sob. She couldn’t believe he was being so cruel. Maybe her father did spoil her, but that wasn’t her fault. But selfish? Nobody had ever accused her of that before. “Please,” she begged. “If you’d just give us a chance... I love you.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, Caroline saw his resolve.
“Well, I don’t love you. Trust me—you’ll thank me one day,” he said. He strode to the window and braced his hands on the sill, not looking at her. “Now get out of here.”
She stood looking at his bowed shoulders, her tears blurring his image. He had wanted her. She hadn’t been mistaken about that. But his rejection felt as if he’d just ripped her beating heart out of her chest. She’d never known such agonizing pain. And as much as she loved him, she wanted to hurt him, too. To make him feel just a little bit of what she was feeling right now.
“I won’t be sixteen forever,” she finally managed, hating how her voice shook. “Someday I’ll be a woman. But it will be too late for you. By the time your conscience decides I’m old enough, I’ll have had a dozen other guys. You only get one chance to be someone’s first, Jason.”
He spun around, and whatever triumph she might have felt dissolved beneath the stark bleakness of his expression.
“I’m doing this for your own good. And because I have too much respect for your father to take advantage of you. I owe him more than that.”
Caroline pulled her robe on with jerky movements and yanked the belt tight around her waist with trembling fingers. If she stayed another second, she would begin to cry, and there was no way she wanted him to witness that. She raised her chin, taking refuge in lashing out at him. “Whatever. I guess the other guys were right about you, after all. Do you know what my father’s law students say about you?”
He remained silent.
“They say you’re gutter trash,” she continued in a rush, even though she didn’t believe that about him for a second. “They say a leopard can’t change its spots, and I guess it’s true. Is that why you hide your tattoos? Because you know, deep down, that if people see them, they’ll know the truth about you? About what you really are?”
When he didn’t answer, Caroline felt small and mean. Being cruel wasn’t in her nature. People always said she was like her mother—sweet and kind. But right now, a part of her wanted to wound Jason. Another part of her wanted to fling herself against his chest and tell him she didn’t mean any of what she’d just said. But she wouldn’t risk him rejecting her yet again.
“I won’t wait for you, just so you know.”
Caroline stood uncertainly for a moment, hoping against hope that he might say something to stop her from leaving.
“No,” he finally said, and his voice sounded weary. “I wouldn’t expect you to wait and I don’t want you to. Just leave.”
With a muffled sob, she fled.
2
Present Day
CAROLINE STUFFED HER files into her leather carry case, snapped it shut and glanced at her watch. It was nearly ten o’clock, and she’d told the social services caseworker, Patrick Dougherty, that she would stop by the child welfare office as soon as possible to discuss Devon Lawton’s case. The boy had run away from home—again. The police had caught him breaking into a convenience store early that morning and had arrested him. Devon had borne the evidence of a vicious beating, and although he’d refused to name the person responsible, Caroline suspected it was his father.
Now the police wanted to put Devon into juvenile detention, while Caroline knew what he really needed was a safe, stable home environment. But at fourteen, he already had a growing rap sheet, and she seriously doubted that they’d be able to find a suitable foster family willing to take him in. He was a smart kid, and she believed with the right support, he could turn his life around. Both of his parents were alcoholics, and she suspected they did drugs, as well. Each time he got into trouble, the courts returned him to his family. There had never been any evidence of physical abuse...until now. Caroline hadn’t seen Devon yet, but Patrick had told her the boy was a mess.
She stopped by her boss’s office on her way out of the impressive marble building in downtown Richmond, Virginia, that housed the law firm of MacInness, Shively and Crane. Arthur MacInness, one of the senior partners, was standing behind his gleaming desk, studying a document he held in his hands. Through the towering bank of windows behind him, Caroline had a perfect vantage point of the entire city. Storm clouds had gathered overhead, and the skies looked sullen and dark. Arthur glanced up as she knocked softly on his open door. He lowered his glasses in a way that reminded Caroline of her father.
“I’m heading over to the child welfare office,” she said. “One of my kids pulled a B and E overnight, but it sounds like he was beaten black-and-blue beforehand, probably by his father. I’ll be back in the morning.”
He nodded. “Very well. Just don’t let your pro bono work interfere with your other cases here.”
After she’d passed the bar exam, and been hired at MacInness, Shively and Crane as a junior attorney, Caroline had found the work exciting and challenging. But after nearly two years of working on behalf of wealthy couples battling for child custody, she had started to feel unfulfilled. It wasn’t until she’d begun volunteering her legal services in support of the city’s underprivileged citizens that she’d felt infinitely more satisfied. And when she’d begun to focus those efforts on the youngest citizens—the children—she knew she’d finally found her calling.
She would have preferred that work exclusively, but she had bills to pay. So she’d hammered out a deal with her firm to devote a portion of her time to pro bono work through the child welfare office. The work indirectly benefited the firm, as the effort made them look at least somewhat philanthropic.
Last week, the district attorney’s office had offered her a full-time position on its staff, based on the pro bono work she’d done. She’d be a child advocate, representing children who otherwise would have nobody to speak up for them. She was considering the offer, although it would mean a cut in pay from what she was currently making. It would also mean she’d be able to work full-time on behalf of the city’s needy children. The work appealed to her. In fact, it was exactly the kind of work she’d hoped to do full-time. So what was holding her back from accepting the job? She wanted to make a difference in the lives of troubled kids, but she just wasn’t sure whether she wanted to do it here in Richmond.
Lately she’d found her thoughts turning more and more frequently toward San Francisco. She’d told herself a million times that it had nothing to do with Jason Cooper, or the notion that he’d once been a kid just like Devon. She was just missing her father. On some level, the work she did made her feel closer to him...and she’d been thinking that maybe it was time she went home, this time for good.
After she’d graduated from law school, she’d moved permanently to the East Coast, determined to get a job on her own terms, without her father’s influence. At the time, he’d still been a superior court judge, and he had connections with most of the bigger law firms in the area. It wouldn’t matter if Caroline was hired strictly on her own merit; she knew there’d be people who would always say her father had helped her out. So she’d gone to the opposite side of the country, where few people had ever heard of William Banks.
She liked Richmond, but it wasn’t home. Besides, her father wasn’t
