Page 33 of Legal Passion
CHAPTER TEN
THEWAYHILLARYwas staring at him was the same way she stared at a hostile witness—just before she broke him, like she’d pretty much broken Byron’s alibi witness, Scooter. He rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. Despite that soul-shattering release, he was still tense. Still edgy.
And it wasn’t just because of the way she was looking at him. It was because of the way she made him feel: out of control. Stone did not like that at all.
“It was a mistake coming here,” he murmured.
“So you’re not going to ask for a plea deal for your client?” she asked, and she arched a blond brow.
She knew that wasn’t why he’d come to see her. “I don’t plea out for an innocent client.”
She snorted. “There’s nothing innocent about Byron Mueller. Or you.”
“I told you I didn’t know about those bank records,” he said. And he was getting damn sick of defending himself.
“The envelope had the logo and address for Street Legal,” she said. “It came from your office.”
“The mole has access to our stationery somehow,” he said. The documents forged about Ronan had been on their stationery as well.
“So it’s someone who works for you,” she surmised.
He and his partners had deduced the same thing and had even identified a suspect. But Simon’s former assistant, Bette Monroe, wasn’t guilty of anything but making Simon fall in love with her.
Stone considered that a crime, though. Falling in love was too dangerous. It was what had caused his mom to turn to the same life of drugs as Stone’s father. She’d used and sold just to make her husband happy. If not for him, she would have never tried them. If not for him, she would have gotten clean. But she’d been more addicted to his father than she’d been to the drugs.
There was no way she would have ever left him—if she hadn’t overdosed some years ago. At least that was what Stone had heard from the private investigator he’d hired to look for his parents.
Fingers snapped in his face, and Stone focused on Hillary. Her blue eyes were soft with concern, and she asked, “Are you okay?”
He sighed and nodded. “Yeah.”
“What’s really bothering you?” she asked. “Your office mole or the fact that you’re losing this trial?”
You.She was what was really bothering him, making him think about things he hadn’t thought about in years. Like his past. Like his parents...
“I am not going to lose,” he insisted. He couldn’t. Not when he had an innocent client. “The truth will come out.”
“It already has,” she said. “You just refuse to accept it. Old moneybags Mueller killed his child bride in a fit of jealous rage.”
Stone snorted. “Jealous rage over what?”
“Her lover.”
“Rumored lover,” Stone said. “You presented no proof this person actually exists. Just speculation from the staff and her friends.”
“Speculation would have been inadmissible,” she said with a smile. “I had eyewitness accounts that Byron found out about the lover and was enraged.”
He shrugged like he didn’t believe her. But during his last meeting with his client, he’d gotten the impression that Byron did know she’d had a lover and who that lover was. “I’m well aware you presented that as your motive. But you’re wrong,” he said. “This was no crime of passion.”
She stepped closer to him then and said, “You’re right about Dwight. We’re more than friends. We hook up whenever we’re between relationships and bored.”
He’d known it, but her saying it put images in his head, images of her wrapped around that little skinny lawyer like she’d been wrapped around him moments ago. And once again his control snapped, and he dragged her up against him.
Before he could utter the word burning in his brain, she laughed and saved him from making a fool of himself. Because the word he’d been about to say wasMine.
* * *
Stone released her so abruptly that Hillary stumbled back and nearly fell. And her laughter stopped. He looked shocked. Maybe she’d finally gotten through to him.
