Risking It All

He crossed the room again, coming back at her fast. This time Grace flinched in spite of herself. He put a hand on each arm of her chair and leaned into her.

“Back off,” she whispered. She wondered if he heard the quaver in her voice.

“We’ve got one little bit of unfinished business here.”

“Finish it on the other side of the room.”

“Give me one answer here, lady. Am I innocent or guilty?”

“That’s not germane—” She broke off suddenly when he moved one of his hands to cup her chin. He held her face still when she tried to look away. Touching her again.

Grace felt her pulse begin ratcheting. The man was out of control. “You don’t need an assault charge right now on top of everything else,” she whispered.

“Who am I assaulting?”

Oh, God help her, his voice was like smoke again. “Me.”

“You think this is assault?”

“Yes. You’re touching me.”

“Am I hurting you?”

Yes. He was scaring the hell out of her. She was scaring the hell out of her. “No. But you’re doing it against my will.” She was finally able to move. Adrenaline spurted into her, hot and acidic. Grace smacked his hand away.

“Temper, temper,” he murmured, stepping back again. “Am I innocent or guilty?”

“I just told you, that isn’t—”

“Your representation of me depends on your answer, Violet Eyes.”

She didn’t like to be touched, she didn’t like surprises, and Grace hated being backed into corners. “I don’t like Violet Eyes, either.”

Blessedly, he let the issue drop. “Kat couldn’t have ratted me out for one simple reason, Counselor.”

Counselor. She could live with that, Grace decided.

“I never did anything to rat on,” he continued.

“So she made it up. We’ll know once we get to the prelim—to the preliminary hearing. But first we have to get through bail tomorrow.”

“There’s not a ‘we’ involved here yet, lady-honey-Violet Eyes.”

“Now you’re trying to provoke me.”

“Is it working?”

And like that, just like that, he was the devil again. Grinning, relaxed, irreverent, unperturbed, as though his temper moments ago hadn’t happened. The room wanted to tilt around her.

Grace turned carefully in her chair and started typing again. “Give me some character witnesses. What about Rafe Montiel? And that other guy you mentioned earlier at the restaurant?”

“Fox Whittington. He’s Rafe’s partner. Yeah, they’ll both come through for me. Note that I say ‘me,’ not ‘us.’”

“Stop holding my job over my head.”

“That’s tough to do when you’re virtually handing it to me.”

Suddenly she was on her feet as well. And she was vibrating.

“What do you want from me?”

“A little faith.”

She’d been dealing with criminals for over a year now, and she’d never met one who cared so much about the opinions of others. “Ninety-two percent of people accused of a crime actually commit them.”

He frowned. “I never heard that statistic. Where did you get it?”

“From my own experience.”

“A month’s worth?”

“Thirteen months’ worth. I clerked for a year before I went to Russell and Lutz. The odds are against you.”

“I’m supposed to be impressed with this?”

Grace folded her arms across her breasts. “I have an analytical mind. I can assure you, my results are accurate.”

“Law clerks work their—”

“Leave my body parts out of this, please,” she said quickly.

“Why? Mine seem to be up for grabs.”

Grace looked away as she felt her face heat again. “Trust me, I have no desire to grab any part of you.”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get back to what parts you didn’t work off while you were clerking. How the hell did you find time to do a study?”

“The results were something I felt I needed to learn. I worked on it in law school, too. If you add those results in, you come up with something closer to four years’ worth of data.” She finally glanced over her shoulder. He was staring at her. For the first time since she had met him, he actually looked flummoxed.

“What?” she demanded.

“Why would a woman who looks like you spend her spare time poring over insignificant data?”

Her spine hardened and it hurt. “It’s not insignificant.”

“It’s erroneous.”

“It’s not that either.”