Legal Passion. Lisa Childs

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      Stone said, “I hope like hell that it isn’t true.”

      And he wasn’t talking about just the evidence but about last night. What the hell had he been thinking to kiss the attorney prosecuting his client?

      But that wasn’t the worst part of the night before. The worst part had been when she’d kissed him back.

      Because then he’d lost all control.

      * * *

      How the hell had Hillary lost control like that? Her face was hot just thinking about the night before. She lifted one hand to her cheek and slapped it lightly. Snap out of it.

      She had already spent too much time thinking about it. Too much time thinking about Stone Michaelsen, even before last night.

      “Is that your pre-court ritual?” a male voice asked.

      She whirled around to find her boss standing behind her in the hallway outside her office. He startled her so much that she nearly dropped the key she held near the lock.

      She must have looked stunned because he added an explanation. “Slapping yourself in the face? Is that the way you get fired up?”

      “Uh...” She couldn’t think at all right now.

      He chuckled. “Or maybe you use it to wake up.”

      She didn’t need to wake up since she hadn’t even slept. “I’m awake,” she assured her boss.

      The guy was short, nearly as short as she was, and he had the little man–Napoleon complex thing going on where he had to be in control at all times. More a dictator than a leader.

      “Good,” he said. “You need to be wide awake to take on Stone Michaelsen.” He cursed. “To take on any of those slick bastards from Street Legal.”

      He’d taken on Stone before and had lost just as she had. But his biggest loss was when Ronan Hall had represented his ex-wife in his recent divorce. Hillary kind of thought he’d deserved to lose that one, though. He was a bit of a lech.

      Even the way he was looking at her now made her want to button up her jacket to her neck. But the button across her breasts was already straining. She needed to lay off the candy bars for dinner. Salads from now on.

      From the way he was watching her, Wilson Tremont didn’t seem to mind that she was carrying a few extra pounds, though. He had to be nearly twenty years older than her thirty years. Maybe he had even more years than that on her.

      It was hard to tell with how he dyed his hair black and sprayed on a tan. He could have even been forty years older than she was.

      “We need to win this case,” he reiterated.

      We? He wasn’t sitting in on it with her—probably because he didn’t want another loss on his record, especially with an election coming up. But she wasn’t going to lose.

      “And that damn alibi,” he continued, “is going to make it tough for you. It was hard to even get the grand jury to indict with that.” He had been surprised, and maybe also disappointed, that they had. He’d probably lost a potential supporter for his upcoming campaign.

      But Hillary had had the murder weapon, which belonged to the defendant, and CSI had found only his prints on it. Hell, he’d had it locked up in a case to which he was the only one with a key. And the house staff and friends of Bethany’s who’d testified that she had a lover had provided Byron’s motive for killing his young bride. So Hillary had had enough for the indictment. And now she had more than enough to win.

      But she didn’t want to say that to her boss, or Wilson Tremont would take the case from her and try it himself. A win against Stone Michaelsen would look good for him.

      But Hillary wanted that win for herself.

      Despite last night...

      No. She couldn’t think about last night right now. Or at all.

      “What are you doing here?” Wilson asked as he glanced down at his watch. “Aren’t you due in court soon?”

      She nodded, and her mouth went dry at the thought of facing Stone so soon again. But she was a professional. She could do it—if only they had kept everything professional between them the night before.

      But that was all his fault. He’d kissed her first.

      ...and she’d kissed him back.

      But she hadn’t been able to help herself. He’d tasted so damn good, better than any candy bar she’d ever eaten.

      “I—I needed to get something that I left here last night,” she said.

      Wilson nodded. “Notes.”

      “Yes.” But she hesitated before unlocking the door. She didn’t want to open it with him standing there. She wasn’t sure exactly how she’d left it. Or where she’d left it.

      “You better hurry up and get them, then,” Wilson said with another glance at his watch. “You don’t want to be late and piss off Judge Harrison.”

      No. She didn’t. But she didn’t want to risk anyone finding what she’d left in her office, either. Thankfully, the cleaning crew had left before she had last night. So she didn’t think anyone had been inside since...

      “I’ll hurry,” she promised as she slid the key into the lock. Just as she began to slowly turn the knob, someone called out for Wilson.

      “Mr. Tremont, you have a call,” his secretary told him. “The mayor...”

      Wilson drew in a deep breath. “I hope he isn’t calling about Mueller’s case.”

      “Why would he?” Hillary asked, her brow furrowing with confusion.

      Wilson smiled, but it was a patronizing one. “I forget how naive you can be, Hillary. You don’t understand how politics work.”

      And he was probably damn happy about that, because he didn’t think he had to worry about Hillary going after his job, like half the rest of the assistant district attorneys appeared to be doing. Hillary knew a lot more about politics than she was willing to admit. It was safer for her, though, if her boss didn’t know that.

      “I’m sure Mueller contributed to the mayor’s campaign,” Wilson explained. “Hell, I’ll be lucky if the president doesn’t call to give me heat over daring to prosecute the great Byron Mueller.”

      Hillary reached out and squeezed his arm, but she regretted her impulsive gesture when he glanced down at her hand on his coat sleeve. But even as she pulled back, she assured him, “Don’t worry. Michaelsen is not going to get him off.”

      He stared at her, his dark eyes narrowed. “You’re awfully confident, Hillary. I’d like to know why.”

      She gestured at his secretary. “You surely don’t want to keep the mayor waiting, though.” She didn’t have to know how politics worked to know that that wouldn’t be prudent. “And I don’t СКАЧАТЬ