Charlotte

Half an hour later, I was sitting on the hard concrete of the strip mall walkway, my back against the office door, my legs stretched out. I was arguing with my sense of morality. Because it was five o’clock, Ben Hanratty was nowhere to be seen, and I was about to go into his office.

Maybe he had a second office. Maybe he was in court. Since he no longer had an assistant, I had no way to find out. I’d called the phone number stenciled on the office door, but it only went to the phone inside the office, which I could hear ringing through the frosted glass.

I’d have to use the key after all. Just to go in the office and look for another way to reach him. There had to be a personal cell phone number somewhere, or a schedule, or a home address. I’d go to his house if I had to. I’d just explain—

A car pulled up to the curb, and a man got out.

The car was awful—a shitty old Civic that had seen better days. As for the man, the sun was starting to go down, slanting the light behind him. Sitting where I was, I saw his lower half first. Motorcycle boots, worn and polished. Jeans, also worn, encasing a pair of long and muscled legs. A beat-up leather belt, a gray T-shirt, a hip-length jacket of dark brown leather. His entire body radiated a crazy kind of power, from his muscled thighs to his flat stomach and perfect torso filling out the hot leather jacket. He wasn’t massive, but his presence was huge, sucking all the air from the room. My gaze crawled up him from my vantage point so far down.

I craned my head back and looked at his face. Dark blond hair, worn slightly long and brushed back from his forehead. Eyes that looked gray, maybe blue from this distance. A scruff of beard, also dark blond, on his jaw. He looked down at me, and his gaze was sharp, missing nothing, moving over my bent knees with my skirt tucked over them, my open coat, and, I was sure, my gaping expression. And involuntarily, despite my panic and the weirdness of the situation and the fact that he was a complete stranger, I felt a warm, electric trickle zing straight through my body and between my legs.

Holy hell, I thought.

“Interesting,” the man said.

My pulse beat in my temples. Who the hell was he? From where I was sitting on the ground, his thighs were close to my face, the crotch of his jeans rather prominent. I mean, it was right there.

I tried not to stare at it while I sat frozen in place, fighting embarrassment. There was no way to look dignified in this situation, but I tried.

The man watched me for a while, and then he spoke in a low, easy voice. “Is there a reason you’re sitting against the door of my office?” he said at last. “Just wondering, because you’re not moving. I can’t get in with you there.”

“You’re Ben Hanratty?” I said. I got my feet under me and moved to stand up, but I had to keep my knees together or I’d give him a show. I overbalanced, and he reached down and took my hand, steadying me.

He grasped me easily, offsetting my balance and righting me while helping me up. I had no choice but to grasp him back and pull until I was standing.

We were face to face this way, my nose at his chin, and I felt that inconvenient zing between my legs again. His eyes were dark gray, mixed with dark blue, a muddy color that was still rather nice. His eyes also had small crow’s feet at the corners. He was over thirty, I guessed. Thirty-five, maybe. He had a face that said he’d put in some miles in life. Interesting miles, some of them dark. He watched me back, and his pupils went a little wide, like he was taking me in. He made no move to back up, to give me space. He was close enough to lean in and kiss me.

I realized I was still grasping his hand, which was strong and warm in mine, and I dropped it. Jeremy. This was about Jeremy. “Mr. Hanratty,” I said, “I have to talk to you about—”

He winced, the dark pupils contracting again. “My name is Ben,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Ben. I have to ask you something very—”

“Yeah,” he said, a sudden tiredness at the back of his tone. He backed up a step at last, motioned me to step aside, and put his key in the lock. “I get it. You need to talk to me. Someone’s in jail, right?”

“I’m—”

“Where’s Coreen?” He unlocked the door and pushed it open, motioning me in.

“She, um, she quit,” I said, holding out the key. “She said to give you this.”

He looked down at the key in my hand, then his gaze snapped to mine again. “Well, shit,” he said. “That’s cold. You can put that on the desk. What’s your name, anyway?”

That crazy, giddy zap in my blood, like I was standing next to a rock star. It made no sense, and yet it did. It’s because he’s hot, Charlotte. He’s freaking hot, and you can’t remember the last time you were in the presence of a hot man. “My name is Charlotte,” I told him. “Charlotte Browning.”

“Huh,” he said. “Like Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a love child. Not bad.” And he brushed past me into the office.

