Deputy D leads me down a long corridor to a metal door with a tiny glass window. He said lawyer. Camilla couldn’t pull off that act if her life depended on it––too honest and transparent. Which means she found someone on short notice. On New Year’s Eve, no less. My best friend is a holy freaking rainmaker.

I’m bouncing on the balls of my bare feet, craning my neck to look through the small window. All I want to do is go home, crawl under the covers, and not come out for a week while I nurse my battered ego back to health and the promise of freedom is making me antsy. For the first time tonight, I feel marginally better. Until Dipshit unlocks the door. Until I get a super clear view of whom is on the other side of it and then I don’t feel better. No. As a matter of fact I feel worse. Just like that the shred of optimism I was fostering a minute ago circles the drain.

Camilla’s husband’s best friend. He’s standing with one hand shoved in the pocket of his perfectly tailored tux. The top of his shirt is draped open, bowtie ends hanging down, eyes glued to the screen of his cell phone.

No, no. God, don’t do this to me. I’ll be good. I swear I will.

I blink and blink, hoping and praying, but no, I’m not imagining it. This nightmare is real. I start to back out, and Deputy D slams the door shut behind me, the sound grating on my already raw nerves.

“What are you doing here?” My voice sounds strangely high and sharp.

He glances up. His thickly lashed brown eyes skim my face, take note of the black eye makeup which is undoubtedly half way down my face, work their way lower to the ripped edge of my silver mini dress, then descend all the way to my bare feet. My toes curl in reflex, hiding from his scrutiny.

I’m dying a million tiny painful deaths. A million. If there’s a personal circle of hell for each and every one of us, this is mine.

I’m convinced that men like Ethan Vaughn are put on this planet to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves. He’s too…perfect. I hate that word, I really do, but there’s no other way to describe this dude. A face and body that would make Adonis bristle in envy, successful, impeccably dressed. He’s neat. He’s very neat. It’s past midnight and he’s still pressed and clean. How the fuck is that possible? I bet he rinses his recycling before placing it in the blue bin. Probably farts perfume.

I don’t buy it. I just don’t buy it. My bullshit meter tells me something’s off. Or maybe it’s my black soul. Whatever, one of those two tells me that beneath the picture perfect surface, he may secretly be a homophobe, or rude to waiters, or mean to animals. Who knows, maybe he likes to kick cats when no one is watching.

Mr. Perfect is still staring, and has yet to say a word. Nor does he have to. My skin is burning from his shrewd assessment.

Take a good look, you sick cat kicking motherfu…

“I was under the impression you needed a lawyer.” His deep voice is even and unaffected. Is he under the impression that I need him to get me out of a parking ticket? What’s next, a yawn?

He slips his cell phone into his jacket pocket and crosses his arms. I meet his bullshit blasé attitude with one of my own. Except I go for bored, as if it’s every day I hang out in jails looking like the newest member of the Suicide Squad. “Aren’t you a sports lawyer, or corporate lawyer, or something?”

“I’m licensed to practice.”

Dandy. Just dandy. “Did you speak to Camilla? Is she coming?”

Camilla and Vaughn forged an unlikely friendship last year while she was working for Calvin, as a nanny slash teacher for his nephew Sam. She has a soft spot for this guy, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why.

“Yes.”

That’s it? No other explanation? The silence continues. Apparently not. His cool gaze sweeps down my person once again and my spine snaps straight. I got this. This is what I’m good at. On the inside I’m a blubbering, embarrassed mess, where as on the outside I’m stoic with a capital S, smooth as silk and just as cool. I’m an actress, playing pretend is my thing. I’ve got skillz in this department. Thus, digging down deep into my bag of skillz, I level him with my most devil-may-care stare.

“The prosecutor is asking for bail to be set at two hundred thousand.”

“Wut?”

Forget the devil-may-care stare. Just forget it, because it falls right off my face, seamlessly replaced by shock and unmitigated fear. My heart begins thumping so hard inside my chest it feels like it’s about to explode.

“Explain to me exactly what happened and don’t leave out any of the truthful parts.”

There’s blood rushing in my ears. All I hear is wah wah wah wah truthful parts. I’m feeing woozy, my legs unsteady. Stumbling, I seek out the only chair in the room and slump down in it.

“I…I––” My chin jerks up to take a good measure of the man hovering over me. “Are you suggesting I would lie?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you to give me the truth and only the truth, or you’ll be spending this night and every other night in the foreseeable future in a place worse than this.”

Swallowing is an impossible feat, my throat dammed up by a hot chunk of terror. Under any other circumstance, I would rather shave with a rusty blade than expose my soft underbelly to this guy. However, as it stands, looking like a gullible jackass is a far cry better than serious jail time.

“Parker, my ex-fiancé, called two days ago and said he really needed to speak to me, that he was in town for his parents’ New Year’s Eve party. The Gregorys have it every year––”

“I know,” Vaughn interrupts.

“How do you––”

“Never mind how.”

