Unlawful Attraction: The Complete Box Set: Alpha Billionaire Romance (34 page)

I sighed and flung an arm over my eyes, trying to block out everything, including the case...and especially the look Dena had given me before she walked out of the penthouse.

I wasn’t going to think about her.

I wasn’t going to think about her at all.

Mentally, I focused and began to count down.

Twenty.

Time to let go of all the tension of the day. Deep breath in, out, let it all drift away.

Nineteen.

Loosen the muscles, tighten them, then loosen. From the nape of the neck all the way down.

Eighteen.

Deep breath in, out. Flex the muscles of the lower legs, then release.

Seventeen.

My phone rang.

I jerked upright and grabbed it, hoping against hope that it was Dena.

Staring at the display, at the unknown number showing there, I swore.

So much for not thinking about her.

All the tension I’d managed to wrap under some semblance of control now seemed to be coming back with a vengeance. Swearing, I kicked free of my sheet and punched my fist into the mattress.

This was just a bunch of bullshit, really.

Nothing more.

Ten minutes later, I stood in the shower with a glass of scotch on the shelf beside me, letting myself be wrapped in billows of steam.

If I couldn’t talk myself out of thinking about her, I’d do the next best thing. Under normal circumstances, I would've called her, demanding she come over where I’d fuck her out of my mind, but I was starting to think that my usual
normal
might not be possible with her.

And I wasn't sure I wanted it anyway.

Water slid over me, a gentle caress against my skin.

It wasn’t even close to as good as having Dena sliding over me, but as I wrapped my hand around my rigid cock, it was pretty clear that my dick didn’t care. I was thick, swollen and aching, and what I needed to do was come.

Up, down. Repeat.

Hissing out a breath, I imagined her coming to me through the steam, going to her knees and taking me in her mouth. I stroked my thumb over the head of my penis, imagined it was her tongue. Remembered the heat of her mouth. The suction and pressure.

Inside my head, a hot, X-rated little fantasy played out. Pale in comparison to the real thing, it was enough to keep me going, to make my balls tighten and my body tense.

In the shower, I shifted so that I had my back to the spray, leaning against the wall while I fucked my fist. Water pounded down around me and I panted, teeth peeled back and bared a grimace.

The release that came was just that and only that.

A release.

When I dried off and half-stumbled back to the bed, I had to fight the urge to sigh. It hadn’t done much more than take the edge off.

What I needed was Dena.

Chapter 7

Dena

Dreams of Arik chased me all night long.

Waking up feeling like I’d fallen through the looking glass and still hadn’t quite found my way out of Wonderland, I gulped down two full cups of coffee even before getting into the shower. I'd grab a third on my way to work.

I wasn’t up to verbal sparring today, but I was pretty sure there'd be plenty of it on the plate, so I needed my caffeine.

The dreams...

Even after Carrie had interrupted the first one, more had waited for me.

The second one had been like an acid-laced trip through hell. Not that I’d ever done acid, but a friend had used the description once, and it seemed fitting. It had been all about me and Arik sitting in one of the ‘viewing’ rooms at Club Privé, while Bethany and her new toy of the week went over reams of paperwork. Naked. There had also been several heads sitting around the room. Just heads. Human heads. Without bodies.

I was positive that paperwork and human heads were important, that they meant something, but damned if I could figure out what.

“If you’d listen to me about how my client was innocent, none of this would be happening.”
Arik had told me several times in the dream.

“None of
what
?” I muttered out loud now, hours later. “Naked filing?”

Disturbed by all of it, I tried to push the images and voices all out of my head as I showered, but I was only partially successful. By the time I was ready to head out the door, I was so edgy, I actually decided to skip the latte I usually grabbed on the way into the office. If I needed it later, I'd grab one at lunch.

I’d dressed a little more sedately than normal, a concession to my headache and sleepless night. The black pantsuit and vivid pink cami would also be good enough for the club if I lost the jacket, so if I needed to blow off some steam after work, I'd be ready to go. I wasn’t going to toss and turn all night like I had last night. Better to dance myself into exhaustion.

Habit had me going straight to my old office. I stopped a few feet away when I remembered, then turned around and trudged back down the hall to where I’d been relocated.

I was halfway there when I collided with Pierce.

Literally.

Crashing into him, I hissed as hot coffee splashed on my hand, and more of it splashed on him.

“Dammit, Dena! Bad enough you’re fucking with my career,” he snapped, glaring at me. “Do you really need to throw second degree burns on top of it?”

The apology I’d been formulating died on my lips.

“
I'm
fucking with
your
career?” Aware that people were staring at us, I kept my voice low. “I’m not the one who started it, Pierce. All you had to do was speak up.”

“And you could have just ignored it and let it go. Nothing would have happened.” His eyes darted around, his handsome face an ugly shade of red.

“Wrong.” I reigned in my temper. No matter how I felt about him screwing Bethany, she was the one in the position of power. “When you ignore a bully for shit like that, they just do more. They want to see what else they can get away with. How far they can push you.” Reaching into the side pocket of my purse, I pulled out a couple of tissues. “Here. For your jacket.”

He ignored the offer, continuing to blot at the liquid with an already drenched napkin.

I started to shake my head and step around him, but stopped part-way around. “You know, she’s not worth it. She’s already trying out her desk with some other guy. Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think you’re a half-bad guy under all of it, Pierce. You could do better. You deserve better.”

Before he could say anything else, I headed to my office and shut the door, locking myself in.