Most people didn’t get the literary references in my name—just the odd book nerd or English grad. And, apparently, Ben Hanratty, biker lawyer. Fuck, he was smart, too. I got turned on another notch.

I followed him into the office and looked around, trying not to look shocked. It wasn’t just a mess—it was a disaster. The desk was so covered in papers that they almost buried the computer. Stacked along the wall were boxes and overstuffed filing cabinets. Opening from the back was a short corridor with two other doorways. There was a sofa, currently holding a gym bag with sweaty gym clothes spilling out of it. Pinned above the desk was a calendar featuring a girl in a string bikini. She was on a beach, on all fours in the sand, her ass in the air with sand artfully stuck to her cheeks as she looked at the camera and licked her pouty lips.

“Have a seat,” Mr. Hanratty—Ben—said again. “Oops,” he added when he spotted the sofa. He pushed the gym bag and its contents onto the floor. “There you go.”

I sat on the sofa. This was for Jeremy’s sake. The quiet settled around us, intimate like a cocoon—the strip mall was deserted. It was just him and me. He could bend me over that desk, and no one would know. A crazy part in the back of my brain wondered what that would be like—if it would be hot. I pressed my knees together and told myself it was because I was nervous.

“Why are you coming to work at five o’clock?” I asked, trying to act halfway dignified.

Ben said, “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I slept in.”

I gaped at him. “Until five?”

He shrugged. “No, I got up a few hours ago. I had some things to do.”

“What about your schedule?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. Every minute of every one of my days was scheduled to the nines.

“I don’t have much of a schedule,” he said. “I sort of wing it. So, tell me, Charlotte Browning. Who’s in jail?”

Okay, maybe if I wanted him to help me, I should stop grilling him. “I’m sorry to show up without an appointment,” I said. “But my problem is urgent.”

He was still standing, and he looked me over. He really did look like a rock star and not a lawyer. I tried not to let my gaze crawl up and down him, but he was pretty delicious to look at, from top to bottom.

“Right,” he said, not seeming to care that I was ogling him. “I got that part. So talk.” He shrugged off the leather jacket, which I took a second to admire lustily—the leather was dark brown, burnished, immaculate. This man knew how to dress his great body. Jesus, Charlotte. The problem. Get back to the problem.

“My brother,” I told him. “My brother’s been arrested. An hour ago.”

“Okay,” Ben said, tossing the beautiful jacket over the back of a chair. Now he was just wearing the dark gray T-shirt. Flat stomach, wide shoulders, yummy biceps. He wore an expensive leather watch on one wrist. “Go on,” he said.

“His name is Jeremy Browning,” I told him.

Ben looked at me blankly. “Okay.”

I stared back at him. “Doesn’t that name mean anything to you?”

Now he looked wary. “Should it?”

I slumped a little on the uncomfortable sofa. “I don’t know,” I said. “He told me I had to call you. Only you, and no one else. I assumed it’s because you know each other.”

“Sorry,” Ben said. “Though that does explain what you were doing sitting in front of my door. I’m really not that good a lawyer. What did he get arrested for?”

The word came out hard, ashamed, but I had to say it. “Drugs.” I put my elbows on my knees, my forehead in my hands. “Lots of drugs.”

Ben’s voice said this was his normal. “Any specific drugs, or just a general assortment?”

I forced the word out again. “Cocaine,” I said, barely able to believe it even as I said it. “He was caught with a pound of it. They say it’s possession and intent to sell.”

“Yeah?” Ben said. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but that’s a lot of coke. Your brother might be a nice guy, but right now he’s up shit creek.” He paused. “That’s not an official legal opinion, of course. Not until I get a retainer.”

I lifted my head from my hands and looked at him. I had no idea why my brother had sent me to this man, hot as he was. He was messy, hated by his now-former employee, and by his own admission not even that good at his job. He showed up to work, inexplicably, at five o’clock in the afternoon. He had an attitude and an awful sexist calendar on his wall.

But the fact was, Jeremy had sent me to him. He’d been very clear. And Jeremy was a lot of things, but confused wasn’t one of them. Which meant I was here for a reason.

Which also meant I wasn’t leaving. Not while my brother sat in a cell.

“Ben,” I said, “you have to help my brother. You simply have to.”

He crossed his arms, which I tried not to stare at. Lord. “Uh huh,” he said. “And why do I have to do that?”

“Because that cocaine wasn’t my brother’s. He was set up.” I took a breath. “He was framed. And I think you’re the person who can find the reason why.”