“And so, I’m trying to get nasty with this girl, but she keeps bitchin’ on about how she’s Catholic or whatever,” Mark Delaney said, slurring his words a little more than he had been just a few minutes ago. He was on his third drink already, sitting beside me at a bar that was popular with attorneys, and I was regretting my choice to agree to meet him here more every second. “Long story short, I finally get her to agree to anal, but I have to go down to one of those sex stores and buy lube, makes me look like some kind of homo!” He let out a roaring laugh, completely oblivious to the glare I was giving him.

After the spectacular turnaround I pulled in the courtroom, Delaney had insisted on going out for a celebratory drink. I had objected at first, for two reasons: one, Delaney was an insufferable prick who only ever talked about himself; two, I didn’t like counting my chickens before they hatched. True, it was almost a sure thing that Delaney was going to come out of this case safe and sound, thanks to me. But it wasn’t truly over until the gavel fell, and it was just asking for bad luck to celebrate like this before the real end.

The only reason I finally agreed was that after that court session, I desperately needed a drink, and I wasn’t about to let an asshole like Delaney scare me away from one of my favorite bars. So, I spent the past hour exchanging withering looks with the bartender while Delaney got himself trashed out of his mind.

“Sounds like a hell of a Friday, Mark,” I said wearily.

“And hey, if you ever want to get with some of the girls from Carlson’s place, you just give me a ring. I know which ones put out for cheap,” he added, winking at me.

“I’m gay, Mark,” I said simply.

“Oh! Oh,” he backpedaled, chuckling nervously. “I-I knew that, and that’s totally fine or whatever. I mean, don’t go hitting on me or anything,” he added with more laughter than was appropriate. I just gave him a tight smile.

“You’re not my type.”

“Sure, sure, I see the way you look at me in court,” he chuckled. I was saved when the bartender made his way by, and Mark waved for his attention to order another drink. I took a long swig of mine and rubbed my forehead when he wasn’t looking. This drink was making me need another drink on top of it.

All things considered, I should have been a lot happier than I was feeling at that moment, even despite Delaney’s casually disgusting personality. I had just sealed the deal on a very big case, and if all went well, I might have a lot more work opening up for me in new avenues and even richer millionaires who needed bailing out. I was the Fixer, after all. I was really just living up to my name and making it work for me in all the best ways.

So, why did I feel like a piece of trash?

I was an attorney who worked for rich people. Feeling like scum was practically an unwritten part of my job description, because the people I worked with were some of the worst. Mark Delaney was insufferable, but when all was said and done, he wasn’t much worse than the average client of mine. I had a pretty good stomach for people like him. He wasn’t the reason I was feeling like shit.

I was feeling like a bastard because of the look on Hud’s face that was still burning in my fresh memory.

It wouldn’t go away, no matter how much I tried to think of anything else. I tried to focus on the prospect of hitting up some of my favorite clubs in the near future and hooking up with some new guys to relieve my stress. Hell, I even thought about meeting up with some of my colleagues for a night out to drink my short-term memory into oblivion. But none of it could hold a candle to that look of absolute betrayal on Hud’s face.

It meant more than just stabbing Hud in the back. It meant more than losing the lover I was starting to feel something very real for.

It meant that I might have been wrong about his intentions on the night I stole evidence.

Stealing evidence and playing things underhanded was absolutely not unusual in the world I prowled and thrived in. That was just par for the course, and some did it more or less than others. But I had been expecting Hud to look astonished or rueful. I didn’t see any trace of either on his face. He just looked hurt and sad.

Hell, I had been hurt and sad when I thought that he was trying to trick me, but now, I was having second thoughts. I hated having second thoughts. Besides being thorough and decisive, an attorney had no time for second-guessing himself. The smart thing to do was to cut my losses and move on, even if I had been completely wrong about Hud. But I knew myself better than that.

There was a clear reason that I felt worse than usual about what I did to Hud.

I was falling for him.

No, I already had fallen for him.

I had to be honest with myself. If I set aside everything about the case and our rivalry, I was in love with that gorgeous, rugged, anxious man and all his flaws and imperfections. I loved his voice, his laugh, the way his eyes smiled, the way he walked, and his personal style. I loved how he carried himself and how he listened. I loved his strength, and how much courage it must have taken to get through Harvard keeping so much about his personal life under wraps where I had been able to spread out and be myself from the very start.

I didn’t just love him, I liked him.

Fuck, this drink was strong. The bartender had taken sympathy on me for having to entertain Delaney, and I was sipping on a whisky and coke that was two-thirds whisky. On an empty stomach, that was doing a good job of taking the edge off, but it was making a lot more bubble to the surface as well.

Glancing to my left, I saw that Mark was busy chatting up a woman who had come to get a drink beside us, so I took the chance to whip out my phone and start scrolling through social media. I looked up Hud, and immediately, my heart started aching. I saw him living life and being happy in old photos. There were pictures of him and some friends out hiking, of him and his mom on Mother’s Day, and more routine pictures of his daily life. He took shots of different pieces of furniture or plants around his office and home with inspirational quotes in the tags. I smiled, holding back a laugh.

