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  Turning on my heels in the gravel, I make my way toward the courthouse’s front steps. A woman loitering there catches my eye–a slim blonde with her hair in a bun and a sweet little pout to her lips. She’s dressed in a suit that hugs her ass, and I wonder quickly if she’s there to sue or to be sued. She looks too tame to take someone to court, and too vanilla to get taken herself. She checks her watch and glares at the parking lot behind my shoulder.

  Must be a relative, I think as I pass her by. Our eyes lock for the briefest of moments, leaving me with a heated feeling, then the moment passes.

  Inside, my footsteps make heavy thuds that echo around the mahogany walls. My briefcase, stuffed with case notes is swinging in my hand. It has Christopher Cole, embossed on the front–a gift from my parents when I passed the bar.

  The case I’m covering today is simple. I was brought in at the last minute, but I enjoy the adrenaline rush that brings. A woman was caught sneaking into an ex-lover’s house. I’m here to make sure she pays for damages. The local law firm I’m up against, Page & Sons, only has about a fifteen percent success rate when it comes to defense. Judge Hastings is presiding, which would ordinarily make me a little nervous. She’s a fearsome woman with a gavel. Whenever I plead cases to her, I’m always wondering if she’d secretly like to beat someone with it. She probably would. We all have our kinks.

  After entering the courtroom I bow to the judge. Her head inclines toward me. I glance at the table to see my client hasn’t arrived yet, and another glance at the table across the aisle shows that my opposition isn’t here either.

  I heard rumors that Page & Sons hired a secret weapon a few months back, but their close rate is still abysmal, so it’s probably just bullshit.

  One of the guards, Jeremy, glares when I cross the floor and take a seat.

  “Got a little sweat on your brow, Christopher. You nervous?”

  “Rode my bike here, smartass,” I tell him as I take a seat, positioning my briefcase so the brass plaque on the front shines into his eyes. “How’s babysitting criminals treating you?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Go back to your corner then, Jeremy. Let the real men get back to work.”

  Jeremy seems to think all lawyers are crooks. To be fair, most are. I can be when my patience is tested, or when I’ve had a long day, or when someone pushes me just right.

  The guard bares his teeth but I’ve already moved on, scanning the empty jury seats and scowling. Sometimes I wish I could argue straight to a jury all the time, but it’s only the rare civil cases that are interesting enough to crowd the jury box and give me a chance to really put on a show. Would have been nice to have one today, since Judge Hastings is a ball-breaker and my client is a total shit-stain.

  Speaking of, I think as I turn to see the man striding into the courtroom. He’s wearing a mid-range suit with his blond hair slicked back in a way he probably thinks is vintage-style but just comes off as oily, and his stupid mustache is twirled at the edges.

  “Real class-act you’re representing,” Jeremy mutters.

  I sigh and run my hands over my forehead, collecting the beads of sweat that Jeremy had pointed out, which I’d almost forgotten about.

  “You’re late,” I tell Corbyn Dale as he walks toward me.

  He frowns with his nose tilted up, the universal sign of entitled annoyance. “The trial doesn’t even start for another ten minutes.”

  “I told you to be here fifteen minutes early,” I tell him, choosing to forget that I only just arrived myself.

  “But Jenny and her lawyer aren’t even here yet!” Corbyn whines. He fiddles with his phone–an iPhone 7 in a faux-vintage case that makes me hate him even more than I already do–and gazes around the room with a faint sneer. “Besides, this is going to be over quickly… isn’t it?”

  “That’s not–”

  I have to pause to remind myself that this shit-stain is paying my fee, and it won’t do me any good to start dressing him down before we even start. Better to dress him down when I’m done winning this case.

  Because I will win. I’ve been a shark in the courtroom for as long as I’ve been able to run my own cases. In this room, no one can match me. I’ve got exes who accused me of being too domineering, but after hours owning courtroom after courtroom, I could never understand how they expected me to be anything less. Control is all I know.

