Risking It All

Aidan found his voice. “That’s the question of the hour.”

“Sit down.” She motioned abruptly at one of the other chairs.

“Ask me nicely first.” Aidan leaned one shoulder against the wall.

Her nostrils flared delicately. She stared at him as though she needed a moment to digest his words. Then she frowned. “Are you antagonizing me?”

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

Aidan approved of the response. She was direct. And it was a good question. Maybe it was the bedroom hair that made him feel cantankerous. He’d had enough of gorgeous women for a lifetime.

“I wasn’t the one who started this off by giving orders,” he pointed out.

Her jaw hardened. “Please, Mr. McKenna, won’t you have a seat?”

She rebounded well, too. “Thanks, I think I will.”

He pushed off the wall and went to the table. He pulled a chair out, turned it around, and straddled it. She picked up his paperwork again.

“Is this the part where you ask me if I did it?” Aidan wondered.

She glanced up at him. Purple, he thought, her eyes were a hue of purple, at least in this harsh fluorescent light. And damned if he didn’t find himself wondering what they looked like when they were heavily lidded with satisfaction or opaque with need.

He never learned.

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered.

That ticked him off. “Well, I didn’t. Do it, that is.”

“Of course not.”

He came out of the chair so suddenly he saw her recoil a little. He slammed it back into place at the table and went to the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked quickly.

“I think I’ll call another lawyer. One who believes me.”

“Wait!” Her voice went sharp without really rising.

Aidan reached the door and looked back at her.

“Let’s…” She licked her lip again. “Let’s start over,” she finished as though the words tasted bad.

He wagged a finger back and forth between them. “This? Us?”

“I’ve had a long day. Maybe I was too…” She faltered, seeming unable to finish.

“Condescending?” he offered. “Judgmental?”

Ah, there, he thought. There was heat in those eyes. They’d been cold and blank up until now, but something that reminded him of a solar flare hit them as he watched.

It was enough to make him go back to the table. He wanted to see how many other ways they could change, and how quickly. There was a lot going on in there beneath her surface disdain, not that he trusted an ounce of it.

This time when he pulled the chair out, he sat properly. “Go ahead. Start over.”

He sounded as if he was giving her permission, Grace thought. In a way, he was, and that galled her.

Her heart was still beating with a sick thudding rhythm against her chest wall. How would she explain to Lutz if she lost the guy in the initial interview? Her head was fogged. Her thoughts seemed to be swimming through muck. She was tired, she thought, just tired. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that he…well, he unbalanced her.

If she was reading him right, he didn’t like her. Most men never got to the point of deciding whether they did or not. They saw her and that was enough. They looked at her and they wanted her. Grace had learned a long time ago that she need not have a single redeemable quality. They’d trail after her like pups looking for their mama anyway.

He was watching her, waiting for something, she realized. “You…ah, want me to ask you if you’re innocent.”

He nodded.

Grace swallowed carefully. “Okay. Are you innocent?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m not Bran Downey.”

He didn’t actually answer this time, she noticed. She looked down at the papers in front of her. “Bran Downey shot a cab driver on the corner of Broad and Vine. Of course, he was aiming for his wife at the time.”

Aidan reached for the other guy’s paperwork. “Did she get away?”

Grace fought the urge to slap his hand away. “Who cares?” Had she just sounded shrill? Grace briefly covered her face with her hands. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not Bran Downey.”

“Nope. But she did. Get away, that is. Good for her.”

“Yes.”

“If I’m here, where’s Downey?”

“How the hell should I know?” God bless her, now he was making her swear!

“It just makes me wonder about this fine city I’ve vowed to protect and serve. I’m here for undisclosed reasons. Meanwhile, Downey is probably in Bimini by now. What’s wrong with this picture?”

Undisclosed? What did that mean? “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m not representing Downey.”

“Lucky for him. You’re a little tense there, lady.”

He had no idea, Grace thought. Her first felony case had damned near dumped her within minutes of meeting her. He wasn’t the man whose paperwork she’d been given. He wouldn’t let her take charge.

And he was big and blond.

She finally looked at him, really looked at him. He had sea-green eyes that moved between candid and flinty. And it was quite possible that that was a dimple there on the lower part of his left jaw. It showed up when he flashed that quick, arrogant grin. Burly guys with rough jaws ought not to have dimples, she decided.

And why, pray tell, was she thinking about that when she was sitting here with the wrong guy’s paperwork?