What a goofball.

But he was a goofball that I couldn’t help but admire. There was a simple love for life that I could see in the carefully manicured picture of himself he painted through social media. Even though checking a guy out on the phone, while buzzed, was the worst idea ever, I indulged myself.

And the more I indulged, the more my heart ached.

Every time I saw his face smiling on the phone, I thought about that look on his face in court. I had done that to him, just like I did it to him back at Harvard. He hadn’t deserved it either time. And hell, maybe he still had been trying to get back at me in court. I had it coming. He deserved to get back at me, honestly. What I did to him at Harvard was a ruthless move.

I didn’t want to be that person anymore.

The bartender set another drink in front of me, and I looked up in surprise. He was looking at me with a sympathetic face.

“This one’s on the house,” he whispered, nodding toward Mark. “You look like you need it, babysitting this schmuck.”

“Thanks, Aaron,” I murmured, chuckling. “You’re going to kill me with these stiff drinks one of these days, but I appreciate it.”

He winked and went to tend to other patrons, and at almost the same moment, I saw Mark’s girl move away from the bar, shaking her head at him and laughing a little. Mark threw his hands up as she turned her back on him, and I recognized the telltale signs of a straight guy getting rejected.

Can’t imagine why…

“Bitches,” he murmured, turning back to me. “Anyway, what were you saying, Rod?”

“Nothing,” I said candidly, turning off my phone and putting it away with a smile. “How are those drinks treating you, Mark?”

“Treating me like shit,” he said, frowning and standing up. “I’ve gotta go take a leak. Back in a sec.” Mark made his way to the bathroom, and I breathed a sigh of relief for the break.

But moments after he left, a buzzing sound drew my attention to the bar in front of where he had been seated. Mark had left his phone behind, and what was more, it was unlocked. He must have been too drunk to remember to grab it. I glanced over toward where he was headed and saw that he’d already gotten distracted trying to chat up a couple of women on their way out of the bathrooms, but as they blew him off, he rolled his eyes and proceeded into the men’s room.

His phone had just gotten a text.

Once again, I was left with open access to someone’s confidential information. And once again, I felt my hand twitch. It was amazing what some people could just leave out in the open. But this time, there was more purpose than just vengeance that motivated me. I reached over and picked up the phone, glancing at the message that he had.

My eyes widened at what I saw.

It was a text from a number that wasn’t in his contacts, but it was just the latest in what looked like a long conversation.

I glanced at the bathroom, and once I was sure Mark wasn’t about to come back, I whipped my own phone out and took a picture of the text, the phone, and the number listed on it. I started to pocket my phone again, but as I started scrolling up through the history, I found many more interesting texts between Mark and this mysterious number.

But they all only confirmed what the first text made me suspect.

The conversation was between Mark and one of the bank executives. Moreover, Hudson had been right: they were working together.

My heart was racing, because reading between the lines of the texts revealed something else that not even Hud had predicted. The bank executives kept implying that they wanted me and Hud to keep our rivalry coming out strong throughout the whole court proceedings.

They knew Hud and I hated each other.

They wanted to keep goading us to one-up each other in the courtroom and piss off the judge.

They were angling for it to get so bad that it would result in a mistrial.

My jaw fell open as I snapped as many pictures of the text conversation as I could. I couldn’t believe it. Not only had Hud been right, but he’d stumbled onto something that was even more personal than we expected. Of course, it was no coincidence that we specifically had been hired by opposing sides of the suit.

Delaney and the bank were playing us like a damn fiddle.

But what was their endgame? They were in contact with each other and they were angling for the case to go to mistrial thanks to us, and they were close to getting that. The bank wasn’t happy with the prospect of Delaney winning the case, but they didn’t seem too broken up about it, either.

I wracked my mind, but the alcohol was addling my thought process. I heard Mark’s voice in the distance, and I quickly stuffed my phone into my pocket, putting his phone back where it had been a moment ago, as if I’d never touched it.

Mark was swaggering back toward the bar, and this time, he had a girl on his arm, both beaming at me. “Hey, Rod, cover my tab for me? I’m gonna go find somewhere private with Lacey here,” he said, winking at me. “Oh, shit,” he added, realizing his phone was on the bar. He swiped it and put it into his pocket, none the wiser. “Thanks for watching that for me, wingman. See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Sure thing, Mark,” I said with a fake smile, waving him off as he left. As soon as he was out the door, I got the bartender’s attention.

“You’ve got his card on tab, right?” I said.

“Yep,” the bartender said with a frown.

“Treat yourself to a good tip, why don’t you?” I said with a sincere smile. “I think you deserve something nice.”

“You got it, boss,” he said with a chuckle, and I got up, laying a $100 on the bar before making my way out a different exit.

I might not have been sober enough to tackle the mystery of what was really going on between Delaney and the bank, but I knew one thing for damn sure.

I made a big mistake with Hudson, and so help me god, I was going to make it right.