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)
“You were talking about me with her.”
“The entire planet is talking about you right now, so no. That does not make anything about me or my conversations your business. And for the record, I wasn’t going to meet you this morning at all, which is why I was so late.”
“Why not?” I demand, that reply hitting me in all kinds of wrong ways. “You knew who I was by then, by your own admission.”
“Because I didn’t want some scandal to come out of it or for you to think I was going to get naked with you for an interview. I still need and want one, but not that way. And yet here you are. In the ladies’ room of the courthouse. Seriously? What are you thinking? You have reporters following you around.”
“Says a reporter following me around,” I counter.
“I’m not following you. That isn’t my style.”
“And yet you showed up this morning,” I say.
“I decided that I needed to tell you I was a reporter before you found out, but you left before I could. And I didn’t want to hurt your big-ass freaking ego by making you think I didn’t want to meet you.”
“Did you?” I ask.
“Did I what?”
“Want to meet me.”
“Does anyone ever want to meet an asshole?” she snaps.
“Did you want to meet me, Cat?” I press.
“Does that matter at this point?”
Good question, I think, and yet it does. “Answer,” I order.
“I would have if you were just another good-looking asshole, because then I could have—” She stops herself and repeats, “If you were just another asshole.”
“Good looking?”
“Asshole,” she replies.
“Then you could have fixed me?”
“You don’t fix assholes.”
“Then why consider meeting me if you didn’t know me and you thought I was an asshole?”
“You get naked with assholes and then you say goodbye.”
My cock is instantly, readily on alert. I step closer, a lean from touching her. “That was your plan? To fuck me and say goodbye.”
“It was an option.”
I arch a brow. “Was?”
“Now you’re my job, and I can’t cross that line.”
We’ll see about that, I think. “Who do you write for?”
“The New York News. The ‘Cat Does Crime’ column.”
“And what makes you qualified to write that kind of column?”
“A Harvard law degree, five years of practice, and a family of attorneys.”
“A Harvard law degree,” I say, surprised, though now that I’ve sparred with her, I shouldn’t be.
“And Harvard trumps Yale,” she says, pitting her degree against mine.
My lips curve with that obvious jab and challenge. “And yet I’m practicing and you aren’t.”
“Being good at what you do doesn’t matter if you’re miserable.”
“If you were miserable, why did you do it?”
“None of your business,” she says.
“What if I want it to be my business?”
“Give me a real interview, and you can ask me as many questions as I ask you,” she negotiates.
“I’ll think about it.”
“An interview with you and an interview with your client,” she adds.
“Now you’re pushing your luck.”
“You get nothing you don’t ask for,” she says.
“Do you think he’s guilty?” I ask, sizing her up to decide what I will, or will not, grant her.
“What I know,” she says, “is that you’re winning so far.”
“Let’s hope the jury agrees with you.”
“Because he’s innocent?” she asks.
“Yes. He is. And yes, you can quote me on that, and on this: If he wasn’t innocent, I wouldn’t be defending him.” My cellphone rings in my pocket. “That would be the end of our time together. At least for now.”
“What about my interviews?”
“Give me your business card.”
She reaches into the side pocket of her purse and hands a card to me. I accept it, my hand sliding over hers in the process, that touch between us is electric, and I stare down at her, assessing her. My phone stops ringing and then starts back up again, my gaze flickering over her lips and returning to her beautiful green eyes. I believe her. She didn’t know who I was when we met. And in hindsight, of course she did not. We fought, and I wanted to have make-up sex with a woman I didn’t even know at that point.
“I’ll call you,” I say, heading toward the door, pausing to look at her. “I won’t be your job for long.”
Cat
The rest of the afternoon, I watch Reese work the courtroom, and he is no longer a stranger. He’s the man who just had a conversation with me in the bathroom of this very courthouse. He is the man who touched me on the hand, just the hand, and made me feel it everywhere, inside and out. I really felt that touch, probably because those blue eyes of his were burning into me when it happened.
All that aside, he is still the lead counsel on this case, whom I need to interview to do my job properly, but at least I’ve set the stage to get past our initial encounter, by being upfront about that request. The air is clear. I’ve been honest and professional. Well, honest. I’m not sure telling him that he’s an asshole that can’t be fixed can be called professional any more than me telling him that I considered getting naked with him, even if that tidbit was mostly implied. But as far as I’m concerned, the questionable professionalism of those confessions should be cancelled out by him following me into the women’s bathroom. After that encounter, I’m not convinced he’s the nice guy he and Lauren claim him to be, but I am convinced he’s trouble.