over the place that none of them get one on one time with me.
I don’t want them to lose everything they get by hanging out with me. I’m n
ot about to let anyone know I do that; especially the courts or the media. That project is just for the kids, and that’s it. They have worked hard to keep it a secret for all these years and it’s one of the most important things to me that I do. I’m not using it to defend myself or show what kind of character I have. There are other things you can dig up that might make me look like a decent guy; anything but that.”
He shook his head and locked his gaze with hers. “Don’t use that. That’s sacred.”
She realized then how serious he was, and what a good point he had about the media and local communities ruining it, and what a loss it would probably be to the kids who had the benefit of his teaching them every week, and she sighed and nodded, acquiescing to his request.
“Alright, alright. I won’t say anything about it. I’ll find something else.” She shook her head as she walked away from the desk, still looking around the office. “I am surprised, though, that is an unexpected side of you.”
He smiled then and winked at her. “I’m not a completely lost cause, you know.”
She felt her cheeks warming again and looked away from him to examine as much of the room as she could. From what she could see, and from what he explained to her, he’d come in the door, met the two men in front of his desk, they’d poured shots of the liquor they were drinking, and then they toasted and drank and he passed out. There was nothing more to it than that.
He came around the desk to show her where they were all standing, and as she looked at the desk, trying to picture it in her mind, she rested her hands on the desktop and leaned forward a little, biting at her lip, working the scene through her mind over and over.
As she closed her eyes and pictured it; him coming in, them greeting each other, each of them shaking hands and being introduced, them congratulating him on his Oscar win and then offering to pour a drink to share, she tried to imagine every little thing, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
It was then that she felt a warmth beside her and without even opening her eyes, she knew that he was standing right next to her. She drew in her breath and stood up, opening her eyes to find him not more than an inch from her. He was looking at the back of her head.
“How long is your hair when it isn’t pulled up like that?” he asked in a soft voice, almost in her ear.
Her heart sped up again and she turned away from him and drew in a deep breath, steadying herself again. She shook her head as she walked away from him before turning to look over her shoulder at him.
“You and I, we need to work together and communicate clearly on this. You can’t keep being like that with me.” She knew that she meant what she was saying but her voice didn’t sound quite as compelling as she intended for it to.
He smiled at her and gave her a wink. “I’ll do my best… but… you’re a fascinating woman to me, and I just… like being close to you. I like how you look, I like how you smell… I just… like you.”
Alexis had to turn her face away from his to stop herself from letting any kind of emotion show, but the biggest of those was a smile that threatened to steal her composure completely. She absolutely refused to betray herself, especially to him.
She sighed and looked at the door. “Well, I’ve gotten all that I think I can. I better get back to the office. If you think of anything else, please let me know. We don’t have much time to build this case. We’ve got to get it going and make it strong fast, or we’re going to lose big time.”
She turned then and walked from his office toward the foyer and the front door and he followed her. When she reached the front door, she thanked him and he gave her a grin as he nodded goodbye to her.
He watched her as she walked to her car and got into it, and she let herself steal one glance in the rearview mirror as she drove away, just to see if he was still in the doorway, and he was. Standing there, looking rugged and gorgeous, leaning against the frame, watching her drive away. Her belly tightened and warmed in low places, and she closed her eyes for a second and told herself to stop everything she was thinking and focus on the case.
She hadn’t been back at her office for twenty minutes when the phone rang on the desk and she picked it up, slightly distracted as she was reading through her notes and trying to build a solid foundation for Lucas from the information that she had.
“This is Alexis.” She said clearly.
“Alexis… this is Warren Paul.” He sounded slightly irritated and her attention snapped to him quickly.
“Hello Warren. What can I do for you?” she asked hesitantly.
He was polite, but short. “I just got off of the phone with Lucas. I wondered if you found anything useful at the house.”
“Oh, no… not much to be honest. I think the police probably have everything, and there wasn’t much left at the scene at all.” She realized then that he was calling out of curiosity and concern.