  The door opens again and two women stride into the room–the blonde I saw outside, and a dumpy little woman with an ill-fitting business jacket around her shoulders. The latter is the woman my client is suing. The other is… “Ah,” I say out loud as she strides with purpose toward the table on the other side of the courtroom then sets down a briefcase.

  Her eyes turn to lock on mine and I feel my interest pique. She seems a little green to be running this show on her own, but maybe Page or one of his sons are outside. I let myself grin showing some teeth, like the shark I am. I keep that grin in reserve for when I’ve got a witness right where I want them. She purses her lips but otherwise does not react. I silently applaud her for keeping her cool.

  “Sit down,” I tell Corbyn. “Let me do my job.”

  The blonde turns her head to speak to her client, though she keeps her eyes firmly on me the entire time. I can tell she’s trying her hardest to stare me down. It’s cute. I take another moment to really appreciate how young she looks. She’s probably about half my age, and while she may not be a virgin, I know what little skills guys her age are capable of. She’s never seen anything like me before.

  God, I would love to show her.

  I stride over and enjoy the way her dark brown eyes go darker when she sees me coming. When I arrive at her desk her client seems to recoil into her cheap suit jacket and turn away so she doesn’t have to look at me. I lean on the low-cost, standard pine wooden table, stained darker to give the illusion of class and offer my hand to the blonde.

  “Christopher Cole,” I tell her. “I’ll be working for the prosecution today.”

  The blonde stares at my hand for a moment before taking it and giving what she probably considers a firm shake, though her palms are a tiny bit clammier than she would probably have liked.

  “Ava Rose,” she replies. “First year associate for Page & Sons.”

  I nod. So she’s probably not going to be trusted with this alone. No way Page would send a first-year up against me. He can barely keep up with me himself and this girl looks barely out of law school. Regardless of her attempts to glare me down, this buttoned-up blonde looks more repressed than confident. It’s a common sight in women who probably haven’t had a good fuck in forever because they’ve been too busy focusing on their career.

  Such a shame. She looks like she’d be good.

  I realize I’m staring because she’s starting to stare back. I drop her hand and sigh. “How long does Luke plan on keeping us waiting?”

  Ava checks her watch. It looks expensive and I raise my eyebrows. How can she afford that while paying off her loans? If she came from money or had connections, then she wouldn’t be working for a nothing firm like Page & Sons.

  “He’s running a little bit late at the moment,” she replies. “He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

  “I don’t like to be kept waiting,” I tell her, lowering my voice feverously like I would if I were speaking to a lover who had misbehaved.

  The effect is instant. Her eyes fall down to my lips then my chest—I take a breath so my well-muscled pecs strain against the shirt I’m wearing—and then fall further to my crotch which is at eye-level for her while she’s sitting.

  She swallows. She looks hungry for it and I tilt my head as my interest in her shifts from passing to intense.

  “Neither do I,” she says.

  If I stand here much longer I might be tempted to grab her and bend her over the desk, but I know Judge Hastings will throw me out for contempt. Instead, I turn away without another word and let the blonde get a good look at my ass as I walk across to
my own desk and my shit-stain client.

  “Trying to intimidate the enemy, Christopher?” Jeremy asks when he sees me coming back. “Trying to talk her into settling?”

  That thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I glance back at the blonde and realize she’s taken her eyes off me, and she’s now talking to her own client again. She looks like she’s reassuring the woman and it pisses me off that I didn’t take the time to try and talk the cute little blonde into settling before Page comes and takes over. She’d distracted me with her dark chocolate eyes and her adorably innocent attempts to meet me, intimidation tactic for intimidation tactic.

  “Why would I do that?” I ask Jeremy, trying to cover myself. “She’s such an innocent little thing. This is probably her first time in the courtroom, don’t want to scare her.”

