The meeting with Josh had gone better than expected. I didn’t know what Olivia had said to him while I was out of the room, but it had worked. He went from being a silver-spoon-fed prick, to humble and remorseful in a matter of minutes.

I had gone into the meeting 99% sure Josh was guilty of raping and murdering his girlfriend, but by the time we left, I wasn’t as sure anymore. His girlfriend had been found dead in her apartment, strangled with her own sheets. Josh’s DNA was everywhere, of course, as he’d been there, and slept there dozens of times. Even worse, the autopsy showed she was pregnant, and it wasn’t Josh’s baby.

The prosecution’s working theory was Josh had found out Cecilia was pregnant with another man’s baby and freaked out. That he went off in a rage, raped her to show dominance, and then killed her. It read like a storyline straight of Law & Order: SVU. Except, in this case, the whole thing didn’t wrap itself up in a neat little package in a few weeks; it had been almost a year since Cecilia had been found dead, and this trial was expected to last weeks.

Josh claimed he was innocent, said he had left Cecilia’s house before she had been killed. But he had no alibi. He said he had gone running that night, but no one was with him. His doorman saw him leave and return, but it still would have given him more than enough time to murder Cecilia and get back.

“I think we should put Josh on the witness stand,” I said, as Olivia returned from the bathroom. We had stopped at a small diner on our way back from the prison.

“What? Are you nuts?” she asked, sliding into the booth.

“No, I think he could make a real impact on the jury.” It was rare for the defendant to take the stand in a murder trial. Most attorneys, myself usually included, believed that any benefit they could gain from calling their own client would be nullified during cross-examination. And then there was the matter of the Fifth Amendment. In the case they were actually guilty, they didn’t have to answer any questions that would incriminate them. Many considered pleading the fifth to be a sign of guilt, and even though the jury was told not to take pleading the fifth into consideration when they made their decision, most of the time it just wasn’t worth the risk.

“There is no way I’m calling him to testify.” She shook her head. “I know I don’t speak highly of Jason Drew, but he will literally rip Josh to shreds.”

“We get the first crack at him, though, and Drew can’t bring up any evidence that hasn’t already—”

“I know how trials work,” she cut me off. “The answer is still no.”

“Before we met with him today, I would’ve bet you my car that he was guilty,” I said.

“And now?”

“I wouldn’t bet my car anymore, that’s for damn sure.” Just then, our waitress showed up at our table with our burgers and fries. “Just think about it.”

“Fine, I’ll think about it, but I doubt I will change my mind,” she said, and took a bite of her hamburger. Grease dripped out of the burger and ran down her fingers, onto her hand. She swore and licked the juice from her hand before sucking it off her fingers. I felt myself get turned on at the sight of her fingers in her mouth.

I shook my head and focused my attention on my own burger. I had to learn to control myself around her. It wasn’t easy. Not only was Olivia beautiful, but she was smart as hell. The longer I worked with her the more impressed I was. The way she handled Josh and coaxed information out of him effortlessly was no doubt one of the reasons she’d been so successful.

I wanted to know more about her. She’d been at the top of her class at Columbia Law School, and before that, she’d graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Connecticut with degrees in both psychology and criminology.

She was the whole package, the kind of woman I used to imagine I’d settle down with one day. I pushed that idea out of my head as soon as it entered. Those thoughts had no place in our relationship, no place in my head right now. Those thoughts were dangerous and led nowhere good.

As much as I wanted to know about Olivia, I was more interested in how she got here. I wanted to know more about her painting, more about her childhood. I had noticed how she’d dodged my question about why she became a lawyer, and I definitely planned to bring it up again, but not right now.

Not when she was sitting across the table from me sipping on her strawberry milkshake and looking sexy as hell. Not when being in the car with her all day, smelling her perfume had almost made me crazy. Not when I wanted to take her in the bathroom and fuck her right now. No, right now I needed to get her back to my apartment and out of that dress.