“Alright. Listen… I know that you are Lucas’ counsel, but I want you to make sure that I am there next time, or any time that you meet with him to talk about the case. You see, I have an obligation to Lucas to watch over him and protect him. I want you to promise me that you’re going to make sure I’m there every time. Will you do that for me please?” he asked in an even tone.
She furrowed her brow slightly. “Yes, of course.” She answered. “I’ll make sure you’re there.” As she thought about it, she realized what a good idea that was, because then maybe Warren could keep Lucas at bay and he wouldn’t come on to her so strongly.
“Good. Keep me posted on the case and how it’s going.”
“I’ll do that. Thanks for calling.”
They hung up and she looked down at her notes; all of them showing her everything that Lucas had told her, and none of them showing her the truth. She knew it was buried in the notes somewhere, but she just couldn’t see it, and she didn’t think she was going to be able to build a solid defense for him without it.
Chapter4
Abby hurried through the nearly empty restaurant to get to her sister, and when she reached Alexis, she hugged her tight and then sat down near her. They had agreed to go to dinner together so that they could catch up with each other on everything, though Alexis knew with absolute certainty that the one thing her sister wanted to know about more than anything else was Lucas Ryan.
“So? What’s going on with the case? How is it working for you know who?” she asked in excited anticipation, looking around the two of them conspiratorially.
Alexis frowned and sighed, letting out a long breath of agitation. “It’s tough. I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place.”
“What’s the hang up?” her sister asked quizzically.
“Well, I talked to him in person a couple of times, and I got as much information from him as I feel like I’m going to get, but it isn’t enough and I just can’t seem to piece it all together. It’s like there’s this massive puzzle and I keep trying to put all the parts in to get the whole picture, but no matter how I try to figure out all of the facts I know, it doesn’t work.” She took a sip from her wine glass and shook her head in consternation, “There’s just some big thing that I’m missing and it’s vital. It ties it all together. I just… I’m struggling with it. I can’t build a solid case without it.”
Abby frowned then too, and looked at Alexis sympathetically. “What’s missing?”
“Well… you know about as much as the public does. He was at the house, there was a party, and there were tons of people. He walked into his office with a solid buzz or maybe even a little bit drunk, he shared a shot with a couple of guys, and he woke up in the back of a squad car on his way to jail. He passed out in his office, he thinks, but he doesn’t know why he passed out.
He doesn’t know what happened. He says he doesn’t know where the drugs came from, and he doesn’t use them at all, but how else do you explain him passing out? I mean… people don’t just… pass out cold and wake up a little while later. He wasn’t attacked or anything, there is no injury to hi
m… he just… passed out.”
Alexis screwed her face up in deep thought. “That’s got to be drugs, right? See, if he was doing drugs and drinking, then it would make sense that he would pass out like that, but he swears up and down on a stack of bibles that he wasn’t doing drugs, and that he never does them, and he just doesn’t know what happened. It’s just this… big unanswered mystery.”
Her shoulders dropped some and her face fell slightly as the weight of the whole thing bore down on her. “The hard part is that as long as it’s a mystery, I’m not going to be able to build a case and prove his innocence to a jury. The prosecution has a ton of evidence against him and I have no way to combat that.”
Abby reached over and rubbed her arm gently. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I know you’re trying really hard and if there was any way that anyone could prove him innocent, you’d be the one to find it, but it sounds like you’re really stuck on this one. I wish it was easier for you.”
She paused then and looked at Alexis intently. “Lexi… do you think he’s on drugs? I mean, personally. You’ve spent some time with him and been in his house and all that. Do you think he was doing drugs?”
Alexis peered closely at her sister. “This goes no further.”
Abby grew wide eyed and nodded her head enthusiastically. “No, of course not!”
You swear to god.” Alexis demanded.
“I swear! Yeah… I swear to you. No further. I promise!” Abby vowed, crossing her finger over her heart.
Sighing, Alexis leaned close to her sister. “Yes, I do think he was on drugs. There’s no other way he could have passed out. I think he’s guilty as hell, and I’m really having a hard time trying to figure out a way to prove that a guilty man is innocent to a jury full of people who are probably already going to have their opinions. It’s really pushing me to my limits and testing every strength I have.” She shook her head then. “There’s more to it than that, though.”
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