assaulted a senior citizen. That’s a class A misdemeanor. The state isn’t going to budge.” That fact had been more than apparent during his earlier conversation with Allan Vera.
She grabbed her briefcase and stood. “Okay. Have it your way. Hopefully the presiding judge will see it my way.”
Daniel came to his feet. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment, but if I think of something else, I’ll let you know.” She swept her hair away from her face with one hand. Today it fell to her shoulders in soft curls, just as it had the other night. Daniel was assaulted by the sudden fantasy of having those curls raking over his bare chest—and lower. He needed to get a grip, and not on her.
“I hope you’re ready for this, Counselor,” she said.
Daniel rounded the desk and stood before her. Not too close, but close enough to get the full effect of her vivid blue eyes. “I’ll be ready.”
“So will I.”
“But you’re not going to win this one, Alisha.”
She lifted her chin and sent him a smug smile. “Wanna bet?”
He streaked a hand over his jaw. “Sure. What should we wager?”
Her smile faded into a frown. “I wasn’t serious.”
“I am.” He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching out to her. “How confident are you that you’ll win?”
“Might I remind you, if anyone found out money exchanged hands between us, we’d both be disbarred.”
“I didn’t say a thing about money.”
Alisha eyed him skeptically. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
Something that would be deemed downright dirty. “I’d have to think on it, but I have a few ideas.”
“So do I,” she said, continuing to clutch the briefcase to her breasts. “If you lose—which you will—I’d consider something involving a little public humiliation. Maybe I’ll make you wear Les’s sequined toreador outfit, sans pants, and you can give a speech on the courthouse steps.”
“You know, Alisha, if you want to get me naked again, you don’t have to win a bet. You only have to ask me.”
She wagged a finger at him. “We’re not going to go there again, Counselor. Not now.”
That “not now” thing gave him some hope. “Later?”
“You’re going to continue to give me a hard time, aren’t you?”
“I’ll give you whatever you want me to give you,” he said.
She drew in a shaky breath and her eyes took on a hazy cast. No way could he miss it. “I want you to consider keeping this case out of court.”
“I’m not talking about the case and you know it.”
“I know, and we can’t talk about what’s happening between us,” she said. “We certainly can’t act on it.”
At least she’d admitted there was an “us.” “True, but this trial isn’t going to stop me from thinking about it.” He took her hand and pulled her forward. “And you’ll be thinking about it, too.”
“Daniel, this isn’t a good idea at all,” she said without much conviction. And even more telling, she didn’t yank her hand out of his grasp.
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m not going to do anything but this.” Lifting her hand, he turned it over and brushed a kiss on her palm, followed by a streak of his tongue, before releasing her. “If that’s what I have to settle for right now, then I’ll live with it.”
After a slight catch of her breath, the confidence returned to her face. “A hand kiss. And I thought chivalry was dead.”
He brushed her hair from her shoulders and rested his mouth at her ear. “Sometime in the future I’m going to kiss more than your hand, starting with that sexy mouth of yours, then I’m going to move my lips lower until—”
She pulled back and started backing to the door. “We’re going to behave ourselves during this trial, Daniel.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.” But he bit back a laugh when he realized she was trying to convince herself as well as him.
“I’m going now,” she said without making a move to leave.
“Fine. I’m not stopping you. Not this time.”
“Since when have you ever stopped me?”
He couldn’t resist getting in one last comment before she disappeared. “I sure didn’t stop you Saturday night. And I’m not going to stop you if you decide you want a repeat performance in the future. But it’s going to be your decision. You know where to find me.”
“Yes, I do. Opposing me in a courtroom.” With that she jerked open the door and rushed away, leaving Daniel assessing his total loss of logic.
For years he’d walked the straight and narrow, never veering off course, never doing anything that could ruin his aspirations, especially not with a woman. But Alisha wasn’t just another woman. She was tough. She didn’t give a damn about what his status could bring her. And most important, she was nothing at all like his mother—a woman who suffered abuse from her alcoholic husband at the expense of her own children’s sense of safety. And still she’d stayed with him, until staying had cost her her life.
But that was all in the past, where Daniel intended to keep it. He also intended to see where this thing with Alisha Hart might lead. Hopefully not down the path of destruction.
Four
As if her little encounter with Daniel Fortune hadn’t been bad enough two days ago, now she found herself at the jail for another meeting with Les Massey. She’d had very little sleep and too much to think about—namely the prosecutor. Right now she had to think about her client, who sat across from her giving her a suggestive smile that probably worked on most women but not on her.
She shuffled her notes to keep from looking at him. “Okay, Mr. Massey, we need to go over a few things before I have to go before the judge for the hearing.”
“I’m all yours, Ms. Hart. Knock yourself out.”
When she finally looked up to discover his orange prison-issue jumpsuit unzipped to his sternum, she wanted to knock him out. “First of all, in reference to the woman you pushed—”
“I told you I didn’t push her.”
“All right, the woman you allegedly pushed while making your escape down the walkway following the river-taxi incident—”
“I wasn’t escaping.”
“You were running.”
“I was sprinting. No one was after me except maybe a