***

The first three times I called Bethany, I was snapped at, hung up on, and put on hold for twenty minutes – in that order.

Finally, tired of waiting, I gathered up my notes and the bullet point list I’d made of the reasons why Leayna Mance wasn't the killer. All of which I was almost positive Arik would be presenting in court. We needed to either find ways to refute all of these points, or we needed to find a better suspect. The real suspect.

I just needed to get Bethany to see that.

As soon as I reached Bethany's office, however, I knew things wouldn’t be going my way. Her receptionist, Barbara, cut her eyes to the door, then shook her head. Based on the expression on her face, she wasn't merely telling me to sit and wait until Bethany was done with whatever she was doing.

Through the partially open door, I could hear Bethany talking. As there wasn’t anybody responding to her curt questions, I had to assume she was on the phone.

I settled myself in one of the chairs and gave Barbara a little smile. In her fifties, she once told me she was counting down the months to retirement. I was pretty sure she only had eight months left. I couldn't imagine having to work eight months directly under Bethany. At least now I could escape to my office most of the time.

There was a heavy smashing sound and Barbara and I shared a grimace before Bethany appeared in the doorway. Her glare flew past me to lock on her receptionist. “Find out who in the
fuck
is handling the docket this afternoon. I want a name. They're going to be very sorry they fucked with me.” She drew in another breath and then stopped, her gaze drifting back toward me. “Did we have something scheduled?” she asked, her voice icy.

“No.” I managed a polite smile. “I can always set up a time for later, but I had a few things about the Mance case that I needed to discuss with you, and I wasn’t having much luck calling you earlier.”

“This was why I wanted Lawton on the case,” she said, turning on her heel and stalking into her office. “He seems perfectly capable of working independently.”

Since she hadn’t closed the door, I assumed that meant I was to follow.

“As it seems he’s back from his suspension, perhaps you’d prefer him to resume being second chair.” I kept my voice neutral.

“No,” she snapped. “The back and forth is slowing things down, and it won’t look good when we finally get to move to court. Speaking of which...” She took up position behind the desk and spread her hands wide on the surface before giving me a hard look. “You had something to discuss. Let’s hear it.”

Placing my file down on the desk, I flipped it open.

“Nothing about this case adds up,” I said bluntly. She wouldn't like it, but at least she wouldn't throw me out before I had my say. “Mrs. Mance is being painted as a woman scorned, murdering her husband for planning to divorce her, and leaving her with nothing. Except no one can find any record of him even speaking with a divorce lawyer.”

“All he had to do was say it, and it set her off.” Bethany crossed her arms over her chest.

“But there's no proof,” I continued. “And according to their pre-nup, if he filed for divorce for anything other than infidelity, he had to pay her half.”

“Just because we haven't found proof of an affair doesn't mean it didn't happen.”

I took a slow breath. “We have no motive, and none of the forensics supports her being the killer.”

“She was in the building,” Bethany snapped. “She had his blood on her.”

“But not as much as she would have if she'd killed him. The medical examiner said that the killer would've been covered from head-to-toe. The pictures of Ms. Mance after the fact show blood on her shirt and her hands, nowhere else.”

“Dammit, Dena! Are you a prosecutor or her bleeding heart defense attorney?”

“I’m a lawyer, same as you. And things don't add up. We might be prosecuting the wrong person.”

Bethany snorted, the sound thick with scorn. “Oh, honey. You need to grow up.” She gestured toward the file as if she didn't even want to touch it. “Put that away. This is about getting a conviction.”

I squared my shoulders and asked the question I hadn't wanted to ask. “And if an innocent person goes to jail?”

An unladylike noise came from her throat. “Don't be so naïve, Dena. Nobody’s innocent.”

Chapter 8

Dena

Nobody’s innocent
.

There was nothing Bethany could have said that would've pissed me off quite as much as those two simple words.

It wasn't just the opposite of people who thought everyone was innocent. Thinking that nobody was innocent, in Bethany's mind, seemed to be a free pass to charge anyone with any crime, whether they did it or not, simply because they must be guilty of something.

I knew that, more and more, the belief of innocent until proven guilty was being put through the ringer, especially by the media. It annoyed me, but it wasn't the same.

Bethany made a mockery of everything I’d chosen to believe in, everything I wanted to believe in. She preferred to ignore all the evidence pointing to the possibility that her suspect might be innocent. She just wanted to put someone away, get a win. Justice didn't matter to her.

I still believed in justice, and I'd do what I needed to make sure that it was served.

Even if that meant going over Bethany's head with any evidence I found.

At least it seemed like I'd have plenty of time to work. Pierce was going out of his way to avoid me. Since he wasn’t working on anything connected to the Mance case now, it was easy to stay away from him without actually looking like I was avoiding him. And, of course, Bethany was tied up in court. If the courthouse grapevine was anywhere near accurate, she’d nailed somebody’s ass to a wall on the stand just the other day.

Between now and Monday morning, I probably didn’t have to worry much about Bethany appearing at my shoulder or calling me. Her current case would probably be going to closing arguments tomorrow and handed off to the jury over the weekend.

Come Monday, though, Bethany would be on my ass again. More importantly, she’d be looking for a way to lock Leayna Mance up for a murder I was becoming more and more certain she hadn’t committed.

If she’s innocent, you just need to find a way to prove it,
I told myself. Regardless of what Bethany said, there was more to my job as a prosecutor then putting people in prison. Everybody lost when an innocent person was found guilty.