Page 128 of Dirty Rich Cinderella Story

He presses his forehead to mine. “Okay. Okay then, that’s what we’ll do.” He pulls back and looks at Reese. “Tell them.”

Reese makes the call. “You can come back,” he says. “You damn sure better come back. Our competition doesn’t get to keep you.”

“I will,” I say, and I turn to Cole. “I will. Now, let’s go see my mother and talk about that wedding date.”

Hours later, we sit with my mother and Joe at the hospital coffee shop, laughing and life is good. A new adventure is ahead of us all. Better times have arrived. I feel it. I know it and when I look at Cole, I see that he does, too.

***

Four months later…

I walk out of the firm where I’ve been working at to finish my program, to find Cole leaning on his BMW, looking like a sex god in one of his three-piece suits, his ankles crossed, his hands on the black hood. He smiles when he sees me, and God, I love his smile. I smile, too. I rush toward him and he grabs me and twirls me around. “You did it, sweetheart,” he whispers, because I’m now a real attorney.

He sits me down and he cups my face, kissing me. “Everyone is excited to have you back at the office. And with the trial delays, you’re just in time to help me get our professor off.”

“Did you get a new date?”

“A month from now, and I think I should open and you should close.”

“You want me to do the closing statement?”

“We need to end with a woman and you wrote the closing statement that just won that firm a massive case.” He kisses me again. “Let’s get to work. We have a case to win and when it’s over, we’re getting married.”

***

Cole

Six months later…

I sit at the courtroom table watching Lori as she works the jury and the courtroom. She is beautiful, but she has this quality, this girl next door vibe, that everyone can trust. The girl next door that is passionate not just in the bedroom, but in everything she does. In everyone she defends. “I leave you with this,” she says. “How will you sleep at night if you do what the prosecution asks of you? If you ignore the lack of evidence and convict our client? If you give—no, bless—law enforcement with permission to quit looking for the real rapist and killer? If someone else is brutalized, raped, and killed? How will you live with yourself? I know I can’t. I pray that I have convinced you to make them keep looking. Please tell law enforcement they don’t get to quit. Tell them they have to keep looking and you do that by ruling Edward Sullivan not guilty.”

She rests her closing and walks back to the table and pride swells inside me. We’re going to win, and that closing did it.

A few minutes later, we stand outside the courtroom and Lori paces. “Was I good enough?”

“Sweetheart, you were brilliant. If I was up against that, I’d be shitting my pants.”

Her cell phone buzzes and she pulls it from her pocket to read the text out loud: You’re brilliant. I just saw you on TV. I’m writing about you in my column and I don’t care that we’re connected. Everyone else is going to say the same thing. You made it, honey. All on your own.

She looks up at me, her eyes brimming with appreciation. “Not on my own. You have helped me every step of the way.”

“You just helped me win this case,” I say, not about to let her downplay what she’s done. “Who helped who?”

My phone buzzes and my lips curve. “Look at that. The jury is back in twenty minutes.”

She pales. “Oh God. We lost.”

I laugh. “We won. I’ve never been so sure.”

A few minutes later, I prove I’m right and so is Cat. Lori is brilliant. The verdict is not guilty.

***

Two weeks later…

Lori is wearing a stunning pink gown and I’m in a tuxedo as we exit the church with confetti being thrown at us. A private car waits a few feet away and it’s not long until I have her in the backseat, kissing her. “Mrs. Brooks,” I whisper.

“I can’t believe we did it.”

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