“WHAT’S THE DEAL?” Simon asked.
Confusion had Stone furrowing his brow as he peered across the conference table. “Deal?” They weren’t playing poker. This was their weekly Tuesday morning meeting in Simon’s office, sunlight streaming through its tall windows.
“Hillary Bellows rested the prosecution yesterday,” Simon said.
And she’d rested it so well that Stone was beginning to have doubts of his own about his client’s innocence.
“So what’s your plan to tear apart her case?” the managing partner asked.
“No more untrue press releases,” Stone told him. He didn’t mind playing dirty with Hillary—but that was in the bedroom, not the courtroom or in the media.
Simon sighed. “I can’t believe that didn’t work.”
Clearly dumbfounded, Ronan Hall shook his head as well. “Can’t believe Wilson Tremont’s enormous ego didn’t have him snagging the case from her right away.”
“She got to him,” Stone said. “Made him afraid that he would lose.” Just like she was beginning to get to him. Stone wasn’t afraid of losing for his own sake, though. He was afraid of losing for an innocent man.
Byron Mueller was innocent. Wasn’t he?
Damn Hillary...
She was making him doubt his client. But that wasn’t all she was making him doubt. She was making him rethink every decision he’d ever made from who he represented to how he lived his life—solitarily. But for these guys...
They were his closest friends. And as his closest friends, they jumped to his defense.
“Wilson Tremont would definitely lose,” Ronan said. “The guy’s an idiot.”
“Too bad she got to him,” Trevor remarked. Then he focused on Stone, his green eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Looks like she got to you, too.”
What? Did he have it written all over his face how much he wanted his opposing counsel?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stone bluffed.
But Trevor called him on it. “Bullshit!”
And Simon added, “Don’t try to con a con. What’s going on with you and Hillary Bellows?”
Even as heat rushed to his face, Stone shook his head in denial. “What makes you think—”
“You didn’t want to go after her,” Simon said. “You haven’t played as dirty as you usually would.”
They had no idea how dirty he’d played with Hillary Bellows. But something must have flickered in his eyes, some glimmer of desire over all the ways he’d been dirty to and with Hillary, because Ronan laughed.
More heat rushed to his face. “What?”
“You and the hot ADA!” Ronan exclaimed. “Way to mix business with pleasure, bro!”
“I...” He couldn’t deny it. He’d never known pleasure like what he felt with Hillary.
Trevor shook his head and sighed.
“What?” Stone repeated.
“Et tu, Brute,” Trev dramatically murmured.
“I didn’t betray you.” But he felt like he might have betrayed his client. He’d been so distracted by his attraction and passion for Hillary that he hadn’t defended him as best as he should have.
Trev just shook his head and uttered a sigh of disappointment. “I didn’t think you would ever fall.”
“I haven’t,” Stone insisted. “I’m not in love with her.” He couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. He’d vowed long ago to never make himself that vulnerable to another human being, like his hapless mother had been.
“Then why the hell are you risking your case to have sex with her?” Simon asked.
He could have denied that, too. But these were his friends. He didn’t lie to his friends, even though he suspected he was lying to himself. “I’m not risking my case,” he insisted.
“You’re not going after her like you normally would,” Simon insisted.
Simon had no idea how much Stone had gone after her, how hard he’d taken her. But she matched his passion every time. She was incredible.
Such an amazing lover and lawyer.
“She’s made a compelling case,” Stone said. “Thanks to our damn office mole giving her those bank records.”
They all cursed then in unison.
“I wonder where the hell they found them,” he continued. Because he’d never seen them. “And my client isn’t being completely honest with me,” he added. Then he flinched as he played back what he’d just said inside his head and heard all the excuses he was making. He sighed. “None of that is the real issue, though.”
Simon arched one of his blond brows as he usually did. “What’s the real issue?”
“I need to make a stronger case.” For his client and for himself.
He needed to protect them both.
“We’ve got your back,” Simon said—just as he’d told them all so many years ago when they’d met up on the streets of the city. They’d been so alone and desperate then.
Stone hadn’t felt like that since meeting them—until the other night when he’d been so desperate to see Hillary, to be with Hillary.
And he worried that it might already be too late for him to protect himself. But he’d made a promise to his client, and that one he would not break.
* * *
Hillary looked down at the witness list Stone had given her. He intended to call his client. That was crazy—even for him. Defendants rarely took the stand in their own trials. But then, that often made juries think them even guiltier when they wouldn’t.
Was that Stone’s strategy? To make his billionaire client more accessible? More relatable?
He’d done that with Ernest Rapier. And every juror had cried along with the man whose wife had tortured him for more than two decades. Even Hillary had had to blink away tears before they slipped out. But she knew she wouldn’t be tempted to cry for Byron Mueller.
