Sophia was the right attorney for the job.
She mentally went through the other candidates. Joseph O’Neill was a possibility. He was young and hungry. But Joan had wanted to see another woman succeed her when she retired.
“You’re right,” Sophia said.
“When this case is over you can take some time off,” Joan said. Sophia hadn’t taken a vacation since starting with the D.A.’s office. She’d never wanted one before.
“I do need a vacation,” Sophia admitted.
This case was important to the District Attorney’s office because it was high-profile.
Joan remembered her fifth year in the office and the decisions she’d had to make. At that time Maurice Hanner was still asking her out. And after a brief affair she’d thought about marrying him. But in the end no man could hold a candle to the law for her.
She hoped Sophia made the same choice. But just in case, Joan decided to start keeping a closer eye on Joseph.
REVENGE WAS BEST SERVED cold, Mitch Hollaran had heard. He didn’t care what temperature it was now that the end was in sight. For ten years he’d lived by a vow he’d made as a young man of twenty-four. When he’d followed his gonads instead of his head and had his ass served to him by a black-haired witch who still haunted his dreams.
He’d like to think he was a smarter man at thirty-four but there were days when he doubted it. Today wasn’t one of them. Everything was going his way. His flight had landed early. The exotic rental car service had a black Porsche waiting for him. He’d gotten a call from his office that the package he’d ordered had been delivered to Sophia.
He’d have loved to see Sophia’s face when she’d received his calling card, letting her know he was back in town. And back in her life.
Just the thought of seeing Sophia Deltonio again was enough to make him hard. It wasn’t just that she’d put him in an untenable position with the law firm he’d hoped to work for. It was that she’d ravaged his nice, neat plans for the future.
All of the Hollaran men had married their college sweethearts. Four generations of men had set the expectation for Mitch that women met in that phase of life were the ones to make a family with. Sophia had embodied everything he’d wanted in a woman and then she’d ripped that image to shreds with one coldly calculated move.
Though he was content with his life, he wouldn’t rest until he came out of an encounter with her the winner. And to think he was going to have to thank his pain-in-the-ass client Jason Spinder for the pleasure.
Mitch had talked with Spinder on the phone before leaving L.A. The case was basically one of “he said,” “she said.” Jason claimed that Holly McBride had told him she was eighteen and that others had corroborated her story. But the fact of the matter was Jason did have sex with Holly and she was underage. It was Mitch’s job to prove to the jury that Holly had tricked Jason for her own gain, using her body to get what she wanted.
Since the moment his assistant had sent him the file on Jason and the D.A. who was prosecuting the case Mitch had thought of nothing but the woman who’d betrayed him.
He had a chance to go up against the one woman he’d lost against so long ago. And this time he intended to come out the winner.
He’d had other lovers since they parted but he’d never let one woman consume him the way he’d let Sophia that long-ago winter. He’d been young.
Hell, he’d been a damned sap. But not anymore. He knew she had to have changed as well. And he needed to see the woman she was today. To exorcise the woman she was out of his system and move on.
In his mind he always pictured her wearing the velvet ribbon choker and nothing but lime juice. He swallowed and shifted his legs. She’d been one hell of a lover and the most sensual lady he’d ever met.
Everything with her had been erotic. Even law. He shook his head. He adjusted the radio dial off the pop station to some boisterous country music. It seemed to suit Orlando. The city was big and sophisticated but still clung to its cow-town roots. He maneuvered his way through the traffic thinking about Sophia.
She possessed hidden depths that she’d reveal to no man. Or at least she’d never revealed them to him. Years ago, he’d been planting the seeds for the future with her. But she’d wanted him only for what he could give her in bed. Well, that was fine; he no longer cared about the secrets of her soul.
He’d kept track of her through the alumni newsletter and the articles she’d written for the Harvard Law Bulletin. He’d seen a picture of her about a year ago when she’d won a humanitarian award.
It had ruined the coldhearted bitch image he had of her but he knew that it was pride that had made him think of her in those terms. Because truth be told if he’d had the same information she’d had, he wasn’t too sure he wouldn’t have sent her down a false trail and then claimed the one spot in the prestigious law firm, just as she had done to him.
He’d returned to Los Angeles and finished his graduate work at UCLA’s Law School. Fueled by the need to prove his worth to Sophia and the firm that had not selected him, he had scored a position in a very prestigious firm in Los Angeles and had recently been named an associate of the firm.
He knew that a gentleman would let the past rest. His father had counseled him many times to let go of things. But then Peter Hollaran had married his high-school sweetheart and had gone to work in his dad’s hardware store. His dad’s life was a bit simpler than Mitch’s.
Mitch had never been able to forget past wrongs. It was one of his faults and he’d made peace with a majority of his mistakes, but not Sophia. She haunted his dreams from time to time. And he knew it was time to force her out of his system once and for all.
Everything seemed to be coming together at once. He was on his own again since he’d refused to marry his live-in lover and she’d left him. He was finally facing the one woman who had left him hanging. He was plotting the kind of revenge that made him feel a little slimy, but then betrayal was something he knew Sophia understood.
So he didn’t really feel that bad. He didn’t regret the path his life had taken. He was a successful man by anyone’s standards, but deep inside the fire that had been driving him toward success was fueled by a deep-seated need for retribution.
He downshifted the Porsche Turbo and pulled into the downtown courthouse parking lot.
Who would have thought Jason Spinder, the twenty-two-year-old action movie star, would be the one to deliver it to him? Mitch entered the courthouse and spotted Jason standing off to one side with his manager, Marcus Richardson. Both men nodded at Mitch as he entered. He went through the metal detector and joined them.
“Hollaran, I thought you weren’t going to make it,” Jason said. Jason wasn’t overly attractive by Hollywood standards. But he had charisma, according to Betsy, Mitch’s secretary.
“Of course I made it. That’s what you pay me for.”
“What’s going to happen today?” Jason asked. He didn’t look like a blockbuster action star who commanded ten million dollars a picture. Instead he looked like a young kid in over his head.
“You’re going to be arraigned.”
“Then?”