His tone irks me in the worst possible way. It gets under my skin and makes me itch to hurl words that would make your ears bleed. Need I explain that I have poor impulse control?

He steps closer and I instantly tense. He half sits on the corner of the table, looming over me, and says…nothing. He simply waits me out as if has he all the time in the world to torture me with his silence. Not for the first time I wonder who I raped and pillaged in a past life to deserve this crap.

He’s too close. His proximity is messing with my ability to form a single, cohesive thought. And I can smell him. Christ, what is that? It’s seriously distracting––in a not entirely unpleasant way. Which only stokes my anger.

“Jones?”

“Right.” I glance up and meet his intense gaze squarely. “He invited me. Left me three messages saying that he had something important to tell me. I have them if you need them.”

“Personal?”

“At the time, I had no idea. It could’ve been work related.” I sure as heck hoped it was personal, though. That, I do not say.

“Go on.”

“There were over a hundred people there, most of who were either drunk or high by midnight. The few times I saw Parker he kept saying he needed to talk to me, that he would find me the minute he got a chance. His parents had people there that were potential investors for one of his films and he was busy pitching them. I thought nothing of it…” I fiddle with the ripped seam of my dress, every word coming out of my mouth making me more anxious as I relive the events. “I know a few of his friends so it’s not like I was waiting around…” My voice loses volume. Who am I kidding? Of course I was waiting around. Even to my own ears the excuse sounds pretty thin.

“But he didn’t.”

“No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Then, right before midnight, Susan, his mother, made a toast congratulating Parker on his recent engagement.” I glance up into a face as flawlessly static as a sheet of ice, nothing to indicate what he’s thinking. “I was…surprised.” Not exactly the right word but I’m keeping it PG. “He never even mentioned dating anyone.”

My voice fades. Vaughn’s expression hasn’t changed one bit. Not a drop of sympathy or understanding to be found anywhere.

“I thought…” What the hell did I think was going to happen? That he’d fall to his knees and profess he’d made a mistake––beg me to take him back? Yeah, I did. I wanted him to grovel. I had no intention of taking him back––there was a greater chance of me curing cancer––however, the thought of Parker groveling made me maniacally giddy with delight.

“Let’s get to the part where you started a fire.”

My narrowed eyes cut back to him. If I ever again hear Camilla call this guy charming, she’s getting tit punched without warning. “Why are you really here?”

“I owe Calvin a favor.”

This night keeps getting better and better. I should’ve known. My relationship with Calvin can best be described as tenuous. I think he’s a grouchy asshat. He thinks I’m…who the hell knows what he thinks, but I have reason to believe it isn’t good.

Thing is, he loves Camilla. He makes her happy. And as long as she’s happy, we get along. God help him if he starts making her unhappy. I certainly don’t want to owe the man, however, with an almost quarter million dollar noose hanging around my neck, I am not about to take my chances with a public defender.

“I bolted for the kitchen, Parker followed, we started arguing. You have to understand, between the catering staff and guests wandering in and out, it was chaos. So we’re arguing, and I…I may have pushed two chaffing dishes onto the wood floor and, umm, you know those little thingees under––”

“May, or did?” he interrupts, eyebrow lifting into an arrogant arch.

“Did.” His silence urges me to continue. “It was the party sludge! How was I supposed to know someone had spilled a bottle of booze on the floor?!”

The floor looked flambéed. It was kind of funny. Until it wasn’t. Until the flames reached the drapes and the fire got out of hand.

“Nobody could find the fire extinguisher. Seconds later it reached the drapes. The rest you know.”

Another full minute of silence ticks by. In the meantime I can feel his judgment all over me. Far worse than being considered dangerous, I’m being tried and convicted an idiot. In his eyes, I will forever be a screw up of the highest order, a bunny boiler, the crazy chick that almost burned down her ex’s parents’ house. And I couldn’t even get that right. Put a bullet in me and call it a mercy killing.

“Who the hell hangs drapes in the kitchen?!!” I screech in my defense. All things considered, it’s a miracle I haven’t started bawling my eyes out yet.

A long, tortured sigh escapes my supposed lawyer. “Okay, this is the deal. You’re being charged with arson in the fifth degree. Which is a Class A misdemeanor, the least serious. However, it still carries a possible jail sentence of a year if they can prove that the fire was intentionally set––”

Jail sentence? A year? This can’t really be happening. Never once did I think there would come a day that I would pray for someone to have slipped the date rape drug into my champagne, but that day has come. Right now, I’m praying and praying hard.

“What if I was rufied?”

His perfect brow wrinkles. “How much did you drink?”

“One glass of champagne.” I look up and, for the first time, find concern in his big brown eyes. “I wanted to keep my wits about me.”

“Did you pass out at any point?”

“Umm, no,” I reluctantly admit.

“We’ll proceed on the assumption that you weren’t. Do I need to explain that the Gregorys are pillars of this community? It’ll be your word against theirs––specifically Susan’s.”

“Susan never liked me. Parker was there. He knows it was an accident!”

“Regardless, it’s her property. Susan is running the show and it will be her word against yours.”