The guy was brash, belligerent and in your face. And she couldn’t wait to get in his face.
And Stone was giving her the opportunity to do that, to tear apart Byron Mueller on the stand.
Knuckles brushed against her closed door. And she tensed. Hopefully, it wasn’t her boss. She couldn’t let him take this case now, not when she was so close to getting a conviction. He wouldn’t be able to do what she would to Byron; he’d be too afraid of the political consequences of making an enemy of the billionaire.
She would use that to manipulate him this time; she would use his own ambitions against him. So she pasted a smile on her face and called out, “Come in.”
The door slowly creaked open, but it wasn’t her boss standing there. Stone stood in the doorway, and he looked almost sheepish. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t have an appointment.”
“And yet no security guard called to ask me if it was okay to send you up anyway.” Was there a female one on duty today? She could see him sweet-talking a woman into letting him through. Or had he been allowed up because the guard whose grandson he’d represented was working?
He glanced at his watch. “Actually, I have an appointment with your boss.”
She tensed and narrowed her eyes. “Really?”
“No.” He flashed a triumphant grin, his gray eyes sparkling. “But he didn’t have an order out to not let me upstairs.”
She reached for her phone. “Let me fix that.” But she had no intention of calling her boss.
And Stone knew it, because he didn’t even try to stop her from dialing.
So she dropped the phone back onto its cradle.
He quirked a brow. “Change your mind?”
“Just remembered he’s out of the office.” And she probably wasn’t lying. It was after hours, so he had to be gone by now, probably to some function where he could kiss the ass of everyone who might help him achieve his political aspirations. She hoped he’d brought along some lip balm.
“What?” he asked, and he grinned at the look that must have crossed her face.
So she enlightened him and he laughed heartily. “You work for a jerk.”
She sighed. “I know. But I didn’t vote for him.”
Stone shook his head. “Me neither. You going to run?”
“You believing your own press?” she asked. “I have no intention of ever doing that.”
“You should,” he said. “You’d be good.”
She shrugged. “I’d sooner consider that bench-thing you mentioned.”
“Doling out justice.” He nodded. “That sounds more like you. You’ll get a worse reputation than Judge Harrison has for being a hard-ass, though.”
“Hey, I like Judge Harrison.” At least she did when she was trying a case where Stone was representing the defendant—because Judge Harrison did not like Stone.
“Bullshit,” he said.
She laughed. “Just because he’s not a fan of yours...”
“I’m not a fan of his, either,” Stone said. And for a moment, a look crossed his face, one of such sadness that Hillary jumped up from her chair and came around her desk.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.”
“What is it?” she asked. “Do you have a personal history with Harrison?” She forced herself to chuckle, even though that emotion she’d teased him about feeling the other night rushed over her. Jealousy. “Did you date his daughter?”
Judge Harrison was considerably older than them, even older than her boss.
“...or granddaughter?”
Stone shook his head. “No. He presided over a few cases with people I knew a long time ago.”
“Who?” she asked.
He glanced at her and then away again. “My parents.”
She gasped. “They were criminals?” That might explain why he’d chosen to represent them instead of making sure they were brought to justice. “But you said you really were a teen runaway.”
“That was why.”
“You ran away from a foster home or relatives?” she asked. And she remembered a few moments she’d thought of running away. But she’d had no place to run.
“I ran away from my parents,” he said. “The lives they chose to lead, selling and using drugs.”
She gasped again, feeling like something had squeezed her heart. She wanted to reach for him, throw her arms around him and offer comfort. But she wasn’t sure she knew how to do that when it had never really been shown to her.
But he saved them both the trouble when he stepped back, unwilling to accept her sympathy.
He shrugged. “Hey, it’s no big deal. I don’t hold any grudges against Harrison. It all worked out for the best for me. I’m doing great.”
“Not in this trial,” she couldn’t help but add.
He mock-grimaced at her remark. “You presented your side. Now it’s my turn. Everything’s going to turn around,” he insisted. But she couldn’t help but think he was trying to convince himself as much as he was her. “You’ll see.”
She gestured at the list on her desk and shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Byron Mueller was no Ernest Rapier, but she caught herself before she changed Stone’s mind about putting him on the stand.
“The jury will hear what I do when Byron talks about his wife’s murder.”
“Guilt?” she asked. “Remorse?” They would hear that once she got done cross-examining the witness.
Stone shook his head. “They’ll hear that he had nothing to do with it.”
She was almost convinced that that was what Stone believed. Maybe he wasn’t just determined to win for the sake of the win. Maybe he really believed his client was innocent.
She narrowed her eyes and studied his face. “You actually think he’s innocent.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you this entire time,” he said.
He had. But she’d been sure he was lying.
“So, okay,” she said. But she was only humoring him. “If not your client, who killed her?”