Page 81 of Her Boss

“You’re not going to get anything better than what I have to tell you,” Chester said, adjusting the time on his gold watch as he glared meaningfully at Rick. “Trafford here is neck deep in some very serious shit. You’ll want to hear what I have to say. All of it.”

“You fucking liar!” I yelled, half out of my seat before Rick grabbed me by the shoulders. “Rick had nothing to?—”

He slammed me back down in my chair. “That’s enough,” Rick growled under his breath.

Stunned, I nonetheless had to bite my tongue to avoid blurting out still more. I hated Chester. Hated him with a cold fury I didn’t know I possessed.

Stanton’s lips quirked with what may have been bemusement at my outburst, but his focus remained fixed on someone else. “That may very well be. Oh, wait a minute.” Stanton opened his suitcoat, reaching into the inside pocket. He held up a paper, folded in half lengthwise. “I think I have something even better. A warrant for your arrest.”

The door to the conference room burst open, and in seconds the room was flooded with heavily armed U.S. Marshals, who set about disarming Chester’s guards in seconds.

“I most definitely want to hear everything you have to say, Mr. Nantes.” Stanton stood, setting his briefcase on the conference table. “But it’s going to be before a jury of your peers when I do.”

“You got jack shit on me, pig. You hear me? Nothing!” Spittle flew from Chester’s lips as he was led from the conference room in handcuffs. “I’ll sue your fucking ass into the ground for malicious prosecution!”

“See you at arraignment, Nantes.” Stanton gave him a mocking flourish with two fingers.

The door closed behind Chester as two burly marshals led him from the room.

Chester’s lawyer sprang to his feet, sweeping up the documents, even snatching his pen from Rick’s fingers. “I’m out of here,” he said with something approaching conviction. In truth, fear poured from the man like a flood tide.

“Not so fast, Willington,” Stanton said, stuffing his credentials back into his briefcase.

“I already told you. I just do real estate work for the man.” Willington’s craven gaze coursed over Rick and me for the briefest of moments. “I don’t have anything to do?—”

“No. I think you’ll be staying a while longer. Real estate flack you may be, but I have something for you that you will very much want to pass along to Mr. Nantes’ defense.” Stanton began to undo his necktie. “I guess you could say it’s an offer your client really can’t refuse.”

CHAPTER 38

Geneva

I sipped the bitter, slightly burnt lukewarm coffee. It did wake me up a bit, but it did nothing to assuage how I ached for Rick. The cold, hard wood bench we sat on against one wall of the busy courthouse corridor didn’t help much either.

He had been thrust into an impossible situation. I wanted to reach out to him, to say something, anything at all, that might make any of the shitty mess we’d found ourselves in better. But I didn’t know how.

Instead, I simply drew closer to him, laying my head on his shoulder. For long moments we sat that way, the silence of the morning broken only by the distant laughter that would drift down to us from a group of attorneys gathered together far down at the other end of the hallway, their mirth echoing hollowly off the marble floors.

Rick held up a copy of the Herald, the headline in bold, block lettering:

Real Estate Developer Arrested on Bribery Charges

The picture of Chester being perp-walked through the front entrance of the same courthouse we found ourselves sitting in at that moment was more than a little odd. It still twinged, seeing him, the knowledge that he’d never actually been a real, loving uncle to me something that would take me a long time to truly get over.

But I would—because I had Rick now.

“Most likely—depending upon how good my attorney is at kissing Stanton’s ass—I’ll be joining your prick uncle there in the clink. Maybe sooner rather than later. The Feds don’t fuck around.”

A chill ran down my spine at the image of having to visit him in prison, having to talk to him over a shitty, grainy connection as I sat in uncomfortable, gouged, and squeaky plastic chairs, a thick pane of greasy, scratched wire-embedded glass the closest I’d be able to get to touching the man I needed more than anyone else on Earth.

“How long? If it does come to that?” I hated even broaching the question, but it was impossible not to ask it.

Rick shrugged. “Two to three. Out in less than one, if I get good behavior.” He chuckled bitterly. “At least my stretch would be in Club Fed.”

“Club Fed?”

He patted my knee. “Minimum security. I’ll probably be teaching English, making license plates, taking college courses. You know, hard time,” he joked. His amusement was forced, though. I was certain the prospect of looming jail time was approximately as appealing to him as barbed wire underwear.

The door to our courtroom—Room 12—swung open, Lillian Shaw, Rick’s defense counsel walking out first, a laptop case in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. The thick cardboard insulation sleeve of the cup seemed almost too big for her small fingers to grasp.

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