  I glance at the blonde again out of the corner of my eye and, sure enough, she’s glaring at me. She heard. Her client is still talking to her but she’s no longer paying attention. Instead, she’s got her fingers curled over the handles of her briefcase like a hawk’s talons around a tree branch.

  Normally, I’d think that look on a young woman is funny. On her, it looks sexy.

  I wouldn’t mind seeing her in attack mode, seeing her fighting hard, maybe breathing heavily or red-cheeked—

  I cut that thought off before it can settle, and start going through the files in my briefcase. Now isn’t the time to get a hard on. I need all my blood going to my brain, not cock. I’ve got a case to win.

  AVA

  Goddammit, why can’t Luke Page communicate more?

  Luke is my boss, technically. Page & Sons is a local law firm that mostly handles pro bono work for charities and also covers some civil cases when the legal aid offices are slammed. As far as I know, this case is just another one of Page & Sons’ clients being sued for a misdemeanor. As a first year, I’m mainly responsible for keeping abreast of cases, helping with the research, and trying to keep Page’s idiot sons from doing anything too stupid.

  At first, I’d only taken the job because I wanted to get my foot in the door somewhere, then pay my dues before moving on to somewhere better once I’d proven my worth. But now, I’m kind of invested in it. Page & Sons only has about a fifteen percent success rate, which has gone up a bit since I joined. Not only that but as one of the few competent people on staff, I’ve become more and more adept at things I wouldn’t have been expected to master until well into my third or fourth year out of law school. I can advance here, I think, and learn more than I could have anywhere else.

  Of course, I still would have liked to have someone at my back today.

  Luke might just be faking his illness, or he might legitimately have whooping cough, but at the moment it doesn’t matter. What matters is his secretary, Joanne, handed me a stack of case notes when I came into work this morning.

  “What’s this?” I’d asked.

  “Mr Page can’t make it in today,” Joanna said, looking apologetic. “He needs you to fill in on the Morgenstern case.”

  “But I haven’t had anything to do with that!” I’d squeaked.

  After that conversation there had been nothing else for it. In the almost year I’d been working with Page & Sons, I’d never once been asked to do something so ad hoc. Normally, I’d spend weeks planning my arguments, and come into the courtroom knowing everything about who were defending and who our opposition was. Even then, there would be a very, very slim chance of me actually having to present.

  I’m only a first year, after all. Usually, I’m not handed a case file that somebody else has put together and told that my court date is in twenty minutes, on the other side of town.

  Goddammit, I’m seriously going to kill Luke.

  I met my client, Jennifer, at the courthouse. Inside, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Judge Hastings behind the gavel. She’s a fair woman, though fearsome when she’s pushed, and I’ve seen cases pled in front of her before.

  To say I'd been brought up short when I saw the man I’d be arguing against is an understatement.

  I knew of him by his reputation, but I’d never seen him before. He’s well-known in Vegas–Christopher Cole, the shark of Benson & Cole. They have an almost one hundred percent success rate and Christopher Cole is a big part of those successes.

  I’d felt my heart sinking the minute I saw him ride into the courthouse parking lot astride his black motorcycle. He’s tall and broad-shouldered from what I could see beneath the motorcycle jacket he’d been wearing. There’s a light salt and pepper color to his black beard. There’s a slight tan on his face which makes my pale skin look even paler by comparison, and his body moves like there’s a lot of raw power beneath the surface. He probably has muscles hidden beneath that suit jacket he’s now wearing.

  He took his time sizing me up as he’d passed me on the way inside the courthouse, but I could have sworn there was an intense feeling shared.

  Get a grip, Ava.

  I’ll admit I’ve been admiring him from afar. I respect him as a lawyer, but I also admire him as a sexy specimen of manhood that feels extremely out of my reach.

  I’d drawn Jennifer toward me the moment I saw her, helping run a comb through her hair and make herself presentable. Though nothing could help her ill-fitting jacket look more tailored. The woman made a drunken attempt to break into her ex’s house, and he’s enough of an asshole to take her to court for the cost of the alarm and the doorknob.

