Page 31 of Legal Seduction
“I’m trying to find out if she’s the mole,” Simon admitted.
The color drained from Stone’s face. “You didn’t tell me that.”
He sighed. “Because I don’t know for sure if she is. I need proof.”
“Why do you even suspect her?” Ronan asked.
“Because she’s leaving,” he said. And because of some of things he’d seen in her purse, specifically in her checkbook, like the ATM receipt for the deposit of a big check. The slip had also shown that she carried a very healthy balance. No wonder she’d been able to afford her new place. And she’d admitted she hadn’t inherited any money or come into a trust.
“So?” Ronan said. “That doesn’t prove her guilt.”
“I got close to her so I could find proof,” Simon admitted. But he felt a pang of guilt over that. What if she wasn’t the mole? And what if she was starting to care for him like she’d been warning him she was?
Then he’d been seducing and using her for no reason. No. There was pleasure. More than pleasure.
“Have you found any proof?” Trevor asked skeptically.
Maybe he knew that Simon had gotten sidetracked—with her beauty, with the sex...
The incredible, mind-blowing sex. She was the most responsive and generous lover he’d ever had. And the way they moved together, the way they fitted...
She matched him in a way he’d never been matched before, but he was worried that it wasn’t just with sex. Not that he was falling for her or anything. These unsettling feelings he had for her weren’t anything more than desire and attraction and suspicion. Maybe she didn’t just match him as a lover but as a con, too.
“Nothing that would hold up in court,” he said. And because these were his friends, he was honest with them and admitted, “But she’s come into some money. She’s moved. She’s bought stuff.”
Her lingerie collection alone probably cost a fortune. The materials were decadent and the designs were works of art. But to him, the outfits were just like a light bulb showing off the work of art that was her perfect body.
“Maybe she inherited some money,” Trevor said.
He shook his head. “I checked around.” He hadn’t just taken her word for it. “She’s not been anyone’s heir.”
“Mistress?” Ronan asked.
Anger surged through Simon. “Of course you’d think that.” He had, too. But when would she have time for a man—even a married one—with as much time as she’d been spending with Simon?
Ronan snorted. “I’m a divorce lawyer. Of course I’d think that. And you, being the con, would think she’s the mole. But it doesn’t track.”
“Why not?”
“I agree that it makes no sense,” Stone said. “If she’s making money off us, why would she leave?”
The others nodded in agreement. They didn’t understand a con the way Simon did.
The trick was to get out before getting caught. He figured that had been her intention. But it was too late for her now. He’d caught her. He just needed the evidence to prove it. To his partners and to the police and to himself. He didn’t want to believe that it was her. Still, it was the only thing that made sense—for her leaving and for her coming into that money.
As much as he’d wished it wasn’t true, he had to face the fact that she’d conned him. He wasn’t buying that she was falling for him—no matter how many times she’d claimed that she was.
He wasn’t sure which con he was more pissed about: her selling information from their case files or trying to make him believe she might genuinely care about him.
* * *
A sudden chill raced down Bette’s spine and raised goose bumps on her skin. She shivered and glanced up from the computer monitor she’d been studying and discovered three men standing in her small office.
Why were all of Simon’s partners paying her a visit? Like Simon, they had barely paid her any attention the two years she’d worked for Street Legal.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Unlike Simon, they were all dark haired. Ronan Hall’s hair was black. Stone Michaelsen’s was dark brown like hers and Trevor Sinclair’s was more of an auburn. They were also all bigger than Simon. The three of them barely fitted into her office, their broad shoulders rubbing against each other’s.
