Page 8 of Blurred Red Lines
“Too much work to do,” I mumbled, rearranging the papers on my desk. “Get out.”
Glancing up from surfing the web on his phone, he lifted a dark eyebrow and smirked. “Who pissed in your corner office?”
I leaned back, crossing my arms over my chest in a defensive gesture. On edge and in no mood for idle conversation, the last thing I wanted was to spend an hour trading locker-room stories and weekend plans with the subordinate assholes. I wasted little time under the illusion they were my friends. Every one of them had eyes on my job and only kissed my ass to stay in my good graces for when I became district attorney.
“No time for lunch. I’ve got press releases needing to go out. Some of us work for a living, Todd.”
“Ted.”
I honestly didn’t give a shit. I’d wasted half the day trying to figure out a way out of the hole I’d gotten into with the Mexicans. I’d never been shady in my life, much less illegal. Everyone knew about the Carreras, but just like any sane person, I ignored them when they came calling. I sure as hell rebuked their offers of help. Their golden ticket came attached with strings tied to a lifetime of misery.
Then the stress of the upcoming primary resulted in a moment of weakness that solidified a hell I’d regret for the rest of my life. A fifth of Jack on a night she’d decided to grow a set of morals and a standard, and I found myself in the backseat of an Escalade signing my name in blood.
“If there’s nothing else,” I grumbled, sending a flat expression his way, “I trust you can see yourself out.”
He answered with an eye roll. “Whatever.” He laughed, nodding to a herd of fellow fourth-floor assholes as they grumbled about being late. “Maybe you need to take off early and get some ass, man. Might make you less of one, and you may have a few friends.”
I waved his suggestion away as he laughed and joined the other hopefuls down the hall. Scowling at his audacity, I slammed papers onto the desk and swiveled my chair to stare out the wall of windows onto the city below. My city. The city that depended on me to keep them safe from the very people who bent me to their will and owned the next breath I took. How in the hell could I walk into a courtroom and look a jury in the face knowing I was no better than the criminals I prosecuted?
Rubbing my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, I mulled his words around in my head, letting them sink in. Dropping my hand, I stared down at the passing cars and congested lunchtime pedestrian traffic, the bright June sun reflecting harshly off the roofs of the buildings below my tenth-floor window. Closing my eyes, I cursed a string of late nights and insomnia, causing the attorney’s words to make too much sense.
I didn’t need more friends, but getting more ass sounded like the best suggestion I’d heard all day. Spinning back around, I picked my phone off my desk and hit the speed dial button, knowing the risk I took in calling her before two o’clock in the afternoon. The woman had two moods—ready to fuck, and ready to slice my balls off. At half past noon, I was just glad my boys were safely across town.
Five rings later, her throaty voice groaned along thinly held patience. “Somebody better be dead.”
“I had a thought.”
“Good for you. It’d better be about someone who’s dead, or I swear to God, I’ll rip your balls off, Brody.”
“What do you say I come over tonight?” I continued, ignoring her threat.
She half yawned, half groaned my name. “You know I have to work.”
Reaching for the metal nameplate, I polished it with the sleeve of my white dress shirt and moved it to the center of my desk. “I was thinking I’d swing by the cantina for a drink before you get off. I don’t like you closing all alone that late, especially with the crime in that part of town. I can walk you to your car and come over afterward.”
“Brody…”
“Come on, Eden,” I argued, determined to win my case. “Do you have a better offer?” I held my breath as silence filled the line. Drumming my fingers on the arm of my chair, I waited for her response, only to be met with the typical stubbornness that kept me wondering why I kept coming back to a woman who opened her legs to me but kept her heart and mind closed.
“Fine.” She reluctantly gave in, her sigh holding much more meaning than simple agreeability. That sigh was deadly. That sigh meant for the first hour after arriving at her townhouse, I’d need to cover my dick with a pillow and watch all sharp objects with a keen eye.
After disconnecting the call, I stared at the phone in my hand, flipping it over and over until the screen became foggy with fingerprints. I had no fucking idea what Eden Lachey and I were doing, but it wasn’t a normal relationship that had any future—regardless of what I wanted. Eden had made that painfully clear on multiple occasions. After four months of sleeping together, I’d been the fucking girl in the relationship, wanting exclusivity and some sort of commitment out of her.
All I’d gotten was an eye roll and a warning to stop being a little bitch.
I lived in marked unreality when it came to Eden. I should’ve known better than to get involved with a friend’s ex, but I’d known the woman before the scorn. She hadn’t always been hardened. Once upon a time, Eden Lachey was rather demure, although she’d deny it with her dying breath. Somewhere underneath that cracked shell the woman who used to love to laugh and try to tell a bad joke still existed. For some reason, I seemed determined to find her. Something inside of me cared about her, even though the Eden that wore a perpetual scowl these days swore she was dead and gone.
She could argue with me and be pissed all she wanted. Until I won, I’d enjoy hatefucks while we battled. What was the worst that could happen? Great sex?
“Mr. Harcourt?” My heart rate sped up as my assistant’s voice boomed unexpectedly from the desk phone intercom.
Pressing the two-way button on the phone, I dropped my cell in my pocket. “Yes, Nancy, what is it?”
“The jury has reached a verdict in the Salinas case, sir.”
I raised an eyebrow. Already? Jesus. I hadn’t expected them to reconvene for at least a few days. This could go either way for me depending on how sympathetic the women on the jury were to the tears that man had managed to squeeze out on the stand.
Fucking tears. Gets women every time.
