Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
“I don’t need you for a book deal.”
“And yet you’re sitting with me. Have you ever written a book?”
“No, but—”
“It was a yes or no question, counselor. And now we both know why you’re here. The publisher believes you need a skilled co-writer to write a decent book. I don’t want to be your co-writer. Now we can say we met, we did this, and we won’t work together.”
He studies me several beats. “Who wins this case?”
“No one, because justice is not going to be served. You acted rashly. You didn’t wait for the evidence to tell a convincing story.”
“You don’t think he’s guilty.”
“I’m an attorney. I honor the court system, and he’s innocent until proven guilty. As for the book, this meeting is over. We can say we did it. We can say we aren’t compatible.”
“But you’re writing a book anyway.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll need my input.”
“If you choose to let Reese Summer speak out while you do not,” I counter, “I’ll deal with that fact in my book and you’ll have to as well.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a statement of fact.”
“This meeting was a joke from the get go.”
He says something else, but I tune him out with the sensation of being watched I’d felt at the courthouse repeating all over again. My gaze pulls wide and lands on a table across the room, where Reese sits with his co-counsels, and my eyes connect with his, his narrowing, a question in their depths. He isn’t sure what to think. I’m not either. My palms are sweaty. I feel guilty. This is crazy. I did nothing wrong. He really is making me crazy. My fingers curl into my palms. Why did I agree to a meeting at a courtroom hotspot? I’ve tried to be discreet with Reese, but I happily meet with his opposition in public?
“Look,” Dan says, “I don’t need or want—”
“I get it,” I say, looking at him. “I’m not writing a book with you. And frankly, I hope you decide to spend your time finding the right person to prosecute, rather than writing a book about the wrong one.” I grab my bag, stand up, and head for the door without looking in Reese’s direction. I’ll text him when I get out of here and explain, or not. This is my job.
I start walking, and I swear Reese’s gaze burns through me. I weave through the now-occupied tables and the group of people that enter as I’m trying to exit the bar, pushing past them to travel through the lobby. Once I step outside, the temperature has dropped about ten degrees, while I feel downright hot. “Wait one moment.”
At the sound of Dan’s voice, I cringe and turn to face him. “The publisher wants this to happen,” he says, standing in front of me, crowding me now. “We need to be on the same page when addressing them.”
“I’ll talk to them,” I say. “I’ll move this in the direction we both obviously want it to go.” Which is nowhere, I silently add.
“When?”
“They’ll contact me tonight. I’ll let them know our decision.”
He glares at me for several seconds and then scrubs his jaw and walks away. And that is when I realize that Reese is standing just outside the hotel door, close enough that had Dan turned just right, he’d have seen him. Close enough to have heard everything. For several beats, neither of us move, speak, even breathe, it seems, the overhang attached to the building shadows his face. But I don’t need to see his expression to feel the anger in him. He thinks he knows something he does not know.
“Whatever you think you saw, you didn’t,” I say, and my voice seems to set him into action.
He walks toward me, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Angry at the moment, a man of power and control, but that anger is palpable. He stops in front of me, so damn tall and broad, a chilly breeze lifting that spicy scent of him, which wraps around me. Everything about him in this moment is overwhelmingly large.
“What I saw isn’t what pisses me off,” he says. “You have a job to do. You have interviews to do. I get that. It’s what I heard that pisses me off. A book deal with that man? Were you feeding your book partner information?”
“No,” I say quickly. “God. No. Reese, this isn’t—”
“Were you going to fuck me for information?”
“That’s not what this is. Why would I wait, if that’s what I wanted?”
“You got me talking. And I admit it. You were good, sweetheart. You look good. You taste good. You fuck people over real damn good.”
“Don’t be an asshole because you think I’m an asshole. Because I’m not an asshole, and that makes you a really big asshole. And the very fact that you’re going off the deep end like this tells a story. You’ve been burned, and guess what? Whoever she was is not me.”