  Waste of public funds, I think, even though I’m benefitting from it.

  Inside, Christopher Cole had zeroed in on me. I’d tried to stare him down, assuming he’d be more interested in intimidating me than my client. His presence filled the room as though he owned it—as if the room had been waiting for his arrival to fill it—and now he’s here it’s finally doing its job.

  After a while I realized his stares weren’t entirely professional, and that only made me feel more nervous. He was glaring at me almost hungrily. I’ve seen looks like that on men’s faces before but somehow this was different. I can’t explain it. The moment he laid his eyes on me I wanted to throw myself on the desk and do whatever he asked.

  I’ve never in my life been affected like that by a man.

  When he came over in a prowl-like walk, he spoke to me with the deepest voice that ignited my want for him even more. Sitting under the gaze of this man with his dark eyes shining down on me, I felt like the most inexperienced girl on the planet. The gray at his temples hinted at years of experience and practice, and the way he looked at me like he was thinking of a dozen things he could do to me only supported that theory.

  I wonder how many women he’s been with.

  I made the mistake of looking at his crotch and he’d smiled at me like a shark who smelled blood in the water.

  I’d panicked when he discussed Luke, so I lied and stated he was on his way. After our brief discussion Christopher left to join his client, and Jennifer had leaned over and whispered, “I thought you said Mr Page can’t make it?”

  “He can’t,” I told her. Thinking quickly, I added, “But if Mr Cole thinks that I’m flustered or nervous because I’m not prepared, then he’ll probably make some mistakes. This is all part of my strategy.”

  Jennifer nodded like I was the smartest woman she’d ever met and I quickly stacked my case notes up so they were easily accessible, before quickly flicking through them to try and get my head around what the case is about. The longer I read, the more I feel my heart sinking.

  It seems like my client’s entirely at fault. How the hell was I going to argue against Christopher fucking Cole when it was pretty clear that his client was in the right?

  “Take your seats,” Judge Hastings says. She’s got her long hair hidden up under a purple hijab that looks like a Chanel.

  Crap, it’s time.

  I watch as the rest of the room scrambles to obey Judge Hastings.

  Christopher takes his time to sit down next to his client, glancing over at me with that sh
ark smile again.

  It makes me suddenly angry.

  Why the hell is he so sure of himself? Why does he think that, just because he looks me up and down and I briefly forget myself, it means he’s going to win this case? Goddammit, I’m the best first-year associate Page & Sons has ever seen, I can handle this. I will handle this.

  Corbyn Dale is an asshole. An entitled, selfish asshole. I’m chomping at the bit to cross-examine him from the moment Christopher Cole introduces the son of a bitch to the courtroom.

  There’s a smattering of people in the audience. Some are friends of Corbyn’s who came to see him own the crazy bitch who trashed his house. Jennifer doesn’t have anyone at all, and that makes me deeply sad for her. I try to channel that energy into my arguments, but I can feel myself losing. I can feel Judge Hastings leaning more toward Corbyn’s argument.

  “The fact is, Your Honor, the young lady in the defense chair wilfully damaged my client’s property,” Christopher Cole says, his voice as smooth and thick as honey, which in turn makes me tremble in ways that are entirely different to what I’m sure he’s used to. “My client is generously not pursuing criminal charges. We only ask that the defendant pay for the damages she incurred when she broke into his property.”

  Which would be fine, I think, if Jennifer weren’t living on food stamps, practically homeless, and between jobs. Corbyn knows that hitting her wallet will do far more damage than if he has her thrown in jail, where she’ll have three square meals a day and a roof over her head.

  Judge Hastings listens to Christopher’s final comments before nodding for me to start. I take a breath to steady myself, ignoring the physical contact I can feel coming from Christopher’s eyes, before running a reassuring hand over Jennifer’s shoulder and walking around to speak directly to Corbyn and his counsel.