Reese is making me crazy. Since I met him, I can't think straight. I can't
sleep. I can't even get a cup of coffee without it ending up all over me. He's
trouble. He's my job. He's an incredible kisser. I hate him. I want to hit him.
I'm all over the board with this man.
These are the thoughts I have over and over as I rush to my apartment to
put on a pink dress I don't often wear to court. But I somehow end up in it
anyway. Just like I somehow ended up with Reese's lips on my lips. Maybe
that is the value of pink. It's innocence and sweetness. If I look the role, I'll
behave the role. I'll scare off the deviant, arrogant assholes like Reese.
Whom I hate.
I don't second-guess the dress as I step out of my building again, but I do
in fact second-guess just how I allowed his hands to end up on my body, in
a coffee shop, in the middle of this trial. I hurry toward the black sedan
Uber I've prearranged and climb inside, greeting the middle-aged man
behind the wheel. "Hello."
He gives a wave but doesn't speak, and perhaps I should question the
weird triangle bald spot on his head that cannot be natural, but this is
Manhattan. Antennas on the man's head wouldn't even be as weird as some
of the things I've seen in my almost thirty years in this city.
We make it all of one block before we're in a dead stop and my cellphone
rings in my purse. Digging it out, I note Reese's number. "Shouldn't you be
with your client?"
"That implies a crisis to manage, which also implies the prosecution, not
me or my team. Do you always taste like chocolate and coffee?"
"Do you always taste like arrogance?
"Better arrogance than an inability to please," he replies.
"That was a ridiculously arrogant answer."
"Back to the kiss. Better yet, let's talk about you and your confessed
desire to get naked with me."
"I did not say that."
"You did."
He's right. I kind of did. "That was then," I say.
"When you hated me."
"I didn't hate you," I say. "I just didn't like you."
"And yet you wanted to get naked with me?"
"I said I considered that option. A one and done."
"Sweetheart, the fact that you believe that's an option tells me you've
never been properly fucked. So let's be clear. If a man fucks you, and you
have the ability to be one and done, he did it wrong. And I don't intend to
do it wrong. Until later, Cat. And Cat, I can still taste you on my lips."
He hangs up.
My phone rings again almost instantly, and I answer with, "You know
what they say. A guy who talks big—"
"Has a little dick. Don't I know it."
At the sound of my agent's voice, I cringe. "Liz. I thought you were—"
"A man who pissed you off. I hope there's incredible make-up sex to
follow. After the trial. Stay focused. What you're writing is working for you
and me. The publisher is preempting you with six figures to ensure you
don't go elsewhere," she says. "But they want a lot of creative control."
"What kind of control?"
"They want to attach portions of your money to specific interviews that
have to be included."
"I don't like that. That isn't how I work. And if that's how they want to
play this, I'll write the book and then let you take it out to publishers when
it's done. Then it's done my way."
"I knew you'd say that, but I needed to confirm. But there is more.
They're in talks with Dan Miller for a book. They want you to consider cowriting it."
"The prosecutor? You have got to be kidding me. He's going to lose this
case and he's a jerk. No one wants a book from a jerk and a loser."
"It plays out like this: The real story. What the jury wasn't allowed to
know but the prosecution did."
"That's not my style."
"There isn't just more money in this for you. There's the establishment of
your true crime brand."
"Which is not what you just described."
"Talk to him," she says. "Appease the publisher."
"Being forced to appease others isn't why I started writing."
"You'll meet him tonight," she says, as if I haven't spoken. "After court.
The boutique hotel on the corner by the courthouse. The Johnnie—"
"Walker," I say. "I know it. It's popular with the insiders. When?"
"Seven," she says. "That's safe, right?"
"Yes. Seven works." I think of my encounter with him in the coffee shop
and his comment about writing a book. "And he knows who I am?"
"Yes."
"I approached him for an interview and he told me he knew me and he'll
write his own book." That made no sense at that point in time, but now it
does.
She laughs. "Obviously the publisher had been talking to him."
"So tell me again why we're meeting? Because to make matters worse, I
haven't been favorable to his trial skills."
"I'm aware of that fact. We all are aware of that fact, but the publisher
seems to believe your present tone only makes you two teaming up all the
more interesting."
"They're just looking for scandal on top of scandal," I supply.
"They're looking to sell books," she says, and without giving me time to
respond, she adds, "Call me after," and hangs up.
I blow out a breath. I could be partnering with Reese's adversary, while
I'm presently trying to recover from Reese's hands on my body and his
mouth on mine.
Could this get any more complicated?
I'm still asking that very question as I reach the courthouse and discover
that I'm running so late I need a guard to allow me inside the courtroom.
The judge, jury, and legal teams are in place, which means I am forced to
claim a back seat, or walk down the aisle and in front of all of the cameras.
I'm not a newscaster for a reason. I don't like the invasion of the cameras
lenses on ten different levels, which is something that someone other than
me can analyze, preferably never.
The court is called to order, for once without counsels taking a walk to
the bench. Reese works the courtroom, an edge of control and
determination about him. He calls his first witness. The victim's boyfriend,
whom Lauren is certain is the killer. He cries. He shouts. He cries some
more. Guilty or not, he's painted himself as a victim, and I believe him.
Right up until Reese turns the tables on him.
"Was it true that Jennifer was afraid of you?" he asks of the victim.
"Of course not."
"Are you certain that no one I put on the stand will say that Jennifer was
afraid of you?"
"There are people who don't like me. I can't know what they will say."
"Which people?" Reese asks.
"Her mother, for one. She doesn't seem to even consider that I lost the
woman I love and my unborn child. That is punishment enough without her
attacking me. I can't deal with her attacking me, too."
"You've been accused of being abusive."
From there it doesn't get better for the witness, but it does for the
accused. Reese doesn't produce a confession, but he opens the door to
another suspect, and does so artfully in every way.
The prosecution is just about to cross-examine when the judge calls a
short break. "Thirty minutes for lunch," he says. "It's Friday. I want to get
people out of here and to their families tonight." The gavel hits the wooden
block. The break is barely long enough to scarf something from a machine
and pee, and, I reluctantly admit, my disappointment at the absence of a
meetup with Reese. I'm leaning on a wall, watching people pass by and
shoving a bag of peanuts down, when my phone buzzes. I dig it out of my
purse to find a text message from Reese that reads: You taste as sweet as
you look in that pink dress, but not quite as innocent.
I glance up and my gaze pulls right, to find Reese leaning on this very
wall, a good ten feet away. Those blue eyes of his fix on me, and for just a
few moments I think of what the witnesses feel on the stand. The steel force
of his attention consuming them as it is me now. We stare at each other for
several beats, but he doesn't move toward me, he keeps a distance,
respecting the professional lines I've established between us. And then he's
gone, walking away before we become obvious, and I watch him join one
of his co-counsels and disappear down a hallway.
I could type a reply, but I have no idea what to say. None. Zero. Zip. I
write words for a living and I can't find any words to type. This man really
is making me crazy. And exceptionally warm. I guzzle my water, but what I
really want is a long, tall drink of Reese Summer. I glance at my watch and
confirm that The Reese Summer Show is about to start again. That means
I'm one step closer to removing my no sex during the trial rule.